Men of three kinds deny it. The first are those to whom Jesus seems to be derived from [the Greek] apò toû iásasthai — Ionice, iḗsasthai — that is, “to heal”: Epiphanius (heresy 29), St. Cyril of Jerusalem (catechesis 10); and this perhaps St. Bernard too wished, when he treats of JESUS the physician (sermon 6, on the Vigil of the Nativity), and Moschopulus clearly affirms it (On the Scraps). The others [second kind] are Galatinus (book 3, ch. 20), Pagninus (in the Interpretation of Hebrew Names), Jansenius (Concordia, ch. 7) — who interprets Iehosuam as “GOD WILL SAVE,” or “God [is] salvation.” Besides these, a third is the before-cited [one] from the crowd of the Innovators, Osiander; and, from among the Catholics, a certain one [is found] in Alphonsus Mendoza (question 10, positively [maintaining it]). For he wished that name JESUS itself to be derived from the Hebrew tetragrammaton — or rather, to be the same with it…
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…[the same with it,] as though it were Iehesuh. But all [these] are refuted most clearly — first, indeed, from the Greek text, which, in this whole book and in so many other places where the Hebrew is Iehosua or Iesua, always renders [it] Iesus [Ἰησοῦς]; once [only] Iēsou (1 Paralipomenon [Chronicles] 7, v. 27). But our [Interpreter], sometimes Iosue or Iesue, frequently even Iesus — as [in] Habakkuk 3, Haggai 1 and 2, Zechariah 3, and Esdras 2, v. 2, ch. 3, v. 2; Nehemiah 12; Ecclesiasticus 46, v. 1; 1 Maccabees 2, and book 2, ch. 12. Then Matthew 1, v. 21, the Angel says: “Thou shalt call his name JESUS.” Why so? “For he shall save his people.” It aims directly, in the name Iehosua or Iosue, at the very root of salvation — just as if of someone it were said, “He shall be called Doctor, for he shall teach others; let him be styled King, because he shall reign; let him be named Judge, for he shall judge.” And Jesus [ben] Sirach himself teaches the same (Ecclesiasticus 46, v. 1), when he says, “Iosue, great according to his name in the salvation” — or, as it is in Greek: “Iesus was great according to his name, for the salvation of his elect.” I would add also Origen, St. Jerome, Theophylact on Matthew, Justin (Apology 2, for the Christians), Damascene (book 1, ch. 12), and the other Fathers, and the throngs of all the Doctors. But he who does not believe the Angel — what men should he reverence? In Claudian (a Gentile, otherwise), as we take it from St. Augustine (book 5, On the City of God) — a Poet — there is, against the vain Poets, an epigram, in which [it runs] thus:
“The reigning Lord the tongue now confesses [to be] JESUS — the Name whereon our salvation, founded, stands, and [our] faith rests, reaching toward life in the eternal ages.”
Yet it must not be passed over in silence that that word which Osiander invented, Iehesuh, is most inept. For the orthographic reckoning of the Hebrews does not allow that, when some word ends in he, there go before it a vav-shureq — so that those [words] which among them are said “to rest” in he [i.e., have a quiescent final he], they should sometimes change this very [ending] into iod. Caninius adds, in the place cited, [pointing to] another thing which above all ought to be present in a name — [namely, that] this word would still lack it: signification, that is. For it would have to arise from יְשׁוּעָה, from יָשַׁע — which in the Hebrew tongue is no verb at all. Yet I do not judge this firm enough; because most usual among the Hebrews is Iesch [יֵשׁ], “[there] is,” and the others which are from יָשַׁע. But if Caninius should say this [form] is not usual, he will hear the same about that יָשַׁע itself. Quite enough, altogether, to explode this figment of the Innovator, are the other [arguments] that have been brought — especially since not even one, in which there is any weight, does he adduce with a reason. The first is: [that] in certain books it is written only יְשׁוּ. But if it were from “salvation,” there would be no way at all it could be borne that the last y [iod] be taken away. “But in the Talmudic books of the Jews it is thus written in that way only.” So it is. And yet that this is done ill, the Jew Aben Ezra himself confesses and teaches (in his preface on Genesis), and likewise another Rabbi, Elias, in the Tishbi, saying: “JESUS the Christians say to be their Messiah. He was called יֵשׁוּעַ by the precept of the Angel Gabriel [as] יְהוֹשֻׁעַ, that is, because he was to save the whole world from Gehenna.” Do you see how perspicuously they point out the proposed root of salvation, and understand [it] better — the Jews — than the heretic Osiander?
Yet there are two causes why the impious Talmudists wished to write [it] without hain [ʿayin]. One is that they do not acknowledge their Saviour JESUS CHRIST, our Lord, and they begrudge him so noble a name, as the same Elias confesses. The other
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is that they imitated the sound which the Christians, with whom they dwell, [make] in uttering this name. For they do not sound that Hebrew Ieschua, but Iesu or Iezus, says the same Rabbi Elias — who [gives] the cause [too] above, question 9. He subjoins a third: “that hain is of the most difficult pronunciation.” Whence he also cites this canon from Aben Ezra: “Whosoever has not learned the reading of cheth and hain in his first years, those letters he will never, in his whole life, be able to pronounce.” And indeed, for this very cause, the same Talmudists — and the Syrians — omit the same letter in other names too, in which there is either a reason of hatred and impiety, or none of imitating the Christians. For they say, for schaba, sab — that is, “seven”; for Ketzia, Ketz — that is, “cut off”; for there-hesar or basar, theresar — that is, “twelve” (by which name [they call] the book of the Minor Prophets, because these are the twelve Prophets, as in the Galeatus Prologue holy Jerome shows); for arba-aser, arbisar — that is, “fourteen.” For Behal, Bel — that is, Belus. And this one cause give Genebrard (in his Isagoge on the Rabbis, ch. 37) and the Chaldee [Tables] of Mercer, or the Tables of Drusius at the beginning. Another, however, is Osiander’s reasoning: that, if Iesus were Iehosua, it should rather be interpreted “to-be-saved” [saluandus] than “Saviour” [Salvator]. But the imprudent man speaks so, as if either Iehosua or Iesua were participles (which are called peʿulim), when they are proper names — and as if that former [name] did not even have the beginnings of participles, which otherwise would be Iaschuah, or rather monschah, just as Mochia, who “saves” in the book of Judges, as will there be said. Third: Iesu is written among the Arabs, disyllabic, namely Isa; or, as in the book of Christ [the Qur’an?], with [pious] zeal, is written Ice. What then, I ask? Even among us, when we do not pronounce [it] in the Greek [way], IESU is disyllabic. And likewise Iesua among the Hebrews, who labor to pronounce [it] more accurately, as one may learn from ch. 2, p. 1, of Bellarmine’s Grammar. Nor, indeed, does that which, in the Arabic Qur’an of the Turks, is a disyllabic name make anything to the matter — since there it is written at the beginning with hain, as also [the name of] Bajazet’s son, Sultan Isa, [is written] in the Iuchasin, and [as] Scaliger [notes], book 2 of the Isagoge, p. 149. And it is certain that many things in the Qur’an are written and read most corruptly — as, for Esau, Beelzebub, and, [from] the Gospel, Eles, Iblis, and Engil [Injil]. In other Arabic books, frequent [is] Iasue through hain, as Caninius warns in the indicated place. Therefore no reasoning of any moment [belongs] to the Innovator.
But, concerning [him] cited in the first opinion, St. Epiphanius: let the Reader know that he, on account of the similitude of the Greek verb, derived IESUS from “medicine” [healing] — just as others, too, [derive it] from the Syrian asa, which likewise signifies “to heal”; as also certain ones said [that] Cepham [comes from the Greek] kephalēn, because St. Peter is the head of the Church; and Ierosolyma, as though “sacred Solyma” [Hierà Solyma] — Eusebius and Hegesippus. [It is,] however, by no means true [to say] that [these Fathers] denied the etymon which is handed down by the Angel and here expounded; rather, [they] added it too — as, against Joseph Scaliger, I taught (book 3 of the Trihaeresis, ch. 1, and book 5 of the Mineralia, ch. 1). That same allusion of names St. Cyril had in view. But St. Bernard seems always to have held the Angelic etymology, who also (sermon 1, on the Vigil of the Nativity): “Why,” he says, “shalt thou call his name JESUS, unless because he himself shall save his people from their sins? The piety of JESUS exceeds every quantity — or multitude — of sins.” Let St. Augustine also be seen (sermon 8, On the Words of the Apostle)…
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…[on the Words of the] Apostle, ch. 6 and 7. Nor does it stand in the way that St. Bernard called JESUS a “Physician.” For that is affirmed from the works, not from the name JESUS; or, if from the name, not from its etymology, but from its signification — because it belongs to Physicians too to “cure health” [salutem curare] and to “save bodies” [corpora salvare]. Whence (book 7, ch. 25), Caesarius, out of Ecclesiasticus ch. 38: “The Most High created medicine out of the earth” — that is, out of the flesh of the Virgin MARY, the Saviour. JESUS is interpreted “Saviour,” or “salutary” [saving], because the Saviour is a physician, and a salutary medicine. But what is it, that Eusebius (book 4 of the Demonstration, ch. last) [says] — [that] Jesus or Joshua [signifies] not simply “Saviour” and “salvation,” but sōtērion of God, that is, “the salvation of God”? I answer: they seem to have thought two words to have coalesced in this name — iescha, that is, “salvation,” and Iah or Iehovah, which they expressed by iaō — as is understood from Theodoret (question 15 on Exodus). And thence Theophylact (on Matthew 1) and Moschopulus (de schedis) are either to be corrected or to be [charitably] understood, when they seem to say that IESUS comes from iaō, because among the Hebrews that word iaō signifies sōtērion [salvation].