Baetylus 

March 14, 2023
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The Emesa temple to the sun god Elagabalus with baetyl at centre. Roman coin of 3rd century AD.

Baetylus (also Baetyl, Bethel, or Betyl, from Semitic bet el “house of god”; compare Bethel, Beit El) are sacred stones that were supposedly endowed with life, or gave access to a deity. According to ancient sources, at least some of these objects of worship were meteorites, which were dedicated to the gods or revered as symbols of the gods themselves.

Other accounts suggest that contact with them could give access to epiphanic experiences of the deity. The baetyl has been described by Wendy Doniger as “the parent form for altars and iconic statuary”. In general the baetyl was believed to have something inherent in its own nature that made it sacred, rather than becoming sacred by human intervention, such as carving it into a cult image. Some baetyls were left in their natural state, but others were worked on by sculptors. The exact definition of a baetyl, as opposed to other types of sacred stones, “cult stones” and so on, is rather vague both in ancient and modern sources. In some contexts, especially relating to Nabataean sites like Petra, the term is commonly used for shaped and carved stelae.

They had a role in most regions of the ancient Near East and Greek and Roman religion, as well as other cultures.

Examples

Depiction of Jacob‘s dream sleeping on a stone at Bethel, by José de Ribera

With various other sites around the Mediterranean, they were a feature of the Neolithic temple site of Tas-Silġ and other sites on Malta and Gozo. The Hittites worshiped sacred stones called Huwasi stones.

In the Hebrew Bible, Bethel (meaning “House of God”), is where Jacob had his vision of Jacob’s ladder. Coming upon the place at nightfall, the Book of Genesis tells the reader that he laid his head on a stone, and had the vision while sleeping, then:

When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.” Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz. ….
Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father’s household, then the Lord will be my God and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth.”

— Genesis 28:16–22, NIV
  • Marinatos makes the connection with baetyls

Bethel (god)

Bethel, meaning ‘House of El‘ or ‘House of God’ in Hebrew, Phoenician and Aramaic, is thought by some to be the name of a god or an aspect of a god in some ancient middle-eastern texts dating to Assyrian, Persian and Hellenistic periods. The term appears in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, but opinions differ as to whether those references are to a god or to a place.

Historical records

A 1977 book by Javier Teixidor cited some early references that support viewing Bethel as a god of Aramaean or Syrian origin. The author maintains that the origin of the god’s cult is unknown, but provides what he believes to be some of the earliest references to the god:

  • theophorous names in the 7th century BC,
  • a 677 BC treaty between King Esarhaddon of Assyria and Ba‘al I, king of Tyre, which associates Bethel with what is apparently another god, Anat-Bethel, in a curse upon the Tyrians if they break the treaty: “May Bethel and Anat-Bethel deliver you to a man-eating lion”; and
  • an Aramaic tablet from Aleppo dating to 570 BC, which contains three theophoric names of the god Bethel.
  • Teixidor, Javier. The Pagan God: Popular Religion in the Greco-Roman Near East. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 30–31.

Teixodir states that the god Bethel became popular during the Neo-Babylonian period, which began in the 7th century BC. He found numerous references to the cult of Bethel in fifth-century Egypt literature, and notes that Bethel is mentioned, but with no details, in Elephantine and Hermopolis papyri. Those papyri also mention gods with names that are variants of Bethel: Eshembethel ‘Name of Bethel’ and Ḥerembethel ‘Sanctuary of Bethel’ (cf. Arabic ḥaram ‘sanctuary’).

  • Teixodir op cit p. 30-31.

The ancient Phoenician Sanchuniathon mentions the god Baitylos as a brother of the gods El and Dagon. He later says that the god Sky devised the baitylia, having contrived to put life into stones. The reference would seem to be to Bethels in the plural, that is to many stones like the stone in the Israelite city of Bethel which served a housing for God in Israelite belief. Compare the Egyptian goddess Hathor whose name means ‘House of Horus’.[citation needed]

Biblical references

The term Bethel or Beth-El appears in the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament, but opinions differ as to whether these references are to a god or to a place.

Porten suspects that the Bethel mentioned in The Book of Jeremiah at chapter 48, verse 13 is a reference to the god Bethel, rather than the city named Bethel. Jeremiah 48:13 states: “Then Moab shall be ashamed of Chemosh, as the House of Israel was ashamed of Bethel, their confidence.”

  • Porten, Bezalel (April 1969). “The Religion of the Jews of Elephantine”. The Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 28 No. 2: 116–121.
  • Carr, David M. (2010). The New Oxford Annotated Bible, New Revised Standard Edition (College ed.). Oxford UK: Oxford University Press. p. 1133.

On the other hand, Biblical scholar Rodney Hutton says that the Bethel referred to in Jeremiah 48:13 is a location or city, and a metaphor for religious apostasy because it was the place where Jeroboam installed the golden calf.

  • The New Oxford Annotated Bible op cit p. 1133.

There is further support among Biblical scholars for the view of Bethel as a location rather than a god:

Hutton regards Bethel as a place, not a god, in his commentary on The Book of Samuel 7:16: “Jacob gave the site, where God had spoken to him, the name of Bethel.”

  • Hutton, Rodney R. (2010). The New Oxford Annotated Bible, New Revised Standard Edition (College ed.). Oxford UK: Oxford University Press. p. 1133.

Biblical scholar David M. Carr’s commentary on The Book of Genesis generally regards Bethel as a place, in the context it appears in 35:9-35:15 and 31.13. Also, with respect to the phrase “I am the God of Bethel” at 31:13, Carr states that the Hebrew is unclear, raising further doubt.

  • Carr, David M. (2010). The New Oxford Annotated Bible, New Revised Standard Edition (College ed.). Oxford UK: Oxford University Press. pp. 50, 60.

The Rabbinical Assembly of The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, in its commentary on “The Revelation at Bethel” (Genesis 35:9-15) follows the medieval Rabbinic commentaries and also treats Bethel as a place.

Another interpretation is that the stone which Jacob placed at Bethel, which was named House-of-God, was also a god in itself, a manifestation of the god Bethel.

Zechariah 7:2 may give the personal name Bethelsharezer (‘May Bethel protect the king’). This is a verse in which translators greatly differ as to whether Bethel means the town of Bethel which sent Sharezer, or that Sharezar and his fellows were sent to the House of God (that is the temple in Jerusalem), or that “they” sent Bethelsharezer and his fellows.[citation needed]

Gold Minoan seal ring, with drawing of design. The goddess in the centre appears to the figure at left, lying on a stone. The worshipper at right is shaking a sacred tree, another way of summoning the deity.

In Minoan religion, it has been suggested that rubbing, lying, or sleeping on a baetyl could summon a vision of the god, an event which appears to be depicted on some gold Minoan seal rings, where the stones are large oval boulders. A small serpentinite boulder was excavated very close to the Palaikastro Kouros, the only known Minoan cult image, destroyed around 1450 BC; perhaps it was its baetyl.

  • Marinatos, Nanno (2004), “The Character of Minoan Epiphanies”, Illinois Classical Studies, vol. 29, 2004, pp. 32–39, JSTOR. Accessed 18 February 2021.
  • MacGillivray, Alexander, and Hugh Sackett. “The Palaikastro Kouros: the Cretan God as a Young Man”, p. 166, British School at Athens Studies, vol. 6, 2000, pp. 165–169. JSTOR. Accessed 22 February 2021

In the Phoenician mythology related by Sanchuniathon, one of the sons of Uranus was named Baetylus. The worship of baetyls was widespread in the Phoenician colonies, including Tyre, Sidon, and Carthage, even after the adoption of Christianity, and was denounced by Augustine of Hippo.

A similar practice survives today with the Kaaba‘s Black Stone, which was sacred to the polytheists before Islam.

  • Ibn Ishaq (1964). The life of Muhammad. The Folio Society.

Ancient Greece and Rome

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the term was specially applied to the Omphalos of Delphi (“navel”), the stone supposed to have been swallowed by Cronus (who feared misfortune from his own children) in mistake for his infant son Zeus, for whom it had been substituted by Gaea. This stone was carefully preserved at Delphi, anointed with oil every day and on festive occasions covered with raw wool.

The baetylus of Aphrodite at Palaepaphos, described by Tacitus.

In Rome, there was the stone effigy of Cybele, called Mater Idaea Deum, that had been ceremoniously brought from Pessinus in Asia Minor in 204 BC. The emperor Elagabalus who reigned from 218 until 222 (and was probably a teenager for all his reign) came from Syria and was already the hereditary high priest of the cult of the god Elagabalus there. Once made emperor he brought the god’s baetyl to Rome with great ceremony, and built the Elagabalium to house it. It seems to have been a conical meteorite.

In some cases an attempt was made to give a more regular form to the original shapeless stone: thus Apollo Agyieus was represented by a conical pillar with a pointed end, Zeus Meilichius in the form of a pyramid.

According to Tacitus, the simulacrum of the goddess at the temple of Aphrodite Paphia at her mythological birthplace at Paphos, on Cyprus, was a rounded object, approximately conical or shaped like a meta (a turning post on a Roman circus) but “the reason for this” he noted, “is obscure”.

Other famous baetylic idols were those in the temples of Zeus Casius at Seleucia Pieria, and of Zeus Teleios at Tegea. Even in the declining years of paganism, these idols still retained their significance, as is shown by the attacks upon them by ecclesiastical writers.

See also

Portals:

Notes

  1. Chisholm 1911 cites Pliny’s Natural History xvii. 9; Photios I of Constantinople, Myriobiblon, Codex 242.
  2. Doniger 2000, p. 106.
  3. Augustine Pagolu, in Chapter 4, “Sacred Pillars” of The Religion of the Patriarchs, 1998 (Bloomsbury Academic, ISBN 9781850759355) attempts to make distinctions based on ancient sources, arguably with little success.
  4. “The Betyls of Petra”, Robert Wenning
  5. Vella, Horation C. R., in Archaeology and Fertility Cult in the Ancient Mediterranean, p. 315, 1986, Gruner, ISBN 9789027272539
  6. Marinatos makes the connection with baetyls
  7. Marinatos, Nanno (2004), “The Character of Minoan Epiphanies”, Illinois Classical Studies, vol. 29, 2004, pp. 32–39, JSTOR. Accessed 18 February 2021.
  8. MacGillivray, Alexander, and Hugh Sackett. “The Palaikastro Kouros: the Cretan God as a Young Man”, p. 166, British School at Athens Studies, vol. 6, 2000, pp. 165–169. JSTOR. Accessed 22 February 2021
  9. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). “Baetylus“. Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 191–192. This has further references:
  10. Ibn Ishaq (1964). The life of Muhammad. The Folio Society.
  11. Chisholm 1911 cites Etymologicum Magnum, s.v.
  12. Chisholm 1911 cites Pausanias X. 24.
  13. Tacitus. Histories. Vol. 2. Translated by Moore, Clifford H. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. pp. 164–165. ISBN 0-674-99039-0. OCLC 11108482.
  14.  Teixidor, Javier. The Pagan God: Popular Religion in the Greco-Roman Near East. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 30–31.
  15. Teixodir op cit p. 30-31.
  16. Porten, Bezalel (April 1969). “The Religion of the Jews of Elephantine”. The Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 28 No. 2: 116–121.
  17. Carr, David M. (2010). The New Oxford Annotated Bible, New Revised Standard Edition (College ed.). Oxford UK: Oxford University Press. p. 1133.
  18. The New Oxford Annotated Bible op cit p. 1133.
  19. Hutton, Rodney R. (2010). The New Oxford Annotated Bible, New Revised Standard Edition (College ed.). Oxford UK: Oxford University Press. p. 1133.
  20. Carr, David M. (2010). The New Oxford Annotated Bible, New Revised Standard Edition (College ed.). Oxford UK: Oxford University Press. pp. 50, 60.
  21. “Rashi on Jeremiah 48:13:2”. www.sefaria.org. Retrieved 2022-05-17.
  22. “Abarbanel on Jeremiah 48:10”. www.sefaria.org. Retrieved 2022-05-17.
  23. The Rabbinical Assembly, The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (1999). Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary. New York, NY: The Jewish Publication Society. p. 213. ISBN 0-8276-0712-1.

References

Further reading

  • “Baetyl” Jona Lendering, Livius.org
  • Uta Kron: “Heilige Steine”, in: Kotinos. Festschrift für Erika Simon, Mainz 1992, S. 56–70, ISBN 3-8053-1425-6

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Baetylus.

Meteorites and meteoritics
Ancient Greek religion and mythology

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