in the mountains themselves. But there were certain peaks which lifted
themselves up prominently to heaven, and in which consequently the
sanctity of the whole range was as it were concentrated. It was upon
their summits that the worshipper felt himself peculiarly near the God
of heaven, and where therefore the altar was built and the sacrifice
performed. One of these peaks was Hermon, "the consecrated," whose name
the Greeks changed into Harmonia, the wife of Agenor the Phoenician.
From its top we can see Palestine spread as it were before us, and
stretching southwards to the mountains of Judah. The walls of the
temple, which in Greek times took the place of the primitive altar, can
still be traced there, and on its slopes, or perched above its ravines,
are the ruins of other temples of Baal--at Dêr el-'Ashair, at Rakleh, at
Ain Hersha, at Rashêyat el-Fukhâr--all pointing towards the central
sanctuary on the summit of the mountain.

The name of Hermon, "the consecrated," was but an epithet, and the
mountain had other and more special names of its own. The Sidonians, we
are told (Deut. iii. 9), called it Sirion, and another of its titles was
Sion (Deut. iv. 48), unless indeed this is a corrupt reading for Sirion.
Its Amorite name was Shenir (Deut. iii. 9), which appears as Saniru in
an Assyrian inscription, and goes back to the earliest dawn of history.
When the Babylonians first began to make expeditions against the West,
long before the birth of Abraham, the name of Sanir was already known.
It was then used to denote the whole of Syria, so that its restriction
to Mount Hermon alone must have been of later date.

Another holy peak was Carmel, "the fruitful field," or perhaps
originally "the domain of the god." It was in Mount Carmel that the
mountain ranges of the north ended finally, and the altar on its summit
could be seen from afar by the Phoenician sailors. Here the priests of