Tau und Schwertscheide. Zwei gottliche Namen in der christlichen Kabbala

The article deals with two divine names, very much present in Jewish liturgy and especially in mystical and magical literature, the names KUZU and MATZPATZ, which derive from permutations of the Hebrew letters of the ineffable Tetragramm, especially in their ramifications within the Christian Kabbalah of the Renaissance. In it, the occurrence of these names in the works and letters of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Egidio da Viterbo, Johannes Reuchlin, Francesco Zorzi and Arcangelo da Borgonovo are studied in detail. These names, used to protect and evoke another name, the unpronounced and unwritten Tetragramm, become code-names for Christological exegetical interpretations. The power of names is affected both in the sense that their evocative power is enhanced but their hermeneutical stability is, at the same time, endangered. The dispute between Jews and Christians in the Renaissance can also be envisaged as a nominalistic feud, precisely because the names allude and make present, with the same gesture, the untouchable essence.