Here is Ale in the singular number, God; Aleim in the plural number, Gods: and here is Sadim, the plural number of another name of the Deity, which is both of the masculine and feminine gender.
In Gen. xiv. 3, the kings are said to have combined, “in the vale of Siddim, which is the salt sea.” This shews that the Gods called Saddai were known and acknowledged, by the Canaanites, before the time of Abraham. This word Siddim is the plural of the word used, in various places, as the name of the true God—both by itself as Saddi and El Saddi. In Exodus vi. 3, the Israelites are ordered to call God Ieue; but before that time he had been only known to their fathers as Al Saddi, God Almighty.
Now, at last, what does this word Sadi, Saddim, or Shaddai, שדי Sdi, really mean? Mr. Parkhurst tells us, it means all-bountiful—the pourer forth of blessings; among the Heathen, the Dea Multimammia; in fact, the Diana of Ephesus, the Urania of Persia, the Jove of Greece, called by Orpheus the mother of the Gods, each male as well as female—the Venus Aphrodite; in short, the genial powers of nature.[1] And I maintain, that it means also the figure which is often found in collections of ancient statues, most beautifully executed, and called the Hermaphrodite. See Gallery of Naples and of Paris.
The God of the Jews is also often known by the name of Adonai אדני⟨.⟩[2] But this is nothing but the God of the Syrians, Adonis or the Sun, the worship of whom is reprobated under the name of Tammuz, in Ezekiel viii. 14.
From these different examples it is evident that the God of the Jews had several names, and that these were often the names of the Heathen Gods also. All this has a strong tendency to shew that the Jewish and Gentile systems were, at the bottom, the same.
Why we call God masculine I know not, nor do I apprehend can any good reason be given. Surely the ancients, who described him as of both genders, or of the doubtful gender, were more reasonable. Here we see that the God of the Jews is called שדי Sdi, and that this Sdi is the Dea Multimammia, who is also in other places made to be the same as the אל al or אלה ale. Therefore it seems to follow, that the Gods of the Israelites and of the Gentiles were in their originals the same. And I think by and by my reader will see evident proof, that the religion of Moses was but a sect of that of the Gentiles; or, if he like it better, that the religion of the Gentiles was but a sect of the religion of Jehovah, Ieue, or of Moses.
It may be here observed that these names of God of two genders are almost all in the old tracts, which I suppose to have been productions of the Buddhists or Brahmins of India, for which I shall give more reasons presently.
5. From what I may call the almost bigoted attachment of the modern Jews to the unity of God, it cannot for a moment be supposed, that they would forge any thing tending to the proof of the Trinity of the Christians; therefore, if we can believe father Kircher, the following fact furnishes a very extraordinary addition to the proofs already given, that the Jews received a trinity like all the other oriental nations. It was the custom among them, to describe their God Jehovah or Ieue, by three jods and a cross in a circle, thus: (
symbol characters). Certainly a more striking illustration of the doctrine I have been teaching can scarcely be conceived: and it is very curious that it should be found accompanied with the cross, which the learned father, not understanding, calls the Mazoretic Chametz. This mistake seems to remove all suspicion of Christian forgery; for I can hardly believe that if the Christian priests had forged this symbol, the learned Father would not have availed himself of it to support the adoration of the Cross, as well as of the Trinity. The
