+669+. This disposition to define practical functions minutely appears also in the cultic history of the greater gods of the old Roman religion: the rôle of Jupiter as god of sky and rain was definitely fixed, and Tellus was not the divine mother of the human race but the beneficent bestower of crops. As the functions of such greater gods became more numerous and more definitely fixed, epithets were employed; Jupiter had a dozen or more of such adjectival additions, and it appears that at a later time such epithets were personalized into deities; but this academic or priestly procedure does not set aside the fact that the early Roman religion recognized a vast number of divine beings as the specific patrons of certain things and acts.
+670+. It was quite natural for the practical Roman mind to place everything of importance under the care of a divine being--a procedure which is simply carrying out in greater detail modes of thought which we have seen to be common in many of the lower tribes. Augustine thinks this specialization amusing, ridiculous, and difficult to understand. He brings up the whole question of origin when he asks why it was necessary to have two goddesses for the waves of the sea--one, Venilia, representing the wave as advancing to the shore; the other, Salacia, representing the wave as receding.[1127] This seems, to be sure, an unnecessary specialization; but, considered in connection with the whole Roman system, it is not less intelligible than the multiplication of deities attending upon the birth and education of a child, on the processes of farming, and on the fortunes of war. Since human life is guided by the gods, thought the Romans, there is no act that may not have its god; this system is the objectivation of the conception of divine special providence.[1128]
+671+. To certain Semitic deities highly specialized functions have been supposed to belong; but the known facts hardly warrant this supposition. In the names Baal-Marqod, Baal-Marpe, Baal-Gad, the second element may be the name of a place; that is, the Baal may be a local deity (as the Baals elsewhere are). The title Baal-berit[1129] has been interpreted as meaning "lord of a covenant"--that is, a deity presiding over treaties; but the expression is not clear. Baalzebub is in the Old Testament the god of the Philistine city Ekron, where he had a famous oracle;[1130] it is highly improbable that the name means "lord of flies" (which would rather be Baal-zebubim), but the sense is obscure. The New Testament Baal [Beel]-zebul[1131] (the only correct form) has been variously explained. The second element, _zebul_, occurs in the Old Testament as a name of the heavenly abode of the deity,[1132] and the title has been regarded as the Semitic rendering of a Greek or Roman title of a god of heaven (Zeus Ouranios; cf. Caelestis, epithet of Jupiter); as foreign deities were called "demons" by the later Jews, the chief of these deities, it is held, might well be taken to be the "prince of demons." However this may be, Beelzebul cannot be ranked among the deities with highly specialized functions.[1133]