THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
B
BAADER, ba'der, FRANZ XAVER VON : Roman Catholic philosopher; b. at Munich Mar. 27, 1765; d. there May 23, 1841. He studied and practised medicine, afterward became a mining engineer, and, after a visit to England (1791-96), held official positions in the Bavarian department of mines. In 1S26 he became professor of philosophy and speculative theology at Munich. In 1838, having opposed the interference of the Church in civil affairs, he was forbidden to lecture on religion and thenceforth confined himself to psychology and anthropology. He was an original and suggestive thinker, and exercised considerable influence on his own and the succeeding generation, although the aphoristic and paradoxical form in which he presented his thought often makes it difficult to understand him. He sought for a deep and true understanding of Christianity, always with the conviction that " the legitimate organs had lost the key." A tendency toward individual judgment caused the Roman Catholics to reject him as one of their philosophers; he considered the papacy an equivocal institution not essential to the Church, and contrasted the Eastern and Western Churches unfavorably to the latter (in Der morgenldndische und der abendlandische Katholicismus, Stuttgart, 1841). At the same time he was a theosophist rather than a philosopher or theologian, and sought the lost key in the mystical speculations of Eckhart, St. Martin, and Bohme; hence he was equally out of sympathy with the rationalistic tendencies of nineteenth century theology. His system is set forth in his Fermenta cognilionis (parts i-v, Berlin, 1822-24; part vi, Leipsic, 1825) and Vorlesungen uber spekulative Dogmatik (part i, Stuttgart, 1828; parts ii-v, Munster, 1830-38). His works, collected and edited by his scholars (Franz Hoffmann, Hamberger, Emil von Schaden, Lutterbeck, von Osten, Schluter), appeared in 16 vols., Leipsic, 1851-60; vol. xv contains a biography by Hoffmann.
Bibliography: C. P. Fascher, Zur hundertjdhrigen Geburtsfeier F. von Baadern, Leipsic, 1865; J. Hamberger, Cardinalpunkte der baaderschen Philosophic, Stuttgart, 1S55; idem, Fundamentalbegriffe von F. Baaders Ethik, Politik und Religionsphilosophie, ib. 1855; C. A. Thilo, Beleuchtung des Angriffs des F. Baader, in Theologisirende Rechti- und Staatslehre, Leipsic, 1861; G. Goepp, Essai sur F. de Baader, Strasburg, 1862.
BAAL.
Various Forms of the Name (§ 1). Meaning and Use of the Name (§ 2). The Conception of Baal (§ 3). Special Baals in the Old Testament (§ 4). The Baal-cult in Israel (§ 5). Ceremonies of the Baal-worship (§ 6).
Baal is frequently mentioned in the Old Testament as a god of the idolatrous Israelites, as well as of the Phenicians, Philistines, and Moabltes (?). The name also occurs in a proper name of the Edomites, in Phenician and Aramaic inscriptions, in Greek and Roman authors (Baal, Bal), in the Septuagint and writings dependent on it, and in Josephus. Greek and Latin writers for
the most part speak of Bel, Belos, Bel as a Babylonian as well as a Syrian and Phenician god. The form Bal is more frequently found in composite Phenician proper names as Abibalos, i. Various Hannibal, etc., according to which the Forms of Phenicians pronounced the name of the Name, the god ba'l (cf. P. Schroder, Diephonizische Sprache, Halle, 1869, p. 84). The Phenicians carried their religion wherever they went, and thus the worship of Baal was very widely spread. Even the Semitic Hyksos in Egypt, according to Egyptian testimony, worshiped the god Bar (—Ba'al; cf. E. Meyer, Set-Typhon, Leipsic, 1875, p. 47, and ZDMG, xxxi, 1877, p. 725; W Max Miiller, Asien und Europa nach altagyptischen Denkmdlern, Leipsic, 1893, p. 309).
There can be no doubt of the identity of the names Ba'al and Bel, the Babylonian god mentioned in the Old Testament, the Bel or Belos of the Greeks, i.e., the Assyrian Belu (Bilu) contracted from Be'el, which is modified from Ba'al by the influence of the guttural. In an Esarhaddon inscription Zil-Bel (" Baal is protection ") is the name of a king of Haziti, i.e., of Gaza (E. Schrader, Keilinschriften und Geschichtsforschung, Giessen, 1878, pp. 78-79), where Bel is evidently used for the Canaanitic Baal. The " bol " in the names of the Palmyrene deities Aglibol and Yaribol (and " bel " in Malakbel) may be still another form of Baal.
The Hebrew word ba'al means "owner" or "lord," also " husband," as possessor of the wife. The names of Semitic divinities all set forth the idea of power, and thus present a conception different from that of the Aryan divinities (cf. A. Deissman, in The Expository Times, xviii, 205 sqq.). Furthermore, it has been disputed whether ba'al in the sense of " lord " was an epithet 2. Meaning of honor attached to divinity in genand Use of eral, or was given as a proper name the Name, to a definite local god. In favor of the latter supposition is the fact that there was a Baal of Tyre, a Baal of Sidon, a Baal of Harran, a Baal of Tarsus, and so on. When in later times many such local deities were worshiped in close proximity, the name " Baal " designated the principal god of a place; for he alone could there be called the owner or lord. From this can be explained the later confusion between the Canaanitic Baal and the Babylonian Bel, also the fact that Baal was called Zeus by the Greeks and Jupiter by the Romans. When ba'al occurs in the Old Testament with the article, this does not prove that there was a special god called Baal; it shows only that ba'al appears in the Old Testament not as a proper name but rather as an appellative noun. The use of the article in the Old Testament can be explained from this, that in cases where the Old Testament speaks of an actual Baal-cult, some one Baal among the many is meant; the later Old Testament usage, especially that of Jeremiah, employed " the baal " in the sen.se of " the idol."
If Baal were merely the designation of some god