CHAP. XIII. CHARACTERS OF THE SUN. 299 



can, was supposed to be the same as tlic Aroeris 

 of Egypt. 



There is reason to believe that the God Re 

 corresponded to the Syrian Baal (bvn), ii name 

 implying *' Lord *," which was given par excel- 

 lence to the Sun : and tlie same idea of peculiar 

 sovereignty vested in that Deity may have led 

 the Egy})tians to take from Re (Phra) the regal 

 title of their Kings. Heliopolis, in Syria, still re- 

 tains the name of Baalbek, " the city of (the Lord, 

 or) the Sun;" and tlie same word occurs in tlie 

 names of distinguislied individuals among the 

 Phoenicians, and their descendants of Carthage t, 

 as Aumbaly AsdruZ»o/, and others. 



If the Egyptians separated the orb from the rays 

 of the Sun, they were not singular in that idea ; 

 the same was common to the Greeks ; for, as the 

 philosopher Sallust says t, '*it is only from esta- 

 blished custom that we are induced to call the orb 

 of the Sun and its rays the Sun itself;" and they, 

 also, found reason to deify those two, and to make 

 of them two separate Divinities. Indeed, it ap- 

 pears that the Egy})tians made of the Sun several 

 distinct Deities : as the intellectual Sun, the phy- 

 sical orb, tlie cause of heat, the author of light, 

 the power of the Sun, the vivifying cause, the Sun 

 in the firmament, and the Sun in his resting-place ; 



* As Beelzebub or Baalzebub 2.113* ^V^' " ^1^^ lortl of fi'ies." 

 Baalim, " lords," or " idols." Jiidg. ii. 11. 

 -f- Servius, on these verses of Virgil — 



" Iin|)levitqiie mere pateram, quaiii Bclus et onincs 

 A Bclo soliti,"— /En. i. 73.3. 

 .says," Lingua' i'linicii Bal Dcus dicitiir, apud Assyrios autem Bel dicitur." 

 J In his fourth book on the (iods of the world. 



