+764+. The other Semitic peoples, with the exception of the Hebrews, offer little material for tracing the development of the great gods. For the Aramean region the records are sparse; Aramean deities appear to be of the same character as the Canaanite.[1310] In Canaan (including Phoenicia) out of the vast number of local divinities, the Baals and Ashtarts, few attained to eminence, and it is doubtful whether any one of them deserves the title "great."[1311] The divine patrons of cities were locally powerful; such were the Baal of Tyre, called Melkart ('the king of the city'), the Ashtart of Sidon, and Tanit of Carthage;[1311] these owed their reputation to their official positions, and there is no other record of their development. The same thing is true of the Moabite Kemosh, the Ammonite Malkom (Milkom), and the Philistine Dagan (Dagon) and Baalzebub. None of these became ethically great or approached universality. The Phoenician Eshmun was known to the Greeks, and was identified by them with their Asklepios (Æsculapius), probably because among the various functions attaching to him as local deity healing was prominent; but of his theologic history little is known.[1312] Several North Arabian deities, especially Dusares (Dhu ash-Shara) and the goddesses Al-Lât and Al-Uzza, were widely worshiped, their cults extending over the whole Nabatean region; but the communities to which they belonged never produced a great civilization or attained great political significance, and these deities always retained traces of their local nature.[1313] The same remark is to be made of the South Arabian gods known to us; they were locally important, but we have little information concerning their characters.[1314] +765+. The clearest example of the orderly advance of a deity to preëminence is afforded by the Hebrew Yahweh (Jehovah). Originally, it would seem, a local deity, the god of certain tribes on the northern boundary of Arabia,[1315] he was adopted by the Hebrews under conditions which are not quite clear, and was developed by them in accordance with their peculiar genius. At first morally and intellectually crude, he became as early as the eighth century B.C. ethically high and practically omnipotent.[1316] For many centuries he was regarded merely as the most powerful of the gods, superior to the deities of other nations, and it was only after the beginning of our era that the Hebrew thought discarded all other gods and made "Yahweh" synonymous with "God." In each period of their history the conception that the Hebrews had of him was in accord with the economic and intellectual features of the time.[1317]