On the Pentagrammaton
The tradition of what has come to be called “Christian Kabbalah” has, ever since the times of the Renaissance, arguably always been constituted by two great pillars, namely theosophical interpretations of the Trinity and speculations about the Holy Name of Jesus. Having dealt with the former rather extensively in one of our previous posts , it seems only fitting to take a quick glance at the latter theme as well and to gather here some of the interpretations that have been put forward throughout the ages.
Now, to start off it has to be said that the significance of the Holy Name did of course not only occur to the Renaissance Kabbalists but has a long tradition in the Church. As we read in Acts (9:21, 14), already the earliest Christians were known as “those who invoke the Name” (of Jesus) and even today in the Roman liturgy the priest, before taking Holy Communion, solemnly recites the Psalm: “Calicem salutaris accipiam, et Nomen Domini invocabo”. The Name of Jesus is the “Name above every name”, the Name at which every knee shall bow (Phil. 2:9-10) and “there is no other Name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12): “Quicumque invocaverit Nomen Domini, salvus erit” (Rom. 10:13; Joel 2:32).
It is hence no surprise that the Christian Kabbalists have spilled a lot of ink trying to penetrate deeper into the mysteries of the Name, especially since the Kabbalah, as it was practiced by the Jews, has always been a true “science of divine names” and thus seemed more than fitting for the purpose. One such Name that appears again and again in the Kabbalistic writings, from the Renaissance humanists to fin-de-siècle occultists, is the Pentagrammaton: YHShWH, “Yehshouah”, which presents the Holy Name of Jesus as an “explication” of the Tetragrammaton YHWH and which shall concern us here primarily.
Again – as always when it comes to matters of Christian Kabbalism – we have to start with Pico. Being “the first among the Latins to have divulged the mysteries of the Kabbalah” (“haec est prima et vera Cabala, de qua credo me primum apud Latinos explicitam fecisse mentionem”), it is also in him that we find the first explicitly Kabbalistic interpretations of the Holy Name, most notably in his Kabbalistic Conclusions (secundum opinionem propriam), the most relevant of which we want to briefly quote here.
Thesis VII: “No Hebrew Kabbalist can deny that the name Jesus, if we interpret it following the method and principles of the Kabbala, signifies precisely all this and nothing else, that is: God the Son of God and the Wisdom of the Father, united to human nature in the unity of assumption through the third Person of God, who is the most ardent fire of love”.
Thesis VIII: “From the preceding conclusion we can know why Paul says that Jesus was given the name that is over every name, and why it is said that all in heaven, earth, and hell kneel in the name of Jesus, which is also highly Kabbalistic. And anyone who is profound in the Kabbala can understand this by himself”.
Thesis XIV: “By the letter ש, that is, shin, which mediates in the name Jesus, it is indicated to us Kabbalistically that the world then rested perfectly, as though in its perfection, when Yod was conjoined with Vau – which happened in Christ, who was the true Son of God, and man”.
Thesis XV: “By the name Yod Heh Vav Heh, which is the ineffable name that the Kabbalists say will be the name of the Messiah, it is clearly known that he will be God the Son of God made man through the Holy Spirit, and that after him the Paraclete will descend over men for the perfection of mankind”.
Thesis XLIII: “Through the mystery of the two letters Vav and Yod, it is known in what way the Messiah as God was the beginning of himself as man (principium suiipsius ut homo)”.
Now, some scholars today seem to believe that Pico was himself not aware of the Pentagrammaton and that it was rather a later invention of his “disciple” Johann Reuchlin.1 This opinion is based primarily on Thesis XIV (and, by extension, Thesis XLIII) where Pico says that the Shin joins the Yod and the Vav, which has led many exegetes to presume that Pico thought the Hebrew name of Christ to be YShV, Yeshu, rather than YHShWH. This name (YShV) is indeed the form that the Talmud uses and we also find it hinted at in a passage of St. Irenaeus, with which Pico might very well have been familiar.
According to the language of the Jews, the name of Jesus is composed of two letters surrounded by one central letter which, as their sages say, means ‘Lord over the heavens and the earth’. For in the original Hebrew, ‘Lord’ is Yah, and ‘heaven and earth’, shamayim va-aretz. The Word which rules of heaven and earth is thus Jesus Himself (Adv. Haer. II.24.2).
Thus the name Yeshua (YShV) becomes an abbreviation for YHWH-Shamayim-Vaaretz (the Lord, Heaven, and Earth), in which the Shin takes so to speak the intermediary position between God and the world, just like Christ is the heavenly mediator Dei et hominem.2
However, In some Kabbalists like Kircher and Archangelo de Borgonouvo the hexad of the Vav is taken as a symbol for the totality of “heaven and earth” as such, i.e. all that was made within the six days of creation (“ו senarii numeri index, coeli & terrae, id est, omnium ex materia & forma compositorum copula”), and the Yod designates the supreme Principle of all things, so that the Shin (analogous to the הה in the Tetragrammaton) appears here as the binding element between both: the Shabbat (ShBTh) in which “the world then rested perfectly” (cf. Thesis XIV).
Another interpretation would be that Pico took the Yod (“Lord”) to designate the divine nature and the Vav (“Earth”) the human one, these being conjoined by the Shin (valuing 300), i.e. “by the Holy Spirit” (Ruach Elohim = 300), as it said explicitly in Theses XV and VII.
This reading is probably what led Gershom Scholem to even suspect a Trinitarian intention in this three letter construction, according to which the Father is symbolized by the Yod, the Son by the Vav, and the Spirit by Shin (cf. Débuts de la Kabbale Chrétienne).3
While such conjectures might seem rather “reasonable” at first glance they are ultimately unsatisfactory and testify once more to the fact that academic scholars of esoterism are, more often than not, incurably blinded by their own professional exotericism. When Pico says that the Shin joins the Vav and the Yod he is not necessarily referring to the Name YShV (which, in the Talmud, is used as an explicitly derogatory form!) but could’ve just as well hinted at the form YH-Sh-WH, i.e. the Pentagrammaton, in which the YaH (designating the conjunction of the supernal sefirot Chockmah and Binah, the “Father and Mother”) is united to the WeH (i.e. the six sefirot of the “Son” Zeir Anpin and the “lower Heh” of Malkut, “the Bride”), thus re-uniting “heaven and earth”.4
This interpretation is also far more congruous with Thesis XV in which Pico gives an explicit reference to the Tetragrammaton in which descents the “most ardent fire” of the Ruach Elohim (ש). Lastly, it might likewise elucidate Thesis VII, where Pico states that Christ (who is explicitly identified in with the Tetragrammaton)5 was “his own Principle” (principium suiipsius); for the supernal YaH designates the unmanifested Principium and WeH the manifested principatum, and these are united by the Shin, which “binds the North to the South” (as Pico says in his Conclusions on the Orphic Hymns), thus “reassembling” the Name and reconciling above and below, according to the verse: “In those day YHWH will be One and His Name will be One” (Zach. 14:9).6
Perhaps surprisingly we even find this Pentagrammaton in the above-quoted passage of Irenaeus; for it has to be recalled that the first verse of Genesis does not say actually say “shamayim va-aretz” (ShMYM VARTs), “heaven and earth”, but rather hashamayim va-haaretz (HShMYM VHARTs), “the heavens and the earth”, and thus we once more discover the secret of the Pentegrammaton: Y-HSh-WH.
That this Name was not unknown to the early Fathers is also testified by a rather enigmatic note in the Patrologia Latina (XXIII.1275ff.) which is ascribed to Evagrius (but probably comes from Origen) and which gives the following interpretation: “Y = principium, H = hoc, Sh = dentes, W = in eo, H = is qui vivit”.7
It seems as if the author is here referencing the philology of St. Jerome who not only classified the shin among the “dentals” (consonants articulated by pressing the tongue against the teeth) but also makes use of the fact that the word “shin” can be read to mean “shen”, tooth. This becomes particularly obvious in his Epistula XXX(ad Paulam), where he offers a numerological analysis of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, linking them in fours and supplying an explanation for each line (according to the meaning of the letters when read as full words). The seventh grouping thus assembled consists of koph (calling), resh (head) shin (tooth), and tau (sign), concerning which the sacred Doctor writes:
In the seventh number there is also a mystical meaning ‘the calling of the head, the signs of the teeth’ (vocatio capitis, dentium signa). Spoken sound is produced through the teeth [the meaning given to shin], and through these signs one arrives at the head of all things which is Christ. I ask you what could be more sacred than this mystery!
As R.J. Wilkinson comments on this passage: “The etymology of ‘shin’ points to the vox articulata of Christ, the Word incarnate”, and thus it seems as if the meaning of the mysterious note by Evagrius (viz. by Origen) is that the Pentegrammaton YHShWH represents the “articulated Name”, the Divine Word outspoken.
This is also the central thesis of Reuchlin, who, in his De Verbo Mirifico, states that through the Incarnation of the Word the “ineffable Name” of God became pronounceable: “When the Word became flesh, the (four) letters became name” (quando verbum descendit in carnem, tunc litterae transierunt in vocem); a statement that he likewise tries to prove through many philological considerations, the validity of which we personally lack the competency to judge.
That Reuchlin was not the “inventor” of the Pentagrammaton is not only proven by the note in the Patrologia (and by Pico’s Conclusiones) but also by the fact that the “supreme miracle-working and blessed name” appears already in a sermon of Nicholas of Cusa8 from 1445 (cf. Sermo XLVIII), almost 50 years before the publication of Reuchlin’s De Verbo.9 Here too the meaning of the Pentagrammaton is clear:
It is the Word of God that Word through which and in which every word is. But in Hebrew the name Ihesus is Iesua and is the Word of God [YHWH] with the added letter ‘s’ which is called shin; and shin means ‘utterance’, so that Iesua or ‘Jesus’ thus designates the outspoken Word of God (verbum dei elocutum).
While one thus finds references to the Pentagrammaton scattered throughout, it is undeniably in Reuchlin that it is first systematically developed and elevated to a place of central importance. It is also Reuchlin who first links the progression of divine Names to the three ages of salvation history; a thesis prominently picked up by many later Kabbalists like Paul Ricius and Agrippa: In the Abrahamic covenant God was known under the three-letter name El Shaddai (ShDY), the “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” (cf. Ex. 6:3); to Moses is revealed the four-letter name YHWH on Sinai together with the Law, and the promise of Israel is finally fulfilled in Christ, viz. in the five-letter name YHShWH, “the most appropriate name for the Lord of all things”.10
Thus the insertion of an additional letter finds itself in full alignment with the course of salvation history. After all, to Abram was added a Heh before God made His Covenant with him (cf. Gen. 17:5), and to “Hosea” (HWShA) was added a Yod, making him “Joshua” (YHWShA) before he crossed the river Jordan and entered into the Holy Land (Num. 13:16). Thus it seems supremely fitting that in a like manner the Name YHWH should be “transformed” into the Holy Name of Jesus (YHShWH), who came to establish the New and Eternal Covenant and who opened to us the gates of the Celestial Promised Land.
The inserted Shin Reuchlin sees as pointing to the “ointment” (shemen) from which the Meshiach derives his name, according to the verse: “Thy name is as ointment poured forth” (Cant. 1:3); but also as designating “be-rachamim” (= 300), “in mercy”, for it is the Messiah whose name is Mercy who quenches the divine Wrath and brings balance to the two pillars, thus “hallowing the Name”: YH-BRHMYM-WH.
This is “revealed” by using the notarikon method of the Kabbalists, through which Reuchlin transposes Gen. 4:26 (“They began to call upon the Name of YHWH”) to mean: “He wanted to be called by the letter Shin the middle of YHWH”, or (according to gematria): “He wanted to be called by the letter Shin” (cf. De Arte, I), the three constituents of which (ShIN = Shin-yod-nun) are taken as an acronym for Shem YHWH Nikra: “The Name YHWH pronounced”.
Now, the meaning of the middle Shin has of course seen numerous interpretation among Christian Kabbalists, not all of which we can cover in the present study; most often it is seen as a figure of the Holy Spirit, whom Pico doesn’t call a “most ardent fire” (esh in Hebrew) for nothing, and the linking of the letter shin to this element has also a long tradition in Judaism. This is already foreshadowed in the revelation of the Tetragrammaton from out of the burning the bush, for the bush of thorns represent the fallen world set ablaze by the descent of the Word and His Spirit: “Ignem veni mittere in terram” (Lk. 12:49). And thus already St. Jerome, in his mystical exposition of the Hebrew alphabet, assigns the shin to the Divine Logos.
The word “esh” (ASh), fire, further bears a close resemblance to “ish” (AYSh), man – which is likewise a name of God according to the verse “YHWH is a man (AYSh) of war”11 (Ex. 15:3) – and thus the Shin has also been frequently seen as indication the mystery of the Incarnation in which the “Word becomes flesh” (that is to say, YHWH becomes YHShWH).12
This reading corresponds also to the numerical symbolism, for the 5 is of course the number of man (or of the microcosm) par excellence and thus the Pentagrammaton is often depicted around an “anthropic” pentagram. The transmutation of the Divine Name corresponds thus the “passage from the 4 to the 5” as we have laid it out before, the Great Yobel, the exodus from the slavery of “this world” to the freedom of the next one, and the restoration of primordial unity, viz. the reunification of “head” (centre) and “body” (periphery) or of the four branches of the cross to the middle point etc.
Finally the Shin (ש) with its tree tips (or three yods)13 united in a common base has been seen as a symbol of the Holy Trinity. Indeed the shin is often used in the Zohar to symbolize a “tri-unity” (for example of the three patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) and is even described in terms of a celestial tree with three branches which are united in a single root (cf. also Bahir §118) or like three tongues of fire (esh) emerging from a common source, which, among Christian Kabbalists, has naturally always been read as an image of the three Persons united in the One Essence.14
This is for example the position that Saint-Martin takes, according to whom the Shin introduced by Christ into the middle of the Tetragrammaton represents the reconciliation of the “Holy Ternary” (that is to say the Most Blessed Trinity) with the quaternary (designating the totality of manifestation), i.e. the re-unification of God and the world (cf. Correspondance, LXXIV).
However there is one last interpretation which is not as well known and which concerns a Messianic prophecy in Genesis 49:10: “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him (yabo shilo) and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples”.
Now most translations tend to see in the word “shiloh” (שִׁילֹה) a miswriting of the possessive pronoun “shelo” (שֳׁלו), meaning “from him” (thus for example the Septuagint), or – as the Vulgate – of “shaluach” (שלוח), messenger. However, the Rabbis tend not to believe in “scribal errors” and thus this “Shilo” which is about to come has, among Jewish exegetes, often been read as a name of the Messiah.15 Thus the Talmud (Sanhedrin, 98b) states that “Shilo is the name of Messiah, for thus is he called in the prophecy of Jacob”, and the Zohar (I.504) comments:
The Name shilo, such as it is written here [i.e. in Gen. 49:10] indicates that the supremely holy name of the Divinity will be in him. Such is the mystery that is announced here
Here it is not only indicated that Shilo (Shin-yod-lamed-heh)16 is a name of the Messiah but also that “the Name of YHWH will dwell in him”, from which it is of course only a small step until we once more arrive at the Pentagrammaton YHShWH.17
Now all this might seem very good and well, however there is one crucial stumbling block that has been pointed out by skeptics since the times of Reuchlin, namely that the name of Jesus was, in all probability, not in fact spelled YHShWH but YShWA, Yeshua.18 This is at least the spelling testified to by almost all early Hebrew and Aramaic sources and which even has precedents in Holy Scripture itself (cf. Ezra 3:2). Furthermore it is made clear in Scripture (Matt. 1:21) that the Name of Jesus means “YHWH is salvation” (yeshu’a, from the root YShA)19 which necessitates an ayin – and it precisely to detach the Most Holy Name of Jesus from all notion of “salvation” and the like that the perfidious Jews have subtracted this letter in their spelling of YShV, thereby fulfilling the saying of the prophet: “I had been like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter; I did not realize that they had plotted against me, saying: ‘Let us destroy the tree and its fruit; let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name be remembered no more’” (Jer. 11:19).
However that may be, the fact that YHShWH presents a highly unlikely and even impossible spelling of the name “Jesus” has, unsurprisingly, led most scholars to simply dismiss the Pentagrammaton out of hand; a fact which Reuchlin himself seems to have presaged when he argues that it is precisely this unique spelling that gives the Name its “mirific” value; for the Messiah must necessarily carry the “New Name” (Is. 62:2, Rev. 3:12, etc.) announced by the prophets: “And how could the mouth of the Lord have given to Christ a ‘new name’ if human inventiveness had imagined it beforehand?”
A similar position is also taken by Jean-Marie Mathieu (cf. Le Nom de Gloire) who argues that YShWA designates the human nature of Christ, his “name according to the flesh”, whereas YHShWH is His Name “in heaven” (Phil. 2:10), the “Name of Glory”, presumably written in that celestial Hebrew, which, according to St. Augustine, is the language of the angels.20
And indeed, unbeknownst to Monsieur Mathieu, there is a gematria that points us in this very direction: The name YShWA, calculated simply, values 386 (10+300+6+70); but if we take the full value (according to which each letter is spelled out completely) the result is 532, which gives 918 in toto. Interestingly these two values can also be obtained from the Pentagrammaton, for if we take the simple value of YHWH (26) and add the full value of ShIN (shin-yod-nun = 360), we obtain once more 386 and if we now, conversely, take the full value of the Tetragrammaton (232)21 and add to it the simple value of Shin (300) the results is 532, giving us 918 again; a quite astonishing “coincidence” indeed! (if one happens to believe in such things).
There is also another mystery hidden in the name YShWA (viz. in the “Name 918”) concerning once more an old-testamentary prophecy, this time from Isaiah (9:6-10).
For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on his shoulders; and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase (l’marbeh) of his government or of peace, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forever more.
Again we find a scribal anomaly in this prophetic text (which the Church, since the earliest time, has read as an explicit announcement of Christ). As the Rabbi Paul Drach explains in his Harmonie (tome 2, ch. II, §5):
The rabbis call the initial mem the ‘open mem’, and to the final mem they give the name of ‘closed mem’, because it is closed from below while the first one is not.
The text of the prophecy where Isaiah announces the birth of the infant Saviour offers a striking irregularity in the spelling of the first word of verse six, l’marbeh. The noun marbeh, preceded by the prefix particle ל, begins with a final mem; an unusual way of spelling which is not found anywhere else in the Hebrew codex.
The Synagogue teaches that this closed mem of the term l’marbeh indicates a great mystery in the manifestation of the Messiah; that is to say, the ever intact purity of the glorious Mother of Jesus Christ, Our Adorable Lord. To explain this, it is necessary to point out that in Hebrew the most holy name of Mary begins with the letter mem and ends with the same letter: מרים [Mariyam]. Closed in the front and closed in the back, the Queen of the Angels of purity keeps her integrity at the beginning and at the end. As a Virgin she was born, as a Virgin she is carried triumphantly into the heavens. Virgin she was before her blessed motherhood, and ever Virgin after becoming the Mother of her God whom she gave birth to without the slightest pain, because the curse of Eve could not stain her.
Thus the “marbeh” of Isaiah (meaning increase, multiplication, growth etc.) is revealed as a sign of the miraculous virgin birth; an interpretation which is at least as old as Christian Kabbalism itself and can be traced to such early figures as Paulus de Heredia, who transposes the word “l’marbeh ha-mishra” (the increase of his government) to read “Mariyam shara”: “Maria Domina”22 and who sees in the value of l’marbeh (677 when counted with the closed mem) an indication that the prophecy should be fulfilled 677 years from the time that it was uttered (Isaiah lived during the 7th century B.C).
This reading is by no means arbitrary; for the letter mem is in the Kabbalistic writings often described in terms of a “womb” (cf. Sefer Yetzira 3:4, Bahir §85, etc.) and so the “closed womb” of Isaiah – the prophet who only a couple verses earlier foretold: “Lo! a maiden shall conceive, and shall bear a son; and his name shall be called Immanuel!” (7:14) – undeniably points us to the Most Blessed Virgin, who is a “closed garden and a fountain sealed” (Cant. 4:12)
However it doesn’t stop there, for if we spell the word MShYH, Meshiach, with a closed mem (= 600) instead of a regular mem (= 40), we obtain – once more – the value 918!23 It seems there is no end the coincidences when it comes to the divine name.24
Finally, there’s also a Trinitarian reading of the “Tetragrammaton” YShVA, for as we have seen the three letters YShV have sometimes been linked to the three Divine Persons (Yod = Father, Shin = Spirit, Vav = Son) and the final Ayin (which can also be read as AIN: “Non-being”) represents the one superessential Essence, viz. the common “root” of the three “branches” that make up the letter ש. This structure is also mirrored in the Shema: “The Lord, our God, the Lord is One” (YHWH Elohenu YHWH echad) which joins the triplicty of divine Names in the “Oneness” (echad) of the fourth. It is thus no surprise that the three/four words of the Shema have frequently been linked to the three/four letters of the Tetragrammaton and the tri-unity of the supernal sefirot, or, for that matter, to the Christian Trinity. As Pietro Galatino writes:
That great man Moses placed the name of God three times in this verse with the express purpose of indicating distinctly the Trinity of the Divine Persons; and by immediately adding the word ‘one’ he shows that, though there are three Divine Persons, there are not three Gods, but that God is one: echad. Thus the Trinity of Persons in no sense detracts from the unity of the Divine Nature. Moreover, the Jews are quite unable to deny that this triple name of God designates the three Divine Persons, namely, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, since Rabbi Simeon ben Jochai makes the following comment in the Zohar on this text: ‘Hear, O Israel, that is, Israel of old, as Rabbi Ibba says; YHVH (Jehovah), that is, God, who is the beginning of all things, the Ancient of Ancients, the garden of roots, and the perfection of all things, and is called the Father; Elohenu (our Elohim), that is, our God, the profundity of rivers and the fount of knowledge which proceeds from the Father, and He is called the Son; YHVH (Jehovah), that is, God: this is the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the two, and is called the measure of speech; He is one, and encloses and binds the one with the other; nor can the one be divided from the other’ (De Arcanis, II.1).25
But which name is it now? YShVA? YHShWH? or both? And does the Pentagrammaton really turn out to be simply a “creative misunderstanding” (Scholem) cooked up by some overly zealous philologists, as seems to be the general consensus today?
Whatever one thinks about the Verbum Mirificum YHShWH and its validity, one has to admit that the Pentagrammaton has, at the very least, proven a powerful symbol, a kind of Christian yechudim (a divine name that is constructed to aid contemplating some esoteric aspects of the Godhead), and the fact that, for millennia, it was able to exercise such a fascination undoubtedly speaks in its favor. And whatever the philology, as a symbol its meaning remains unchangingly true: Jesus is the Word that was spoken and in His Holy Name the Tetragrammaton becomes utterable. Nevertheless, to insist on some specific rendition of this Name in the Hebrew language above all others means ignoring the miracle of Pentecost and thus the Church has always rightly condemned such propositions as “Judaizing”. The Saints have raised the dead and healed the sick by the power of the one and supremely holy Name of Jesus (whether it be Iesvs, Ἰησοῦς, or ישוע)26. This is the Name above all Names, of which the prophet says: “In those days there will only be one Lord and only one Name” (Zach. 14:9) and so it will be now and forever, unto the ages of ages; amen!
Cf. for example Hermann Greive, Die Christliche Kabbala des Giovanni Pico della Mirandola.
Kircher (cf. Oedip. Aeg. IIA.236) also makes use here of numerology, according to which the pentad of the Heh (the “Mundus Archetypus”) and the hexad of the Vav (the totality of formal manifestation) emerge from the interplay of the primordial binary and ternary (2+3 = 5, 2x3 = 6). We are presented with nice image here according to which the two Hehs of the Tetragrammaton (viz. the “angelic world”) are linked to the two Cherubim (which each measured 5 cubits) erected by Salomon on the Arc of the Covenant (Vav) and in the middle of which appeared the Shekinah (Yod) – at least this our interpretation of the passage in question which is admittedly quite obscure.
For Borgonouvo the first Heh designates the reciprocal love of Father (Yod) and Son (Vav) and the second Heh the totality of creation which is then assumed into the Shabbat of Trinitarian love when the two הה of YHWH change into the ש of YShV (cf. Sopra il Nome di Giesu, III.211-212).
This is at least the reading Scholem gives in the revised and translated version of this article as it appeared in Cahiers de l’Hermétisme: Kabbalistes Chrétiens. In the original German version he links Vav to the Holy Spirit and Shin to the Son, which might be justifiable according to our first interpretation, but obviously makes little sense in the present context. Certainly, in the Trinitarian interpretation of the Tetragrammaton that is found in the Gale Razaya and which is then picked up by most later Kabbalists from Galatino to Kircher the Vav is interpreted as the Holy Spirit: “The third letter, namely, ו vav, which stands for the copulative term ‘and’, best expresses the Holy Spirit who, since He is the love of the Father and of the Son by whom they love each other, is rightly called the copula or bond of them both” (De Arcanis, II.10). But even though Pico was probably familiar with the Gale Razaya, viz. with the Epistola of Paulus de Heredia (“Johannis Pici Comitis mirandulani preceptor”; at least according to Galatino) – hence why we can also be certain that he knew of the form YShV which features prominently in it – he didn’t seem to have regarded it as an authoritative source and consistently diverges from it in the formulation of his own theses (as Scholem himself has convincingly shown). That Pico associated the Vav with the Son is also indicated in Thesis XV where he says that “from the name YHWH it clearly know that the Son of God (Vav) is made man through the Holy Spirit (first Heh) and that after him the Paraclete (second Heh) will descend from him”. We can even presume that Pico was referring here to the fact that the Vav (ו) can be viewed as an extended Yod (י) which would elucidate the first part of the thesis according to which “the Messiah will be God the Son of God [י Yod, symbolizing also God the Father] made man [ו Vav, symbolizing the descent of the Word]”. However ultimately we can only speculate since the interpretation of the Gale Razaya (according to which the two Heh symbolize the two natures of Christ) could also be read into the text of this thesis.
Another curious blunder is observable in an article of Scholem, entitled Die Stellung der Kabbala in der europäischen Geistesgeschichte; here he explicitly credits Pico with the introduction of the Pentagrammaton, however he does so in the context of the “three-ages theory” (see below), which, according to our knowledge, doesn’t appear anywhere in Pico writings but was only elaborated by later writers, most notably Reuchlin.
Cf. for example Kircher (Oedip. Aeg. IIA.287) who quotes Pico almost verbatim in saying that the letter Shin “connects the divine and the human on equal terms” (divina humanaque ex aequo connectit), all the while referring to the Pentagrammaton YHShWH (and not to the name YShV).
Cf. in this context especially Thesis VI (which we have discussed in our previous essay). This identification of YHWH and Christ is of course metaphysically rigorous, for the Divine Word is precisely the “Name” or “Definition” (logos) of the Father, His auto-affirmation: I AM. And as such all the Fathers have taught that in the theophany at the burning bush it was actually the Logos who spoke to Moses, not the Father per se. Finally it is of course Christ Himself who claims the Name “I AM” (ego eimi) for Himself on several occasions in the Gospels. In fact this explicit self-designation as “the-One-who-is” (i.e. YHWH) appears four times in the Gospels (cf. Joh. 8:24, 28, 58, and 13:19), one time for each letter of the Tetragrammaton. Additionally there are three times where Christ uses the “ego eimi” in the (less absolute) sense of “It is me” or “I am he” (Joh. 4:26, 6:20, 18:6; four times if one counts 18:8 where the “ego eimi” is repeated and appears embedded in a sentence) thus completing the sacrum septenarium, viz. the three unique letters of the Tetragrammaton plus the four letters in total or the three vowels that (according to most experts) featured in the original pronunciation of the name plus the four consonants, etc. (hence why also the 12-letter Name, obtained by multiplying 4x3, plays such a significant role in the Kabbalah).
There might also be an alternative explanation of Thesis XLIII based on the gematria of the phrase: “I am the First and the Last” (Is. 44:6, 12, 48) in which “the First” (RAShWN) values 73 pointing to the Yod (7+3 = 10), whereas “the Last” (AHRWN) values 60 pointing to the Vav (6+0 = 6). However since these numbers are obtained by a rather unusual method of counting that Pico probably wasn’t familiar with it seems unlikely. It may, however, actually be that St. John references this when he takes up this saying in the verse: “I am the Alpha and the Omega” (Aλφα kai Ω). As we see the Alpha (= 1+0 = Yod) is fully written out whereas the Omega is only indicated by a single letter, and this single omega (ω) has been read by some as a veiled reference to the Hebrew letter vav for which it serve as a stand-in (when vav is used as a vowel); although this too seems a little bit farfetched.
The full passage reads thus: “Quod de Domino ponunt ineffabile nomen per quatuor scribitur elementa, scilicet Jod, Hep, Vau, & Hep interposito medio inter haec, seu post duo prioria elementa, quod Hebraei vocan Sen, & significat dentes, adeo ut quinque litterae translatae hance seriem sive sententiam conficiant. Principium hoc, dentes in eo, is qui vivit: quatuor quippe elementa interpretationem habent: Jod, principium: Hep, hoc: Vau, in eo: Heth, qui vivit”. We see that the Tetragrammaton is here not read as Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh but rather as Yod-Heh-Vav-Heth (the Heth pointing to “chay”, “chaya”, i.e. life, living, etc.); interestingly this reading also found in a gloss of Beda Venerabilis, who writes: “Tetragrammaton id est quatuor litterarum, a tetra quod quatuor et gramma quod est littera. Istae sunt litterae: ioth, he vau, heth. Ioth, id est principum, he et vau iste, heth vita sive Christus” (Glossa Ordinaria, Ex. 28).
While not strictly speaking a Kabbalist himself, we know that Cusanus did own a copy of Arnaldo de Villanova’s Allocutio super Tetragrammaton (which was probably, at least in parts, inspired by the work of Abulafia). In fact it was the disciples of this Jewish Master who probably went on to become the very first “Christian Kabbalists”. As Scholem (Op. cit.) says: “The oldest testimony of conversions of Jews to Christianity, justified by the methods of Kabbalistic exegesis can be found in Abraham Abulafia (born in 1240). This testimony concerns certain of his old disciples, who had studied under him around 1280 in Capua and later became apostates. Without a doubt it was them who interpreted the term בצלו [‘in his shade’] of the Song of Songs (3:2) by transposing the letters to mean עלבו, ‘his Cross’, from which they drew phrases like ‘I love his Cross’ or ‘I love resting in the shadow of his Cross’, or even – through a new transposition which read עלוב – ‘in the shadow of the Crucified’”.
Reuchlin himself doesn’t claim the invention of the Pentagrammaton; a contario, he even argues that this “wonder-working name” has been handed down to us by tradition through the well-known Christogramm IHS: “Our forbearers in the Faith abbreviated it [the Pentagrammaton] and depicted it by only the first three letters: IHS. Such is the form that we find in the most ancient manuscripts” (De Verbo, III). The origin of the IHS is quite mysterious indeed; of course, it’s commonly held to be a Latinized version of the Greek ΙΗΣ (and some later interpretations like Iesus Hominum Salvator, In hoc Signo, or Iesus Habemus Socium etc., have also been proposed), yet it is rather curious that the êta should be transliterated as an “H”, so that Reuchlin argues that it’s actually derived from the Hebrew Yod-Heh-Shin (יהש). As for the Tetragrammaton, its abbreviation into the “Trigrammaton” YHW (or IAΩ in Greek) is well attested, especially in esoteric texts such as the Sefer Yetzirah and certain magical papyri, so that Reuchlin might actually be onto something here.
Reuchlin also calls and these “the Name according to nature”, “the Name according to the Law”, and “the Name of Love” and in these three periods one finds of course an obvious echo of the Joachmite theory of the “three ages” (corresponding to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) or the three ages of the Kabbalists (Chaos, Torah, Messiah).
“By this word איש, which is written Alef, Yod, and Shin, and signifies man – which is attributed to God when he is called a man of war – through the way of the Kabbala we are perfectly admonished as to the mystery of the Trinity” (Thesis XXXIII). Obviously Pico’s reading of the Nomen Dei AYSh appears here thoroughly Trinitarian (presumably Alef = Father, Yod = Son, and Shin = Holy Spirit).
By adding yet another yod to the word ish (AYSh) we obtain AYShY: “bridegroom”; as it used by Hosea in the verse: “In that day, declares the Lord, you will call me ‘Husband’ (ishi) and no longer ‘Master’” (2:16).
In fact, Archangelo de Borgonouva argues that the shin is actually composed of two yods and one vav giving it the same value as the Tetragrammaton (26), viz. that the value of shin (300) points to the name maz-paz (MTsPTs = 30), a well-known transposition of the Tetragrammaton which also features in Pico (cf. Thesis XXIX, secundum doctrinam Hebraeorum), meaning that the letter Shin in the Name YShV “contains in itself the whole Tetragrammaton” (cf. Op. cit. 175ff.). However later on he also takes up the popular interpretation of the shin as a symbol for the three yods of the Trinity, viz. as pointing to the well-known symbol of the three yods inscribed in a circle above the vowel kamats (which too is a depiction of the Tetragrammaton that is already found in Moshe Cordovero’s Pardes Rimmomin).
“Corona summa, quae est mysterium centri, ipsa est radix abscondita et tres mentes, hoc est numerationes superiors sunt germen, quae uniunt se in centro, quae est radix earum … Id est trium altissimarum numerationum, quas nos orthodoxe SS. Triadem appellamus” (Kircher, Oed. Aegyp. II.297f.).
This reading is also kept in a lot of Christian translations, from the early Syriac Peshitta to even the KJV which reads: “until Shilo comes”.
Interestingly the value of ShYLH (300-10-30-5) is 345, which is also that of “El Shaddai” the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, by whom this prophecy was made. As we have seen above the Name YHShWH is sometimes taken to represent a kind of “synthesis” of ShDY and YHWH.
Paulus de Heredia, in his Epistola de Secretis, even sees in the holy Name of Jesus Y-Sh-V an allusion to the “yabo shilo velov” of Gen. 49:10.
Another possible spelling that we have already encountered is of course YHShWA, Yehoshua or “Joshua”, i.e. the name that the successor of Moses bore. This spelling is also attested in the book of Samuel (6:14) but it is generally believed that ever since the time after the exile the name YHShWA came to be spelled YShWA (hence also why the subtraction of a letter from ones name came to be seen as a “punishment” among the Jews). Nevertheless, there is an interesting connection between both names, for both derive from the verb “to save” (yash’a) and, according to how vowel-shifts Hebrew grammar work, the name “Joshua” could be understood as the active form (yosh’a) and the name “Jesus” as the passive form (yshoua), meaning that YHShWA means “YHWH is saving” and YShWA: “YHWH has saved”, so that the salvific work of Christ appears as the fulfillment of the liberation of Israel begun by Joshua’s entry into the Holy Land.
Thus the verse from Habakkuk (3:18): “I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation (YShAY)” is rendered in by Jerome as: “exsultabo in Deo Jesu meo”.
“The true ‘Amen’ and the true ‘Halleluiah’ are only known to the angels”, the sacred Doctor says, and in a similar manner Saint-Martin states concerning the Pentagrammaton: “Lorsque le Christ est venu, il a rendu encore la prononciation de ce mot [YHWH] plus centrale ou intérieure … Sans doute, il y a une grande vertu attachée à cette prononciation véritable, tant centrale (intérieure) qu’orale, de ce Grand Nom et de celui de Jésus Christ, qui est comme la fleur”. Like the word “Amen” uttered by the faithful during the Liturgy is only a dim reflection of the “silent and true Amen” that resounds in Heaven, so the word YHShWH is merely a sign of the “true pronunciation” of the Holy Name which is not only uttered “orally” but even more so “interiorly”.
Readers who are familiar with the Kabbalah might of course object that the “explicated name” (shem ha-mephorash) possesses the value of 72. But while this name plays a substantial role some strains of Kabbalah (particularly the so-called “practical Kabbalah” and Western ceremonial magic) the matter is actually not quite as clear. There’s three letters in the Hebrew alphabet that can be spelled out in more than one way and interestingly these three letters are those that make up the Tetragrammaton, namely yod (YoD, YVD), heh (HeH, HeY, or HA) and vav (VYV, VAV, VaV) so that in toto we obtain four possible values for the full spelling of the Tetragrammaton, i.e. 72 (e.g. YVD-HeY-VYV-HeY), 63 (YVD-HeY-WAW-HeY), 45 (YVD-HeY-VYV-HeY) and 52 (YVD-HeH-WaW-HeH) the sum of which 232. As such some Kabbalists (for example none less than the “Ari” Isaac Louria himself) hold that the 232 represents the actual “full value” of the Name. 232 is also the value of both YAHI AUR (“Let there be light”) and “The Word of God” (Dabar YHWH), showing the mystical identity between both. Finally, we can encounter it in the mysticism of Aboulafia, who notes the numerical equivalence of the words “esrim wa-shisha” (“twenty-six”, i.e. the simple value of the Tetragrammaton) and “Keter ha-Torah” (both valuing 1231), meaning that the Name YHWH is the “Crown of the Torah”. This number of 1231 is also read as 1+231 (= 232), namely the one supreme Name and the 231 “gates” mentioned in the Sefer Yetzirah (i.e. the 231 possible permutations of the 22 Hebrew letters). As he writes in the Mafteach ha-Ra’ayon: “It [the holy Name YHWH] refers to the languages, the letters, and their transpositions one with the other in the 231 gates as the one Name” (cf. E.R. Wolfson, Abulafia, I, as well as Moshe Idel, Abulafia’s Esotericism, III.10).
The exact transposition is rather elaborate but can be broken down thus: LMRBH HMShRH = LMR-(B)-Y(H+H)-M + ShRH = LMRYM ShRH (id est Mariae Dominae); the beth which is as it were “left over” in this operation and “hidden” in the Name of Mary is taken to signify bethulah, virgin, and the two hehs (5) which come together to form the yod (10) are taken as a sign for the mystery of the two natures, since the letter heh (ה) is itself made up of a vav and a daleth (which too equal 10 in summa): “In the same manner that the figure ה is composed out of daleth (ד) and vav (ו), so the King Messiah is composed of divinity and humanity. And like these two hehs are born from two daleths from which proceed two vavs, as two sons in this manner ה ה: thus in the substance of King Messiah two filiations are discovered: the one is divine, for He is the Son of God; the other human, for he was the ‘son’ foretold by this prophecy [Is. 9:6]. And as in these two letters daleth and vav that make up the heh the one is distinct from the other, yet they are but one letter which is written thus: ה: so the divine and the human nature of the Messiah, which are likewise unified, are only one Messiah”. We can certainly fault our Renaissance forbearers with questionable philology but not with a lack of creativity!
The Christological interpretation of the heh is of course closely connected to the Trinitarian reading of the Tetragrammaton YHWH that we’ve already mentioned above, according to which the“duplex ה in הה denotat duplicem naturam Christi & dupliciem relationem Filii” (as Kircher writes in his Egyptian Oedipus). Since the two Hehs (5x2 = 10) are, as we’ve seen, identical to Yod (= 10), the Tetragrammaton thus reveals to us that the Son (Heh-Heh) is the perfect image of the Father (Yod) united in the “copula” of the Holy Spirit (Vav).
We might also note in passing that the letters of the word “Messiah” can be spelled out to yield 888 (MYM-ShYN-YVD-cHYT), which is of course the number of Christ Ἰησοῦς.
In an article for the l’Homme Nouveau, the Abbé Richard calculated that the earthly ministry of Christ, from His Baptism to the feast of Pascha, lasted 918 days in total. The mystery of the closed mem was also not foreign to Pico della Mirandola who writes in his Thesis XLI that “it can be known in the Kabbala through the mystery of the closed mem why after himself Christ sent the Paraclete”; although what exactly he meant by this remains unclear. We can only put forward some educated guesses: If we concede that the Shin (300) inserted into the Tetragrammaton symbolizes the Incarnation of the Word it isn’t until the “Holy Spirit” (RWcH QDSh = 618) is sent that the “Messiah” with a closed mem (918) is completed (however this only works by omitting the prefix “Ha” in Ruach ha-Kodesh or by adding it to “Messiah”: HMShYcH). Maybe it is also a reference to the text itself, since the titles that Isaiah gives (“Father of Eternity”, “Prince of Peace”, “Counselor”, etc.) have sometimes been interpreted in a Trinitarian manner; the Spirit being of course the “Counselor” (i.e. Paraclete) and the “Peace” that Christ sends down into the world (cf. Joh. 14:26-27). It might also be reference to the “baptism of water” (the element commonly linked to the letter mem) and the “baptism with the Spirit and fire” (Joh. 1:33) etc. – but ultimately we might never know.
The passage from the Zohar that Galatino cites here (which one will seek of course in vain in modern translations) has been identified by Scholem as “a deliberate interpolation into the authentic text of Zohar III, 263a”, which first appears in Paulus de Heredia. But while there were certainly a lot of forgeries making the rounds during the Renaissance it is simply undeniable that the Zohar contains passage which are “Trinitarian” through and through and whose authenticity cannot be questioned, e.g.: “Come and see the mystery of God: there are three degrees, and each degree is distinct. Notwithstanding, they are one, and are united into one; nor is one of them divided from another” (Zohar, III.65a.) and others, some which we have already cited in previous essays. As C.D. Ginsburg notes in his essay on The Kabbalah concerning these and other such verses which one will find cited in many of the Renaissance Kabbalists: “Some Jewish writers have felt these passages to be so favourable to the doctrine of the Trinity, that they insist upon their being interpolations into the Zohar, whilst others have tried to explain them as referring to the Sephiroth”. However to suspect a given passage to be a forgery simply for sounding “too Christian” is just bad heuristics, for not only are there texts that easily lend themselves to Trinitarian readings but it is also undeniably that the terms “Father”, “Son”, and “Holy Spirit” do feature prominently in the Kabbalistic writings (even if not in a totally “Nicean” manner). To discount all such “Christian” readings of Kabbalistic texts merely as the fancy of unscrupulous apologists and renegade Jews is simply insufficient and one will also have a hard time to explain why so many noted Jewish Kabbalists – not only in the Renaissance but even today (cf. the case of Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri) – have ended up converting to Christ.
In the context of forged manuscripts we might also point to another famous “controversy” concerning the Gale Razaya (The Revealer of Secrets), a work that is frequently cited in many 16th century Kabbalists like Reuchlin, Galatino, and Philipe de Mornay, and which was allegedly penned by a certain Rabbenus Haccados (or “Rabbenu ha-Kadosh”: our sacred teacher) who is said to have lived during the Roman consulate (509-27 BC) and helped to edit the Mishna. It is in this legendary book, so it is said, that Haccados divulged the secrets of the 12- and the 42-letter which are AB, BeN, Ve-RVacH Ha-KoDeSh (“Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”) and AB ELoHIM, BeN ELoHIM, RVacH Ha-KaDoSh ELoHIM, SheLoShA Be-AcHaD, AcHaD Be-SheLoShA (“God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, Three in One and One in Three”), in support of which Galatino cites Maimondes himself who speculated that the 42-letter name was “a phrase of several words which had forty-two letters”, meant “to convey a correct notion of the essence of God”. It is obvious that most scholars today asses the Gale Razaya (and the adjacent Igeret ha-Sodot) as blatant forgeries by Paulus de Heredia in whose Epistola they are first cited, although this has never been conclusively proven (cf. in this context P.E. Hughes, Pico della Mirandola, XI). Whether a medieval invention or an “ancient tradition”, the above-given interpretation of the divine names is interesting enough and should not be omitted in an essay dedicated to this topic (especially since it is not only omnipresent in all the Renaissance Kabbalists but even still encountered today, for example in Messianic Jewish circles).
We should recall in this context that Latin, Greek, and Hebrew have been “baptized” by the blood of Christ and are thus sanctified (cf. Joh. 19:20).
One can attest to the Truth of the holy spirit and the holy covenant, for in making the three kinds of offerings in supplication the the ONE in reverence and love, the holy spirit became the word made flesh and a name was given during the circumcision of the heart. The new covenant of divine love shown like a coronal mass ejection of the sun through one's heart, thus, a new covenant was made with the Lord. So yes, the Ark of the covenant is Real and is indeed written in the heart.