[95] In the North American Review, October, 1869, p. 354, I
have collected a number of facts which seem to me to prove
beyond question that the name God is derived from Guodan, the
original form of Odin, the supreme deity of our Pagan
forefathers. The case is exactly parallel to that of the
French Dieu, which is descended from the Deus of the pagan
Roman.
The most striking illustration of this process is to be found
in the word devil itself: To a reader unfamiliar with the
endless tricks which language delights in playing, it may seem
shocking to be told that the Gypsies use the word devil as the
name of God.[96] This, however, is not because these people
have made the archfiend an object of worship, but because the
Gypsy language, descending directly from the Sanskrit, has
retained in its primitive exalted sense a word which the
English language has received only in its debased and
perverted sense. The Teutonic words devil, teufel, diuval,
djofull, djevful, may all be traced back to the Zend dev,[97]
a name in which is implicitly contained the record of the
oldest monotheistic revolution known to history. The influence
of the so-called Zoroastrian reform upon the long-subsequent
development of Christianity will receive further notice in the
course of this paper; for the present it is enough to know
that it furnished for all Christendom the name by which it
designates the author of evil.
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