The worship of these gods involved the performance of ceremonies more bloody and licentious even than those practised by other races. The Baalim thirsted after blood, nor would they be satisfied with any common blood such as generally contented their brethren in Chaldæa or Egypt: they imperatively demanded human as well as animal sacrifices. Among several of the Syrian nations they had a prescriptive right to the firstborn male of each family;* this right was generally commuted, either by a money payment or by subjecting the infant to circumcision.**
* This fact is proved, in so far as the Hebrew people is
concerned, by the texts of the Pentateuch and of the
prophets; amongst the Moabites also it was his eldest son
whom King Mosha took to offer to his god. We find the same
custom among other Syrian races: Philo of Byblos tells us,
in fact, that El-Kronos, god of Byblos, sacrificed his
firstborn son and set the example of this kind of offering.
** Redemption by a payment in money was the case among the
Hebrews, as also the substitution of an animal in the place
of a child; as to redemption by circumcision, cf. the story
of Moses and Zipporah, where the mother saves her son from
Jahveh by circumcising him. Circumcision was practised among
the Syrians of Palestine in the time of Herodotus.
At important junctures, however, this pretence of bloodshed would fail to appease them, and the death of the child alone availed. Indeed, in times of national danger, the king and nobles would furnish, not merely a single victim, but as many as the priests chose to demand.* While they were being burnt alive on the knees of the statue, or before the sacred emblem, their cries of pain were drowned by the piping of flutes or the blare of trumpets, the parents standing near the altar, without a sign of pity, and dressed as for a festival: the ruler of the world could refuse nothing to prayers backed by so precious an offering, and by a purpose so determined to move him. Such sacrifices were, however, the exception, and the shedding of their own blood by his priests sufficed, as a rule, for the daily wants of the god. Seizing their knives, they would slash their arms and breasts with the view of compelling, by this offering of their own persons, the good will of the Baalim.**
* If we may credit Tertullian, the custom of offering up
children as sacrifices lasted down to the proconsulate of
Tiberius.
** Cf., for the Hebraic epoch, the scene where the priests
of Baal, in a trial of power with Elijah before Ahab,
offered up sacrifices on the highest point of Carmel, and
finding that their offerings did not meet with the usual
success, “cut themselves... with knives and lancets till the
blood gushed out upon them.”
The Astartês of all degrees and kinds were hardly less cruel; they imposed frequent flagellations, self-mutilation, and sometimes even emasculation, on their devotees. Around the majority of these goddesses was gathered an infamous troop of profligates (kedeshîm), “dogs of love” (kelabîm), and courtesans (kedeshôt). The temples bore little resemblance to those of the regions of the Lower Euphrates: nowhere do we find traces of those ziggurat which serve to produce the peculiar jagged outline characteristic of Chaldæan cities. The Syrian edifices were stone buildings, which included, in addition to the halls and courts reserved for religious rites, dwelling-rooms for the priesthood, and storehouses for provisions: though not to be compared in size with the sanctuaries of Thebes, they yet answered the purpose of strongholds in time of need, and were capable of resisting the attacks of a victorious foe.* A numerous staff, consisting of priests, male and female singers, porters, butchers, slaves, and artisans, was assigned to each of these temples: here the god was accustomed to give forth his oracles, either by the voice of his prophets, or by the movement of his statues.** The greater number of the festivals celebrated in them were closely connected with the pastoral and agricultural life of the country; they inaugurated, or brought to a close, the principal operations of the year—the sowing of seed, the harvest, the vintage, the shearing of the sheep. At Shechem, when the grapes were ripe, the people flocked out of the town into the vineyards, returning to the temple for religious observances and sacred banquets when the fruit had been trodden in the winepress.***
* The story of Abimelech gives us some idea of what the
Canaanite temple of Baal-Berîth at Shechem was like.
** As to the regular organisation of Baal-worship, we
possess only documents of a comparatively late period.
*** It is probable that the vintage festival, celebrated at
Shiloh in the time of the Judges, dated back to a period of
Canaanite history prior to the Hebrew invasion, i.e. to the
time of the Egyptian supremacy.
In times of extraordinary distress, such as a prolonged drought or a famine, the priests were wont to ascend in solemn procession to the high places in order to implore the pity of their divine masters, from whom they strove to extort help, or to obtain the wished-for rain, by their dances, their lamentations, and the shedding of their blood.*
*Cf., in the Hebraic period, the scene where the priests of
Baal go up to the top of Mount Carmel with the prophet
Elijah.
Almost everywhere, but especially in the regions east of the Jordan, were monuments which popular piety surrounded with a superstitious reverence. Such were the isolated boulders, or, as we should call them, “menhirs,” reared on the summit of a knoll, or on the edge of a tableland; dolmens, formed of a flat slab placed on the top of two roughly hewn supports, cromlechs, or, that is to say, stone circles, in the centre of which might be found a beth-el. We know not by whom were set up these monuments there, nor at what time: the fact that they are in no way different from those which are to be met with in Western Europe and the north of Africa has given rise to the theory that they were the work of some one primeval race which wandered ceaselessly over the ancient world. A few of them may have marked the tombs of some forgotten personages, the discovery of human bones beneath them confirming such a conjecture; while others seem to have been holy places and altars from the beginning. The nations of Syria did not in all cases recognise the original purpose of these monuments, but regarded them as marking the seat of an ancient divinity, or the precise spot on which he had at some time manifested himself. When the children of Israel caught sight of them again on their return from Egypt, they at once recognised in them the work of their patriarchs. The dolmen at Shechem was the altar which Abraham had built to the Eternal after his arrival in the country of Canaan. Isaac had raised that at Beersheba, on the very spot where Jehovah had appeared in order to renew with him the covenant that He had made with Abraham. One might almost reconstruct a map of the wanderings of Jacob from the altars which he built at each of his principal resting-places—at Gilead [Galeed], at Ephrata, at Bethel, and at Shechem.* Each of such still existing objects probably had a history of its own, connecting it inseparably with some far-off event in the local annals.
* The heap of stones at Galeed, in Aramaic Jegar-
Sahadutha, “the heap of witness,” marked the spot where
Laban and Jacob were reconciled; the stele on the way to
Ephrata was the tomb of Rachel; the altar and stele at
Bethel marked the spot where God appeared unto Jacob.