[23]. Pauly-Wissowa, Realenc., s. v. "Aziz"; cf. Wissowa, op. cit., p. 303, n. 7.
[24]. On the etymology of Malakbel, see Dussaud, Notes, 24 ff. On the religion in the Occident see Edu. Meyer in Roscher, Lexikon, s. v.
[25]. Kan, De Iovis Dolicheni cultu, Groningen, 1901; cf. Pauly-Wissowa, Realencycl., s. v. "Dolichenus."
[26]. Réville, Relig. sous les Sévères, pp. 237 ff.; Wissowa, op. cit., p. 305; cf. Pauly-Wissowa, s. v. "Elagabal."—In a recent article (Die politische Bedeutung der Religion von Emesa [Archiv für Religionsw., XI], 1908, pp. 223 ff.) M. von Domaszewski justly lays stress on the religious value of the solar monotheism that arose in the temples of Syria, but he attributes too important a part in its formation to the clergy of Emesa (see infra, n. [88]). The preponderant influence seems to have been exercised by Palmyra (see infra, n. 59).
[28]. Cf. Curtiss, Primitive Semitic Religion To-day, Chicago, 1902; Jaussen, Coutumes des Arabes du pays de Moab, Paris, 1908, pp. 297 ff.
[29]. Cf. Robertson Smith, passim; Lagrange, pp. 158-216; Vincent, op. cit., pp. 102-123; 144 f.—The power of this Semitic litholatry equaled its persistence. Philo of Byblus defined the bethels as λίθοι ἔμψυχοι (2, § 20, FHG, III, p. 563): Hippolytus also tells us (V, 1, p. 145, Cruice), that in the Syrian mysteries (Ἀσσυρίων τελεταί) it was taught that the stones were animated (οἱ λίθοι εἰσὶν ἔμψυχοι· ἔχουσι γὰρ τὸ αὐξητικόν), and the same doctrine perpetuated itself in Manicheism. (Titus of Bostra, II, 60, p. 60, 25, de Lagarde ed.:
Οὐκ αἰσχύνεται δὲ καὶ τοὺς λίθους ἐψυχῶσθαι λέγων καὶ τὰ πάντα ἔμψυχα εἰσηγούμενος).
During the last years of paganism the neo-Platonists developed a superstitious worship of the bethels; see Conybeare, Transactions of the Congress of Hist. of Rel., Oxford, 1908, p. 177.