From the conception of the mana of the deities specially lodged in tlieir names there was developed the doctrine that the proper use of the name set in motion and brought into real operation all the powers of the deity.
The Kei women when their men are fighting pray : ' O lord aun and moon let the bullets rebound from our husbands.' J
Thus the name which had been added to the spell to cause it to work gradually supersedes all other methods of entreaty in the prayer, and be- comes that by which the ettective appeal is made to the deity. The liturgies of all the more advanced peoples show that ' prayer gains potency from the solemn utterance of the true divine name.' §
Throughout the OT we have many instances of men calling on the name of Jahweh. Jesus dropping that name taught His disciples to pray to the Father.
The account of St. Paul's prayers || indicates that this was his custom, and neither in these cases, nor in the account which he himself gives of his prayers,1I nor yet in those actually recorded,** is this cus- tom departed from. But in the Fourth Gospel, Jesus, reminding His disciples that previously they had asked nothing in His nanie,tt instructs them so to ask and they shall receive, JJ indicating that the Father will grant whatever they ask in His name,§§ and promising that the day was coming when He would let them know plainly about the Father, and on that day they would ask in His name,|||| for He Himself was going to the Father and would do whatsoever they asked in His name. HIT It cannot be inferred from these passages that Jesus taught His disciples to pray not to Him, but to the Father in His name."** Whether these words were actu- ally spoken by our Lord before His death, or represent the views of the Christians of the 2nd cent, matters little for our immediate purpose. They indicate clearly that the addition of the name ' is not a mere devotional form, but a new ground on which the worshipper stands, a new plea for the success of his i)etitions.' ttt Further, they indicate that 'when His di.sci|iles have en- tered into complete union with Him they will lose the sense that He is intermediary between them and the Father. They will be so identified with Him that all prayer of theirs will be the prayer of Christ Himself, oll'ered immediately to God.'Jtt We have in the case of Stephen prayer addressed to Jesus,§§§ and there are indications that the invoking of His name was common. ||||[| This invoking of the Name would seem to have been associated not so much with petitions, as we might have expected, as with thanKsgiving.HHH When
* J. Skinner, ICC, 'Genesis,' p. 127.
t Ih. X Marett. The Threshold o/ Religion'^, p. 67.
§ Farnell, The Emlution of Religion, p. 184. II See, e.g., Eph 1" 218 3U 620, Col 1^ 12 317 ; also Ja 3», 1 P in, 1 Jn2i. II 1 Co 14, 1 Th 12. •• Ph 13. tt .In 1«2<.
j; 1623.M. §§ I5IB. IIII16'26. «|1I 1413. U.
••• H. p. Liddon, The Dimnity of our Lord», 1878, note F; also G. A. Chadwick, Exp, 3rd ser., vi. [18S7J 191. ttt IIDBiv. 44.
:•.; E. F. Scott, The Fourth Gospel, 1906, p. 316. §55 Ac 759. II |[ II .\c 2216 2=' 9'4, 1 Co 13.
mill Ac 4l», Eph 620, Col 31', Ro 19.
76
xNAPHTALl
KATIU^'
we think of tlie use of the Name in prenching, in exorcism, in the ])ersp(iitions of the iniiiiitive Ctiristiaiis, we can undcistaiul how fervour led tliem to add to their prayers, and to pray in what they had come to think of as the name above every name, the one wliich was with the Father the all- prevailinj; name.* In this way we see that ' tlie name-fornnila>, which close most of the prayers of the Cliristian Church, were originally 'words of jiower to speed the prayer home.'t ' In the apoc- ryphal acts of St John we tind a hmg list of mystical names and titles attached to Christ giving to the prayer much of the tone of an ench.ant- nient.'J Hence we see that the conception of mana 'yields the chief clue to the original use of names of power in connection with the spell, from " in the devil's name " to " Im Namen Jesu." ' § LiTBRATDRB. — This has been indicated in the art.
P. A. Gordon Clark. NAPHTALI.— See Tribes.
NAPKIN.— See HANDKERCHIEF, Napkin.
NARCISSUS (NapWffiTos, a common Latin name). — In Ro 16" St. Paul salutes 'them of the household of Narcissus, which are in the Lord ' (roi'/s in rdv NapKffftrou Tot>s Sfras iv Kvpii^), i.e. the Christians in ]\is/a7nilia or establishment of freednien and slaves (perhaps known as Narcii.iiani, for which the Greek phrase would be equivalent). J. B. Light- foot {Philippian^, 1878, p. 175) thinks that the Narcissus referred to was the powerful freedman of that name, whose wealth was proverbial (Juv. Sat. xiv. 32y), whose influence was very great in the intrigues of the reign of Claudius, and who had been put to death by Agrippina shortly after the accession of Nero {'ta.c. Ann. xiii. 1 ; Dio Cass. Ix. 34), in a.d. 54. It was customary in such cases for the household to become the property of the Emperor while it retained the name of its old master (cf. probably ' the household of Aristobulus ' [q.v.], whose Christian members are saluted in v.'"). If Ro 16 be an integral part of Romans, and there- fore directed to Rome, this may indeed be the household referred to ; for although there may have been other establishments whose master's name was Narcissus, this must have been the most famous. If so, some three years had elapsed since it had passed into the hands of Nero. For the occur- rence of the name Narcissus on inscriptions see Sanday-Headlam, ICC, ' Romans '^ 1900, p. 425 f. The Christians in the household would naturally form one of the distinct communities of which the Church at Rome was ap])arently made up (cf. v.'" and the phrases in vv.*' '*). ' The master was not a Christian, and therefore it was not his whole household, but in each case an indefinite number of his servants who had been converted. Plainly therefore the conversion of one of them had at once created a centre for the diffusion of the gos]jel. We have here at any rate a proof, not only that the closer social connections in general contributed to the spread of the truth, but that the servile class were especially susceptible' (C. von Weizsacker, Apostolic Age, Eng. tr., i.- [1897] 397). As the salutation to these Christians is preceded by a greeting to ' Herodion my kinsman,' it is con- jectured that Herodion was a member of the household of Narcissus and the nuclevis of the community or church. Some scholars think that the mention of this household is conclusive in favour of the Roman destination of Ro 16, but to others, in view of the strong probability that the chapter belongs to a letter to the Church at Ephesus, it seems quite reasonable to sujjpose that