Re: Addendum: a holy spirit

----- Original Message -----
From: "Philip Newton" <philip.newton@...>


> On Sat, 4 Dec 2004 01:14:36 -0500, Sally Caves <scaves@...>
> wrote:
>> (of course there is no definite article in the Latin, but the
>> capitalization
>> may help show an intention, at least on the part of my editor.  Is there
>> a
>> definite article in the Greek?)
>
> Greek does have a definite article, if that's what you are asking.
>
>> Lk 1:15  ...et Spiritu sancto replebitur adhuc ex utero matris suae. "
>> "And
>> by [a/the] holy Spirit he will be filled even from his mother's womb."
>
> ...kai pneumatos hagiou plêsthêsetai eti ek koilias mêtros autou "and
> of holy spirit he will be filled even from his mother's womb."
>
>> Lk 1:35  Et respondens angelus dixit ei: Spiritus sanctus superveniet in
>> te.
>> "And the angel, responding, said to her, "[a/the] holy Spirit will come
>> upon
>> you."
>
> kai apokritheis ho aggelos eipen autêi: pneuma hagion epeleusetai epi
> se "and answering, the angel said to her: (a?) holy spirit will come
> upon you"
>
>> Mt 12:32  Et quicumque dixerit verbum contra Filium hominis, remittetur
>> ei:
>> qui autem dixerit contra Spiritum sanctum, non remittetur ei... "And
>> whoever
>> speaks a word against the Son of man, he will be forgiven; but whoever
>> speaks against [a/the] holy Spirit, he shall not be forgiven."
>
> kai hos ean eipêi logon kata tou hyiou tou anthrôpou, afethêsetai
> autôi; hos d' an eipêi kata tou pneumatos tou hagiou, ouk afethêsetai
> autôi... "and whosoever speaks a word against the son of the man, it
> will be forgiven him; whosoever, however, speaks against the holy
> spirit, it will not be forgiven him" (NB definite article here)
>
>> Jn 20:22  Haec cum dixisset, insufflavit; et dixit eis: Accipite Spiritum
>> sanctum... "And having said this, he breathed (on them) and said to them:
>> Receive [a/the] holy Spirit."
>
> kai touto eipôn enefysêsen kai legei autois: labete pneuma hagion "and
> having said this, he breathed into (them) and says to them: receive
> holy spirit"
>
>> "Spirit" is capitalized in all four examples (but that may be a modern
>> orthographical bias).  It seems to me that Mt 12:32 speaks not of any old
>> holy spirit, but of a substantially more important one.
>
> It's also the only passage of the four that has a definite article in
> my edition of the Greek NT.
This is most interesting.   I'm also interested in what looks like a
doubling of the definite article in Mt 12:32  tou pneumatos tou hagiou?  The
spirit the holy?  It I'm right, that's quite some definition!  Is this
common in Greek?

>> Also, Acts, 2:4; Romans 14:17 and 15: 16. etc.
>
> No definite article before "holy spirit" in any of those three passages.
Strange: the holy Spirit here seems to indicate the "substantially important
one":

Acts 2:4 KJV:  "And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to
speak with other tongues like as of fire as the Spirit gave them utterance."
(Ghost and Spirit seem to refer to the same thing.  I suppose one could see
this as "a holy spirit," but it seems wrong, somehow.  How many holy spirits
are there?)

Romans 14:17 KJV:  "For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but
righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."  ("a holy spirit"
would seem massively inappropriate here.)

Romans 15:16 KJV:  "That I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the
Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering up of the
Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost."  (Again,
this passage seems to refer to the ONE Holy Spirit).

> I never studied NT Greek, though, so can't speak to the significance
> or not of the absence or presence of the definite article.
Nor have I.  But thank you.  I was interested in Teoh's response:

>>
Keep in mind that Greek does not have an indefinite article, so the
absence of the definite article does not necessarily mean that the NP
is indefinite. E.g. the initial portion of the gospel of John reads:

en arxe: e:n ho logos. kai ho logos e:n pros ton theon. kai theos e:n
ho logos.

In the last clause, _theos_ (God) appears without a definite article.
Although most orthodox Christians understand that it refers to (the)
God, and indeed, there are a number of places in the New Testament
where _theos_ appears without a definite article yet clearly referring
to the unique God (from context), some people claim that it has an
indefinite meaning. Now, this debate is way out of my depth, but it
shows you that it takes a lot more than a mere superficial knowledge
of Greek to be able to properly translate it.

Also keep in mind that the Greek definite article does not always
behave like the English definite article; Classical Greek tends to use
the article with all proper names (hence, _ho sokrate:s_ rather than
merely _sokrate:s_). I don't know if this is still true in Koine Greek
(==NT Greek), but it should warn one not to quickly jump to
conclusions based on how the article behaves in other languages.
<<

I wonder why the definite article emerges, then, in the passage from Matthew
12:32?  I also just read Ray's response.  Touche.  I can't imagine why
anyone would assume that it is not the Holy Spirit that entered Mary merely
because of the absence of a definite article.  Or that in the first passage
from Romans it is joy in "a holy spirit."  How many holy spirits ARE there?

Sally

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