Iaoue is an English transliteration of the Greek word "ιαουε" which was used by Clement of Alexandria, a christian scholar from the 2nd century AD to transliterate the Tetragrammaton in the Hebrew Bible. "ιαουε" is used as support for some scholars for pronouncing the tetragrammaton as Yahweh. For a full discussion of various transliterations (Jehovah, Yahweh) of the Tetragrammaton in English, and the discussion on its original pronunciation, see Tetragrammaton. This article only focuses on one aspect.
1 Clement's writing
In the Stromata Clement of Alexandria wrote that "The mystic name which is called the Tetragrammaton...is pronounced ιαουε" 1 . This is a transliteration of the Hebrew word יהוה (the Tetragrammaton), used by the Jews to represent the ineffable name of God. Interestingly, in transliterating a Hebrew word consisting of four consonants and no vowels, Clement used five vowels and no consonants, though many scholars argue that the iota at the beginning and the omicron-upsilon combination in the middle should be read as semi-vowels or consonantalized vowels, yielding the pronunciation Yahweh. Clement defines the name as meaning "Who is and shall be".
The passage in question from the Stromata was also cited in a Latin Catena (collection of commentaries of the Fathers of the Church) by Francis Zephyrus. As Zephyrus was writing in Latin, he used the conventional medieval Latin transliteration "Iehovah" 2 .
2 Use in modern analysis
Clement's Iaoue plays a significant part in the discussion on the original pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton. The current agreement among most scholars is that our best bet is Yahweh. This English spelling (Yahweh) and the corresponding scholarly reconstructed vowelized Hebrew spelling (see picture) were used in a number of scholarly works about the Tetragrammaton, and can also be found in the Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon, where it is called "the proper name of the God of Israel". Iaoue agrees with both the initial A and the penultimate E.
In particular, Iaoue was put forth in the debate whether the first ה (he) in the tetragrammaton is meant to be pronounced (most scholars argue it was silent). Clement's omission of any indication of a sound there serves as an argument for this claim. However, Greek lacks a means for indicating an H sound inside of a word.
3 Footnotes
- Stromata Book V, Chapter 6:34. See an online English translation.
- The Catena on the Pentateuch, Francis Zephyrus, P. 146. See an online English translation.
4 External Links
