Holy Spirit - "He" or "it?"

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Aug 19 13:50:32 EDT 1998


At 11:40 AM -0500 8/19/98, Kyle Dillon wrote:
>In Greek, John 16:13a says: "hOTAN DE ELQHi EKEINOS, TO PNEUMA THS
>ALHQEIAS...," which is translates "When He (or that One), the Spirit of
>truth, comes..."
> 
>Some say that because John used the masculine EKEINOS (that One) instead
>of the neuter EKEINO (which would have grammatically agreed with the
>neuter PNEUMA), he must have been making a theological statement
>concerning the personality of the Holy Spirit.
> 
>Others say that the EKEINOS in this verse is not referring to the
>appositive PNEUMA, but its supposed antecedent PARAKLHTOS (Counselor, a
>masculine word) from verse 7. Hence, no theological statement is made;
>John would just be conforming to the rules of Greek grammar.
> 
>So my question is: does EKEINOS refer to the PNEUMA of verse 13 (which
>would be theologically significant) or the PARAKLHTOS of verse 7 (which
>would be grammatically correct)? Also see John 15:26: is the antecedent
>PARAKLHTOS or PNEUMA?

Personally, I don't see any likelihood of EKEINOS as making a theological
statement concerning the gender (I think that's what you meant by
"personality" in this instance, isn't it?) of the Spirit of truth. Quite
apart from the fact that TO PNEUMA THS ALHQEIAS must almost surely be
understand as standing in apposition to EKEINOS, there are two other
compelling reasons for understanding EKEINOS as a pronoun that is masculine
solely because it refers back to the masculine noun hO PARAKLHTOS in 16:7
(and I think the same relationship holds between hO PARAKLHTOS and EKEINOS
in 15:26):

(a) EKEINOS is already used in 16:8 (KAI ELQWN EKEINOS ELEGXEI ...) more
immediately following upon a re-stated PARAKLHTOS IN 16:7, and it is used
again clearly with the same antecedent in 16:14 (EKEINOS EME DOXASEI ...);
and

(b) Although this principle does not hold universally and exclusively,
nevertheless in standard Greek idiomatic usage EKEINOS points backwards to
an antecedent noun, while hOUTOS and hODE tend to signal in advance a
significant noun that will follow soon after. Thus, if the writer intended
to highlight TO PNEUMA THS ALHQEIAS, he would more likely have written
TOUTO TO PNEUMA THS ALHQEIAS or TODE TO PNEUMA THS ALHQEIAS. I should add
that even that would not bear any necessary implication that the gender is
significant theologically, since the gender of the pronoun would in this
instance also (as in the instance of EKEINOS and PARAKLHTOS) be simply a
matter of agreement of the pronoun with the noun referent.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad at yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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