The aweful, terrible nature of God is got rid of, and a company of angelic beings takes its place, none of them very alarming to the conscience.
In its second stage the religion of Phoenicia was a polytheism, less multitudinous than most others, and one in which the several divinities were not distinguished from one another by very marked or striking features.

At the head of the Pantheon stood a god and a goddess--Baal and Ashtoreth.

Baal, "the Lord," or Baal-samin,[1113] "the Lord of Heaven," was compared by the Greeks to their Zeus, and by the Romans to their Jupiter.

Mythologically, he was only one among many gods, but practically he stood alone; he was the chief of the gods, the main object of worship, and the great ruler and protector of the Phoenician people.

Sometimes, but not always, he had a solar character, and was represented with his head encircled by rays.[1114] Baalbek, which was dedicated to him, was properly "the city of the Sun," and was called by the Greeks Heliopolis.