ly-Baal of Ekron, and the Ashtoreth, probably of Ascalon, are
known figures. The Philistines, however, lost ultimately their
separate character, and ceased to exist as an independent people. It
will not be necessary for us to mention them again. The Phenicians,
settling on the northern sea-board of Syria, where great trade routes
to East and West converged, and where good harbours could be made,
became a nation of merchants, and kept up active communication with
the great kingdoms of the East, with Egypt, and with the islands and
the distant shores of Western Europe. The carriers of the ancient
world, they transmitted to Europe not only the spices and the fabrics
but also the ideas and the practices of Asia, and rendered to the
world the inestimable service of awaking the slumbering energies of
the Aryan peoples to new life.

A short chapter may be devoted to the religion of the Canaanites and
to that of the Phenicians, not because these were important in
themselves, for in neither was there anything original or anything
destined to survive, but because of the light they throw on other
religions which were to have a great career. It was in conflict with
the Canaanite religion that the faith of Israel first realised its
true nature and was led to organise itself in a manner befitting its
character. And from Phenicia both Israel and Greece accepted many a
suggestion, both in external matters connected with worship and in
matters of a deeper nature.

The religion of the Canaanites is well known to us from the Old
Testament. It is such a system as we found that of the Semites to be,
with certain peculiar developments, of which we have already seen
something in our chapter on Babylonia. A local community recognises
an invisible head, with whom it meets at the sacred spot, whom it
regards as overlord or master, of whose favour it is in no doubt, and
whom it serves with sacrifices and with lively manifestations of joy
at certain fixed periods. The god is called Baal. This, however, is
not a proper name but a title; it means lord, master, and the Baal
may have a name of his own in addition: we hear of Baal Peor, the
lord of Peor, and of many another. Baals are spoken of in the plural;
we read in Judges ii. 11 and in other passages that the Israelites
followed the Baals, that is the gods of the Canaanites. Each place
has its own Baal, who is worshipped at the local sanctuary. The
sanctuary is at an elevated spot outside the to