Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 449

1850.

Defense of an Essay, &c.

411

for the fact that it must still be used to combat polytheism, its generic character would wholly cease. But as polytheisin gave rise to so improper a genus, so the necessity there exists of forbidding men to have a plurality of gods, causes the word to retain so much of its generic character, as to make it available to prohibit sternly the recognition and worship of all the imaginary beings, who are by poly- theists strictly and properly included in its meaning.” Essay, page 6. With all this before him, Dr Legge writes: "Much has been said of the genus of gods,' as if there really were in nature many gods, while at the same time and on the same page, it is stated that there is in truth but one God.'” It is very surprising to me Dr Legge did not see that I contended there was in nature but one God, and that the plurality exists only in the imagination of polytheists; that the word God, when "employed in a proper sense," designates Jehovah alone, and that "the genus" is an "improper" one, whose existence is entirely owing to the false views of polytheists. But whether the beings designated be real or imaginary, can not, I conceive, alter the character of the word, which is the common name of the class. This word, if it be a name common to several beings, must be a common name, an appellative noun, a generic term. Whether Elohim is actual- ly used as the name of only one being, or as a name common to a number of beings, is a question of fact, to be determined, not by in- quiring what is the first idea that comes into our minds, when they "rise rapidly and vigorously to the idea of God," but by an appeal to the usus loquendi of the writers of the O. T. The inspired writers do not suppose that there exist many gods—a class of gods-nor do we, but polytheists do; and accordingly we find that they, in all the languages with which we are acquainted (the languages in which the Sacred Scriptures were written included), have a general name by which this class of beings is called; and that monotheists, whether inspired men or not, have never scrupled to use this word when speak- ing of these imaginary beings; it is idle therefore to say that the word so used is not the name of a class of beings-that it is not a generic term. In Hebrew, Eloah and Elohim, and in Greek ɛos, EOI, are used as the name of this class of beings, and in Chinese, we con- tend that Shin is so used.

With respect to the fact that Elohim is used as a name common to Jehovah and all the false gods of the polytheists mentioned in the O. T., there can, of course, be no controversy between Dr. Legge and myself, nor with respect to the fact whether Elohim is, or is not, the appellative name of this whole class the only point of difference is