The Angel who possesses or embodies the secret or magical name [191] is to do what Joshua in the historical myth says has been done under his leadership: [192] both passages stand. Further, the Angel of the passage in Exodus is in the Talmud identified with the mystic Metatron, [193] who corresponds generally with the Logos of Philo Judæus, the Sophia or Power of the Gnostics, and the Nous of Plotinus. The eminent Talmudic scholar, Emmanuel Deutsch, surmised that the Metatron is "most probably nothing but Mithra," the Persian Sun-God; and as the promised Divine One in the Septuagint version of Isaiah, ix, 6, bears the Mithraic titles of "Angel of Great Counsel" and Judge, there is perhaps ground for some such surmise. It may have been, indeed, that the redactors of the sacred books originally meant to substitute the Angel for Joshua in the esteem of the people, giving the former the credit for the exploits of the latter; but such a manipulation would be in itself a confession of Joshua's renown. And in the Samaritan Targums "the Angel of God" commonly stood for the divine names Jehovah and Elohim. [194] However that may be, the pseudo-historical Joshua could not have been elevated by the Talmudists to a divine status in other regards had he been a historical personage; and when we find him specially honoured in Samaria [195] we can draw no inference save that he was once a Palestinian deity. The fact that the name means "Saviour" [196] is of capital importance. In Jewish tradition and in his Book he is specially associated with the choosing of the Paschal lamb, the rite of the Passover, and the rite of circumcision. [197] Here then is the presumptive God for the early rite of Jesus the Son of the Father. As we shall see later, "the Angel of the Lord" is found to equate with "the Word of the Lord"--another cue for the gospel-makers. And in the Jewish New Year liturgy, to this day, Joshua-Jesus figures as the "Prince of the Presence," which again is supposed to identify him with Metatron as = meta thronou, "behind the throne." Only as a Palestinian deity thus subordinated to Yahweh is he explicable. And as the "Angel of the Presence" again occurs in Isaiah, lxiii, 9, figuring as Saviour and Redeemer, it is fairly clear that there was some Jewish doctrine which made of Joshua a Saviour deity. A high authority [198] pronounces that the "Angel of the Presence" is "probably Michael, who was the guardian angel of Israel." But Michael is a wholly post-exilic figure: was there no Hebrew prototype? However that may be, the ritual connection of the name Jesus (Joshua) with the title of Prince of the Presence has survived the intervention of Babylonian angelology, and remains to testify to a status for Joshua which can be explained only as a result of his original Godhood. [199]