87 



reference to Elagabalus or Heliogabalus, Mr. Barrett had 

 represented the case with perfect justice. It was a question 

 between the Hebrew, or the Hebrew family of languages, and 

 the Greek. " El" meant God, as in Beth " el" — the house of 

 God ; " gabal" was the Hebrew for great ; and " Elgabal" or 

 " Elagabalus" signified the great God ; but when the name 

 came to be handled by Greeks, they already possessed the 

 word " Helios" to denominate the sun, and they there- 

 fore translated it Heliogabalus. With respect to the 

 difference in the levels which had been noticed, he be- 

 lieved that as the baths were continually in use and paved 

 below, they would, for a very long time, have defied the 

 alterations in the level to which the surrounding streets were 

 subjected. He thought it not at all impossible, by means of 

 extant literature, to establish a regular line of historical 

 tradition from the Roman period to that of John de Villula, 

 of the baths being in use here ; and he considered it as likely 

 as not that John de Yillula might have constructed his 

 beautiful baths over the real bases of those of the Romans. 



The Rev. H. H. VVinwood remarked that persons who had 

 travelled in Lebanon or Anti-Lebanon saw, in some out-of- 

 the-way place, a temple with a pediment very similar to 

 that under discussion. The temple was dedicated to Baal, he 

 believed, and in it the sun was ordinarily Avorshipped. 



Mr. Crickitt made some observations on the extent to 

 which heathen symbols were adopted by Christianity, after 

 which 



Mr. C. R. Weld called attention to a paper in the " Archse- 

 ologia," 36, vol. i., p. ] 87, by Mr. Scharf, in which the writer 

 maintained that the face on the pediment did not represent 

 the sun or Medusa, but was a symbol of the hot springs, and 

 that the double wreath referred to the groves surrounding 

 the locality ; thus, in some degree, perpetuating the old 

 places of veneration. 



