In any name whatsoever there can be considered either its sound or its signification; and that, either in the compounding of other words, or apart [from them]. By reason of sound, this name seems to be proved to have a certain efficacy: 1. from this, that if it be uttered in another language or sound, or its synonym, or a periphrasis be employed, it effects nothing — or at least not so much — as if, in the name Iosua, something be done, or [in] “soter,” or “salvator” [saviour]. 2. Other words too, from their own quality and sound, have a certain marvelous force of effecting. Against diseases — e.g. fever: “Inscribe on paper what is called Abracadabra,” says Serenus Samonicus. And again others: “Ananisapta smites the death which seeks to harm” — that is, that word has a force adverse to diseases and death; and in Pliny (book 28, ch. 2) many of that kind may be read. There Attalus affirms [that], a scorpion having been seen, if someone say “DVO” [two], it is checked, nor does it vibrate the sting. In Africa, no one settles down [to rest], unless he has first said “Africa.” Against the burning of houses they availed — “Arse verse” — so that they were inscribed on those [walls]. What of the so many charms which (says the same Pliny) exist against hail, against kinds of diseases, against burns, in childbirths? And others, by which, out of the cities which they were besieging, the Romans called forth the deities in whose tutelage those [cities] were; by which the Vestals, in place of prayer, held back fugitive slaves who had not yet gone out of the city; by which crops were charmed away, snakes enchanted, men transfixed [bewitched]? Does not Cato, by certain words, aid dislocated limbs? Does not, in Homer, Ulysses check the flux of blood, the woman being wounded, by a charm? Does not, in Varro, Caesar the Dictator — after one perilous fall of [his] vehicle — always, as soon as he had sat down, by a charm thrice repeated, seek to secure safe travels? The serpents of the Marsi, [by their] charm
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are drawn together, even in [their] nocturnal quiet. And the same Pliny adds (ch. 3): In the Island of the Nile, Tentyra, those born [there] are so great a terror to crocodiles that they [the crocodiles] flee even their voice. Do not lions, at the crowing of cocks heard, tremble? And in the last age, as Crantzius put in writing (book 11 of the Wandalia, ch. 9), and Cochlaeus (book 5 On the Hussites) — a most wicked heretic (for he was the Leader of the Hussites) — by a drum [made] of [human] skin, heard, struck terror into the enemy. And among the ancients certain names were reckoned “good and prosperous,” which effected [it] that those who bore them were chosen, in the public lustrations, for leading forth the victims. Finally, several patrons of this opinion can be cited: Serenus, about whom above; Aetius (book 4, ch. 5); Alexander Trallianus (book 11, often; and book 12, ch. 7); the interpreter of Theocritus (who is also cited by Junius, book 3 of the Variae Lectiones, ch. 11); Paracelsus; Ficinus (on the Cratylus, where [he brings] many things from Pythagoras, and about this very name JESUS); Pomponatius, Grillandus, Pico [della Mirandola], the Cabalists, Fr. Venetus [Giorgio] (tome 6, section 8, num. 296, and, against Michael Medina, book 2 On the Right Faith, ch. 7), the patron Alphonsus Mendoza (question 10, Positiva), and others. But, as it were the standard-bearer of all, is Origen, who (book 1 Against Celsus) speaks thus: “These names — Sabaoth, Adonai, and others handed down among the Hebrews with great veneration — are efficacious, if they be pronounced in a certain manner and order congruent to them. Others too, uttered in the Egyptian tongue, have a certain force against some demons; and again another [force] in another tongue, the Persian, and so among individual other nations; and certain uses are assumed.” And when he had said more about these, and likewise about the names of the three Angels — Michael, Gabriel, Raphael — he subjoins that which is proper to this question: “To names of this kind our JESUS too belongs — [a name] of Philosophy — by the efficacy of whose name innumerable Demons have now manifestly been seen put to flight from the bodies and souls they had occupied.” And, speaking again generally, he proceeds. To these is to be added what those skilled in incanting affirm: [that] the same incantation, pronounced in one’s own proper tongue, effects what it promises; but if you translate it into any other words whatsoever, it evidently loses its force — so that that force is not in the significations of things, but in the very qualities and properties of the words, [and] is efficacious for this or that. And (book 4, fol. 465) the same relates about the names Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, joined with the name of God, and says these are familiar to God himself, and horrible to the Demons. And at last (book 5), without any veil, most openly: “We find,” he says, “that the nature of names is not according to the [mere] pleasure [convention] of men” — which was the view of Aristotle — “and [that] words having a double force in some tongue, if they be translated into another, do not obtain the same force. For a man, from birth called by this or that Greek name, if — the name being changed into Roman [Latin], or Egyptian, or of whatever nation — you should [try to] enchant [him], the incantation will not be efficacious; whereas it would be efficacious if you used the name long ago imposed on him. The same happens in the Roman [Latin] name, if, changed into Greek, you attempt the incantation: the incantation which was going to avail will not avail, if you use the pristine [original] name. If this is true in human names, what is to be thought of [names] attributed to God, for whatever cause? For example’s sake, it signifies something if you interpret [it]: ‘God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob.’ Let someone adjure by the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob — he will effect something through the innate force of those names, the demons yielding, and at the commands of the conqueror…”
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…[and at the commands] of the conqueror. The same [man], if he say — adjuring — “by the God of the erect father, the God of laughter, the God of the supplanter” [i.e. translating Abraham, Isaac, Jacob into their meanings], will effect just as much as if he employed any name whatsoever, however inert [powerless]. So neither Israel, nor Sabaoth, nor Adonai — its signification being preserved, [but] changed into another language — is efficacious.” So much, namely, does Origen attribute to the sound of the names themselves.
But by reason of signification, others attribute efficacy to this same name. But let there be five propositions.
The first. The most august name of JESUS — whether in the combination of other words, or apart [from them] — by reason of its own sound only, has no force of effecting those things which were set forth in the previous question. For it has only so much [force] as all other words have — even those signifying nothing, [or] barbarous, impious, and obscene — [namely,] that they can strike the ears and beat the air. For what has JESUS in [its] sound, other than Peter, or Job? And indeed there are many words of the vilest and most shameful things, much grander and more sonorous. But all other words whatsoever, from their sound only, can effect nothing at all beyond [the fact] that they are heard, and [beyond] whatever can flow from it [the sound] into the body. Just as color can move only the eyes, and flavor [only] the taste, and odor [only] the smell, and other things [only] the other senses, so also whatever noises of whatever words can move only the ears. Let Molanus be seen (ch. 56, On Pictures), who, while he teaches against heretics [that] there is nothing of superstition in this name, painted or pronounced, among Catholics, says: “Catholics know, from the sacred sermons and from elsewhere, [that] in the letters of the word JESUS no mystery, holiness, or virtue is contained — that they [the letters] are of no greater virtue than thy name or mine.” But because some have feigned that letters and syllables have a certain kinship, I know not what, with the stars, and are rays of those very things — or, inasmuch as words are from a nobler tongue, [that they] are endowed with a certain efficacy — [whoever wishes] will have to read him who most learnedly and copiously disproves all these things, our Delrio (Magical Disquisitions, book 1, ch. 4, q. 3), and Suárez (tome 2, disputation 15, section last); to whom could be added my [note] on Tobit ch. 8, questiuncula 4 and 5. But Pythagoras placed very much of moment in the arithmetical [values of the] letters of names, as Dominus Florimundus [Florimond de Raemond] of Bordeaux explains (ch. 20 of the book On Antichrist). But he is refuted by Medina (book 2 On the Right Faith, ch. 1). And it appears in the German war against Charles the Fifth, where the Lutherans promised themselves certain victory, because Charles [Carolus] was worth [numerically] only 155, but Mauricius [Maurice] 1210, as Melanchthon noted somewhere. Otherwise, there are, in this most sacred name ΙΗΣΟΥΣ, 888, which are gathered thus:
letter value Ι 10 Η 8 Σ 200 Ο 70 Υ 400 Σ 200 total 888 …so that on that account someone has said: “Thou whose three [figures] are eights, be to me, O Saviour, as I wish.”
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“…lest the numberless one devour thee, [he] whose number is thrice six.”
That is, he about whom Apocalypse 13, v. 18, [speaks]: Antichrist — whose number, because the number of JESUS is greater, JESUS will easily overcome that enemy, by the rule and prescript of this [same] vanity. In book 1 of the Sibyllines these [verses] are read:
“Then to mortals he will come, to the mortals themselves on earth like [them], born of the omnipotent Father, clothed with a body. But four vowels — H, I, O, Y — he bears, and two non-vowels [the two Σ], of the twice-born [pair]; but what be the sum of the whole number, I will teach: for eight monads [units], and as many decads [tens] over these, and eight hecatontads [hundreds] — to faithless [men] the name will signify, to human [men]; but do thou, in [thy] mind, hold CHRIST, born of the eternal and highest Parent.” (margin: 8 · 80 · 800 = 888.)
But these octads and monads and decads and hecatontads, variously — both in this name JESUS, and in others, and in the whole Greek alphabet — [yet] vainly and wrongly, the Marcosian heretics considered, as tome 1, heresy 34, St. Epiphanius shows. There are too (as in book 1 of Capnio [Reuchlin]) some of the Cabalists, to whom a great efficacy of the anagrammatism of words seems [to belong]. And indeed, in [Greek], a splendid eulogy [is] this — tò hē óïs, that is, “Thou [art] thyself the ewe” (by whose victim and sacrifice, namely, the divine power is to be appeased) — [which] Auratus [Jean Dorat], among the Poets of France, cleverly saw. But how often, in the same [name] thus described, and the name being transformed, can contrary significations be found? The whole of this is a play of wit, not of thing and truth. And therefore, among other notable [charges] which Gabriel Powell the Englishman falsely attributes to Catholics, is this — not the least (book 2, p. 372): “The Pagan Church” (so a heretic dares to speak of the Catholic [Church]) “sins against the second article of the Symbol [Creed], when it judges the syllables and letters of this name JESUS to be venerable in themselves.” Let him be ashamed of the lie.
II. The same name JESUS, by reason of signification, apart from all combination of words, naturally has that force, that it sets before the mind of another hearer God and man. And so it variously affects him, according to the hearer’s diverse affection — whether toward JESUS himself, [the thing] signified, or toward the one pronouncing [it]. For he who loves JESUS is sweetly affected when that name is heard; he returns into the memory of his [Jesus’s] merits and benefits, [and] thinks about salvation, whether his own, or [that] procured for another through him. Sometimes, too, he beholds him as if present and standing by, and with a most religious mind venerates and beseeches [him] — as St. Ephrem, an eyewitness, relates about St. Julian (tome 3, fol. 266). For when he [Ephrem] had noted, in the books which that one [Julian] used, various erasures of letters — wherever, namely, the names of God, of the Lord JESUS CHRIST, and of the Saviour had been written — [he asked, and Julian answered]: “‘On a certain day,’ he says, ‘I said to him: Who corrupts [defaces] these books? But he [replied] to me: Nothing,’ he says, ‘will I hide from thee more deeply. The harlot woman, approaching the Saviour, watered his feet with tears, and wiped [them] with the hairs of her head; and I, wherever I find the name of my God written, water [it] with my tears, that I too may receive from him remission of sins. But he [Julian] said: my heart is not watered [together] with me, unless I weep before the Lord my God.’” About St. Francis, St. Bonaventure writes, that when — reading the Psalms — the name of the LORD occurred in them, he, out of [its] sweetness,
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…[out of the sweetness] he seemed to lick his lips. But the name of JESUS, when he uttered or heard [it] — filled inwardly with a certain jubilee — he seemed to be wholly changed outwardly, as if a mellifluous flavor had changed [his] taste, or a harmonious sound [his] hearing. But he who hears or fears JESUS, like the Demon, is indignant and terrified when that name is heard. For just as images, so also those sonorous marks of things set in motion the power of understanding. Again, if God sees him who says “JESUS,” [he is moved] to praise him, and to bring [him] forth to be praised, to place hope in him, to demand something through his merits, [and] to attribute authority and power to him in whatever thing is to be done; [God] willingly grants [his] prayers, even if [the name] be uttered only as a sort of hidden, grieving, or admiring interjection. But the Demon, on the contrary, grieves, mourns, shudders. For as to what Arnobius says (book 1) — “the actions of the Magi are broken, the Demons are attempted to be weakened, not by the horror of that name” — [that] is to be understood of that horror alone which the Gentiles feigned. For when these [Gentiles] saw most clearly that neither the Magi nor the Demons resisted this name, those wretched ones said [that] these [Magi and Demons] could indeed resist, if they wished, but so hated and despised this name that they were unwilling to hear it — just as if some most powerful Lord, at the name of some slave whom he held hateful, having heard [it], should grow hot [with anger], be vexed, turn away from it, and show, by words and deeds, that he could not bear [it]. And therefore the same Arnobius said, “not by horror, as you say, O Gentiles, of the name, but by the greater license of [its] power” — that is, this name JESUS does it, “not by that [horror] which you pretend,” or “not by horror alone, as you say, but by that force and power which was given to this name divinely, to which, though they most wish [it] and most strive [to resist], the Magi, Demons, [or] any creatures can in no way resist.” Rightly, on Psalm 21, St. Augustine expounded [it] (exposition 1): “Lest someone powerful invade the house of another, he places there the name-plates of the powerful [owner]; so that, when the title has been read, someone, terrified, may abstain from the invasion, through the power of the name.”
3. The same name JESUS, in the combination of words, by reason of its own signification, effects all those same things naturally, and much more efficaciously still. Because in that combination the mind of the speaker is more clearly opened, and in the mind of the hearer is fixed the authority, command, merit, force, power, and glory of that very JESUS [who is] signified. For the sense of these words, “in the name of JESUS,” can be chiefly fivefold. For either, first, it is “in the authority,” or “by,” “and through the authority”: John 14, v. 26, “The Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things.” Or, secondly, “by command,” or “on account of the empire [authority]”: for that [word] at Luke 5, v. 5, “In thy word I will let down the net,” Peter could have said, “in thy name I will let down the net.” Or, thirdly, “in [the] merit,” or “on account of and through [the] merit”: John 14, v. 13, “Whatever you shall ask in my name, that I will do”; and v. 14, “If you shall ask anything in my name, this I will do.” Or, fourthly, it is “in [the] power,” or “through [the] power”: John 10, v. 25, “The works which I do in the name of my Father”; Matthew last, “Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Or, fifthly, finally, it is “in [the] glory,” or “on account of glory and praise”; and this is implicated in all the higher modes. And that too, perhaps, is signified by the Greek, when Matthew last says, “baptizing them eis ónoma [into a name],” as if “into the name,” or
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“to the name and glory.” And in all these modes [is] that true [saying]: “There is no other name” (Acts 4, v. 12) “under heaven given to men, in which it behooves us to be saved”; and by these two propositions it can come about, [that] which was handed down in the sixth effect of the previous question. And indeed the same phrase is read, in the same sense which I mentioned, [at] Acts ch. 8, v. 16, mónon bebaptisménoi hypêrchon eis tò ónoma toû kyríou [only they had been baptized into the name of the Lord]; and, in the same book, ch. 19, v. 5, ebaptísthēsan eis tò ónoma toû kyríou Iēsoû — that is, “they were baptized in the name, or into the name, of the Lord JESUS.”
4. The same name JESUS, as much apart as in the combination of words, supernaturally drives out diseases and Demons, [and] performs miracles — from the work, namely (as the Theologians speak), “wrought” [ex opere operato]. For God, either through himself, and [through] the Angels, immediately, or through this name as [through] an instrument, applies force to diseases and Demons, and routs them — as, [in] the place cited above on Tobit, [it was] said. For God is moved, either by the sole presenting and memory of his own Son JESUS, while — for preserving or amplifying his [Son’s] faith and glory — he effects those [things]; or the same name effects [them] by the sole prayer, religion, [or] virtue of those pronouncing [it], or by both. And this [latter is] the more usual — although the first mode sometimes happens, when this name is pronounced by the impious, as above (from Luke 9, v. 49) [was] said. “Nor [is it] a wonder,” says St. Augustine (book of 83 [Questions], q. 79), “that these signs avail when they are employed by good Christians, when even sometimes they avail [when] usurped by strangers [outsiders], who have not at all given their name to that warfare, [but] avail nevertheless on account of the honor of the most excellent Emperor.” But the second mode — [in which] the glory of CHRIST is passed by, [and] God regards the piety of men alone — God never assumes [uses]. For even if God does regard the pious prayers and vows of the pious, yet never does he seclude [set aside] the praises and celebrity of JESUS himself; so that the third mode is rather used by God. Our Gretser may be seen (book 4 On the Holy Cross, ch. 44 and 45, adjoining ch. 62).
5. Sometimes [things] are done through other names too — of God, or of the saints — similar to those which have been mentioned; but neither so often, nor so certainly and efficaciously: although not even in this name [JESUS] is there that certitude and efficacy which is in the formulas of the Sacraments. The first part appears in the name of CHRIST, [as] in Theodoret (in Theophilus, ch. 21), in Prudentius, and others; yet [note that] the name of CHRIST is almost always joined to this name JESUS (Acts 3, 4, 16) — [as also] in [the name] of God himself, or of the Father, or of the Son, and [of] the Holy Spirit, or of others; which [names] are also employed in exorcisms, and of old especially in that tetragrammaton. See Abulensis (on Exodus 20, q. 7). Of the names of the saints too — e.g. the Blessed Mary — the origin of the greater Church of the Blessed Virgin of Poitiers bears witness (about which Michel de Montaigne, book 1 of the Essays [Miscellanea], ch. 46, and book 1, ch. 9); [St.] Bridget, about others (book 6, ch. 34). The second part is gathered from the outcomes: [namely,] that they [holy men] effected, even among men, that no names were so frequently in use, or so revered, as this one. And the reason is, because God wills this name — because it marks our salvation, and the beginning and fount of salvation, more [than others do] — to be the more in esteem and memory among all, so that both God himself may be praised, and we men may the more be stirred up. The third part is clear, because there is no [holy] decree or promise of God [to the effect] that, in the future, this name being pronounced, these [things]…
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…or those marvelous [things] happen; but they happen only when they thus conduce to the divine goodness, to the praise of JESUS himself, and to our greater utility. St. Augustine (book 22 City of God, ch. 22): “Although,” he says, “through the holy [things] and the saints great consolations of cures are granted, yet not therefore are the benefits themselves always bestowed on those asking — lest on account of this [i.e. earthly benefit] religion be sought, which must be sought on account of another life, where there will be no evils at all.” St. Chrysostom (homily 8 on the Romans): “If there have been many who, by those charms said [e.g. the name JESUS having been uttered], were by no means healed, let them accuse their own little faith, not the weakness of the thing said.” And (homily 9 on the Colossians): “Commanding diseases, this name is terrible. And if you do not drive out the disease, it is not from this, that this name is weak, but that the disease is useful [to you].” Now [reply] is made to those [objections] which were raised at the beginning.
To the first. Marvelous [things] can be, and sometimes are, done through a synonym of this [name], or a periphrasis. But, that the force, majesty, and glory of our Saviour himself may be understood and celebrated more openly and certainly, God does more through his own proper name than through others. But I say “proper” [taken] in that manner in which, among the nations where the matter is at issue, it is wont to be pronounced — e.g., among us JESUS, among the Greeks Iēsous, among the Syrians and Arabs Iesua. Nevertheless, out of [regard for] the mind of those who pronounce [it] otherwise, sometimes it happens otherwise too. For that [mind] God most regards — as, in St. Bridget (book 6, ch. 95), about that one who did not know the Our Father; in another writer, I know not whom, about him who used to say “Miserere tui Deus” [God have mercy on thee, grammatically faulty]; and about so many who, in Gaul and elsewhere, pray in Latin, and indeed with very many — and sometimes most ridiculous — barbarisms and solecisms.
To the second I say three [things]. 1. Many things in those histories [of the pagans] are not very certain; and therefore, although in the cited place Pliny recounts these, yet about the whole matter he doubts not a little. For thus he begins the chapter: “From man [is] the first of remedies — [and] the greatest question, and always uncertain — whether words and the incantations of charms avail anything.” And afterwards, “if it is true”; “if once that reasoning be received.” And at last he concludes: “about these, as it shall please each, let him think.” Then, among these [histories], there are some which commend certain words with their significations, of which [words] that there are some effects no one indeed denies; but [Pliny] denies only [that they are] supernatural, prodigious, and those monster-making [effects]. Thirdly, but of these effects, if some have happened, they pertained to superstition and the work of the Demons — as [it is] in Augustine (book 18 City of God, ch. 18), [and] Delrio (book 3, p. 2, q. 4, s. 8, to the second).
To the third. Of those authors [who ascribe efficacy to names], some are Magi, some superstitious; but others — addicted either to the events of things, or to the narrations of certain men, and to some petty reasonings — preferred to feign or opine any cause whatsoever, rather than to seem to know none at all, or to confess [it] Demoniac [i.e. of demons]. But Origen — as the reasoning proposed to the first argument, so also this whole doctrine is to be rejected; nor, as he says, “is this the force of the name, or the quality, the cause, why the pious Christians were unwilling to call God Ioue [Jupiter], but because black is not to be called white, nor good [called] evil.” For they [the Christians] would have seemed either to worship a fictitious God, or to deny the true God, if — according to the pleasure of the Gentiles — they had attributed the names of the [pagan] Gods to the true God. Otherwise, [as with] the altar of the unknown God, and the Aratean [i.e. Aratus’s] God
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— whose kindred and neighborhood, indeed, St. Paul accommodated to the true worship of God (Acts 17).