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Bible Dictionaries
Name
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or (ὄνομα)
‘Naming,’ says De Quincy, [Note: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 Ἀκύλας (Aquila), [Note: Acts 18:2.] the Graecized form of the Latin aquila, ‘eagle’; Ἄγαβος (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 Latinmanuscript . The Heb. צְבִי has in Aram. the form מַבְיָא (Tabitha). In the Septuagint this is translated Δορκάς, [Note: Acts 9:36; G. A. Deissmann, Bible Studies, 1901, p. 189.] ‘gazelle’; while Ῥόδη (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 ἀλέκω, ‘defend,’ and ἀνήρ we have Ἀλέξανδρος (Alexander), [Note: Acts 4:6, etc.] ‘a defender of men’; from the Latin amplius, ‘great or noble,’ we have the Gr. name Ἀμπλιᾶς (Amplias), [Note: Romans 16:8.] or in a longer form Ἀμπλιᾶτυς (Ampliatus). Something striking in the appearance is indicated by the name Ἐπαφρόδιτος (Epaphroditus), [Note: Philippians 2:25.] the Gr. word for ‘handsome’; from ἀνδρεῖος, ‘manly,’ comes Ἀνδρέας (Andrew), [Note: Acts 1:18.] as Ῥοῦφυς 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 Ἀγρίππα (Agrippa), [Note: Acts 25:13.] ‘one born feet first.’ What names could be more appropriate for a trusted slave than Ὀνήσιμος (Onesimus), [Note: Philemon 1:10.] the Greek adjective for ‘helpful,’ or Ὀνησίφορος (Onesiphorus), [Note: 2 Timothy 1:6; 2 Timothy 4:19.] ‘the profit-bringer?’ A Hebrew king bore the name מְנַהֵם, ‘comforter,’ which in the 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 1 Maccabees 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: iii. 3266.]
The records of the Apostolic Church furnish us with several such names, as Ἀνανίας (Ananias), [Note: Acts 5:1; Acts 9:10.] the Gr. form of the Heb. חֲנַנְיָח (‘Jahweh hath been gracious’); Ματθαῖος (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; Acts 11:30.] 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; Revelation 14:11.] and the marking of his opponents with the seal of the living God. [Note: Revelation 7:2; Revelation 9:4; Revelation 14:1.] 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 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 τὸν 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: Ant. XIV. vii. 2; Acts 10:2; Acts 10:22; Acts 13:16; Acts 13:26; Acts 13:43; Acts 13:50; Acts 16:14; Acts 17:4; Acts 17:17; Acts 18:7; 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; Revelation 2:15, 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 (Acts 9:20, Acts 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 εὐλογητός, [Note: 2 Corinthians 11:31, Romans 1:25; Romans 9:5.] ‘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 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 τῷ κυρίῳ. [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; Acts 10:36, Romans 14:9, 1 Thessalonians 4:16, 2 Thessalonians 1:7, Judges 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: 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 βασιλεὺς 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; 2 Maccabees 13:4, 3 Maccabees 5:35, 1 Timothy 6:15, Revelation 17:14; Revelation 19:16.] 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 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 θεοῦ υἱός 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 Ἀρεοπαγίτης, ‘the Areopagite,’ applied to Dionysius. [Note: Acts 25:21; Acts 25:25; Acts 17:34.]
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: 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: ] 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 Kings 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 (Judges 1:9, Revelation 12:7), Gabriel (Luke 1:19; Luke 1:26), Raphael (To 12:15), Uriel (2 Esdras 5:20). In the Gentile world the development had not reached but only tended towards monotheism, Zeus (Acts 14:12-13) 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 (Acts 19:28), Mars (Acts 17:19), and Hermes, the messenger and speaker for the gods (Acts 14:12), or the Dioscuri, the twin gods Castor and Pollux (Acts 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: 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: 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.” ’Copyright Statement
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