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Elyon and El and Baal Shamem

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Elyon and El and Baal Shamem FIFTH CHAPTER ELYON AND EL AND BAAL SHAMEM The question of the identity of the god Elyon was touched on above in connection with El's title qn 'r!, attested at Karatepe, Leptis Magna, and Palmyra, and the fuller title 'el celyon qone( h) 'fiimayim wii'iire!, Gen. xiv 19, 22. Although Elyon is not mentioned in the Ugaritic texts, the problem of his relation to El is posed by the compound El Elyon in Gen. xiv 18, 19, 22 and Ps. lxxviii 35. A couple of times in the O.T., Ps. ix 3 and Is. xiv 14, the name Elyon is used independently, but otherwise always in parallelism or collocation with the divine names El, Elohim, YHWH. In Ps. lxxxii 6 "sons of Elyon" is parallel with oe!ohim, "gods". In the Aramaic of Dan. vii 18, 22, 25, 27 the plural of majesty is used in the phrase qaddi:ie celyonin, "Saints of Elyon". The compounds YHWH Elyon, Ps. vii 18, xlvii 3, and Elohim Elyon, Ps. lvii 3, lxxviii 56, show the complete identification of the God of Israel and Elyon. In the Sujin 1) inscription El and Elyon are joined by the conjunc­ tion wand on the basis of the O.T. compound El Elyon and the Ugaritic compounds like Ktr wIJss and Qds wAmrr, one might be inclined to assume that the reference is to a single deity 2). If this were so, it would constitute the only parall~l to the Ugaritic divine names of this pattern. But it is virtually certain that El and Elyon are intended as distinct deities in the Sujin inscription 3), as they are in the account of Philo of Byblos. According to Philo of Byblos 4), Elioun (Hypsistos) was the father of Epigeios or Autochthon, later called Ouranos; the latter married his sister Ge and begot Elos, also called Kronos. Thus Elyon is represented as the grandfather of El, and 1) Cf. above p. 3, n. 16. A full bibliography of the inscription to 1939 is given by ROSENTHAL, Die A,.amaiJtische FOfSchung, Leiden, 1939, p. 13, n. 5. 2) So CASSUTO, EBB, vol. 1, col. 288, s.v. 'el Celyon; in The Goddess Anath, p. 43, he ascribes the separation into different entities to the later hearsay of PhiJo of Byblos or the sources from which he drew. 3) MONTGOMERY, HTR, 31 (1938), pp. 143-145; NYBERG, ARIV, 35 (1938), p. 336; DELLA VIDA, op. cit., p. 3. 4) Cf. above p. 3, n. 18. Vetus Test., Suppl. 11 5 56 ELYON AND EL AND BAAL SHAMEM not the father as apparently assumed by DUSSAUD") who suggests that El Elyon means "El (son of) Elyon". The tradition preserved by Philo of Byblos that there was an inter­ mediate stage between Elyon and El in which the sovereignty was held by Ouranos is now confirmed by the Hurrian myths in the Hittite language, dating from ca. 13th century B.c., in which the order of divine succession corresponds exactly to that given by Philo of Byblos 6) . Hurrian Phoenician Alalu Elyon Anu Ouranos Kumarbi El (Kronos) Storm-god (Teshub) Hadad (Zeus-Demarous ) The god Alalu corresponds to Elyon as the first in the line of succession. Alalu is known from Akkadian as one of the "21 fathers and mothers of Anu" 7). The Hittite text tells of the defeat and flight of Alalu before Anu who then occupied the throne 8). In Hesiod's Theogony there is no counterpart of Alalu and Philo of Byblos does not tell of any conflict between Elioun and Ouranos, but says that Hypsistos (i.e. Elioun) died in an encounter with wild beasts and was succeeded by Ouranos 9). Philo may have connected Elyon with the Adonis motif for want of specific data, or this tradition might very well be ancient, but in the light of the conflict between Alalu and Anu it is probable that a similar story was told of the deposition of Elyon by another Semitic celestial deity corresponding to Anu, Ouranos. It is suggested that the Semitic deity \\'ho would best cor­ respond to Anu and Ouranos is Baal Shamem, a god who appears throughout the Semitic world from Mesopotamia to Sardinia, from the beginning of the first millennium B.C. to the middle of the first millennium A.D. 10). A. VINCENT 11) identified Baal Shamem with 5) Syria, 27 (1950), p. 332. 6) Cf. FORRER, op. cit.; GiiTERBOCK, Kumarbi, pp. 88, 115; DUSSAUD, "Les antecedents orientaux it la Theogonie d'Hesiode", in Annllaire de /'Institut de Philo­ logie et d' Histoire orientales et slaz1es, 9 (Melanges Henri Gregoire), Brussel, 1949, p. 231. 7) Cf. GiiTERBOCK, Kumarbi, p. 86. 8) GOETZE, ANET, p. 120. 9) FHG, vol. 9, fr. 2, 12-14, p. 567; GIFFORD, op. cit., 36 b, p. 41; CLEMEN, op. cit., 15-16, pp. 24-25. 10) Cf. R. T. O'CALLAGHAN, A Or, 18 : 1-2 (1950), p. 362, n. 28. 11) La religion des judeo-arameens d' Elephantine, Paris, 1937, p. 127. .
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