Note 35 — I. THE CHURCHES OF THE LYCUS.

αϲειϲ or αϲειϲ λαοδικεων. See Waddington Voyage en Asie Mineure au point de vue Numismatique (Paris 1853) pp. 25, 26 sq. Mr Waddington adopts a suggestion communicated to him by M. de Longpérier that this word represents the Aramaic עזיזא ‘the strong, mighty,’ which appears also in the Arabic ‘Aziz.’ This view gains some confirmation from the fact, not mentioned by Mr Waddington, that Ἄζιζος was an epithet of the Ares of Edessa: Julian Orat. iv; comp. Cureton Spic. Syr. p. 80, and see de Lagarde Gesamm. Abhandl. p. 16. On the other hand this Shemitic word elsewhere, when adopted into Greek or Latin, is written Ἄζιζος or Azizus: see Garrucci in the Archæologia XLIII. p. 45 ‘Tyrio Septimio Azizo,’ and Boeckh Corp. Inscr. 9893 Ἄζιζος Ἀγρίπα Σύρος. M. de Longpérier offers the alternative that ασειϲ, i.e. Ἀσίς, is equivalent to Ἀσιατικός. An objection to this view, stronger than those urged by Mr Waddington, is the fact that Ἀσίς seems only to be used as a feminine adjective. M. Renan points to the fact that this ζευς ασεις is represented with his hand on the horns of a goat, and on the strength of this coincidence would identify him with ‘the Azazel of the Semites’ (Saint Paul, p. 359), though tradition and orthography alike point to some other derivation of Azazel (עזאזל).