**BAAL** (baʿal = “lord, master, possessor”). — A deity worshipped by nearly all the peoples of the Near East and in Africa. In the Bible it is designated with the article (hab-baʿal), omitted in the Ras Samrah documents.
Ba — Representation of the soul in the form of a bird with a human head. Wall fresco in the tomb of Queen Nefertari (19th Dynasty, 12th century B.C.) — Thebes, Valley of the Queens.
B. was one of the most important thinkers of Romanticism and the Restoration. His literary output includes numerous articles, reviews, memoirs, and also more extensive expositions, though not strictly systematic, which he produced in the last two decades of his life. B. aimed above all to be the herald of a religious philosophy whereby Catholic faith becomes speculative knowledge. Every form of knowledge is “con-scientia,” i.e., participation in divine knowledge. Only by accepting faith and following its inspirations does man attain right use of reason and its full development. Even true physics is a Christian science and must be constructed on the basis of theological amatology and soteriology. The philosophy of society must be founded on the principle that individuals can unite only through faith, since mutual trust presupposes common trust in God.
In theology B. follows the ideas of Böhme, developing them in relation to the problems and motifs of contemporary idealism, especially Schelling and Hegel. God sums up in His essence the dualism of nature and spirit. The relationship between these two original moments is elevated, through an immanent and eternal process, from primitive indifference to a state of complete subordination of nature to spirit. From this first “logical” process, by which God realizes Himself as perfect “subjectivity” of spirit, must be distinguished the real and emanative process by which He subsists in Three Persons. B., however, connects this second process with the moments of the first to the point of endangering the consubstantiality of the Divine Persons. Creation is distinct from the named processes and is conceived as
Samrah. It is uncertain whether the cult of B. originated among the Semites or the Hittites. B. was the spirit of fertility, the masculine principle, to which the bull was sacred (its counterpart, the feminine principle, was Baalat, or ʿĀšērāh [v.] or Bilith, or Beltis). He presided over natural phenomena and uttered His voice through thunder, hurled lightning, rode the clouds, and poured out rain. He is depicted with weapons and a lance in hand, a radiate diadem (sun?), and the hammāntu (according to Rashi “solar pillars”; according to Ingholt and Vincent “to burn incense”; according to Albright “braziers”). Many ancients identified Him with Kronos or Saturn, later with Jupiter and in particular with the Iuppiter Heliopolitanus (sun god) of Baalbek (v.).
From the place where He was worshipped, or toward which He was thought to have a preference, or from the office attributed to Him, there arose numerous denominations (hypostases) of B. (Baa-lim): Baalsamin (Balsamen) = B. of the sky, B. of Lebanon, B. Bērth (of the covenant), B. Markodes (of the dance?), B. Mrp (healer), Beelphegor (v.), ELISAPHAN (v.), Beelzebub (v.). The Canaanite territory, before the Israelite invasion, was filled with Baalim. Among some peoples, B. was worshipped under another name but with the same prerogatives: Mekal at Beisan, Rešeph-Seth in Egypt, B. Šamin, Malak Bel, Jarchi Bel, Agli Bol at Palmyra, B. Hammōn at Carthage, Tešūp among the Hittites and Hurrians, Melqart (v.) at Tyre, Hadad (v.) among the Canaanites.
E. Dhorme links the cult of B. to the idea that nomads had of the protective deity, who, in symbiosis with the tribe’s members, was considered not only father, mother, brother, kinsman, but also “master” or Baal; with the multiplication of gods, the Baalim multiplied, so that each city had its own B. and its own Baalat (1 Sam 7:3ff.; 12:12); from the amorous cult of B. of the high places arose the B. of the sky, the B. Smn, Balsamen. According to F. Cumont, B. is the god of the tribe, who in exchange for protection demands worship; His sovereignty extends by considering worshippers as clients, triumphant, whereby B. becomes a universal god; “master” of the earth because He fertilizes it, He dwells in heaven from where He bestows rain and heat (B. of fertility). According to W. R. Smith, one passes from the concept of B.’s land (fertile zone, therefore preferred by the god) to that of B. as possessor of that land. God of fertility, He became regulator of waters and rain, He who presides over the production of animal life and sexual relations, therefore the marrow of the earth; the masculine principle. It is considered more probable, with Vigouroux and Lagrange, that the name B. implies an attribute of the deity, supposing the existence of a god who is master and lord of the universe.
The Ras Samrah documents illuminate His figure. According to the myth of Baal and Alejan-Baal, B. is one of the 70 sons of Aserat of the sea and father of Alejan-B. Unlike the other gods, He has no temple until Aserah obtains one for Him, built with bricks and cedars on the heights of Šaphon (Mount Cassius?), by Kōser, Hass, and Hjōn, who open a skylight so that B., the rider of the clouds, may emit His holy voice therefrom. The dedication is celebrated with hecatombs of oxen, rams, goats, calves, lambs. B. (with Alejan-B.) being in conflict with Mōt, genius of the summer harvests (thus of drought), is the god of beneficial waters that make plants sprout and grow. Alternately vanishing, B. (and Alejan-B.) descends into the bowels of the earth at harvest time, Mōt at the time of rains. Mōt from His dark abode sends a message that to reach B. would have to pierce Ltn (the biblical Leviathan?), a tortuous serpent with seven heads. To B. (and Alejan-B.) belong the clouds, the wind, the lightning, the rains, the seven youths, the eight swine, the house of light, and the lightning flash. Resurrected, B., accompanied by His daughters (Pidrija, daughter of light, Talija, daughter of abundance, and Arsija), ascends the heights of Šaphon, where gold is, driving out the usurper Šaphon. After which ʿAnat kills Mōt, thus restoring to the earth the spirit of vegetation.
B. was worshipped on the terraces of houses (Jer 32:29; 2 Kgs 23:12), in temples (1 Kgs 16:32; 2 Kgs 10:21-27; 11:18) and especially on the bāmōth [V. BĀMĀH]; cf. Jer 19:5; 32:35; 1 Kgs 18:20. Around the altars the hammāntu were erected and human victims were also offered to B. Such rites, cruel and most impure, are execrated by the Bible (1 Kgs 18:19-25; 2 Kgs 10:19; Jer 19:5; 32:35).
Despite the severe prohibition of Mosaic legislation, the cult of B. was dear even to the Israelites. In the time of the Judges they worshipped the Baalim and the ʿĀšērōth (Judg 2:11-13). Under Ahab, son-in-law of Ithobaal II of Tyre, in the kingdom of Israel there were counted 450 priests of B. and 400 of ʿĀšērāh, and only 7,000 men refused His cult. The energetic reaction of Elijah culminated in the challenge at Carmel (1 Kgs 16; 18:16-40). Promoted again by Ahaziah, it was opposed by Jehoram and uprooted by Jehu (1 Kgs 22:54; 2 Kgs 3:2; 10:18-28). Athaliah introduced it even into Jerusalem, but Joash abolished it (2 Kgs 11:18; 2 Chr 23:17). Restored to honor by Ahaz and Manasseh, it was combated by Hezekiah and Josiah (2 Kgs 18:4; 21:3; 23:4-5). Yet the priests of B. operated until the exile, after which the cult of B. disappears (Jer 2:8, 23; 7:9; 9:14ff.). Some biblical names ending in B. were later changed to bōšet (“ignominy”): Ish-bosheth for Ish-baal, Mephibosheth for Mephibaal, etc.