Tractatus de Deo uno secundum naturam

The fullness of absolute perfection is expressed in the Scriptures by the name of God who is.

« The name, who is (ὁ ὢν), revealed by God himself, is 1° the proper name of God, signifying immediately the very substance of God, and not, as seemed to some learned men, his efficacy or a special relation of God to the people of Israel; and so, admitting no analogical signification, it is an incommunicable name; 2° by this name is designated, as is expressed in the Scriptures, absolute Being itself, actually, as the essence of God and as the fullness of perfection. »

I. The ten names of God are listed by St Jerome in letter 25 to Marcella: El, Elohim, Eloe, Sabaoth, Elion, eser ieie, Adonai, Ia, « τετραγράμματον ineffabile, which is written with these letters Iod, He, Vau, He; which some, not understanding because of the similarity of the letters they had found in the Greek books, were accustomed to read πιπι »; Saddai¹. Of these, only four are properly substantives: El, Elohim, Adonai, Iehovah²; the rest either differ from one of the enumerated names by almost only their grammatical form: Eloah, ascher ehieh, Iah; or are epithets designating some attribute of God: Elion, Schaddai; or designate an extrinsic term of divine dominion: Sabaoth. Of the first four, Adonai (Dominus, ὁ κυριος) signifies an extrinsic term. The other two, El and Elohim, are used in exactly the same way as the Latin name Deus; for whatever you think of the etymology of these names³, in common usage they certainly signify the supreme deity, surpassing all in power and majesty, which in truth can only be one; but by false opinion several deities can nevertheless be thought to exist: « for although there are those who are called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, since there are many gods and many lords, yet to us there is one God » 1. Cor. VIII. 5. 6.⁴ Hence, although among those who rightly think of the supreme deity these names (El, Elohim, Deus) signify the one God in his substance, nevertheless they are also applied to designate false gods, and so they take on, as it were, the character of appellatives. By contrast, the tetragrammaton יהוה is altogether the proper name of the true God, and was never used to designate anything else. This distinction between a proper name and, in a sense, an appellative is best perceived in those places where the Scriptures predicate of God under the name יהוה that he alone is El or Elohim, in opposition to and to the exclusion of false gods. « Know therefore this day that the Lord (יהוה) is God (Elohim) in heaven above and on earth beneath, and there is no other » Deut. IV. 32⁵; « O Lord God (יהוה), you have begun to show ... your strong hand; for there is no other God (El), either in heaven or on earth, who can do your works » ib. III. 24. etc.

Connected with this property of the name is its incommunicability; and each must be explained from the mode of signifying. The holy Fathers frequently teach that all the other names, not excepting this very name God, are derived from the efficacies of God⁶; whence when men ascribe these efficacies to false divinities, those too are called gods in the Scriptures, θεοί, אלהים, not indeed from the truth of the matter but from the opinion of men; for in the truth of the matter they are, and are called « lies, vanities, nothing⁷. » Moreover, since God is named by these names insofar as he is known from his efficacies, they stand in the place of affirmative attributes, of which some imitation is found in creatures; whence in the Scriptures themselves the name God, θεός, אלהים, is transferred in a certain analogous signification (in the plural number only, see Tract. de Incarn. th. III.) to designate angels or men who exercise the authority of God. Cf. S. Thom. 1. q. 13. aa. 8. 9. 10.

But the name יהוה is derived from none of the efficacies of God. For God is not named by this name (who is) as the exemplar and efficient cause of existing creatures; but rather, as will presently appear, by this name, as ὁ ὢν, as who is through essence, he is set over against everything that can be conceived apart from him. Accordingly what is signified by this name holds the place of those perfections which we express by negations, or which we conceive in some measure not by likeness but by the removal of the imperfection found in creatures. By the name itself, therefore, is signified the eminence of essence (ὑπερουσία) and perfection, formally as incommunicable; from which it follows that it admits no analogical signification, and therefore cannot be transferred to the designation of others, which have a likeness of God through participation, or to which some attributes and efficacies of God have been ascribed through error; and so it is an altogether incommunicable name, just as the essence which it signifies is incommunicable ad extra.⁸

This property of the name יהוה, and the signification of the divine Being itself, is confirmed from the very context of Exod. III. 14. 15. collated with VI. 3, where God revealed himself by this name. « Moses said to God: behold, I shall go to the children of Israel and say to them: The God of your fathers (אלהי אבותיכם) has sent me to you. If they say to me: what is his name? what shall I say to them? » It was not enough for Moses to know « the God of the fathers », who called and protected Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and whom they worshipped as God almighty (אל שדי VI. 3.); but he manifestly asks, in opposition to the appellative name God אלהים, for a proper name, which is incommunicable, so that it may not be given to another. God, answering this request of Moses, declares first the very actual necessary existence as the distinguishing mark by which he alone can be called. « God said to Moses: I am who I am » (אהיה אשר אהיה ἐγω εἰμι ὁ ὤν)⁹. Hence from this act of being the proper name, which Moses had sought, is derived as that by which he himself declares himself: « Thus shall you say to the children of Israel: who is (in Hebrew אהיה, I am, that is, he who declares what he is by this word: I am) has sent me to you. » Finally, he changes the form of the first person אהיה, by which he declares what he is, into another, either substantival or of the third person יהוה, by which he is called by his faithful ones: « Thus shall you say to the children of Israel: The Lord יהוה, God of your fathers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, has sent me to you: this is my name for ever. » The comparison made with the request of Moses and with the preceding verse shows that the designation « God of the fathers » cannot, as some have thought, be taken as an imposed name; but the proper name is יהוה, and the apposition « God of the fathers » declares that the true God himself, whose name is ὁ ὢν, is the God who chose Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their seed.

From this whole context the property of the name יהוה is clear first; and it is clear next what is chiefly sought, that by this name the Being of God himself is directly signified, and not fidelity in fulfilling promises, as some more recent writers have thought. For this is shown a) by the etymology of the name itself and by the declaration given by God himself. b) In the absolute signification of Being itself the name is explained in the Scriptures themselves, Apoc.I.4.8; IV. 8: ἀπὸ ὁ ὢν καὶ ὁ ἦν καὶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος; in which resolution of the name the form of indefinite time is declared as a unity of past, present, and future, which is nothing other than the negation of succession, and accordingly an eminence above every relation to time. c) In this sense all the ancient interpreters, Jews as well as Christians, understood the name. d) That more recent interpretation rests on a false supposition. For they think that from Exod. VI. 3 the name יהוה can be understood only insofar as God is shown faithful in carrying out what he had promised, because only in this sense does it seem true to them that God, insofar as he is יהוה, did not manifest himself to the patriarchs. But it is one thing that fidelity in keeping promises is directly signified by the name, and another that this fidelity follows from what the name signifies; the former we deny, the latter we concede.

As to the question whether the name יהוה itself, even considered materially, was first revealed to Moses at Exod. III. 14, we say that the cause we are now treating does not depend upon it. For if some contend, on account of certain names and sayings which occur before this theophany, e.g. Gen. XV. 7. 8; XXII. 14, that the name had been known long before, it must at least be conceded that the thing signified by the name was more distinctly revealed to Moses, l. c. For this at least is said at Exod. VI. 3. Now by what argument, I ask, will they demonstrate that this more distinct revelation refers only to the fidelity of God or to his special providence toward the people of Israel, and not rather to the very perfection of the divine essence, from which, to be sure, that fidelity in fulfilling promises follows? « Under the law, says St Thomas, the prophetic revelation was made concerning the things that pertain to the faith of the deity more excellently than before ..... Whence the Lord says to Moses: I am the Lord, who appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in God almighty, and my name Adonai (יהוה) I did not reveal to them: because, namely, the preceding Fathers were instructed in faith in the omnipotence of the one God, but Moses was afterward more fully instructed concerning the simplicity of the divine essence, when it was said to him: I am who I am » S.Th. 2. 2. q. 174. a. 6. Moreover, the words of God at Exod. VI. 3 are so worded that the earlier manifestation of the name יהוה seems altogether to be denied. If this is admitted, it must be said that the use of this name in Genesis, even in the somewhat more difficult passages Gen. XV. 7. 8; XXII. 14, is by a figure of anticipation¹⁰.

II. What we have said so far pertains rather to determining the nominal signification, so that it is clear what term is signified. But it is our concern to know the mode of signifying, so that from it (as far as may be) we may understand the thing signified, what it is. We say therefore that by this name ὁ ὢν, Exod. III. 14, Being actually is defined as the divine essence, and consequently that in the Scriptures Absolute Being is declared as the fullness of absolute perfection.

1°. God, l. c., does not obscurely declare, by the very form of the enunciation, that Being actually is his own essence, as that to which the question what God is is answered (τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι, which the Scholastics called quod quid esse and quiddity). For before he assigns to himself the name ὁ ὢν, אהיה or יהוה, and makes it known to Moses, he declares by a certain definition the thing signified by that name. The definition is: « I am who I am »; where manifestly the term who I am constitutes the predicate, and therefore states of the subject I, what it is. The sense therefore is equivalent to this other: I am Being itself; therefore Being itself is declared by God as his own quiddity or essence. We may illustrate this somewhat by comparison with the essence of a creature. The essence of a creature is in itself in the state of objective possibility, and is brought forth into the state of real existence only by the will of the Almighty; being therefore is not part of the concept of the creature's essence, but supervenes upon it through an efficient cause. But because in God essence is Being itself, the essence of God cannot be conceived in the state of possibility, and apart from Being actual, any more than the essence of a creature can be conceived in the state of impossibility; for just as objective possibility enters into the very essence of a creature, so Being, itself actual, is the essence of him who says: I am who I am. It is therefore expressed directly and formally by this utterance, and accordingly also by the proper name of God, I am or who is, the necessary Being of God, of which there is no cause or other reason than the intrinsic quiddity and essence of God himself; which we express by saying being from itself, by which we both deny the cause from which it is, and affirm the intrinsic necessity of actual Being¹¹

2°. God, according to the context described above, Exod. III. 14. 15., claims the name I am (ὁ ὢν) simply and without addition for himself

אני הוה ונמצא מצד שאני הוה ולא מצד שזולתי נמצא claims it as its own, and as distinguishing it from all things that exist or can be conceived apart from it. It cannot therefore be understood as being in common, as the most simple mark opposed to non-existence or to nothing; but it is necessarily understood as Being of its own proper reason, distinguishing itself and distinct from being of any grade and reason, which is not God. This divine Being is therefore first of all determinate, singular, personal, and not universal and indeterminate being. This is already clear in itself, and by the personal form not only of the subject I but also of the predicate who I am it is evidently expressed; it is not an indefinite ὄν but a personal ὁ ὤν; it is ὁ αὐτός¹². On the other side, this Being, supremely determinate and distinct from all others, has no determination according to some grade of being, but is called Being simply. Being is moreover the same as perfection. Whatever therefore of perfect Being or of absolute perfection can be conceived, all that is he, whose essence is Being, not according to any grade beyond which it would not extend, but simply, and therefore without limit. « The purest Is, says St Bonaventure, is found only in the full flight from not-being... for Being itself has nothing of not-being » Bonavent. Itiner. c. 5. Read St Thomas cont. gent. I. c. 28; 1. q. 4. a. 2. Dionysius admirably circumscribes the name who is (divin. nom. c. 5. §. 4.): « God is not in some measure being, but simply and infinitely, as one who has embraced and anticipated all Being in himself »¹³.

3°. This fullness of being, indicated by God himself through the revelation of his own proper name and, as it were, of its definition, the same divine revelation declares more distinctly in other places of Holy Scripture. « Where are their gods........ see that I am alone (כי אני אני הוא) and there is no God besides me... I live for ever ». Deut. XXXII. 39. 40. « I, the Lord (יהוה), am the first and the last ». « I myself am; before me no God was formed, and after me there shall be none; I am, I am the Lord (יהוה), and there is no saviour besides me ». « Thus says the Lord (יהוה), the king of Israel..... I am the first and I am the last, and besides me there is no God. » « The Lord of hosts (יהוה צבאות) is his name... I myself, I am the first and I am the last. My right hand also founded the earth » Is. XLI. 4; XLIII. 10. 11; XLIV. 6; XLVIII. 12. 13.¹⁴ « I, the Lord (יהוה), do not change » Mal. III. 6. « I am α and ω, the beginning and the end, says the Lord God, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the almighty. » « I am the first and the last, the beginning and the end » Apoc. I. 8; XXI. 6; XXII. 13.

In these passages, a) by affirming, he is declared whose name is I am, the first and the same last, the beginning and the same end, himself the α and himself the ω; in whom, as is, was, and will be are not successions but one immutable Being; nor is there one thing first, another last, another α and another ω; but the same himself is, if he is conceived as first, beginning, α; and if he is conceived as last, end, and ω. Thus he who is comprehends the beginning, the middle and the end, and the whole fullness of absolute being and of absolute perfection, to which nothing can be added nor anything taken away. « He who is before the world and unto the world; nothing is added to him, nor is anything diminished » Ecclesi. XLII. 21. Therefore, as Dionysius says (div. nom. c. 5. §. 8.), « he who in the Scriptures essentially pre-exists according to every notion of the things that are, is predicated in many ways, and is properly sung as was and is and will be; for he has anticipated in himself, absolutely and eminently, the beginning and the middle and the end of beings¹⁵. » In an eminent and transcendent manner (for these are what the Greek words mean) he is said to have anticipated the whole in himself; that is, not as a principle of the same order, like unity among numbers, but as absolute Being and supereminent cause¹⁶¹⁷. Hence b) in the same places of Scripture is inferred by denying that, apart from him who is the whole fullness of being, there is nothing of absolute, independent, divine being, nothing that is Elohim.

4°. If the texts cited a little above are rightly considered, it is readily understood that Being simply, and that fullness of being, is everywhere presented as the reason and cause why other things besides God and outside God can be, and really are: because God is יהוה ὁ ὤν, therefore he alone is the one who knows all things and declares things to come; he alone, and no one with him, founded the earth; he alone, and no one besides him, is Saviour, etc. For as God alone is ὁ ὤν, Being intrinsically necessary, comprehending the first and the last, that is, the whole fullness of absolute being, and beside him nothing can be of absolute being: so in his very absolute perfection is the reason why can there exist outside him analogical imitations and beings by participation; and in the free application of his will and infinite power is the cause why such beings really are. For both pertain to the fullness of absolute being: that outside him nothing of absolute and independent being can exist (otherwise God would not be the fullness itself); and that by his will can there be imitations of his perfection in created realities, all depending on him in every way (otherwise God would not be perfect according to all reasons, and so would not be the fullness of being or of absolute perfection). God alone is because he is, nor can any reality such as he is exist or be conceived beside him and outside him; the rest can be because God is, and they actually are because God wills them to be. « They adored him who lives for ages of ages.... saying: worthy art thou, Lord our God¹⁸ to receive glory.... because thou hast created all things, and by thy will they were and were created » Apoc. IV. 10. 11. From him as from the beginning of the necessary intrinsic and extrinsic possibility of all things, and through him as from a free cause, not only that it may begin but also that it may persist, existence of created things dependent on him in every way; and unto him as unto the end of all; from him as beginning, middle, and end, α and ω are all things, Rom. XI. 35. 36; Hebr. II. 10. Whatever therefore of perfection is not only in real creatures but can be in all possibles, all is comprehended in God, not indeed formally, as it exists or can exist in creatures (for thus it is something dependent, created, limited, and an analogous being in comparison with being simply); but it is comprehended eminently as one, absolute perfection, imitable outside itself, of the exemplar and efficient cause. « That eternal and unchangeable nature, having in itself that it is, as was said to Moses: I am who I am, far otherwise, of course, than those things which were made.... none of those which he made, existing and having all things first as he himself is... nor would he have those things which were not yet made, unless as he himself is, not made » S. Aug. Gen. ad litt. l. V. n. 34.

Hence being and to be, which is understood apart from God, is not said univocally with the divine Being, nor can it be numbered along with it, because in the very reason of being it is plainly diverse; nor yet is it said equivocally, but analogically, because it is some imitation and shadowing of the divine Being: whence the community of the name is not arbitrary but is founded on the likeness and relation of the lower to the higher. Therefore in the Scriptures, creatures which, considered in themselves, are indeed said to be, in comparison with the divine Being are sometimes said not to be, Is. XL. 15. 17; Sap. XI. 23. Cf. 1 Tim. VI. 16; Matth. XIX. 17.¹⁹ We shall speak more distinctly, a little later, of the difference between divine being and participated being.