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Holy Name
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“Words and magic were in the beginning one and the same thing,” wrote Sigmund Freud in his Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. There is perhaps no better illustration of this than the biblical creation story in the first chapter of Genesis. The Hebrew God has only to utter the name of a thing to call it into being. “Let there be light,” he intones, and — presto! — the lights go on. And so things unfold for six days as he calls forth light from darkness, firmament from waters and waters from dry land.· Then he conjures up the sun and moon and living creatures of every kind. And as a final act of creation, God forms human beings in his own image and grants them naming rights over all the other creatures he has called into being.
Theologians would no doubt recoil at the thought that the Hebrew God was some sort of cosmic sorcerer performing magic tricks at the dawn of creation. The priestly authors who crafted this version of the creation story (there is a second version in Genesis 2) probably had no such thing in mind. But this version is believed to be adapted from creation stories passed down orally by nomadic tribesmen for whom words and magic may indeed have been one and the same thing.
The creation story in Genesis follows the form of ritual incantations in which words produce magical effects. In this case, the key phrase is, “Let there be,” as in “Let there be light” and "Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” Except that in the original Hebrew text, the three-word phrase translated as, “Let there be,” is actually only a single word. So a literal translation from the Hebrew might read, “Light, be!”
The incantatory nature of the Genesis creation story becomes clear if each incantation were preceded by the word “abracadabra,” as in, “Abracadabra! Light, be!” Obviously, the word “abracadabra” doesn’t appear anywhere in the text. Indeed, the first use of “abracadabra” was not until the second century, CE, long after Genesis was written.* Interestingly, there have been suggestions that “abracadabra” derives from the Hebrew “ebrah k'dabri,” meaning “I create as I speak.” Is this not what the Hebrew God does every time he opens his mouth in Genesis 1?
Now consider the significance of the Hebrew God delegating to humans the power to name all the other living creatures. I use the term “power” advisedly, since the ancient Hebrews believed that the act of naming defined the essence of the thing named. In effect, the man also created as he spoke. But please note that of all the creatures the Hebrew God had made, the man did not name himself. That was the prerogative of the one who made him. The Hebrew God called him Adam, meaning "mankind," which is a play on the Hebrew word for the earth (adamah) from which he was formed.·
It is noteworthy that the Hebrew God is identified in the creation story only by title: elohim, which literally translates as “gods,” plural. There has been much scholarly speculation about this. Suffice it to say that the Hebrew God is introduced by title rather than by name, and Adam does not think to ask whom he is dealing with. Fast forward to the story of the Patriarch Jacob wrestling with a man through the night. Jacob refuses to let go until the man gives him a blessing. But this is no man. He tells Jacob, "You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” Jacob responds by asking for his name in turn, but the stranger answers the question with a question of his own: "Why is it that you ask my name?”
Moses finally manages to wrestle a name out of the God who speaks to him from a bush that burns but is not consumed. At first God introduces himself by title: "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." He then orders Moses to confront the pharaoh and bring the Hebrew people out of Egypt. But Moses points out that the Hebrew people are unlikely to follow him into the wilderness if they don’t even know the name of this God who is promising them a homeland flowing with milk and honey. The Lord’s response is less a name than an affirmation: “I AM WHO I AM.” Since there are no verb tenses in Hebrew, ehyeh asher ehyeh might also be read to mean, “I am and will cause to be what I cause to be.”
Words and magic were in the beginning one and the same thing. According to mystical Kabbalist tradition, all of creation is contained within the ineffable name of this God who identifies himself as Being in the first person singular. And the few who know its secrets cannot utter the name without invoking its power. Those who think the commandment against taking the Lord’s name in vain is merely a prohibition against profanity trivialize it. This was not a God to be trifled with in any way.
By tradition, the name the Lord revealed to Moses on Mt. Sinai was uttered only by the high priest on the Day of Atonement each year, and then only within the inner sanctum of the temple in Jerusalem. Following the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. and the elimination of the priestly office, the pronunciation of God’s name was lost, since the ancient Hebrew texts give only the consonants. The Old Testament God is referred to as “Jehovah” in the King James Bible and “Yahweh” in later translations; both are derived from the same four consonants transliterated as YHWH. Observant Jews to this day avoid using God’s name altogether outside of formal prayers, otherwise referring to him only obliquely as Hashem, meaning “the Name.”
Christianity, which worships Jesus as the Son of God, has no such reticence about invoking the Lord’s name — all three of them, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Christians share with Jews the belief that the name holds great power; in their case, the name of Jesus. St. Paul writes in his Letter to the Philippians (2:10-12) that “the name of Jesus is “above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Jesus did not come by his name haphazardly. Several gospel accounts state that the name comes straight from on high, as in Matthew 1:21, where an angel visits Joseph in a dream and tells him, "You shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.” The significance becomes clear when the Greek rendition of Jesus in the New Testament is translated into the original Hebrew: Joshua or Yeshua, meaning “God will save.” Once again, the name denotes the essence of the thing named.
Jesus promises his disciples, “Very truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.” Indeed, it is considered as a sign of faith that Christians take Jesus at his word when they pray, and the sky’s the limit with regard to what they can pray for. Take Father Paul O’Sullivan, O.P., who assures his readers in The Wonders of the Holy Name that their faithful prayers can, among other things: offer to God all the Masses said throughout the world that day, free many souls from the pains of purgatory, protect themselves from countless evils and from the attacks of the evil one, become filled with a peace and joy previously unknown to them and strengthened so that they can easily bear their burdens.”
There is more than the faint echo of “abracadabra” in such exhortations. I can’t speak to the souls in purgatory, who may or may not have been freed by the prayers of the faithful, or to the many Masses offered up. But I see precious few signs that the fervent prayers of a billion Christians, give or take — to say nothing of prayers from billions more Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists — have made much of a dent in this old world. I admire the persistence of those who pray for a better world and don’t doubt they do themselves some good, if nothing else. But for all that, what do they have to show for it?
Over the years my own prayer life has dwindled down to what I have come to regard as the essentials. There is a reason why the ancient Hebrews did not call on the Lord by name. They were rightly concerned about taking his name in vain, which they understand in a much broader sense than just avoiding profanity. Jesus cautioned his disciples against offering up a lot of superfluous prayers. “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him,” he told them. Well, if the Father knows what we need before we ask, why bother to ask? For me, the essentials of prayer might be summarized in just four words from the Lord’s Prayer: Thy will be done. If we have enough faith to believe that the Lord knows what he is doing, what more needs to be said?
*The first known mention of the word was in in a second-century book called Liber Medicinalis by Serenus Sammonicus, physician to the Roman emperor Caracalla. The author recommended that malaria sufferers wear an amulet containing the word “Abracadabra,” written in the form of a triangle.
Genesis 1 Genesis 32:24-32 John 16:23 Romans 10:13 Matthew 6:8
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