+Their vicissitudes.+--The deities were not originally personifications of any one power of nature; like the secular heads of small local groups they were the supreme patrons of their little circle. They were usually nameless, but were known by an epithet, or were styled 'god' (_el_) or 'lord, owner' (_baal_), with the corresponding feminine form. Each might be distinguished by the name of its locality. The 'god' of Sidon was otherwise the 'Baal' of Sidon, the 'goddess' of Byblos was known as the 'Baalath' of the city; the Baal of Tyre was called Melkart, _i.e._ simply 'king of the city'; the proper-name of the Baal of Harran was Sin (the moon-god); the Baal of Heaven, according to Philo of Byblos, was the Sun. When Baal and El were used as generic terms, their application was perfectly intelligible locally; and when they occur in forty or more place-names, and numerous old personal names {67} in Palestine, it is unnecessary to suppose that they represent two distinct and definite deities. From the old Palestinian names we learn that the deity is high, great and good; he opens, builds, heals, sows, gathers; he remembers, hastens, helps, protects, blesses, etc.[1] Such conceptions would be generally true of all; the power of each was not unlimited, but it extended to all that man usually desired. [1] Apart from names whose meaning is uncertain (_e.g._ Jacob-el, God supplants?), the list could be easily enlarged; a number of names of western (as opposed to the usual Babylonian) type can be gleaned from the records of the First Babylonian Dynasty.