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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. 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.

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).

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”.

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) 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).

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”.

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 Cusa from 1445 (cf. Sermo XLVIII), almost 50 years before the publication of Reuchlin’s De Verbo. 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”.

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” (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).

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) 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.

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. 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) 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.

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. 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) 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.

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) 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” 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! It seems there is no end the coincidences when it comes to the divine name.

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).

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). 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!

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