Note 41 — Chapter IV · THE EVOLUTION OF THE CULT

Returning to the subject of “the magician Simon” in his Dialogue with Trypho,41 Justin there repeats that the Samaritans call him “God above all power, and authority, and might.” Remembering that the Jewish Shema, “the Name,” is the ordinary appellative for Yahweh, we note possibilities of syncretism as to which we can only speculate. The fact that the Jews actually called their God in general by a word meaning “Name” and also equating with the commonest Semitic name for the Sun-God, while in their sacred books they professedly transmuted the sacred name (altering the consonants) to Adonai = Lord (“plural of majesty”), the name of the Syrian God Adonis, is a circumstance that has never been much considered by hierologists. It suggests that the Samaritan Sem also may have been “known” by other names; and the certain fact of the special commemoration of Joshua among the Samaritan Judaists gives another ground for speculation. The words of Jesus to the Samaritan woman in the fourth gospel, “Ye worship ye know not what,” seem to signify that from the Alexandrian-Jewish standpoint Samaritans worshipped a name only.