Postexilian period.[657] However gradual may have been the full development of Monotheism among the Hebrews, on a consideration of the chronology it is impossible to deny that it had a far more rapid course there than elsewhere. This rapidity of revolution is expressed very significantly in the monotheistic turn given to the word Elôhîm, which looks as if (to use mathematical language) the separate Elôahs had been added up and put in a bracket to represent a Divine Unity, adequate to the sudden national unity produced out of political divisions only just composed. Thus the awakened idea of Nationality left its impress also on the domain of religion. But it is now quite intelligible that the religious expression thereby introduced, possessed an obvious defect, inasmuch as it bore on its front a contradiction which no mere National sentiment could get rid of, the word Elôhîm being common to the Hebrews and the Canaanites. This contradiction gave the first stimulus to the creation of the word ‘Jahveh,’ the specially Hebrew term. The origin of this Divine name may therefore be most probably assigned to this period, as a necessary result of the religious element of the idea of Nationality. An agricultural people could very easily grasp the idea of God as an idea of ‘him who makes to be, who produces;’ and it is not impossible that this appellation had its first origin at the time of the formation of a myth of civilisation, and passed from a primitive solar to a later religious significance. But during this whole period Jahveh remained a mere word, a _flatus oris_, an Elôhîm connected with the nation. No deeper meaning, distinguishing Jahveh from the Canaanitish Elôhîm, was as yet attached to the word; that belongs to a later age, that of the Prophets. Moreover, the name itself did not at first force its way deep into the soul of the whole people, but remained as something external,—a Divine name, identical with hâ-Elôhîm, and implying no more. Fights, such as the Prophets fought, first created the Jahveh-religion in opposition to Elohism. Accordingly, it will be best to lay no stress on the existence of the Name before the point at which it obtains a religious significance and begins to be filled with its lofty conception. § 3. At the same time with the monotheistic idea there arose a multitude of religious views, which necessarily had an influence on the development of the myths into history. And insofar as the Hebraisation of the Elôhîm-idea confirmed, and even became the centre of the consciousness of nationality, the conversion of the myths into national history, of which the previous chapter treated, naturally received a peculiarly religious tone.