The Various Names of God
According to the historians who have made a study of the ancient religions, each name given to or descriptive of a deity corresponded to a special conception formed by the people. This has been a generally received principle, and it serves as a clue to guide us in our study of primitive creeds.
The Semitic languages, like the Aryan, possessed a number of names of the Deity in common, all expressive of certain general qualities of the Deity, but all raised by one or other of the Semitic tribes to be the names of God, or of that idea which the first breath, the first sight of the world, the feeling of absolute dependence on a power beyond ourselves, had for ever impressed and implanted in the human mind. These names were all either honorific titles, or represented some moral qualities. El and El-Schadai—Strong, Powerful; Bel or Baal—Lord; Adon or Adonai—my Lord, Master; Melk or Moloch—King; Eliun—the Highest God. Such names as these, so clear and easily understood, did not readily lend themselves to mythological contagion, and they were adopted by Christian phraseology because they contained nothing but what might be rightly ascribed to God.
I could have wished to pass over the name Eloha, which eventually became Elohim, in silence, as its history is a long one, but I shall say a few words about it, as it is one of the most primitive names, and indicates to us what the Semites understood by divine. The name Elohim, applied to an unknown, invisible power, one not grasped by the senses, was the expression of all that was superior and beyond what was seen and known on the earth. At the same time the name was used not exclusively for the Deity, but for others whose attributes, whether physical or moral, demanded a superlative appellative ... there were thus several Elohims of varying natures, the Semitic termination in im turning Eloha into a plural, still always took a singular verb after it, and Elohim or the Elohim (pl.) were both used.
If a comparison be made between the Semitic and Aryan methods of treating the same subjects, the assertion seems amply justified that mythology has not ventured to effect an entrance into the thoughts of the Hebrew writers. If the subject Dawn be taken, it would remain with the Semitic authors a natural daily occurrence, but the Aryan writers would transform it into a personal agent taking the form of gracious, kindly mythical personages. An example presents itself in the book of Job.
Jehovah, the Creator of the universe, “answered Job out of the whirlwind,” who had sought to learn the secrets of nature. Jehovah said to him:—
“Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days began, and caused the dayspring to know its place?
“Declare if thou knowest it all.
“Where is the way to the dwelling of light; and as for darkness, where is the place thereof?
“Doubtless thou knowest, for thou wast then born. And the number of thy days is great.” (Job xxxviii. 12, 18, 19, 21).
This is dawn in biblical language and in nature; but who would recognise it under the figure of Daphne, Eos, or Ahana? All of whom have so exercised the brains of our mythologists.
But Jehovah drives still more deeply the point of His discourse into the conscience of Job.
“Who hath cleft a channel for the water flood, to cause it to rain on a land where no man is?
“Hath the rain a father?
“Or who hath begotten the drops of dew?
“Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover thee?” (Job xxxviii. 25, 26, 28, 34).
The Aryans had also described the rain, and their thoughts on the subject coincided with those of the Semitic race, but they were clothed in the grotesque language generally associated with myths.
“The rain is represented in all the primitive mythologies of the Aryan race as the fruit of the embraces of Heaven and Earth.”[120] This is an advance towards the poetical metaphor which Æschylus at a later date thus expressed: “The bright sky loves to fructify the earth; the earth on her part aspires to the heavenly marriage. Rain falling from the loving sky impregnates the earth, and she produces for mortals her fruit.”
It is necessary to possess a somewhat profound knowledge of the morphological characteristics of the Semitic and Aryan languages in order to note accurately the particulars to which I have drawn attention, and to understand the amount of influence they exercise on religious phraseology.