chapter x

.). In Canaan we find that Semitic worship is addressed to pairs of deities; there is a god and a goddess at each shrine. While it would be wrong to regard this as the general type of Semitic religion,--our chapter on that subject points to a different conclusion, and the great gods of Phenicia, of Moab, and of Israel are solitary beings,--we must recognise that the worship of god and goddess was widespread in Semitic peoples. In Canaan it is not difficult to understand it. We have here the worship of an agricultural community; and as the Baal is the lord of the soil and the author of its fertility, who is entitled to receive the first-fruits, so the Ashera is the fertile matron who represents the principle of increase. The Old Testament leaves us in no doubt as to the kind of worship which was carried on at these shrines. The festivals were those of the farmer's calendar; the Baal is presented with the first-fruits of corn and wine and oil, in the midst of general feasting and boisterous merry-making. His consort, on the other hand, is served with rites applying in the most direct manner the principle she represents. The shrine has a staff of female attendants for this part of the service of religion. The rustic worship of Palestine thus shows us a side of the religion of Western Asia which we know from other sources to have been widely diffused. A female deity like the Babylonian Ishtar (