MODIFICATIONS IN THK IDEA OF GOD^ ETC. 49 



views may not unreasonablv be supposed to have preceded 

 polytheistic, and many high authorities have believed this to 

 have been the case. Of the moral qualities of this Being, 

 conceived of as illimitable Might, we have, again, no informa- 

 tion. The account the history gives us of Abraham's mental 

 struggles on this point represent him as having no definitely 

 formed convictions as to the moral character of the God 

 whom he worshipped. AVhether he regarded Him as the 

 Force which governed men's actions as well as the Force 

 behind material nature we do not know. Neither do we 

 know — save in the reference to the serpent in Gen. iii — to 

 Avhat cause moral aberrations were ascribed, and we cannot 

 say whether the idea of an adversary or tempter was present 

 to the mind of Abraham, or whether it reached the author 

 of Genesis through a different channel. 



The original conception — for if we follow the Hebrew 

 narratives, and not the theories of modern critics, it 

 was the original conception — of God among the Semitic 

 races was thus an extremely rudimentary conception. But 

 rudimentary though it Avas, it pointed in the right direction. 

 It soared far above the fetichism, animism, deification of the 

 powers of nature, pantheism, abstraction, of which I have 

 spoken. There was present in these elementary conceptions 

 of deity the idea of a Personal Being, a living Force Or 

 Energy, that is to say a Being possessed of mind and will, 

 and capable of moral relations with His creatures, which 

 exerted itself for the guidance and protection at least of 

 those who sought its favour. It is this germ which, through 

 the various stages Avhich the Hebrew Sciiptures have not 

 failed to point out, has developed into the Christian idea 

 of God. 



Side by side with this elementary conception of God among 

 the monotheistic Semites stands another conception in close 

 relation to it. This is embodied in the word Shaddai, a 

 word frequently found at crucial points of the early history 

 of Israel. The word Shaddai is supposed, like Elohim,* to 

 be a pluralis excellenthx derived from the Hebrew root sliad, 

 signifying dextruction. This conception of God, though in one 



monotheist, it is because it seems probable that he conceived of a 

 difference in kind, as well as in degi'ee, between the Most High and 

 inferior beings. 



* Some have endeavoured to prove that Elohim should be translated 

 "gods." But this view would throw the entire religious teaching of the 

 Hebrew Scriptures into confusion. 



E 



