¹ Trans. Harry Sperling et al., 5 vols. (London: The Soncino Press, 1931–1934), III, 27.

² All references to Milton's poetry in my text are to The Complete Poetry of John Milton, ed. Shawcross, John T. (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Co., 1971).Google Scholar

³ See, for example, Hunter, William B. Jr's association of the Son and Muse in: Milton's Muse, Bright Essence: Studies in Milton's Theology (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1971). I am not suggesting that attempts to identify Milton's Muse are incorrect but that they must take into account the fundamental mystery that his Muse embodies.Google Scholar

⁴ The quotation is from Milton's Letter to a Friend, in The Works of John Milton, ed. Patterson, Frank Allen (New York:Columbia University Press, 1931–1938), XII, 324; hereafter cited as Works, followed by volume and page number.Google Scholar

⁵ Adam's implicit presumptuousness here may be aptly glossed by an observation by John Donne in his essay on the Name of God (Essays in Divinity, ed. Jessopp, Augustus [London: John Tupling, 1855], 5): since a name expresses the “essence” of a thing, Adam could not name God. To do so would have been a sacrilege. “It is truly said,” comments Donne, that “there is no name given by man to God.”Google Scholar

⁶ ”Notatio est nominis interpretatio, i.e., reddita ratio cur quidvis ita nominatum sit” (Works, XI, 218, 219).

⁷ The Jewish Encyclopedia, gen. ed. Singer, Isidore (New York and London: Funk and Wagnalls, 1916), IX, 161–63.Google Scholar Such an attitude reflects, of course, the primitive belief that the Name represents the “sum total and potency of the owner.” The name of the god was “the god himself.” For the Egyptians, the knowledge of a deity's name was “equivalent to such control over that being as to compel him to do man's will” (The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, ed. Jackson, Samuel Macauley [New York and London: Funk and Wagnalls, 1908–1912], VIII, 76).Google Scholar According to Sir Frazer, James, Taboo and Perils of the Soul (Vol. III, pt. 2 of The Golden Bough) (London: Macmillan and Co., 1911), 382–91Google Scholar, “In ancient Greece the names of the priests and other high officials who had to do with the performances of the Eleusinian mysteries might not be uttered in their lifetime. To pronounce them was a legal offence.” “The belief in the magic virtue of divine names was shared by the Romans.” Servius maintains that “it was forbidden by the pontifical law to mention any Roman god by proper name, lest it should be profaned.” See also Cassirer, Ernst, Mythical Thought (Vol. II of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms), trans. Manheim, Ralph (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1955), 40–42.Google Scholar

⁸ The Works of Flavius Josephus, ed. Shilleto, Rev. A. R., 5 vols. (London: George Bell and Sons, 1889), I, 169.Google Scholar

⁹ The Works of Philo Judaeus, ed. Yonge, C. D., 4 vols. (London: George Bell and Sons, 1854–1890), II, 240–41.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Dionysius the Areopagite on the Divine Names and the Mystical Theology, trans. Rolt, C. E. (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1920), 61.Google Scholar

¹¹ That view, of course, is not unfounded. See the definition of in the Hebrew and Chaldee Lexikon, ed. Davies, Benjamin (London: Asher and Co., 1885), 255.Google Scholar According to Terry, Milton S. and Newhall, Fales H., Commentary on the Old Testament (New York: Hunt and Eaton, 1889), I, 318–79Google Scholar, the Memorial Name, is a paraphrase of the name Jehovah. See also Moore, George Foot, Notes on the Name , Old Testament and Semitic Studies, ed. Harper, Robert Francis, 2 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1908), I, 143–64.Google Scholar In Hebrew Origins (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1936), Theophile Monk states that the name Yahweh was actually “foreign to the Hebrews and in their attempted explanation of it they connected it with the word hāyāh ‘to be,’ just as the Greeks, who did not know the origin and exact meaning of ‘Zeus,’ connected the name with ζν, ‘to live,’ whereas it is derived ultimately from Indo-European dya, ‘to shine’” (p. 103).Google Scholar

¹² (London, n. d.), p. 7. For additional Renaissance discourses, see William Robertson, Dissertatio Philologico-Theologica De decem Dei Nominibus Hebraicis, in Thesaurus Linguae Sanctae (London, 1680), esp. sigs. a^r-a2^v; and John Buxtorf, Lexicon Hebraicum et Chaldaicum (London, 1646), 147–57.

¹³ The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, trans, by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province, 2nd ed. rev. (London: Burns Oates and Washbourne Ltd., 1920–1935), I, 176.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Venerable Bede, In Pentateuchum Commentarii (Exodus), Patrologiae Cursus Completus (Series Latino), ed. Migne, J.-P. (Paris: Gamier Bros., 1844–1905), XCI, 209. Rupertus Abbas Tuitiensis, De Trinitate et Operibus Ejus Libri XLII (In Exodum Commentariorum Liber Primus), Patrologiae (Latina), CLXVII, 592.Google Scholar

¹⁵ (London, 1639), 10.

¹⁶ (London, 1683), I, sig. P6^r.

¹⁷ The Metaphoric Structure of Paradise Lost (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1962), 60.Google Scholar

¹⁸ “Hail Holy Light” and Divine Time in Paradise Lost, JEGP 68 (1969), 55–56.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Cirillo, 49.

²⁰ Hebrew and Chaldee Lexikon, 255.

²¹ From the Stone Age to Christianity: Monotheism and the Historical Process (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1940), 197.Google Scholar

²² The Summe of Sacred Divinite, 8.

²³ The distinguishing characteristic of the Word, states Milton in Christian Doctrine (I. 53), is that it is “audible” (“audibilis”) (XIV, 253). According to St. John the Divine, the Word is the Son's secret name (Rev. 2: 17; 3: 12; 19: 12; 13, 1 6 ).

²⁴ (London, 1666), 4.

²⁵ Summa, XIV, 59–60; IX, 17–18.

²⁶ Annotations upon the Holy Bible, I, sig. M2^v, P6^r.

²⁷ Annotations upon the second book of Moses, called Exodus (London, 1617), sig. D2^V.

²⁸ The Summe of Sacred Divinitie, 39.

²⁹ Ainsworth, Annotations upon the second book of Moses, sig. D2^v.

³⁰ Summa, IX, 19.

³¹ Annotations upon the Holy Bible, II, sig. Sff2^r.

³² In Scripturae Sacrae Cursus Completus, ed. Migne, J.-P. (Paris: Garnier Bros., 1862), V, 1200.Google Scholar

³³ Annotations upon the Holy Bible, II, sig. Sff2^r.