WEBSTER defines "name" as that by which something is known, that which indicates character or quality. Perhaps nature is the most nearly synonymous and comprehensive term. In the first chapter of Genesis we read that God called everything which He had made good, but in the later and erroneous record Adam is accredited with renaming God's ideas, investing them with the character and qualities of error, and demanding that they be known through matter instead of Spirit. Thus we are told that "whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof."
Notwithstanding, the Christian Science text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," declares that "Spirit names and blesses all." It further explains that "mortal mind inverts the true likeness, and confers animal names and natures upon its own misconceptions" (pp. 507, 512). In the last as in the first book of the Bible, we find a record of the attempt of evil to thrust its nature upon man, for "no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name." Looking higher, however, the revelator discerns the redemption and joy of those having the "Father's name written in their foreheads."
The Bible narratives give many instances where the name of an individual was changed. Abram was renamed Abraham, and at the same time the name of Sarai, his wife, was changed to Sarah; Jacob was called Israel; Jesus conferred upon "Simon the son of Jona," the spiritual name of Peter; Saul of Tarsus, after his conversion, took the name of Paul. The change in name was always significant of a change in nature, and both grew out of experiences of self-revelation and spiritual illumination.
