called by the same name with that of the Heathen Gods; but this is only what took place when he was called שדי Sdi, Saddi, Saddim, or אדני adni, Adonai, or Adonis, אדון adun, or בעל bol, Baal: so that there is nothing unusual in this.
The Jews have made out that God is called by upwards of thirty names in the Bible; many of them used by the Gentiles, probably before they fell into idolatry.
The word אל al, meaning preserver; of course, when the words יהוה ה אלהים ieue-e-aleim are used, they mean Ieue the preserver, or the self-existent preserver—the word Ieue, as we shall afterward find, meaning self-existent.
When the אלהים aleim is considered as a noun of multitude, all the difficulties, I think, are removed.
It seems not unlikely that by the different modes of writing the word אל al, a distinction of sexes should originally have been intended to be expressed. The Heathen divinities, Ashtaroth and Baal-zebub, were both called Aleim.[1] And the Venus Aphrodite, Urania, &c., were of both genders. The God Mithra, the Saviour, was both male and female. Several exemplars of him, in his female character, as killing the bull, may be seen in the Townly Collection, in the British Museum. By the word Aleim the Heathen Gods were often meant, but they all resolved themselves at last into the Sun, as triune God, or as emblem of the three powers—the Creator, the Preserver, and the Destroyer—three Persons but one God—he being both male and female. Without doubt Parkhurst and the divines in the controversy with Dr. Sharpe, do not give, till after much research, as meanings of the verb אל al, to mediate, to interpose, or intervene; and of the noun the mediator, interposer, or intervener. But here we evidently have the preserver or saviour. At first it might be expected that the gender of the word Aleim and of the other forms from its root would be determined by the genders of the words which ought to agree with it: but from the extraordinary uncertain state of this language nothing can be deduced from them—as we find nouns feminine and plural joined to verbs masculine and singular (Gen. i. 14); and nouns of multitude, though singular, having a verb plural—and, though feminine, having a verb masculine (Gen. xli. 57). But all this tends, I think, to strengthen an observation I shall have occasion to make hereafter, that the Hebrew language shews many marks of almost primeval rudeness or simplicity; and, that the Aleim, the root whence the Christian Trinity sprung, is the real trinity of the ancients—the old doctrine revived. Nothing could be desired more in favour of my system than that the word Aleim should mean preserver, or intervener, or mediator.
At first it seems very extraordinary that the word אל al or אלה ale, the name of the beneficent Creator, should have the meaning of curse. The difficulty arises from an ill-understood connexion between the Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer—the Creator being the Destroyer, and the Destroyer the Creator. But in this my theory is beautifully supported.
2. It appears that in these old books, God is called by names which are sometimes singular, sometimes plural, sometimes masculine, and sometimes feminine. But though he be occasionally of each gender, for he must be of the masculine or feminine gender, because the old language has no neuter; he is not called by any name which conveys the idea of Goddess or a feminine nature, as separable from himself. My idea is very abstruse and difficult to explain. He is, in fact, in every case Androgynous; for in no case which I have produced is a term used exclusively belonging to one sex or the other. He is never called Baaltes, or Asteroth, or Queen of Heaven. On this subject I shall have much to say hereafter.
Many Christians no doubt, will be much alarmed and shocked at the idea of the word ale being of the feminine gender. But why should not the Hebrew language have a feminine to the word
- ↑ Sharpe, p. 224.
