Divine names

The book of Hosea presents two poignant scenarios of divine love, awaiting resolution: the adventures of a failed conjugal covenant and the test of parental love at the breakpoint. In both these registers, divine love proves to be tested but victorious, at the expense of a reversal. God would have every legitimate reason to withdraw his love and break up, but he does not. This drama of divine love reveals a radical difference in nature between God and his people, which is a signal towards the Incarnation. This enables a human response, without the radical asymmetry between God and his creature being overturned.

The paper is divided into two parts. First, the author describes the historical context in which Aquinas drafted his commentary on pseudo-Dionysius. The author suggests that the commentary may have been written during Aquinas’s stay in Rome (1265-1267/8), i.e. when Aquinas was writing Summa Theol. Ia, qu. 12, a question on divine names. The second section of the paper focuses on Aquinas’s claims concerning one’s capacity of knowing God. After having expounded the limits of the human capacity of knowing God, the author expounds on the via remotionis and eminentiae, and on the via causalitatis – the three methods for grasping something of God. The author observes that Aquinas was not eager to agree with pseudo-Dionysius’s agnosticism – and this may be a consequence of the 1241 condemnation of the thesis, according to which the blessed in heaven do not see God’s essence.

This article compares the appropriations of the divine names El and Baal into the Yahwistic faith in ancient Israel with the Christian use of the word "Allah" in contemporary Indonesia. This study finds that, like El and Baal, "Allah" can function as both an appellative and personal name in contemporary Indonesia. However, the term ''Allah'' in Indonesia is at a crossroads to develop either to be more generic, like El, or to be more personal, like Baal. Learning from the peaceful appropriation of El as a generic name and the polemical appropriation of Baal as a personal name in ancient Israel, Indonesian Christians need to advocate the use of the name Allah as an appellative because it may prevent unnecessary conflicts in the Christian-Muslim relationship in Indonesia. Furthermore, the use of the common word "Allah" in Indonesia to refer to the supreme being is crucial for promoting interreligious dialogue between Islam and Christianity. The process of translating divine names has always been a complicated and daunting task. It requires a mastery of cross-cultural understanding, and the process is not always peaceful. The recent polemics against the use of the word "Allah" to translate the word "God" in Arabic-speaking or predominantly Muslim countries, including in Indonesia,

The paper studies the place of the Areopagitic treatise 'Divine names' (Latin 'De divinis nominibus') in the tradition of Neoplatonic commentaries on Plato’s 'Cratylus' and focuses on the comparison with such a commentary by Proclus. A few arguments may prove that Pseudo-Dionysius could be well acquainted with this Proclus’ commentary, and therefore the Divine names could have been intentionally authored in a vein of imitation or competition with Proclus. The first three chapters of the 'Divine names' expound a set of theoretical propositions in such a detailed manner that allows reconstructing the dialectics used in the following chapters to explain the meanings of particular God’s names. Along with Neoplatonic philosophical language, these propositions inherit Proclus’ dialectics of the whole and parts, of the identity and difference, the ontological hierarchy, the doctrine of causation and participation, some noticeable features of apophaticism. All of them are relevant to the theory of naming and distinguishing types of names. An analysis of these principles makes possible to introduce the classification of names described in the 'Divine names' and the 'Celestial hierarchy' with significant similarities and differences when compared to the analogous classification of Proclus. The results obtained reveal how Proclean dialectics and ontology may be applied to the research of the Areopagitic ‘theolinguistics’ and its localization in the history of late Ancient and early Medieval philosophy.


Ареопагитический трактат «О божественных именах» рассматривается в перспективе традиции неоплатонического комментария на «Кратил» Платона, в котором особое место занимает комментарий Прокла. Предлагаются аргументы в пользу того, что псевдо-Дионисий не только был хорошо знаком с этим комментарием Прокла, но и осознанно выстраивал трактат «О божественных именах» в духе подражания или соперничества с ним. Отмечено преемство у Прокла как в отношении философской терминологии, так и в ряде концепций, включая диалектику целого и частей, тождества и различия, принцип онтологической иерархии, учение о причинности и причастности, некоторые особенности апофатического метода, – все они отражаются в принципах именования и различения видов имён. На основе анализа этих принципов предложена классификация имён, учитывающая основные их типы в трактатах «О божественных именах» и «О небесной иерархии», показаны сходства и различия с аналогичной классификацией у Прокла. Показано, что диалектика и онтология Прокла могут применяться для углубления понимания ареопагитической «теолингвистики» и её локализации в историко-философском контексте.

Résumé
Dans le Coran, Dieu l’unique se fait connaître par une multiplicité de noms exprimant ses attributs. Plus que les attributs, ce sont les noms divins qui ont inspiré la pensée théologique et philosophique en Islam, notamment chez le soufi Ibn ‘Arabī (m.1240) et, à sa suite, en milieu shī‘ite imâmite. L’article analyse ainsi la doctrine, à la fois traditionnelle et originale, élaborée par des gnostiques shī‘ites entre le XIVe et le XVIIe siècles (VIIIe-XIe s / anno Hegirae).  Partant d’un système complexe de classification et de hiérarchisation, ils développent l’idée d’une théophanie des noms divins pour rendre compte de ce monde, de l’au-delà et de l’homme, avant de rejoindre l’imâmologie shī‘ite par l’idée de l’Homme parfait comme manifestation du Nom suprême.
Abstract
In the Qur’an, the one God makes himself known through multiple names which express His attributes. More than the attributes, it is the divine names which have inspired theological and philosophical reflections within Islam, among others by the Soufi Ibn ‘Arabī (d. 1240) and, in his footsteps, among Imami Shī’is. This article analyses the doctrine set forth by gnostic Shī’is between the 14th and the 17th cent. (8th-11th cent. anno Hegirae). Relying on a complex taxonomic and hierarchical system, they developed the idea of a theophany of divine names in order to account for the world, for what lies beyond it, and for human beings, before converging with Shī’i imamology through the idea of the perfect Man as manifestation of the supreme Name.

Il presente articolo è dedicato alla riflessione di s. Tommaso d’Aquino sulla modalità di nominazione dello Spirito Santo. Esso si compone di tre paragrafi. Nel primo, si presentano i limiti del linguaggio teologico in genere e le difficoltà nel nominare rispetto alle altre persone trinitarie. Nel secondo paragrafo, si illustrano i differenti tipi di nomi divini – intelligibili, simbolici, propri, trinitari – e si spiega il meccanismo dell’ appropriazione che permette di parlare specificamente di ciascuna Persona della Trinità. Nel terzo paragrafo si analizzano i tre nomi propri dello Spirito – Spirito Santo, Amore, Dono – così come emergono dalla Summa Theologiae. L’articolo si chiude richiamando il metodo dei teologi medievali di unire lo sforzo necessario di dire l’indicibile e i limiti dei suoi risultati.

To Proslogion 12 “You are what you are through yourself”
(Cap 12: “quidquid es, non per aliud es quam per teipsum”). 

The Proslogion is the realization of a quest to know the existence and nature of God in the way that God exists. It attempts to realize now, in a different way than Augustine also required in Confessions 10, St Paul’s promise in I Corinthans 13.12 that human knowing of God would pass from a dim mirroring in something else to face to face knowledge, so that we would know  God in the way that God has known and knows us. “One argument that for its proof required no other save itself alone (unum argumentum, quod nullo alio ad se probandum quam se solo indigeret),”  would draw us into this equalization of our way of knowing and God’s knowing and being. Chapter 1 shows that this quest for face to face knowledge of God is essential to the human as rational. It is prayed for with great frequency in the Benedictine opus dei where the recitation of the psalter is central: “Your face I seek, your face, Lord, I require (Quæro vultum tuum; vultum tuum, domine, requiro).” [Proslogion, c. 1]. The meditative turn inward it necessitates is  the heart of monastic life, its raison d’être. Whether known within us or in the world, God is not known immediately.
The meditative turn or conversion of the soul is based in a distinction which saves the proof in Chapters 2-4: “[T]here is not only one sense in which something is ‘said in one’s heart’ or thought. For in one sense a thing is thought when the word signifying it is thought; in another sense when the very object which the thing is is understood. ([N]on uno tantum modo dicitur aliquid in corde vel cogitatur. Aliter enim cogitatur res cum vox eam significans cogitatur, aliter cum id ipsum quod res est intelligitur.]) ” [Proslogion, c. 4] The proof for God’s existence in Chapter 2 requiring the fool’s denial of God’s existence had been undermined by the proof in Chapter 3 that God so truly is as to be unable to be thought not to be (“Sic ergo vere es, domine deus meus, ut nec cogitari possis non esse”). The unthinkability of God’s non existence is required because otherwise the creature would be above the creator and would judge concerning the creator (“ascenderet creatura super creatorem”, et iudicaret de creatore.” [Proslogion, c. 3]
The quest to conform our knowing to God’s knowing and being depends on the power to compare forms of knowing, a property of reason. This comparison is the fundamental of the definition of God in the proof: “than which nothing greater can be thought (quo maius nihil cogitari potest).” [Proslogion, c. 2] It is given by faith: “we believe you to be that than which nothing greater can be thought (credimus te esse aliquid quo nihil maius cogitari possit)” [Chapter 2];  “what I believed before by your giving (quod prius credidi te donante)” [Proslogion, c. 4]. The difference between forms of knowing which belongs to reasoning contains the difference between faith, on the one hand, and the certain understanding to which the proofs in 2 to 4 brings him, on the other: “I understand now … by your illumination (iam …  intelligo te illuminante).” [Proslogion, c. 4]
That kind of difference is necessary to all coming to know so far as faith, or something analogous,  gives in an obscure and preliminary way the knowledge which is sought. Faith or its analogue allows reason to find and recognize what it seeks. The impossibility of immediate direct knowledge and the necessity of the climb through lower forms is indicated also in the fact that the proof in Chapter 2 is by the negation of a negation.  (The negation of the fool’s denial in a reductio ad absurdum). As well as by its explicit denial: “Lord, I do not attempt to penetrate your height, because my understanding is in no way equal to it (Non tento, domine, penetrare altitudinem tuam, quia nullatenus comparo illi intellectum meum).” [Proslogion, c. 2]. Comparison between the human and divine ways of knowing and being continues in Chapters 5 to 12 as Anselm attempts to ascribe the proper attributes to God.

This is a chapter of my 2016 book "The Indo-European names of Central Hispania" (Innsbruck, IBS), with general references added in the end. I contend that adjectives in -ilo- like nubilus, pumilus or rutilus go back to regular adjectives in -ido- by way of dissimilation of dental sounds. A novel etymology of the divine name Pan, Skt.Pusan, is offered.

This report provides scanned images of a non-figurative Ethiopian magic scroll for Yemeru Walda-Ab. Its imagery is of the diagrammatic type and has high talismanic density. Brief curatorial notes are included, including analyses of client name insertions, one of the drawings and some voces magicae, but the main intention is to provide high-resolution (zoomable) images that will allow others virtual access to the artifact.

In his "exhortation to the reader," which appeared in the 1602 edition of what is now called the Reina-Valera version/Bible (Spanish), Cipriano de Valera wrote about the importance of the divine name in Scripture. 
Here is part of what he wrote, translated into English. 
Page 1:  Quotation of Psalm 1, “think in the law of Jehovah (of) day and (of) night.
Page 5: “Whose name is Jehovah.”
Page 9-11: C. de V. on the Importance of the name.
Page 10: "But the holy patriarchs and prophets took great comfort with this name; they wrote it and pronounced it, and they made oaths by the [name]. Read their writings. How many times do they say, 'Bless Jehovah'?  The 69th Psalm has 13 verses in which the name Jehovah is pronounced 11 times.  The 19th Psalm has 12 verses in which King David names Jehovah 18 times."

This paper attempts a cross-examination of divine holiness and transcendence. Contemporary continental philosophy shows both concern and embarrassment when dealing with God’s transcendence. It is often interpreted as an exclusion from this world. The underlying projection belongs to some residual Deism of our age. By analyzing three biblical accounts of holiness (Hosea 11; Isaiah 6; Exodus 3), this paper proposes a requalification of transcendence according to the narratives through which it is revealed and addressed to three specific partners of God. Ultimately, holiness proves to be the transforming power of God.

Hristos, Mesia, Mântuitorul, Fiul lui Dumnezeu, Fiul Omului, Logosul: oare între atâtea titluri mai recunoaștem Numele lui Dumnezeu? Care era semnificația numelui Iisus în iudaismul celui de-al Doilea Templu și ce se întâmplă cu acest nume, în mediul iudeo-creștin, după Întruparea, Răstignirea și Învierea Mântuitorului? Care este diferența între persoana Iisus și numele ,,Iisus”? Cum și când ajung primii creștini ,,să cheme numele Domnului” (Ioil 3, 5, cf. Fap 2, 21), cu referire la Iisus? Când anume are loc trecerea de la expresia veterotestamentară ,,numele Domnului” la sintagma „numele Domnului Iisus” și mai apoi la metonimia ,,Numele” din scrierile neotestamentare? Cum se răsfrânge teandria Mântuitorului asupra numelui Iisus? Cum anume se ajunge la adorarea numelui teofor Iisus împreună cu numele divin YHWH, fenomen unic în lumea iudaică? Care sunt raporturile dintre invocarea numelui divin Iisus și puterea, respectiv autoritatea acestuia? În ce anume constă rolul sfințitor al Numelui în raport cu botezul, mirungerea, euharistia și chiar crucea? Prin ce se deosebește folosirea ritualică a numelui Iisus față de practicile magice în care se conjură numele divine? Cum a evoluat teologia numelui Iisus după anul 70 d.H., când începe separarea creștinilor de evrei? Ce legătură există între această teologie iudeo-creștină a numelui și "rugăciunea lui Iisus" apărută ulterior în monahismul egiptean și lumea siriacă?
Posibile răspunsuri la aceste întrebări le găsiți în cartea de față, unde autorul regăsește rădăcinile iudeo-creștine ale "rugăciunii inimii", pornind de la puterea rostirii cu credință a Numelui mai presus de orice nume – Iisus.

The Talmudic sugya at BT Sanhedrin 38a is devoted to theological claims based on Scripture, which are ascribed to heretics, and to their refutation. One of these claims focuses on a syntactical difficulty in Ex. 24:1, purportedly the basic for an heretical argument for the existence of a second god. This argument is answered by an otherwise unknown rabbinic sage, Rav Idit, in a manner that is commonly understood as identifying God, mentioned in that verse, with the arch-angel Metatron. The present study points to various difficulties inherent in this reading of the dispute, and following the interpretation of the 11th century north African Talmud commentator, R. Hannanel, it offers a different reading, according to which the focus of that anti-heretical dispute is rather Ex. 23:20-21. As the dispute is Babylonian in its origin, and the rabbi is using a Persian (or Parthian) loan word – parvanka – it should be read against a specifically Babylonian background. Following the use of the word parvanka in Mandaic texts, this paper suggests that the dispute relates to the exalted, divine, status accorded to angels in Mandaic religion.