BEELPHEGOR (Hebrew Ba'al-Pe'or). - It was originally the name of a divinity, the Phoenician Ba'al (v.), which took various titles from the localities where it was worshiped. It is therefore a matter of the divinity worshiped near Phegor (or Pe'ôr), an unidentified mountain of Moab (v.) facing the northern tip of the Dead Sea, opposite the mouth of the Jordan (Num. 23:28). It is then the locality itself, the seat of the cult of the divinity. In this sense it is also called Bethphegor (Deut. 3:29; 4; 46; 34:6), corresponding, it seems, to bèth ("fanum") of the Ba'al of Pe'ôr.

B. was a center of orgiastic and shameless cult. Therefore St. Jerome (Lib. de sit. et nom.: PL 23, 879) held that Phegor was the Hebrew form of Priapus; elsewhere he identified it with Chamos (Heb. Kémōf; in Is. 15:2: PL 24, 168).

The Hebrews, coming from Sinai, allowed themselves to be seduced by the Moabite women and "were initiated" into the infamous cult of B. By order of Moses, the impure collective sacrilege was punished with the killing of 24,000 Israelites, chiefly through the work of Phinehas (v.; cf. Num. 25; Ps. 105:28; Hos. 9:10).

Giuseppe Priero

@incollection{ec2_beelphegor_ebr_ba_al_pe_or, author = {Priero, Giuseppe}, title = {Beelphegor (Ebr. Ba'Al-Pe'Ôr)}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {II}, pages = {1140}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1949}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/beelphegor-ebr-ba-al-pe-or} }

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