Note 196.1 — Chapter XI · The Religious Temperament of the Eastern and Western Peoples.

This is also illustrated by another fashion, possibly ancient, of Semitic religious nomenclature: not only was the individual frequently named after the deity, but the deity might sometimes receive as a cult-title the name of the individual. Of this practice among the polytheistic Semites the only examples of which I am aware come from a late period and from the region of Palmyra: Greek inscriptions of the late Imperial era give such curious forms as Θεὸς Ἀὐμοῦ, Θεὸς Οὐασεάθου, Θεὸς Ἀμέρου:196.1 and these descriptive names in the genitive must designate the principal worshipper or founder of the cult; they are mostly un-Greek, as the religious custom certainly is, which is illustrated by such ancient Biblical expressions as “the God of Abraham,” “the God of Jacob.” We may find an example of the same point of view in the Phrygian title of Μὴν Φαρνάκου in Pontus, if we take the most probable explanation, namely, that it is derived from the Persian Pharnakes, the founder of the cult;196.2 and again in a Carian dedication to Zeus Panamaros Ἀργύρου, as Ἄργυρος is found in the same neighbourhood as the name of a living man.196.3