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These stones seem somewhat in the way of 'Baetyli' of pagan antiquity, which were of round form; they were supposed to be animated, by means of magical incantations, with a portion of the Deity; they were consulted on occasions of great and pressing emergency as a kind of divine oracle, and were suspended either round the neck or some other part of the body.

Was Theophrastus's superstitious man so very foolish for pouring oil on every round stone? I think there was a great deal to be said for him. This worship of Baetyli was rational enough. They were aerolites, fallen from heaven.

From this conduct of Jacob and this Hebrew appellation, the learned Bochart, with great ingenuity and reason, insists that the name and veneration of the sacred stones called Baetyli, so celebrated in all Pagan antiquity, were derived.

These Baetyli were stones of a round form, they were supposed to be animated by means of magical incantations, with a portion of the Deity; they were consulted on occasions of great and pressing emergency as a kind of divine oracle, and were suspended either round the neck or some other part of the body.

The sacred emblem of the Heliopolitan Sun-god reminds us forcibly of the Semitic bethels or baetyli, the sacred stones of Palestine, and may give yet another hint of the Semitic origin of the Heliopolitan cult.