Many assert [it, drawing] from St. Paul, to the Philippians 2. But to some it seems that, by St. Paul there, “the name” is taken for “praise and glory” — so that the sense is: on account of the supreme dignity given to CHRIST himself by the Lord God [as] praise and glory, which is greater and more excellent than every other. And it seems it can be confirmed from this: that that name JESUS was not given to him after he was “obedient unto death, even the death of the cross,” but much before — namely, after his birth, on the eighth day (Luke 2, v. 21), nay, before he was conceived in the womb (Luke 1, v. 31). To certain others it seems [that] nothing else, in the Apostle, is “the name JESUS” than JESUS himself — so that by “name” not the word IESUS, but, by the figure of metonymy, “the thing itself,” namely CHRIST, is to be understood (says our Vasquez, book 2 On Adoration, disputation 8, ch. 10). Yet it seems much more probable that St. Paul speaks of the very name and word JESUS. First, because at verse 10 he himself expounds what he understands by “name,” and what name — [saying] “that in the name of JESUS every knee should bow, of heavenly and earthly and infernal [beings].” For in the Greek too, with the addition of the article, [it is] still clearer: hína en tō onómati Iēsou — that is, the word having been heard and perceived, [that] all should bend their knees, and should honor JESUS himself. But just as, when “name” is said [in] “He gave him a name,” CHRIST himself cannot be understood (otherwise God would have given CHRIST to CHRIST), so neither, when it is said “in the name of JESUS.” For in both places the same signification of the name is taken — which also, a little after, in the same place, the cited Vasquez confesses is well done [i.e., rightly taken so]. Secondly: because the Apostle perspicuously signifies that he speaks of a certain name, when he alludes to that custom of men whereby, while great men are named by their proper names, [others] are wont to show honor to them — by uncovering the head, by inclining the head, by bending the knees. For so, in Seneca, we read (epistle 65): “Why should I not have images of great men as incitements of the mind, and celebrate [their] birthdays? Why should I not always address them for honor’s sake? What veneration I owe to my own teachers, the same [I owe] to those teachers of the human race, from whom the beginnings of so great a good have flowed. If I see a consul, or a Praetor, all the [honors] by which honor is wont to be shown — I will compose my face, I will leap down from my horse, I will uncover my head, I will yield the path. What, then? Shall I receive Marcus Cato — both [Catos] — and Laelius the wise, and Socrates with Plato, and Zeno and Cleanthes, into my mind without the highest reverence? I indeed venerate them, and always rise up at such names.” Now, thirdly, the celebrity and the greatest glory of CHRIST the Lord himself — did not the Apostle indicate it most excellently, when he said that his proper name would be in so great honor that, at hearing it, they should bend the knee — not [those] who on earth only are mortals, but also those who [are] in heaven…
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…[not those who on earth only are mortal, but also those who are in heaven and under the earth,] immortal — even the Angels, even those who [are] among the infernal regions, whether they are in the “purgatory of the soul,” or, according to St. Chrysostom (in [his] homily 7 on that epistle), Theophylact, and Hugo (question 6), the Demons and the damned, as tome 1 also confirms (on the Circumcision of the Lord, sermon 1), Osorius. Whence there also follows (verse 11): “And every tongue confess that the Lord JESUS CHRIST is in the glory of God the Father.”
Fourth. This same [is] also perspicuous from the outcomes. For among all Christians this name is held in the highest esteem, as Abulensis notes (toward the end of question 6, on Exodus 20): [that] it is turned over in the mind with a certain remarkable religion and veneration, and uttered by the mouth; [that] it is heard with an uncovering of the head and a bending of the knees, or with some other sign of honor; [that] it is invoked in dangers and adverse chances — most of all of all, by great and small, learned and unlearned; [that], by Clement VII (as in Molanus, on January 15), it was adorned with a festal solemnity; [that] it was religiously honored with its own Mass and pious litanies; [that] it is most elegantly figured in books, on walls, and in temples, [and] carved most magnificently on stones, columns, and coins, [and] girded with most splendid rays — and that not among Catholics only, but (because a certain divine force wrings [it] even from the unwilling and resisting) even among the iconoclast Calvinists, and indeed among that very Beza — who, in his Annotations on the Philippians, denies that that passage is to be understood of this name. The Genevans, too, strike a golden coin, in which this name is girded and illumined round about with most illustrious rays.
Fifth. It is certain that this name is more excellent than all the names of all men and Angels, because it marks “Saviour” — and indeed while it is attributed to CHRIST the Lord: the Saviour who, through himself, by his own force, brings salvation, not to bodies only, but also to souls; and salvation not temporary only, but also (and most of all, indeed) eternal; nor that [salvation] to one nation only, or to two, and [to two] peoples, but to all. But if it be compared with the names of God (of which I spoke on Exodus), and most of all with the very quadriliteral [name] יהוה, Abulensis (in the cited place, question 7) still judges this [name] to be set before [it]; and this same our Osorius explains out of him (sermon 4, on the feast of the name of JESUS) — although he sometimes confounds JESUS with Iehova: perhaps because he assents to those who not very truly think [it] one and the same name; or rather because the name Iehova is a type of the name Iosue or JESUS, just as the ancient redemption of the Israelites out of Egypt was a type of our redemption out of hell, as our Pradus expounds that name (on ch. 1 of Ezekiel, vision 1, part 2, section 5).
Briefly, I [put it] thus. “The excellence of any name is taken from the sound or from the signification.” The former does not look here [is not relevant], since the names of the vilest things are sometimes of the sweetest sound — though not even this [sweetness of sound] is lacking to this name. But “from the signification” excellence is taken, either “on account of the thing signified,” or “on account of the manner of signifying.” In the names of God, indeed, one and the same thing is signified, and so all are on a par; but that same thing is often signified in one and another way. For either one and another property, one and another effect, is signified, or with a certain greater energy and perspicuity the same thing
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is shown. The divine property which is chiefly signified by this name is goodness and mercy; the effect is salvation. But than these, what is more excellent? what more useful to us? what sweeter and more acceptable? And the manner of signifying this is most clear, and likewise most full of divinity. For who, truly and perfectly, can save — unto every kind of salvation and manner of saving — save God? The name יהוה perhaps denotes the simple essence of God itself more clearly; but this [name Jesus] signifies that too, and, with a greater clarity, declares to us that most gracious and most-to-be-desired [attribute] attributed to that divine nature, and [its] works. That [name יהוה] was cultivated and held in awe among one nation only of the Jews — and indeed rather with silence than with voice and use — and was placed on the tiara of one High Priest only, as I handed down on Exodus; and lately, against heretics [it has been defended by] almost all others, and especially the Spanish preface of the Spanish Bibles [against] the heretic Io. Drusius, in a whole little book. But the name JESUS, among nations so many and so great, is most celebrated — and indeed with so many words, letters, images, coins, pyramids, columns, in the ornaments of Pontiffs, Kings, and Princes — in which, marked with the title of this most august name, [is] that column of our salvation, the bearer of life, the monument of eternity: the Cross.
Sixth. From the signs and predictions which were made about this name, when it was of old imposed on them [certain men], and celebrated in those who, by their deeds too, pre-signified the true JESUS. And these are chiefly two. The first is our Iosue [Joshua] here, as Tertullian teaches (book Against the Jews, ch. 9; book 3, Against Marcion, ch. 16), Justin ([Dialogue] with Trypho), Augustine (book 16 Against Faustus, ch. 19 and following; book 2, question 19; on Exodus, question 103), Ambrose (on Psalm 47; on Numbers 1), and Jerome (book 1 Against Jovinian), Origen (on Exodus 17, on Numbers 1, and on this book, homily 1), Theodoret (at the beginning of this same book), Eusebius (book 4 of the Demonstration, near the end). The other was JESUS [Joshua], son of Josedech, about whom I shall speak in [the commentary on] Esdras — and [of whom] Tertullian spoke (ch. last, Against the Jews), Lactantius (book 4, ch. 14), Origen (homily 9 on Leviticus), Ambrose (book 3 On the Faith, ch. 4), Eusebius (book 4 of the Demonstration, ch. 29), Augustine (book 12 Against Faustus, ch. 36), St. Jerome, and Theodoret (on Zechariah 3). Seventh. It is proved from the Fathers, who so interpret St. Paul’s sentence. Origen (homily 1 on this book): “The name,” he says, “which is above every name, is JESUS.” St. Bernard (in sermon 15 on the Canticles): “Oil,” he says, “is thy name poured out. Poured out plainly, because it not only suffused the heavens and the earth, but sprinkled also the infernal regions, so that in the name of JESUS every knee should bow, of heavenly, earthly, and infernal [beings], and every tongue confess and say: thy name is oil poured out.” Eighth. It is called (Hebrews ch. 1) “a more excellent name” — that is, as the Greek word indicates, “more excellent” [praestantius], or, as it is in Syriac, “more excellent than all names” — “a name,” I say (Ephesians 1), “above every name that is named in this world, and in the [world] to come.” Ninth. It can also be proved from the greatest efficacy of the same name — but this will be deferred to the following questiuncula. Hence, however, it appears how truly “according to his name Iosue was great,” as above [was] brought from Ecclesiasticus 46; and how rightly [it was done] through a notable man in Japan, Timazaca by name, who, when he had heard a certain one, in a certain danger, crying out “JESUS! MARY!”, straightway, down from his horse,
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…descended [from his horse], and gave thanks to God, that where before only the names of demons were wont to be heard, there now the most sweet names of JESUS and MARY were being invoked — as [Valentinus Carvaglio] wrote about these things from those regions in the year 1601. To the argument set at the beginning, I say: [that] this name was — by divine decree — imposed, on account of the foreknown and foreseen incredible humiliation which, for the sake of our salvation, he underwent. And I add [that], in Christmann’s Arabic Isagoge, p. 18, the testimony brought about this name is cited from Philippians 2 — in the Arabic tongue indeed, and in a good character [script], but perhaps in a bad version and fidelity. For that “and of the infernal ones” is omitted, whereas in the Arabic it is veman tachat alardi, that is, “and of those who [are] under the earth.” And [it is] perhaps a Typographical error; but in the books of heretics [there is] always a most just suspicion of fraud — unless it be found otherwise from another source.