Name (ὄ νομα)
‘Naming,’ says De Quincy, [Note: A. H. Japp, Life of Thomas De Quincy, 1890, p. 363.] ‘is not a pre-historic, but a pre-mythical, not only a pre-mythical, but even a pre-fabulous and a pre-traditional thesis.’ Indeed man must, at a very early period of his history, have been forced to give names to the things and beings around him, and even to those which existed only in his imagination. We may suppose, either that sensations and actions first received appellations, and then the objects which caused these were named after them; or, what is far more likely, that first of all objects and actions essential to life gradually acquired names. Such designations would not be given unthinkingly, but rather, as onomatopoetic terms indicate, on account of some peculiarity in that to which the name was given.
The derivations given as those of certain names in the OT, even if incorrect, indicate that names, like nicknames, were given for some reason. [Note: A. Lang, ‘The Origin of Totem Names and Beliefs,’ in FL xiii. [1902] 382 ff.]
1. Names of persons. [Note: Names of countries, places, nations, natural objects, and animals, civic names, and those of persons mentioned in the OT and in the Gospels, do not fall within the scope of this article.] -Ethnologists picture the earliest men as living together in little herds, ‘co-operative groups,’ as Bagehot calls them. [Note: W. Bagehot, Physics and Politics, new ed., n.d., p. 213.] Such a group would acquire a name from some object or animal with which it was closely associated. This would, most probably, be bestowed on it by a neighbouring group and then be used by the group to indicate itself to others. The animal or other thing by which it was thus designated became its totem. Worshippers of a totem marked themselves with it, and by the mark ‘men of the same stock recognised one another’; [Note: W. R. Smith, Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, 1903, p. 251.] hence the totem mark, which was connected with the habit of tatuing, became the tribal mark. The name of an individual seems originally to have been his stock-name. שֵׁם is primarily a stock-name rather than that of an individual. [Note: Ib. p. 248.] Hence arose such totemistic names as those of animals, etc. [Note: ERE i. 497.] In course of time these and all other names tended to lose their primitive significance and became mere hereditary designations. Such are Ἀ κύλας (Aquila), [Note: Acts 18:2 .] the GrAEcized form of the Latin aquila, ‘eagle’; Ἄ γαβος (Agabus), [Note: Ezra 2:46, Acts 11:28; ExpT ix. [1897-98] 567.] very probably a Gr. form of חָנָב, ‘locust’; Δάμαρις (Damaris), [Note: Acts 17:34; HDB i. 545.] probably a corruption of Δάμαλις, ‘heifer,’ ‘Damalis,’ indeed, being the reading of one Latin MS [Note: S manuscript.] . The Heb. צְבִי has in Aram. the form מַבְיָא (Tabitha). In the LXX [Note: XX Septuagint.] this is translated Δορκάς, [Note: Acts 9:36; G. A. Deissmann, Bible Studies, 1901, p. 189.] ‘gazelle’; while Ῥ όδη (Rhoda) [Note: Acts 12:13 .] is simply the word for a rose.
As the totemistic tribes amalgamated, the wider life demanded more exact, more personal, designations. Hence some peculiarity, bodily, intellectual, or moral, which was, or which it was hoped would be, exhibited by the individual, was assigned to him as a name. Thus from ἀ λέκω, ‘defend,’ and ἀ νήρ we have Ἀ λέξανδρος (Alexander), [Note: Acts 4:6, etc.] ‘a defender of men’; from the Latin amplius, ‘great or noble,’ we have the Gr. name Ἀ μ π λι ᾶ ς (Amplias), [Note: Romans 16:8 .] or in a longer form Ἀ μ π λι ᾶ τυς (Ampliatus). Something striking in the appearance is indicated by the name Ἐ παφρόδιτος (Epaphroditus), [Note: Philippians 2:25 .] the Gr. word for ‘handsome’; from ἀ νδρε ῖ ος, ‘manly,’ comes Ἀ νδρέας (Andrew), [Note: Acts 1:18 .] as Ῥ ο ῦ φυς is just the Greek form of Rufus, [Note: Romans 16:13 .] ‘red.’ Some peculiar circumstance attending a child’s birth may suggest a name, as Ἀ γρί ππ α (Agrippa), [Note: Acts 25:13 .] ‘one born feet first.’ What names could be more appropriate for a trusted slave than Ὀ νήσιμος (Onesimus), [Note: Philemon 1:10 .] the Greek adjective for ‘helpful,’ or Ὀ νησίφορος (Onesiphorus), [Note: 2 Timothy 1:6 .] ‘the profit-bringer?’ A Hebrew king bore the name מְנַהֵם, ‘comforter,’ which in the LXX [Note: XX Septuagint.] is Μαναήν (Manaen). [Note: Acts 13:1; Deissmann, op. cit. p. 310.]
In the development of religion man, having come to believe in spirits and raised some of these, partly by giving them names, into divinities, began to incorporate in a personal name that of a deity; and thus we have theomorphous names. Such a practice was almost inevitable when men began to give names to the lower divinities as angels, whose names Μιχαήλ (Michael), [Note: Revelation 12:7; T. K. Cheyne speaks of Michael as ‘a degraded (but an honourably degraded) deity,’ ‘a reflexion, not only of Mithra, but of Marduk,’ as the repository of the Name of God-‘one might say that he is the Name of God’ (Exp, 7th ser., i. [1906] 299; ExpT xvi. [1904-05] 147, 193, 287).] and Γαβριήλ (Gabriel), [Note: Luke 1:19 .] like Raphael and Uriel, are both compounds of אֵל . As it was believed that a divinity was of necessity closely connected with a person if the name of the former was introduced into that of the latter, the custom was extended to human beings.
The names of exalted personages, like kings, were often compounded of divine names. Most of the names of the Egyptian kings have incorporated in them the names of Ra, Amon, etc. [Note: A. Erman, Life in Ancient Egypt, 1894, p. 56.] The great majority of Mesopotamian names contain the name of a god, the greater number containing two, some three, such elements, as Sin-kalama-idi, meaning ‘Sin knows everything.’ [Note: F. Hommel, Ancient Hebrew Tradition, 1897, pp. 60-72; L. R. Farnell, Greece and Babylon, 1911, p. 195.] Among the South Arabians, as among the MinAEans and SabAEans, a great many of the personal names are compounds of ilu, the generic name for ‘God.’ [Note: Hommel, p. 80.] A MinAEan inscription of the Ptolemaic period gives us the name וידאל (Zaid-El); in 1Ma 11:17 we have the name Ζαβδιήλ as that of an Arabian chief, while NabatAEan inscriptions of the age of Jesus have many such names. [Note: Critical Review, vii. [1897] 413.] ‘In pre-Islamitic inscriptions of Arabia,’ we have such names as ‘Ili-kariba, “My God hath blessed” ’; which ‘served as spells for the protection of the child’ who bore them. [Note: Farnell, op. cit. p. 195.] A great number of personal names in the OT are compounded of Jahweh, El, or Baal. This custom, a survival from animism, was not intended to serve as a protection to the Divine name, which might not be uttered; the entwining of the name of the deity in the human name meant the enlisting of the power of the god on behalf of the man. [Note: Transactions of the Third International Congress for the History of Religions, 2 vols., 1908, i. 266; R. R. Marett. The Threshold of Religion2, 1914, p. 62.] In such theomorphous names, the predicate is sometimes a verb and sometimes a noun; the subject may be at the beginning as אֶלְנָתָן, or at the end as Ναθαναήλ . [Note: EBi iii. 3279.] This custom is closely akin to the Hebrew one of ‘calling the name over.’ solemnly invoking the name of a person, Divine or human, over a person or place, and thus linking them in the closest possible connexion. [Note: Ib. iii. 3266.]
The records of the Apostolic Church furnish us with several such names, as Ἀ νανίας (Ananias), [Note: Acts 5:1 .] the Gr. form of the Heb. חֲנַנְיָח (‘Jahweh hath been gracious’); Ματθα ῖ ος (Matthias), [Note: Acts 1 .] an abbreviation of Ματταθίας, the Gr. form of מַתִּתְיָה (‘gift of Jahweh’); Γαμαλιήλ (Gamaliel), [Note: Acts 5:34 .] the Heb. form of which, גֵמְלִיאֵל, means ‘reward of God.’ Βαρνάβας (Barnabas), [Note: Acts 4:36 .] formerly taken as the Greek form of בַּרנְבוּאָה, is in reality a form of a recently discovered Semitic name, Βαρνεβοις, and is בר־נְבוֹ (‘son of Nebo’). Demetrius is another instance of the same thing. [Note: Acts 19:24, 3 John 1:12 .] It was not uncommon to brand or tatu the name of the deity on the person by whose name he was called. It is possible that St. Paul was alluding to some such mark on himself when he speaks of bearing ‘branded on my body the marks of Jesus,’ [Note: Galatians 6:17 .] and the custom is clearly alluded to in the Apocalypse in the marking of the adherents of the Beast with his name or the number of his name, [Note: Revelation 13:17 .] and the marking of his opponents with the seal of the living God. [Note: Revelation 7:2 .] In Greece we have clear traces, in such names as Apollodorus, Zeno, and Diogenes, of the incorporation of a divine name in a human one.
As the members of communities increased and nations grew larger, necessity demanded that individuals bearing the same name should be differentiated one from another. This was done as a rule by making an addition to the original name. This addition might be the name of the father, the name of some place with which the individual was specially connected, or another name in some cases in a different language. All these cases are dealt with in the art. [Note: rt. article.] Surname.
Names, like other words, were, in course of general use, subject to slight alterations, the most important of which may be classed under-
(a) Abbreviations and diminutives.-A number of these occur in the apostolic writings; thus Apollonius is shortened into Apollos (Acts 18:24); Ampliatus into Amplias (Romans 16:8); Demetrius into Demas (Acts 19:24, 3 John 1:12, 2 Timothy 4:10, etc.); Epaphroditus into Epaphras (Philippians 2:25, etc., Colossians 4:12, etc.); Hermogenes (like Hermagoras and Hermodorus) into Hermas (Romans 16:14, 2 Timothy 1:15, and the author of the Pastor); Lucanus into Lucas (Philemon 1:24, etc.); Lucius into Lucullus (Acts 13:1, Romans 16:21); Silvanus into Silas (Acts 15:22, etc., 2 Corinthians 1:19, etc.); Olympiodorus into Olympas (Romans 16:15); Prisca into Priscilla (Acts 18:2, Romans 16:3, etc.); Parmenides into Parmenas (Acts 6:5); Tertius into Tertullus (Acts 24:2, Romans 16:22); Theodorus into Theudas (Acts 5:36); and, if Nymphas be the correct reading of Colossians 4:15, it is probably a contraction of Nymphodorus.
(b) Nicknames.-Just as names were originally given on account of some peculiarity in or about a person, so in later times any such peculiarity was apt through ridicule or contempt to result in a nickname.
An inscription, indicating the holders of seats in the theatre of Miletus, reads ‘Place of the Jews who are called Θεοσεβίον .’ The designation is evidently a nickname given to the Jews on account of their religion. In the times of the Dispersion, many Gentiles were attracted by the monotheism and imageless worship of the Jews, and yet refused to be circumcised or observe all the commands of the Law. Such individuals, loosely attached to the Jews, were nicknamed φοβούμενοι or σεβόμενοι τ ὸ ν θεόν . Similarly the followers of Jesus were nicknamed ‘Christianoi, “Christ’s people,” a base-Latin improvisation by the people of Antioch, who were notorious in antiquity for impudent wit.’ [Note: Jos. Ant. XIV. vii. 2; Acts 10:2; E. Schürer, HJP II. ii. [1885] 308, 314; Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, 1911, p. 446; HDB i. 384; Acts 11:26; T. R. Glover, The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire, 1909, p. 151.]
2. Names of sects and parties. -Somewhat akin to nicknames are such names as Herodion, [Note: Romans 16:11 .] evidently that of a freedman of one of the Herods. These again lead on to names of sects or parties which are derived from (a) persons, e.g. ‘Epicureans,’ [Note: Acts 17:18 .] from Epicurus the founder of the school; ‘Nicolaitans,’ most probably from a certain Nicolas, [Note: Revelation 2:6, Acts 6:5 .] the originator of the heresy; ‘Sadducees,’ from Zadok. [Note: Acts 4:1, etc.; Exp, 8th ser., vi. [1913] 158.]
(b) Others again are derived from places, e.g. ‘Nazarenes’ [Note: Acts 24:5, Matthew 2:23 .] -a term applied to the followers of Jesus from a name given to Him from the town in which He had been brought up; ‘Stoies,’ [Note: Acts 17:18 .] from the στοά, the painted porch in which Zeno the founder taught.
(c) Other such appellations are derived from some peculiarity; thus ‘Hellenists’ [Note: Acts 6:1 (9:20, 11:20?).] is a name given to certain Jews who spoke Greek; ‘Libertines’ [Note: Acts 6:9 .] to the descendants of Jews who had been slaves; ‘Pharisees’ [Note: Acts 15:5, etc.; Schürer, HJP II. ii. 19.] from the Hebrew פְּרוּשִׁים (Aram. פְּרִישִׁין, stat. emphat. פְּרִישִׁיָא), meaning ‘the separated,’ those who had separated themselves from all uncleanness and illegality, and from all unclean persons.
3. Names and titles. -It does not fall within the scope of this article to consider how an ordinary word such as ε ὐ λογητός, [Note: 2 Corinthians 11:31, Romans 1:25 .] ‘blessed,’ almost becomes, if not a name, a title; nor how such a word as ‘apostle’ acquired a restricted meaning, and became a title; or again how such a title as ‘high priest’ [Note: Hebrews 3:1, etc.] was bestowed on a single individual, as our Lord; nor yet how the name of an individual, as ‘Adam,’ [Note: 1 Corinthians 15:45 .] was applied to Him to bring out some particular function; but we can See the word Χριστός passing from a title ‘Jesus the Christ’ into a personal name ‘Jesus Christ.’ [Note: DCG ii. 171, 219; Exp, 8th ser., viii. [1914] 205.] A religion in its attempts to gain men from another faith finds the task easier if it can appropriate and employ names which custom has made familiar to them. [Note: L. R. Farnell, The Evolution of Religion, 1905, p. 32.] The religion of Jesus, when it entered the Roman world, could not apply to Him the names of the pagan deities-these indeed it degraded into demons-but familiar appellations could be used to convey kindred but higher truths. Κύριος is an Oriental term expressing absolute dominion and absolute submission. The LXX [Note: XX Septuagint.] used it to translate the exalted name Jahweh. [Note: Deissmann, Light from the Anc. East, p. 353.] In Oriental cults it expressed such an abject relation between a worshipper and his deity. ‘The Lord Serapis’ occurs in papyri of the 2nd cent. a.d. [Note: Ib. pp. 168, 176.] The title came to be given to the Roman Emperors. On an ostracon dated a.d. 63 Nero is called ‘Lord,’ and Festus referring to him speaks of writing τ ῷ κυρί ῳ. [Note: Ib. p. 353; Acts 25:26 .] An inscription at PhilAE dated 62 b.c. calls Ptolemy XIII. ‘the lord king god.’ [Note: Deissmann, Light from the Anc. East, p. 356.] We can appreciate at once the necessity and the advantage of the Christians applying this word to Jesus, making Him at once the equal of Jahweh, and making His position intelligible to the whole pagan world. [Note: Deissmann, Light from the Anc. East, p. 354.] Hence they proclaimed Jesus to be ‘both Lord and Christ,’ ‘Lord of all,’ ‘Lord both of the dead and of the living,’ ‘the Lord from heaven,’ ‘our only liege and Lord.’ [Note: Acts 2:36, Romans 14:9, 1 Thessalonians 4:16, 2 Thessalonians 1:7, Jude 1:4 (1 Corinthians 15:47 ?); Deissmann, Light from the Anc. East, p. 359.] Hence, as the Egyptians of the 2nd cent. a.d. spoke of ‘the table of the lord Serapis,’ St. Paul spoke of ‘the table of the Lord,’ [Note: Deissmann, Light from the Anc. East, p. 355.] just as ‘Sebaste day,’ meaning ‘Emperor’s day,’ is paralleled by ‘the Lord’s day.’ [Note: Ib. p. 361; Revelation 1:10 .] It is this consciousness of the spiritual proprietorship of Jesus that makes plain the meaning of St. Paul when he says: ‘No one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit,’ and ‘Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, and you will be saved.’ [Note: 1 Corinthians 12:3, Romans 10:9; Exp, 7th ser., vii. [1909] 292, 297; ERE ii. 378.] βασιλεύς was a popular title for princes in the Hellenistic East, and was bestowed on the Emperor. The still higher title βασιλε ὺ ς βασιλέων was the lofty designation of great monarchs and was given to the gods. At the beginning of the Christian epoch it was borne by the monarchs of Armenia, the Bosporan kingdom, and Palmyra. It was applied to Jahweh. This exalted name the Christians ascribed to Jesus. [Note: Deissmann, Light from the Anc. East, p. 367; Exp, 7th ser., vii. 296; 2Ma 13:4, 3Ma 5:35, 1 Timothy 6:15, Revelation 17:14 .] The designation σωτήρ (‘saviour’) was from an early period attached to Zeus, and in feminine form to Kore, in her case connoting salvation after death. The Alexandrian Greeks used it ‘to sanctify the divine man, God’s representative on earth, the living image of God,’ as the monarch was called. [Note: Farnell, The Evolution of Religion, p. 33.] When Demetrius Poliorcetes restored the Athenian democracy in 307 b.c., the Athenians decreed divine honours to him under the title ‘Saviour God,’ and altars and priests were appointed to him. [Note: J. G. Frazer, GB3, pt. i., The Magic Art, 1911, i. 390.] Philip of Macedon was called σωτήρ, Ptolemy VIII. (113 b.c.) called himself σωτήρ . [Note: Deissmann, Light from the Anc. East, pp. 373, 374.] Inscriptions show that on Julius CAEsar and many other Emperors there had been bestowed the title ‘Saviour of the world.’ The word was used in the LXX [Note: XX Septuagint.] to translate the Hebrew מוֹשִׁיעַ . This title became a designation of Jesus; He is exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour, [Note: Acts 5:31, Philippians 3:20; Exp, 7th ser., vii. 293, 298.] and the still more universal title ‘Saviour of the World,’ very common in inscriptions for Hadrian, is also ascribed to Him. [Note: Deissmann, Light from the Anc. East, p. 369; 1 John 4:14; DCG ii. 573.] The title θεο ῦ υ ἱ ός was a technical term familiar in the Empire in the 1st cent. a.d. We have it on an inscription of Olympia, not later than 27 b.c., and in a Fayyum inscription dated a.d. 7. This too the followers of Jesus applied to Him. [Note: Exp, 7th ser., vii. 293, 301; Deissmann, Bible Studies, p. 166, Light from the Anc. East, p. 350; Acts 8:37, etc.] It is an all-important fact that the chief names given to Jesus ‘were precisely those accorded to the Emperors dead and living, his titles the highest which adorned the Imperial ruler.’ [Note: Exp, 7th ser., vii. 294, 301.] Other names like Σεβαστός really come under the designation of titles, and so too Ἀ ρεο π αγίτης, ‘the Areopagite,’ applied to Dionysius. [Note: Acts 25:21 .]
4. Names of divinities. -In the evolution of religion one of the earliest and lowest stages is that in which the spirits, not having attained sufficient individuality to be possessed of personal names, are addressed, as among the PhCEnicians, by such common terms as ‘Lord,’ or ‘Chentamentet,’ as among the Egyptians. [Note: F. B. Jevons, Comparative Religion, 1913, p. 129.] This stage is exhibited in the religion of the primitive Aryans, and even in the later cults of the Hindus, Persians, Thracians, Teutons, Greeks, Romans, and Amerinds. [Note: ERE i. 462, ii. 285; Jevons, Comparative Religion, pp. 125, 129, The Idea of God in Early Religions, 1910, p. 85; J. H. Moulton, Early Religious Poetry of Persia, 1911, pp. 32, 55.] Some deities remain in this state, some become departmental deities, others functional deities (Sondergötter), while others, who manifest themselves in a plant, animal, planet, or tree, are named after it. [Note: Jevons, Comparative Religion, pp. 91, 92, 117; ERE i. 382, ii. 35; See also the classification of Rose quoted in PEFSt xlvi. [1914] 206.] In course of time this designation, the meaning having been forgotten, becomes a proper name representing an individual deity. Gods with names become, in this way, a distinct class of divinities. [Note: Jevons, Comparative Religion, p. 129.] To a divinity with a distinct name the path of advancement is open. The name would be either masculine or feminine, and that itself would gradually determine status, functions, and ritual. [Note: Ib. pp. 126-128.] Epithets applied to such a deity, as ‘Adon’ or ‘Melech,’ became cult titles (though sometimes they developed into distinct deities). Further, such a divinity might come to exercise functions besides those to which he owed his origin and name, and these outside the locality in which he had been primarily worshipped, thus attaining higher status and greater dignity. [Note: Ib.] Again, his name and functions might make him so real to his worshippers that they represented him by a human or semi-human figure, [Note: ERE ii. 38, 39.] expressing the physical characteristics, and even the moral qualities, of the deity. [Note: Ib. ii. 50; Jevons, The Idea of God in Early Religions, p. 26 f.] Such a deity had the chance of becoming a tribal god. On the other hand, a tribal hero or medicine man, having the initial advantage of a name, might be deified and become in time the tribal god in accordance with the Euhemeristic theory. [Note: W. G. Aston, Shinto, 1907, p. 8.] When a tribe with such a deity developed into or was merged in a nation the qualities and functions of the tribal deity might be taken over by another deity (syncretism), or the deity might become one of the members of a pantheon, or even, like Zeus, the supreme national god. [Note: Ib. p. 10; 2 K 17:26-29.] In all this we See a trend towards monotheism and the final conception of the unity of the Godhead. [Note: Jevons, The Idea of God in Early Religions, p. 23.] Through some such stages as these Jahweh had advanced till the Hebrews in their conception of Him had become monotheists. [Note: Jevons, Comparative Religion, pp. 125-129.] In the age of Jesus that name in Greek, Κύριος or simply Θεός, had come to denote the supreme and only God. [Note: S. R. Driver, ‘Recent Theories on the Origin and Nature of the Tetragrammaton,’ Studia Biblica, 1885, p. 1 ff.; T. G. Pinches, PSBA xiv. [1892] 13, ‘The Religious Ideas of the Babylonians,’ Transactions of the Victorian Institute, xxviii. [1896] 11; Thomas Tyler, ‘The Origin of the Tetragrammaton,’ JQR xiii. [1901] 581 ff.] It was one of the great achievements of Jesus to fill these names with richer, finer meaning by revealing new and higher attributes of the Godhead. The transference of the name Κύριος to Jesus marks the awakening of the Church to a true appreciation of His Divinity (Acts 1:1, Acts 1:11, Acts 1:14, Acts 1:16 in contrast with v. 21). While the Jews and Christians were thus monotheists, they still continued to believe in a variety of subordinate spirits, some of whom were but nameless, departmental, or functional deities, while others had attained to distinct names, as Satan, Michael (Jude 1:9, Revelation 12:7), Gabriel (Luke 1:19, Luke 1:26), Raphael (To 12:15), Uriel (2Es 5:20). In the Gentile world the development had not reached but only tended towards monotheism, Zeus (Acts 14:12, Acts 14:13) being recognized only as the king of a countless crowd of deities. Among them there stood out local deities who had got distinct names, as Artemis of Ephesus (19:28), Mars (17:19), and Hermes, the messenger and speaker for the gods (14:12), or the Dioscuri, the twin gods Castor and Pollux (28:11).
5. Name and personality. -At a very early period men came to feel that there was a material and mysterious but essential connexion between the person or thing and its name. To them names were not, as with us, mere meaningless designations, symbols without significance which could be changed without affecting the thing or person; nomina were numina, not even essential attributes, but possessed of a certain independent existence, yet part and parcel of the personality, and therefore supremely important as affecting and affected by a person’s good or evil fortune. [Note: Farnell, The Evolution of Religion, p. 32; E. Clodd, Tom Tit Tot, 1898, p. 53.] The name was a kind of ‘alter ego,’ a vital portion of the man himself, and to be taken care of accordingly. [Note: H. J. D. Astley, in Transactions of the Third International Congress for the History of Religion, i. 266; Farnell, The Evolution of Religion, p. 184; HDB v. 640; A. C. Haddon, Magic and Fetishism, 1906, p. 22. The close connexion between a name and the thing is echced in the words of Milton where Adam says of the naming of the animals:
‘I named them as they passed, and understood
Their nature’ (Paradise Lost, viii. 353).]
Such a belief is found among the Amerind tribes, the Australians, the proto-Aryans, and almost all other races. [Note: Frazer, GB3, pt. ii., Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, 1911, pp. 318-320.] The ancient Britons held that the soul and the name were the same. [Note: C. Squire, The Mythology of the British Islands, new ed., 1910, p. 236.] Among the Annamese when a child continues ill, the parents sell it to someone who gives it a new name and it is then, being a completely different person, re-sold to its parents. [Note: ERE i. 543.] A young Caffre thief can be reformed by shouting his name into a kettle of boiling medicated water, clapping on the lid, and allowing the name (i.e. him) to steep there for several days. [Note: Frazer, GB3, pt. ii., Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, p. 331.] The Mesopotamians so identified the name and the person that the name was the personality. [Note: A. H. Sayce, Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion3 (HL, 1887), 1891, p. 302; cf. ExpT xxiii. [1911-12] 9.] In their religion, as in the MandAEan, Persian, and other cults, the name of the deity is itself a part of the divine essence.
‘The Aryan-speaking peoples “believed at one time not only that the name was a part of the man, but that it was that part of him which is termed the soul, the breath of life.” ’ [Note: J. Rhys, quoted by Haddon, p. 23.] Among the Egyptians the name was ‘an imperishable component of the Ego, on a footing of equality with soul, form, heart, etc.,’ for they held ‘that an inward and indissoluble connexion subsists between an object and its name.’ [Note: HDB v. 181a.] Hence it was necessary that the name should be kept fresh, for so close was the connexion that the continued existence of the name was essential to the immortality of the person. [Note: Ib.; Exp, 7th ser., x. [1910] 122.] A man prayed for his name to be mentioned, or libations poured out in his name, and monuments were raised with the name on them so that it might live. The Pharaoh sacrificed captives to perpetuate his name, and all vassals took the oath by the royal name. In the Papyri, especially in indictments, there occurs the phrase ἔ ντευξις ε ἰ ς τ ὸ το ῦ βασιλέως ὄ νομα, a memorial to the king’s majesty, the name of the king being the essence of what he is as ruler. Inscriptions mention the fact of purchasing ε ἰ ς τ ὸ το ῦ θεο ῦ ὅ νομα, the nominal purchaser purchasing for the god. [Note: Deissmann, Bible Studies, pp. 146, 147.] Sometimes the name became almost a separate personality. ‘In the TabulAE IguvinAE, … the god Grabovius is implored to be propitious to the “Arx Fisia” and to “the name of the Arx Fisia,” as if the name of the city was a living and independent entity.’ [Note: Farnell, The Evolution of Religion, p. 186.]
This practical identification of the person and the name gave rise to a number of practices. The name was honoured equally with the person.
The Egyptian kings made offerings to the names of their predecessors; honour was paid to the name of Pharaoh, while the secret names of the gods of Egypt were specially honoured. [Note: ERE i. 440b; G. Ebers, Joshua, Eng. tr., 2 vols., 1890, i. 79; Sayce, p. 302.] Passages in the OT, too numerous to quote, indicate the great place this conception had in the minds of the Hebrews. There is a glory due to Jahweh’s name; men are to sing forth the glory of His name, to exalt His name, to sing praises to His name, to bless His name, to fear His glorious and fearful name, and even to love His name. [Note: Psalms 29:2, Deuteronomy 28:58 . For the honour given to the name of God, of Moses, and of a king See Exp, 8th ser., viii. 307.]
Our Lord carried forward to deeper meaning the ancient usage when He prayed, ‘Father, glorify thy name,’ and when He taught His disciples to pray ‘May thy name be revered.’ Through a process of thought to be explained immediately the name of Jesus came to be similarly honoured. Through certain occurrences at Ephesus the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified, the Thessalonians were entreated to live so that the name of the Lord Jesus might be glorified in them; while the saints are described as those who reverence, fear, and glorify the name. [Note: John 12:27-28, Matthew 6:9, Luke 11:2, Acts 19:17, 2 Thessalonians 1:12, Revelation 11:18 .] Here it is necessary strongly to emphasize the fact that similarity of expression does not necessarily imply identity of meaning. In the realm of ideas a word or expression may have its content essentially changed. but the change is ever gradual, hence the exact meaning at any one moment is reached only when the evolution which preceded and which followed becomes clear. This is especially true of the Apostolic Age when through the welter of religions many expressions were in a constant state of flux. The practical identity of the name and the personality implied further that the continuance of the personality depended on the continuance of the name.
In Egypt ‘one could do nothing better for any one than by inscriptions and representations to “cause his name to live,” and nothing worse than to allow it to perish.’ [Note: Erman, p. 162.] The god Amon assures Ramses III. that ‘as long as heaven endures thy name shall endure, and shall grow eternally.’ [Note: Ib. p. 283.] The Egyptians of all classes erased the names and figures of their enemies from tombs and memorials. [Note: Ib. p. 162; Exp, 7th ser., x. 122.] Amenhotep IV. went even further, and through the whole country erased the name of the god Amen whose worship he had forsaken. [Note: W. M. F. Petrie, A History of Egypt, ii. [1896] 212.] In Mesopotamia the preservation of names was of unique importance. ‘Terrible curses are denounced [by the kings] against those who should destroy or injure “the writing of their names.” ’ [Note: Sayce, p. 304.] This belief in connexion with the worship of ancestors deeply influenced the mind of the Jew. Jahweh is represented as saying of His enemies, ‘Let me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under heaven.’ The Levirate marriage was enforced that the firstborn son of a woman by her deceased husband’s brother should ‘succeed in the name of his brother who is dead, that his name be not blotted out of Israel.’ The writer of Ecclesiastes describes the sad case of a man ‘who begets an hundred children, and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not filled with good, and moreover he has no burial,’ i.e. has no tomb with his name on it, because ‘an untimely birth is better than he, for it comes in vanity, and departeth in darkness, and the name thereof is covered with darkness.’ The fiercest hatred is that of those who say ‘when will he die, and his name perish,’ while the glory of the Messianic King is that ‘his name shall endure for ever, his name shall have issue as long as the sun.’ [Note: Deuteronomy 9:14, Ecclesiastes 6:3-4, Psalms 41:5 .]
In the Apostolic Age we find this conception linked with another widely spread idea that in heaven there is a register of life, the insertion in which of a person’s name ensures to him the certainty of a blessed immortality, and identification in the other world, as with us the insertion of a person’s name in a voter’s roll entitles the person to exercise his vote, or his enrolment in a society opens to him the privilege of that society. Our Lord calls upon His disciples to rejoice because their ‘names are enrolled in heaven.’ St. Paul describes his fellow-workers as those ‘whose names are in the book of life.’ In the same way the omission, or non-insertion, or erasure of the name indicates the exclusion from all such privileges. The friends of the Beast are those ‘whose names have not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life’; while of the victors of Sardis it is said: ‘The conqueror shall be clad in white raiment; I will never erase his name from the book of life.’ [Note: Luke 10:20, Philippians 4:3, Revelation 3:5 .]
6. Name and ‘mana.’ -In the earlier culture man is conscious of two kinds of causation. The first is mechanical, effected by the body itself, or by it through tools or weapons. The second may be named spiritual. Man at this stage of his development is keenly conscious of the unusual, the abnormal, the awful, the uncanny. Objects which in any way exhibit such a peculiarity are to him endowed with a mysterious power, technically called mana. [Note: R. H. Codrington’s definition is quoted with approval by Frazer, GB3, pt. i., The Magic Art, i. 227; R. R. Marett, ‘The Conception of Mana,’ in Transactions of the Third International Congress for the History of Religions, i. 48, and practically all th e leading anthropologists. δύναμις is possibly the nearest Greek equivalent. In the magical literature of the age of Paul ἐ ξουσία is not exactly ‘power,’ but rather ‘the supernatural power which depends on a supernatural knowledge’ (H. A. A. Kennedy, Exp, 8th ser., iv. [1912] 308).] A savage suddenly comes on a stone shaped like a yam. ‘Ah,’ he exclaims, ‘you have mana.’ He buries it beside the yams he has planted, and feels certain of a bountiful crop. Knowing that a lion is strong, i.e. has mana, he eats its heart, and its mana passes into him: for there is in primitive man a strong tendency to imagine that the cause of every phenomenon is a personal one. [Note: For the same reason hero warriors were eaten: Clodd, p. 69; ERE i. 521, 530, 574; Gilbert Murray, Four Stages of Greek Religion, 1912, p. 37; W. R. Halliday, Greek Divination, 1913, p. 17.] In the lower culture, as we have seen, the personality was thought of as something not concentrated, say, in the will, but rather as diffused, hence the mana of any living being-whatever its potency might be-was thought of as residing not merely in him, but also in different parts of him, and in things separable from, yet closely connected with, his person, as clothes, shadow, hair, nail-pairings, and spittle. The shadow of St. Peter, the towels or aprons used by St. Paul, the spittle of our Lord were each charged with the mana of the person himself. [Note: E. S. Hartland, Report of the British Association, 1906, 1907, p. 677; Acts 5:15, John 9:6, Mark 7:33; ERE i. 542; Clodd, p. 57. After death the mana might continue to reside in these and in the bones. The doctrine of relics is based on this idea. Newman says, ‘each particle of each relic has in it at least a dormant, perhaps an energetic, virtue of supernatural operation’ (Present Position of Catholics, 1851, p. 298).] but the personality and therefore the mana was specially concentrated in and discharged from the name. In the lower culture any person divine or human has more or less mana, and in consequence is anxious to possess, and so be able to use, that of others. Hence arises the absorbing desire to know names, for to know a name is to have power over the person, even to the extent of compelling him, by the proper use of his name, to use his mana. ‘He who has the name can dispose of the power of its bearer’; [Note: HDB v. 181; T. K. Cheyne, Traditions and Beliefs of Ancient Israel, 1907, p. 401 n.] for barbaric man believes that his name is a vital part of himself, and ‘to know the name is to put its owner, whether he be deity, ghost, or mortal, in the power of another.’ [Note: Clodd, p. 53 f.] This knowledge could be employed in a variety of ways. The presence and power of a spirit could be ensured by naming it. ‘Speak of the devil and he will appear.’
The pontiffs of Rome possessed among their books the Indigitamenta, a list of the names of the spirits who guarded every action with which a man was concerned. by invoking any name they could call its power into action against any person and consequently have him at their mercy. [Note: F. Granger, The Worship of the Romans, 1895, pp. 157, 277; Clodd, p. 177; W. Smith, DGRA2, 1875, p. 941.] Odin won his supremacy over nature by acquiring the ‘knowledge of the runes or magical names of all things in earth and heaven.’ [Note: Frazer, GB3, pt. i., The Magic Art, i. 241; Clodd, p. 176 f.] Any gate in the Egyptian under world had to open to the person who correctly named it. [Note: HDB v. 181a.] In later Judaism ‘he who knew how to pronounce this sacred name [Jahweh] was believed to have a magical power over the forces of nature, and was designated among the Rabbis בַּצַל שֵׁם = “the master of the name.” ’ [Note: Ib. v. 280.]
The extraordinary power of the mana of a deity explains the intense desire to know his name. Only then could his mana be serviceable, for in all the lower cultures to invocate is not to supplicate, but to call to one’s aid the powerful mana of the deity invocated. [Note: Ib. v. 181.]
The Hindu priests ‘could command the gods to do their will by invoking their hidden names.’ [Note: J. A. MacCulloch, Religion, its Origin and Forms, 1904, p. 70.] In ChaldAEa it was believed that the demons who caused disease and death could be expelled only by magical spell through the might of the great gods, who could be compelled to act by using their secret names, which the priests alone knew. [Note: Ib. p. 100.] In the time of Ḫammurabi the personal names of the deities ‘are invoked, apparently as containing, in like manner, a measure of the personality of their divine patrons.’ [Note: ExpT xxv. [1913-14] 128.] Heitmüller shows that in the Persian, MandAEan, and other religions the mere utterance of the name of a deity acted as a kind of charm. [Note: W. Heitmüller, Im Namen Jesu, 1903, pp. 190, 192.] In the under world to know the name of a demon was to be superior to his power. ‘To pronounce the name of a deity [the secret names were most efficacious] compelled him to attend to the wishes of the priest or exorcist.’ [Note: HDB v. 181; Sayce, p. 302.] Even in modern times the person who knows ‘the most great name of God’ can by uttering it kill the living, raise the dead, transport himself wherever he pleases, and perform other miracles. [Note: E. W. Lane, Modern Egyptians, 1895, ch. 12.] The Arabs and the Chinese believe that he who knows the name of one of the jinn can make the jinn obey him. [Note: Frazer, GB3, pt. ii., Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, p. 390.]
A person who knows the name of another can utilize this knowledge in three ways. He does not require such knowledge to aid or bless another, for he can do so directly; but-
(1) When A knows B’s name, A can injure B.
This is true of the Australians, for example. [Note: Ib. p. 320.] The people of Torres Straits when they wish to injure anyone make a rude effigy of the person, and deal with it as they would have the hated person dealt with; but the very first action is to call it by the name of the person who is to be injured. [Note: Haddon, p. 19; also Exp, 7th ser., x. [1910] 122.] The Greeks and Romans wrote on a tablet the name of one whom they wished to hurt, and then ‘defixed’ it with nails, believing that what was done to the name would be experienced by the person bearing the name. This was called κατάδεσις or defixio. One inscription reads ὄ νομα καταδ ῶ κα ὶ α ὑ τόν (‘I nail his name, that is, himself’). [Note: On the defixionum tabellAE See F. B. Jevons, in Transactions of the Third International Congress for the History of Religions, ii. 131 ff., ‘GrAEco-Italian Magic’ in R. R. Marett, Anthropology and the Classics, 1908, p. 106; Ovid, Amores, III. vii. 29; Tacitus, Ann. ii. 69. For similar conceptions among the ChaldAEans, Egyptians, and Scots, See Clodd, pp. 65, 66, 86.]
(2) When A knows B’s name, A can compel B to act in a good way towards C.
It was part of the duty of Aaron and his sons to bless in the name of Jahweh. Naaman thought that his cure would be effected by Elisha calling on the name of Jahweh. Jacob invokes the name of the God of his ancestors, his own name, and the name of his progenitors, to bless his grandchildren. A prescribed formula puts Jahweh’s ‘name upon the children of Israel so that he blesses them.’ David blesses the people in the name of Jahweh, and a not unusual good wish came to be, ‘We bless you in the name of Jahweh.’ [Note: 1 Chronicles 23:13 K 5:11, Genesis 48:16, Numbers 6:27 S 6:20, Psalms 129:8 .]
(3) When A knows B’s name A can compel B to injure C.
Hence among the Jews thoughtlessly to invocate the name of Jahweh in a curse was blasphemy. [Note: Leviticus 24:11 .] When Goliath cursed David by his gods he was solemnly invoking these deities to destroy his antagonist; and when David retorted, ‘I come to thee in the name of Jahweh Sabaoth,’ he meant that he had invoked the aid of his God against the giant. Elisha in cursing the lads of Bethel did so ‘in the name of Jahweh.’
When St. Paul called down on Elymas the doom of blindness, the words indicate that he did it by means of a solemn invocation of the Divine name. [Note: 1 S 17:45, Acts 13:10-11 .]
This invocating of the name of a deity marks a stage in the developing of one element in religion. There is (a) the wish to injure, taking a stronger form in (b) a purely magical act as nailing, [Note: Tacitus, loc. cit.] to which is added (c) an invocation of the name of a deity; then gradually (d) the act becomes symbolical, and the invoking of the name more important, till (e) the act is omitted and there remains the simple cursing in the name of the deity. [Note: Ovid, loc. cit.] Or again there is (a) the wish to bless, taking expression in (b) a formal act as the laying on of hands, to which is added (c) a calling on the name of the god; then gradually (d) this act becomes merely symbolical and the petitioning of the deity all-important, till at the end the act is omitted and (e) what remains is the pure invoking of the deity by name in a blessing or a prayer.
It has been pointed out, e.g., by b.c. Eerdmans that the primitive Israelites ‘assumed the existence of a mysterious power, that dwelt in all things that lived, and in all things that appeared to contain unseen sources of action.… the name of this power was Elohim or El.’ This Hebrew conception, which corresponds to mana, can be traced in such expressions as ‘the El of my hand.’ [Note: Exp, 8th ser., vi. [1913] 385, 386; Genesis 31:29; J. Skinner, ICC, ‘Genesis,’ 1910, p. 398; Deuteronomy 28:32, etc.; HDB v. 640.] As Jahweh advanced to the supreme place among the gods, all such power became attributed to Him, and His name, as embodying this and His other attributes, attained unique importance. His worship is described as ‘calling on the name of Jahweh.’ [Note: Genesis 12:8 .] ‘To proclaim his name’ is to reveal the essence of His character; the Levites are those who ‘minister in his name,’ and ‘bless in his name,’ while the ark was holy because there had been called over it the name of Jahweh. [Note: Exodus 33:19, Deuteronomy 18:5 S 6:2.] His מַלְאָךְ, ‘messenger’ or ‘angel,’ [Note: Exodus 23:20 .] who was to guide the Israelites to Palestine, was to be treated with profound reverence, ‘for my name is in him,’ i.e., he is the representative of my being. [Note: HDB v. 640b, 1 S 17:45.] It follows, as E. Kautzsch remarks, that to know it [the name of Jahweh] is of vital importance, for this is the condition of being able to use it in invocation; and invocation has, according to primitive notions, a real efficacy, giving to the invoking party a kind of power over the name invoked, so that he can compel its aid.’ This we have seen in the case of David. [Note: 1 S 20:42.] Hence the most solemn oath was taken in the name of Jahweh, for the mana of Jahweh fell on the breaker of such an oath.
An allusion to the ancient practice is found in the words of St. Paul: ‘Every one who invokes the name of the Lord shall be saved. but how are they to invoke one in whom they do not believe, and how can they believe in one of whom they have not heard?’-as well as in the custom of the primitive Christians of invoking the name of Jesus. [Note: Romans 10:13-14, Acts 2:21 .]
The close connexion between the person and the name of a deity comes out in primitive ideas of creation. ‘To pronounce a name is to call up and conjure the being who bears it. The name possesses personality.… to name a thing is to create it: that is why creation is often represented as accomplished by the word.’ [Note: HDB v. 181; Tiele, quoted by J. M. Robertson, Pagan Christs, 1911, p. 220.]
The Egyptians believed that the god created himself by uttering his own name, and that when he named a thing it immediately sprang into existence. [Note: HDB v. 181; Budge, quoted by Farnell, The Evolution of Religion, p. 188; G. Maspero, The Dawn of Civilization, 1897, p. 187.] In the Babylonian cosmogony there is not so much a period of chaos as a period when things were not named and therefore did not exist.
‘When in the height heaven was not named,
And the earth beneath did not bear a name,
When none of the gods had come forth,
They bore no name.’ [Note: Maspero, p. 537; G. Smith, The Chaldean Account of Genesis, 1876, p. 62; T. G. Pinches, The OT in the Light of the Historical Records of Assyria and Babylonia2, 1903, p. 16; J. Skinner, ICC, ‘Genesis,’ 1910, p. 43.]
A reference of a similar kind lingers in such Hebrew myths as ‘Elohim said let there be light, and light was,’ or that which tells that in order to meet the loneliness of the first man Jahweh made the brute creation and brought them to him to See what he would name them. [Note: Genesis 1:3 . Cf. Ahuna-Vairya (ERE i. 238).]
In the writings of the Apostolic Age this conception has passed into that of creation by word. ‘The world was fashioned by the word of God’; ‘the earth by the word of God was formed of water and by water’; for ‘God calls into being what does not exist.’ [Note: Hebrews 11:3 P 3:5, Romans 4:17; C. Clemen, Primitive Christianity and its Non-Jewish Sources, 1912, p. 82.]
7. Name and tabu. -As primitive man regarded his name as a vital portion of himself he took extraordinary care of it; he kept it secret. This was necessary, for if it was known and properly used in a correct formula by an enemy, the wish of his enemy immediately took effect. [Note: Frazer, GB3, pt. ii., Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, p. 318; HDB v. 181.]
The Amerinds believed in a personal soul which was neither the bodily life nor yet mental power, but a kind of third soul, or spiritual body. This had a very intimate connexion with the name. It was believed by many of the tribes to come into existence with the name; hence the personal name was sacred and rarely uttered, for it was part of the individuality, and through it the soul could be injured. [Note: Haddon, p. 23; Frazer, GB3, pt. ii., Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, p. 319; Anthropological Essays, ed. W. H. R. Rivers, R. R. Marett, N. W. Thomas, 1907, p. 91.] Savages have strong objections to uttering their own names. This is true of the Australians, the Tasmanians, the Amerinds, and the primitive Scots and Irish. In Abyssinia the real, i.e. the baptismal, name is kept secret, and is only used in church services, such as prayers for the dead. The people of Torres Straits, like those of the west of Ireland, refuse to tell their names; for their doing so would put them in the power of the person to whom they were told, who could thus work his will upon them. [Note: Exp, 8th ser., v. [1913] 311; Frazer, GB3, pt. ii., Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, p. 327; Clodd, pp. 81, 82, 83, 84, 92, 94; Haddon, p. 22.] A person’s name must not be uttered by one related to him by blood and especially by marriage. This prevails among the South African tribes, those of Borneo, and North America. Among the Ainus a woman must not pronounce her husband’s name; to do so would be to bring harm on him. [Note: Frazer, GB3, pt. ii., Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, p. 335; Clodd, p. 115; ERE i. 251.] An Abipone will not commit the sin of uttering his own name, for that would he literally ‘to give himself away,’ though he does not object to mention that of other people. [Note: Frazer, GB3, pt. ii., Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, p. 328.] Cases are known where a man had completely forgotten his own name, and was thus saved from the possible mistake of inadvertently letting it become known. [Note: HDB v. 181.] Among the Battaks … a man, on becoming the father of a boy, N.N., is henceforth known only as ‘father of N.N.’ [Note: Quoted by Robertson, p. 49 n.] An Amazulu woman must not name her husband, but calls him ‘the father of N.,’ meaning the child. [Note: Clodd, p. 117.] So the Hindu wife speaks of her husband as ‘he,’ the English wife of hers as ‘my man’ or ‘my master,’ while the Scotch woman uses ‘oor ain.’ The expressions ‘the mother of Sisera,’ ‘Peter’s wife’s mother,’ ‘the mother of Zebedee’s children,’ are familiar instances of the same practice. [Note: Judges 5, Matthew 8:20 .]
In the Apostolic Age we meet with the same thing. Nothing so preserved a man from evil as keeping his name strictly sacred. The Christian of Pergamum who, fighting his moral battle in the place ‘where Satan sits enthroned,’ has not renounced his faith but adhered to God’s name, is assured of his ultimate triumph, for to him is given ‘a new name, unknown to any except him who receives it.’ He who is known to men as the ‘Logos of God,’ or the ‘King of kings and Lord of lords,’ is assured of victory as He rides forth on His white horse, for ‘he bears a written name which none knows but himself.’ [Note: Revelation 2:17 .]
The fact that the Flamen Dialis was forbidden not only to touch but even to name certain animals and things carries the tabu on names forward into other regions. [Note: Granger, p. 142f.]
The names of the dead were kept secret, for if a dead man heard his name, he would at once return. [Note: Frazer, GB3, pt. ii., Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, pp. 349, 353.]
Among the Greeks, therefore, it was customary to pass graves, especially those of heroes, in silence. [Note: Anthropological Essays, p. 92.] Among the Abipones all mention of the dead was avoided, and the relatives of the dead changed their names. [Note: ERE i. 29.] This custom prevailed among the Amerinds, Australians, Albanians, Tasmanians, Shetlanders, [Note: Frazer, GB3, pt. ii., Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, pp. 349, 354; Clodd, pp. 166, 168, 171.] etc. Our Lord in calling Lazarus from the dead expressly named him. [Note: John 11:43 .] The Amerinds and others, by solemnly conferring the name of a dead person on a living one, thereby caused the latter to become an incarnation of the dead. [Note: Frazer, GB3, pt. ii., Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, p. 365.] Certain ceremonies of naming and a certain type of name may have sprung from this custom.
Secrecy in regard to the name was also observed in the case of exalted personages. Instances of this in the case of kings have been collected from many parts of the world. [Note: Ib. pp. 374-382; Clodd, p. 157.]
The British sovereign is rarely spoken of by his name, ‘His Majesty’ or ‘the King’ being generally employed. In the British House of Commons a member is not addressed by his name, but as ‘the member for N.,’ and the first step in punishing a member is ‘to name him,’ thus bringing the offender out of his impersonal sacredness.
The tabu on the name was still more important in the case of those connected with divinities and in that of the divinities themselves, as the nearer to the divine, or the more divine a person was, the greater the potency dwelling in his name.
A priest of Eleusis on taking office assumed a holy and hidden name which was written on a tablet and cast into the sea, and when he died that name became the one by which he was known. [Note: Frazer, GB3, pt. ii., Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, p. 382; Clodd, p. 162 ff.] The real name of Confucius is so sacred that it is a punishable offence to utter it. [Note: Clodd, p. 190.] The Oyampis never name a waterfall till they have passed it, lest the sacred snake