Taking this view of the historical growth of the idea of God, many of the difficulties which M. Renan has to overcome by most elaborate and sometimes hair-splitting arguments, disappear at once. M. Renan, for instance, dwells much on Semitic proper names in which the names of the Deity occur, and he thinks that, like the Greek names Theodorus or Theodotus, instead of Zenodotus, they prove the existence of a faith in one God. We should say they may or may not. As Devadatta, in Sanskrit, may mean either 'given by God,' or 'given by the gods,' so every proper name which M. Renan quotes, whether of Jews, or Edomites, Ishmaelites, Ammonites, Moabites, and Themanites, whether from the Bible, or from Arab historians, from Greek authors, Greek inscriptions, the Egyptian papyri, the Himyaritic and Sinaitic inscriptions and ancient coins, are all open to two interpretations. 'The servant of Baal' may mean the servant of the Lord, but it may also mean the servant of Baal, as one of many lords, or even the servant of the Baalim or the Lords. The same applies to all other names. 'The gift of El' may mean 'the gift of the only strong God;' but it may likewise mean 'the gift of the El,' as one of many gods, or even 'the gift of the Els,' in the sense of the strong gods. Nor do we see why M. Renan should take such pains to prove that the name of Orotal or Orotulat, mentioned by Herodotos (III. 8), may be interpreted as the name of a supreme deity; and that Alilat, mentioned by the same traveller, should be taken, not as the name of a goddess, but as a feminine noun expressive of the abstract sense of the deity. Herodotos says distinctly that Orotal was a deity like Bacchus; and Alilat, as he translates her name by Οὐρανἱη, must have appeared to him as a goddess, and not as the Supreme Deity. One verse of the Koran is sufficient to show that the Semitic inhabitants of Arabia worshipped not only gods, but goddesses also. 'What think ye of Allat, al Uzza, and Manah, that other third goddess?'