theory and practice
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Counselor. David. Jeremiah [“grandeur of God”]. Paul [“worker”]. Isaiah [“salvation of the Lord”]. Daniel [“judgment of God”]. Simeon [“the one who hears or is heard”]. Malah [“a melodious song”]. Mark [“shining”]. Luke [“luminous”]. John [“the grace of God”]. Solomon. Effigy. Hair. Rising Sun. Meek. Savior. Humble. Witness. Just One. Curse. Blessing. Way. Truth. Balaam [“sorcerer”]. Fall and Rise. Advocate. Intercessor. Spirit. Water of Life.21
Even though the reference list is well-known in the Slavonic tradition as a functional text-type, lists of divine names are almost never exclusively relegated to reference purposes in the extant Slavonic sources.22 The predominant function of such inventories is magical, as we will see in detail in the next part of this study. Moreover, the Slavonic material often transforms a traditional reference list of God terms by reorienting it toward magic employment. The Slavonic version of the list entitled “The Ten Names of God” is a good case in point. This well-known Christian text is a compilation of the Hebrew divine names used in the Old Testament: “El, Eloim, Eloe, Sabaoth, Elion, Ieie eser Ieie, Adonai, Ia, Iao, Saddai.” It originates from a Latin treatise, De decem Dei nominibus (On the ten names of God), by St. Jerome, the chief author of the Vulgate translation of the Bible (ca. 393), whose version of the Old Testament is much closer to the Hebrew original than was the old Latin version based on the Septuagint translation.23 The treatise had an overtly philological purpose. By explicating the Hebrew meaning of the names used in the Torah, Jerome aimed to assist their translations, so he provided not only the Latin but also the Greek equivalents of the Hebrew terms, thus producing a trilingual catalogue.24 The list appears in shifting contexts across Christian culture, both as an independent text and as part of larger compilations. A non-numerical Greek list of more than ninety divine names, for example, opens with a series of ten names (explicitly labeled “Hebrew” in a subtitle) that generally agrees with the list in Jerome’s treatise.25 The monumental, encyclopedic Etymologies by Isidore of Seville (ca. 560–636) includes a similar version of the list.26 The catalogue of the ten Hebrew names, rendered in transliteration only, was also widely used in Christian magical practices, as its presence in a number of magic handbooks attests.27 The Slavonic version, extant in only a handful of copies, in which the Hebrew names are corrupted beyond recognition, appears to be part of that same tradition.28 This example alone suggests that our provisional distinction between “academic” and “ritual” lists is merely conventional. The same list could