It seems probable, finally, that such figures as Elijah, who ascends to heaven in a fiery chariot, and Elisha, the "bald head" and miracle-worker, are similar constructions of personages out of Sun-God lore. In such material lies part of the refutation of the thesis of Renan (Hist, des langues sémit. 2e édit. pp. 7, 485) that the Semites were natural monotheists, devoid of mythology. [Renan is followed in whole or in part by Nöldeke, Sketches from Eastern Hist. Eng. tr. p. 6; Soury, Relig. of Israel, Eng. tr. pp. 2, 10; Spiegel, Erânische Alterthumskunde, i, 389; also Roscher, Draper, Peschel, and Bluntschli, as cited by Goldziher, Mythology Among the Hebrews, Eng. tr. p. 4, note. On the other side compare Goldziher, ch. i; Steinthal's Prometheus and Samson, Eng. tr. (with Goldziher), pp. 391, 428, etc., and his Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft bei den Griechen und den Römern, 1863, pp. 15-17; Kuenen, Rel. of Israel, i, 225; Smith, Rel. of the Semites, p. 49; Ewald, Hist. of Israel, Eng. tr. 4th ed. i, 38-40; Müller, Chips, i, 345 sq.; Selected Essays, 1881, ii, 402 sq.; Nat. Rel. p. 314.] Renan's view seems to be generally connected with the assumption that life in a "desert" makes a race for ever unimaginative or unitary in its thought. The Arabian Nights might be supposed a sufficient proof to the contrary. The historic truth seems to be that, stage for stage, the ancient Semites were as mythological as any other race; but that (to say nothing of the Babylonians and Assyrians) the mythologies of the Hebrews and of the Arabs were alike suppressed as far as possible in their monotheistic stage. Compare Renan's own admissions, pp. 27, 110, 475, and Hist. du peuple d'Israël, i, 49-50. At other places, however, Yahweh was symbolized and worshipped in the image of a young bull, [351] a usage associated with the neighbouring Semitic cult of Molech, but probably indigenous, or at least early, in the case of Yahweh also. A God, for such worshippers, needed to be represented by something, if he were to be individualized as against others; and where there was not an ark or a sacred stone or special temple or idol there could be no cult at all. "The practices of ancient religion require a fixed meeting-place between the worshippers and their God." [352] The pre-Exilic history of Yahweh-worship seems to be in large part that of a struggle between the devotees of the imageless worship fixed to the temple at Jerusalem, and other worships, with or without images, at other and less influential shrines.