Joseph L. Kimmel. Power in the Name: A Comparative Analysis of Onomastic Invocations. Ekstasis 15. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2025.
While traveling in India after college about twenty years ago, some friends and I decided to attend a local church one Sunday morning. After the service concluded, an impromptu and eye-opening exorcism ritual commenced inside the church’s nave. Little did I know at the time how that seemingly insignificant decision to go to church would lead to such a life-changing experience. That experience inspired a set of questions—about divine beings and numinous power—which have fueled and shaped my academic research. Several of these questions became the focus of my dissertation:[1] How did early Christians use the name of Jesus to access otherworldly power? How were such practices shaped by related traditions of divine names from ancient Jewish and (more broadly) Mediterranean contexts? What prerequisites did early Christians attach to onomastic invocations, and what consequences might follow should those prerequisites not be met? Finally, how do early Christian traditions of onomastic power compare with similar uses of names from other religio-cultural contexts? Part of my academic trajectory included several years studying classical and colloquial Tibetan (both at Tibet University in Lhasa and later at Harvard), leading me to devote a section of my dissertation to assessing how onomastic theories and power compare between early Christian and medieval Tibetan Buddhist sources.
That dissertation has now become a significantly edited and reworked first monograph, titled Power in the Name: A Comparative Analysis of Onomastic Invocations. This book pursues several interrelated aims: first, to illuminate the diversity of purposes for which divine names were invoked by early Christians (not only to help, but also to harm); second, to situate these invocations in their ancient context; third, to explicate how early Christian theologians, like Origen and Tertullian, explained the dynamics of onomastic power (i.e., what names are, and why and how they “work”); and fourth, to compare ancient Mediterranean usages and theories of names with Tibetan comparanda.
Papyrus 46 (2nd/3rd C. CE) of 1 Corinthians 5 [Image courtesy of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts].
Power in the Name pursues these goals across six chapters: Chapter one (“Names that Heal”) analyzes empowered names—like Jesus and Aphrodite—on a variety of ancient artifacts, including canonical Christian texts (e.g., Mark 5:1-20, Acts 16:16-18), non-canonical literature (e.g., Acts of Peter 11), magical papyri, and an inscribed amulet. Chapter two (“Names that Help Beyond Healing”) then expands beyond the curative capacity of names by examining several ancient Mediterranean amulets (ca. 1st C. BCE to 2nd C. CE). Each amulet spotlights divine names as powerful tools for assistance in ways that exceed mere healing. These aims range from protection to attainment of success to gaining authority over an unruly “womb.”
Mosaic of the exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac. Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, Italy [Wikimedia].
In the ancient Mediterranean, the power of names was not restricted to beneficent endeavors such as healing. As chapter three (“Names that Harm”) shows, divine names—including that of Jesus—were occasionally invoked in antiquity to unleash pain and suffering upon one’s enemies. Texts examined in this chapter include selected Greek and Coptic magical papyri along with Paul’s ritual curse (1 Corinthians 5:1-5).
Chapter four (“Tibetan Names”) then shifts to onomastic comparanda from a very different context, as it analyzes the use of a particular divine name (Bhṛkuṭī, a female Indo-Tibetan deity) in a tenth-century CE Tibetan spellbook. This comparative choice was sparked by the uncanny resonance I noticed between this spellbook and ancient Mediterranean texts in their treatment of divine names as tools of power. More specifically, the Tibetan spellbook, studied in a non-comparative manner by Sam van Schaik, links the correct invocation of Bhṛkuṭī with attaining power over an array of beings, ranging from snakes to demons.[2]
The two final chapters of the book then move from primary-source analysis to comparative intellectual history. Specifically, chapter five (“Ancient Mediterranean Onomastic Theories”) analyzes how prominent ancient thinkers (e.g., Plato, Origen, Tertullian, Iamblichus) explained the relationship between divine names and ritual power. This chapter explicates their respective views of language—especially names—with respect to personal essence (i.e., identity) and its associated authority. In so doing, it builds upon the work of scholars like Naomi Janowitz, who has illuminated the onomastic theology of Origen but has not shown how his views compare with, for instance, Tertullian.[3]
Finally, in chapter six (“Indo-Tibetan Onomastic Theories”) I engage the seminal scholarship of André Padoux on mantras.[4] Padoux investigated the Indic understandings of language undergirding the Tibetan spellbook’s wielding of Bhṛkuṭī’s name.[5] By turning to Padoux’s work, I explicate mantras’ link to the particular deities they reference (often by name) and how mantras were thus believed to access divine power. This final chapter then compares the Tibetan and Mediterranean materials surveyed in preceding chapters, along with their respective philosophies of names. Both resonances and dissonances between the Tibetan and Mediterranean materials are highlighted, along with the significance and implications of both the similarities and the differences. For example, a particularly salient comparative implication is how the different sets of materials respectively articulate how a being’s name (and/or mantra) relates to that being. Divergences in the conceptualization of this name-being relationship index to a fundamental difference in how the two cultural spheres understand language’s connection with ontology.
Over the course of these chapters, this monograph makes several scholarly contributions. First, in the field of New Testament and early Christian studies, the book advances the contentions of scholars like David Frankfurter in challenging the false dichotomy of early Christian practices over against “magic.”[6] The book thus deepens our understanding of “magical” Christian rituals by analyzing how early Jesus-followers readily employed name-based techniques of ritual power consonant with the healing and exorcistic rites found across the ancient Mediterranean, including in the Greek magical papyri. The book further undercuts false dichotomies based on religio-cultural sphere (e.g., “Christian” versus “Jewish” versus “pagan”) by elucidating the significant degree of overlap across these ancient Mediterranean traditions in how they featured empowered names. Notably, they shared common motives for invoking such names. For instance, against the notion that Jesus’ name could be summoned for only benevolent goals, I show how Christians used magical “power tools” like the name of Jesus for a variety of purposes, including afflicting one’s enemies with cancer and even putting them to death.
Wooden Statue of Goddess Bhṛkuṭī (17th/18th C. CE, Patan Museum, Nepal). [Image Source].
Second, by analyzing names’ capacity to “do things,” such as channeling power for healing or harming, this monograph advances previous scholarship on names’ linguistic features. While the linguistics of ancient onomastics — as examined, for instance, by scholars like Patricia Cox Miller — are certainly both valuable and fascinating, this book brings into view a whole other dimension of names by its focus on otherworldly power.[7] Third, such onomastic power is analyzed not only in its textual presentations but importantly through examples of divine names which were written, etched, or engraved. By attending to names inscribed on a variety of materials, this book helps to correct a scholarly over-reliance upon ancient texts as it unpacks onomastically empowered objects—like amulets, curse tablets, and rings—alongside literary examples.
Finally, beyond investigating specific artifacts, this book also advances scholarship on intellectual history. It does so by examining prominent ancient conceptualizations of onomastic power and the fundamental link posited among beings, names, and authority. Moreover, through its comparative dimension, the monograph pairs comparative artifactual study with comparative intellectual analysis, as it examines Indic theories of mantras alongside the onomastic philosophies (and theologies) of thinkers like Plato, Origen, and Tertullian. Thus I compare not only materials from distinct religious traditions but also artifacts across multiple forms of media, like texts and amulets. Moreover, a robust comparative analysis of onomastic ideas and concepts runs throughout the book—examining, for instance, different understandings of how divine names summon their respective referents.
In sum, Power in the Name seeks to address a series of interrelated questions about otherworldly, onomastic power. In so doing, this book contributes to a growing body of religious studies scholarship on what may collectively be termed “the uncanny.” From anthropological studies of “miracles”[8] to historical analyses of levitation[9] to scholarly investigations of the “paranormal,”[10] scholarship in the study of religion increasingly reflects ways to “think impossibly.” Power in the Name contributes to this growing body of work unbeholden to the myopic strictures of materialism and (more broadly) scientism by comparatively analyzing examples of humans changing their environment (e.g., healing or hurting others) by invoking powerful divine names. This project thus represents my attempt to use scholarly tools in order to study a form of power generally underappreciated in contemporary academia: an otherworldly power, associated across very different contexts with onomastic invocations—a power tied to particular divine names which I stumbled across, to my great surprise, one Sunday morning many years ago.
[1] Joseph L. Kimmel, “Power in the Name: Towards a Theological Posthumanism” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 2023).
[2] That is, without explicating the resonant connections with ancient Mediterranean materials or ideas. See Sam van Schaik, Buddhist Magic: Divination, Healing, and Enchantment through the Ages (Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 2020).
[3] See Naomi Janowitz, “Theories of Divine Names in Origen and Pseudo-Dionysius,” History of Religions 30 (4) (1991): 359-72; also, Naomi Janowitz, Icons of Power: Ritual Practices in Late Antiquity (Magic in History; University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002).
[4] Though the term “mantra” is notoriously difficult to translate, Mani Rao’s description is both helpful and succinct: “Mantras are codified sounds, clusters of syllables or words, or hymns uttered aloud or silently during religious rituals or contemplative practice. Recitations of mantras invoke deities, consecrate images of deities and mark rites of passage, from birth to marriage and cremation.” Mani Rao, Living Mantra: Mantra, Deity, and Visionary Experience Today (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 3.
[5] See, e.g., André Padoux, Tantric Mantras: Studies on Mantraśāstra (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011); André Padoux, “Mantra,” in The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism, ed. Gavin Flood (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003), 478-92.
[6] See, e.g., David Frankfurter, “Ancient Magic in a New Key: Refining an Exotic Discipline in the History of Religions,” in Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic, ed. David Frankfurter (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 3-20.
[7] See Patricia Cox Miller, “In Praise of Nonsense,” in Classical Mediterranean Spirituality, ed. A.H. Armstrong (New York: Crossroad, 1986), 481-505.
[8] See Robert A. Orsi, History and Presence (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2016).
[9] Carlos Eire, They Flew: A History of the Impossible (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2023).
[10] See, e.g., Jeffrey J. Kripal, How to Think Impossibly: About Souls, UFOs, Time, Belief, and Everything Else (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2024).
Joseph L. Kimmel is a scholar of early Christianity and comparative religion. He completed his Ph.D. in the Study of Religion at Harvard University in May 2023 and currently teaches part-time at Boston College. Joseph is the co-editor (along with Axel M. Oaks Takacs) of The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Comparative Theology: A Collection in Honor of Francis X. Clooney, SJ. He is currently writing a book on comparative mantra traditions tentatively titled The Many Lives of Mantras (forthcoming from Bloomsbury). Outside of academia, Joseph serves as an Episcopal priest at a parish near Boston.