Where does Marsilio Ficino write that all nations worship a God whose name is spelled with four letters?
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We find in Ficino's summary of Cratylus the following:
They therefore said that their forefathers had performed wonders through the power of these names and that they had put some of these names into their writings, but that these were, for the most part, scattered and obscure. If anyone can recognise and collect them and utter them perfectly and with the same purity of mind as that with which they were imparted to him, that man will likewise perform wonders, especially with the first name of God, which, being miraculously composed of only four letters, all vowels, can certainly not be rightly pronounced by anyone who is not divinely inspired.
I merely allude to the fact that all peoples and tongues pronounce the special name of God with four letters only; for this subject is dealt with at some length in our commentaries on the Philebus, where it is shown to have been impossible for all peoples to have concurred in this matter without being divinely inspired. Hence the Egyptians give the name ‘Theut’ to our ‘Deus’; the Persians use the name ‘Syre’; the Magi use the name ‘Orsi’, whence ‘Oromasis’. The Hebrews, on all occasions, express the ineffable name of four vowels by saying ‘Adonai’; the Greeks say ‘Theos’; the Arabs say ‘Alla’; Mahommed says ‘Abdi’. We have received the name ‘Jesus’ from an angel.
But why did God wish to be universally invoked by means of four letters? Perhaps because He Himself arranges all things on four levels: essence, being, power, and action. Again, the world of the heavens consists of the threefold nature of the four signs: fiery, airy, watery, earthy; and the world below the heavens consists likewise of these four elements.
Quoted from Arthur Farndell: "Gardens of Philosophy. Ficino On Plato", Shepheard-Walwyn: London, 2006, p95-96. (Review)
An original language version is found here: Platonis Omnia Opera, tr. Marsilio Ficino, (Lyons: 1588) and there: Cratylus (Latin, PDF, non-OCRed scan.)
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