The form _Ra_ represents, probably, the native Chaldæan name of this deity, while _Il_ is the Semitic equivalent. _Il_, of course, is but a variant of _El_, the root of the well-known biblical _Elohim_, as well as of the Arabic Allah. It is this name which Diodorus represents under the form of _Elus_, and Sanchoniathon, or rather Philo Biblius, under that of Elus, or _Ilus_. The meaning of the word is simply "God," or perhaps "The God" emphatically. _Ra_, the Cushite equivalent, must be considered to have had the same force originally, though in Egypt it received a special application to the sun, and became the proper name of that particular deity. The word is lost in the modern Ethiopic. It formed an element in the native name of Babylon, which was _Ka-ra_, the Cushite equivalent of the Semitic _Bab-il_, an expression signifying "the gate of God." Ra is a god with few peculiar attributes. He is a sort of fount and origin of deity, too remote from man to be much worshipped, or to excite any warm interest. There is no evidence of his having had any temple in Chaldæa during the early times. A belief in his existence is implied rather than expressed in inscriptions of the primitive kings, where the Moon-god is said to be "brother's son of Ana, and eldest son of Bil or Belus." We gather from this, that Bel and Ana were considered to have a common father, and later documents sufficiently indicate that that common father was Il or Ra."--_Rawlinson_, i. p. 143. If in the Il or Ra of the Chaldæans the primitive monotheism is not revealed, I do not see how it can be discerned in the Zeus of the Greeks. We have the same god in the same relation in the Scandinavian, or at any rate in the Lapland mythology. Leems ("Account of Danish Lapland," Pinkerton, i. 458) says--"Of the Gods inhabiting the starry mansions the _greatest is Radien_, yet it is uncertain whether he is over every part of the sidereal sky, or whether he governs only some part of it. Be this as it may, I shall be bold to affirm that the Laplanders never comprehended, under the name of this false god, the true God; _which is obvious from this_, that some have not scrupled to put the image or likeness of the true God by the side of their Radien, on Runic boxes."[145] If, however, of their gods "the greatest was Radien," they would not have placed the true God by his side until they had become acquainted with the true God, or until they had come to commingle Christianity and Paganism; but then would they not have placed "Ra" by the side of the true God as His counterpart? I am assuming that "Radien" means simply the god Ra, as I suppose Mr Max Müller would recognise "dien" as cognate to "Dyaus" ... "Dieu."