[B-Greek] The Spirit, the holy, the lordly ... TO PNEUMA TO hAGION TO KURION in the N-C Creed

Eric S. Weiss papaweiss1 at yahoo.com
Fri Nov 16 02:47:10 EST 2007


The Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed as it is usually translated states: 

"And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the 
Father" 

KAI EIS TO PNEUMA TO hAGION, TO KURION, TO ZWOPOION, TO EK TOU 
PATROS EKPOREUOMENON 

(commas per the text in Synekdêmos Orthodoxou Christianou - note that there 
is no comma after PNEUMA)

In his book CREDO Jaroslav Pelikan writes the following about this phrase in the 
Creed:

"...the language about believing in the third hypostasis or person of the Trinity 
as  'the lordly and life-giving' Spirit. The original Greek of that epithet, which is 
TO KURION in the neuter rather than TON KURION in the masculine, is, strictly 
speaking, an adjective meaning 'lordly, of the Lord,' not a noun to be translated 
as 'the Lord,' as it is already with the Latin Dominum et vivificantem and would 
be in most subsequent translations into various languages." (p. 52)

Thus, instead of: 

"And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father" 

Pelikan translates it as: 

"And in the Spirit, the holy, the lordly and life-giving one, proceeding from the 
Father" (p. 25)

In reciting and translating the Creed I had lazily overlooked this and/or assumed 
TO KURION was a neuterizing of hO KURIOS to agree with the neuter TO 
PNEUMA (especially since KURION would be the accusative form in both the 
masculine and the neuter) - kind of like Jesus possibly masculinizing the 
feminine PETRA to PETROS because Simon Peter was a male.

Do you agree that "lordly" is the proper translation here? Calling the Spirit "the 
Lord" is rare in the New Testament - perhaps only at 2 Corinthians 3:17 (and 
there it's hO KURIOS TO PNEUMA, not TO KURION TO PNEUMA). Also, since 
in the Creed God (more specifically "one God") is called the "Father" and Jesus 
is called the "Lord" (and more specifically "one Lord") before one gets to the 
clause about the Spirit, it seems to me that the Spirit would not also be called 
the "Lord" since the Creed declares belief in "one Lord" - and also so as not 
to confuse the Spirit in any way with the Son.

Perhaps it's because of this string of adjectives following TO PNEUMA - i.e., TO 
hAGION, TO KURION, TO ZWOPOION (but not including the rest of the 
adjectival participles since the Father and the Son now enter the clause) - that 
Pelikan also translates TO PNEUMA TO hAGION as "the Spirit, the holy" 
instead of as "the Holy Spirit." Based on this, one could thus translate this 
phrase, I would think, as: 

"And in the holy, lordly, life-giving Spirit" 

Do you think Pelikan is right to translate TO PNEUMA TO hAGION as "The 
Spirit, the holy" - i.e., regarding hAGION more as an adjective than as part of the 
Spirit's proper name? It seems to me that a lot of the New Testament 
occurrences of TO PNEUMA TO hAGION are correctly translated in English as 
"the Holy Spirit." 

At or by the time this phrase was added to the Creed, would the Church have 
regarded TO PNEUMA TO hAGION as meaning "the Holy Spirit" (as opposed to 
"the 'holy' Spirit")? Or did the Creed writers choose to use the Second Attributive 
syntax (article-noun-article-adjective) for a reason along the lines of the Pelikan's 
translation? Was TO PNEUMA TO hAGION the way the Fathers usually wrote 
it (perhaps because this construction is very common in Acts) ?
       

  Eric S. Weiss
  

       
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