From the general resemblance subsisting between the distinct local gods it was possible to regard them as so many forms of a single god; and when groups combined and individual gods were fused, multiplicity of types ensued. The status of a local tutelary was affected when commercial intercourse widened the horizon of both the traveller and the native; and in the growth of political power and the rise of a kingship the conceptions entertained of the deity's attributes and powers were elevated. Through the extension of authority the way lay open to groups of gods who could not be fused, and equally to the superiority of one national patron deity over the rest. {68} Political or other changes led to the promotion of this or the other god, and prominent or specialised deities in superseding others acquired fresh attributes, though local divergencies were again necessarily retained. This does not complete the vicissitudes of the gods or the intricacies caused by assimilation or identification. A popular epithet or appellative could appear by the side of the proper deity as a new creation, or the deity was sub-divided on cosmical and astral theories. The female deity (whose name may be without the usual distinguishing mark of gender) could even change her sex; the specific name could also become employed as a common term for any deity, and the plural 'gods' could be applied to a single being as a collective representation of the characteristics it embodied. Amid the intricate careers of the great names, the local deities obstinately survived in popular religious life. They have found their parallel in the welis or patrons, saints and holy sheikhs of the modern shrines (see _pp._ 21 _sqq._). The modern analogy is instructive in many points of detail, particularly when we observe the vicissitudes which the occupants of the shrines have experienced. It is natural to ask for the ancient counterparts of the Allah, the supreme god in the {69} official religion, who, as we have said, is vague and remote in the practical religious life of the peasant of to-day. A series of well-defined historical events made him pre-eminent over all other gods and goddesses and established Mohammedanism; internal and external causes shaped the varying conceptions of his nature, and gave birth to numerous sects. All the Oriental religions have this twofold aspect: the historical circumstances which affected the vicissitudes of the deities, and the more subtle factors which have influenced forms of belief. But we have no direct information upon the rise of the general conditions in Palestine during our period, and such problems as the origin of the term El 'God' (common to all the Semitic peoples) belong to the pre-historic ages.