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The Books of
jfranfc Cbamberlain porter
Winkley Professor of
Biblical Theology

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The Spirit of God in
Biblical Literature
A STUDY IN THE HISTORY
OF RELIGION

By
IRVING F. WOOD, Ph.D.
 *•  «FR1hlical Literature and Comparative Religion in Smith College
WITH AUTHORS c^LlMENTs>

WITH AN INTR.Uuuw.~-. By
FRANK C. PORTER, Ph.D., D.D.
Professor of Biblical Theology in Yale University

NEW YORK
A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON
3 and 5 West Eighteenth Street
Near Fifth Avenue

Copyright, 1904
By A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON
Published November, 1904

PREFACE

The purpose of the present volume is to trace the
growth of the idea of the Spirit of God down to
the time of the close of the New Testament liter
ature. With the farther growth of the idea, with
the interpretation of its biblical meaning which
the church has made and the expression of that in
terpretation in credal statements, the author is not
now concerned. That is a subject of interest, but
of less importance than the one which this book
considers. Nor is the author concerned with the
question of ultimate theological truth. The problem
of the book is not, What is the Spirit of God? "Tt
is rather, What was the Spirit of God supposed to
be at each stage of its biblical development? The
problem considered is historical, not speculative; it
lies in biblical theology, not in dogmatics.
From his first step in the historic pathway the
student finds that he is treading not merely the
ground of theology, but also of psychology. The
Spirit of God was used to explain certain phenom
ena in the life of man. It was a religious explana
tion of happenings in life for which men saw no
human explanation available. The study of such
a subject is a study in the history of religion.
iii

Preface
Other races besides the Hebrews had kindred ex
periences, and also found religious explanations.
But just as the history of art and the history of
government differ in different races, though start
ing from the same human interests and meeting
the same human needs, so the religious history of
the race differs also. How the Hebrew explanation
of that contact of man with God which all re-
t ligions feel as their great central truth differs from
i other explanations, how it grew with the growth of
the Hebrew conception of God, how it was fitted
to bear the burden of profound truths and to hold
an even course between pantheism and polytheism,
this book tries in some measure to tell.
There is a demand at present that theological
books shall be popularized. The demand is the
mark of a healthy movement, and is itself the best
confutation of the common belief that the people
care nothing for theology. If they care nothing
for it, why should they want it popularized ? On the
contrary, they care so much for it that they want it
written in language which they can understand ; and
who shall say this is not their right? But there are
obvious limits to all popularizations. The nature of
the subject sets such limits. In a field so full of
technicalities as that of biblical history certain
terms are so convenient that no one need apologize
for using them. They are labor-saving devices. As
one writing about electricity finds himself much
embarrassed if he may not speak of "ohms" and
"volts," so he who deals with the history of religion
iv

Preface
in Israel^ is almost compelled, for the mere con
venience of concise expression, to use such semi-
technical terms as "pre-exilic," "post-exilic," "Al
exandrian Jvjdaism," "Palestinian Judaism." Such
words are a part of the necessary, and in these cases
self-explanatory, vocabulary of the subject. It is
also necessary to use occasionally, for the sake
of greater accuracy, Greek or Hebrew words. In
such cases these words are usually accompanied in
this book by an English translation. He who desires
to find the author's conclusions, freed from all tech
nicalities and put in brief compass, may turn to
Part III in the book.
One matter of arrangement will perhaps at first
sight seem strange. The chapter on the Origin of
the Idea of the Spirit of God follows the chapter
on the Spirit of God in the Literature before the
Exile. Why should it not be placed at the begin
ning of the book? Simply because, like other sci
ences, the history of religion cannot walk in the
air; it must find footing in fact. In Hebrew re
ligious history the earliest facts come to us in the
literature of the pre-exilic period. But Hebrew
religious history does not begin in the period which
produced this literature; it goes farther back. Yet
one can trace its backward track only on the basis
of the earliest Hebrew literature. One must find
first what a Hebrew religious idea meant in the
pre-exilic literature before one can venture to say
how it may have arisen and whence came the
earliest meanings which appear in literature.

Preface
To a certain extent this book is, in method of treat
ment, a pioneer in its subject, even while resting upon
the work of many predecessors for whose earnest
labors I am glad to record my grateful admiration.
Doubtless the book contains most of the faults of
pioneer work, together with a goodly number of
those peculiar to itself. I can only plead that I have
tried, as best I could, to serve Truth, believing that
thus I am serving God. I am indebted to Professor
E. D. Burton, of the University of Chicago, without
whose kindly encouragement and patient criticism
these studies of many years would not have been
offered to the public; to Professor F. C. Porter, of
Yale University, for the Introduction which he has
been so good as to supply ; to Professor F. K. Sanders,
of Yale University, who has read the manuscript;
and to my colleague, Professor H. M. Tyler, who
has read the proof of the book. To all these gentle
men it gives me pleasure to express my appreciation
for the helpful inspiration of friendships of many
years. I. F. W.
Smith College, Northampton, Mass.,
September, 1904. vi

CONTENTS

Page
Preface  iii
Introduction  ix
PART I
The Spirit of God in Hebrew Thought
Chapter I. The Writings before the Exile  3
II. The Origin of the Conception  26
III. The Canonical Writings after the Exile ... 38
IV. The Palestinian- Jewish Writings  60
V. The Alexandrian- Jewish Writings  86
PART II
The Spirit of God in New Testament Thought
Chapter I. Introduction  117
II. The Synoptic Gospels  124
III. The Primitive Christian Conception  151
IV. The Pauline Writings  198
V. The Johannean Writings  233
PART III
Conclusion  261
Bibliography  271
Index  275
vii

INTRODUCTION

Scarcely any word in our religious speech is
more in need of definition than the word "Spirit."
We use it much and in a great variety of connections.
We value it highly. Yet most of us have only a
vague idea of what, if any, reality in the world of
experience the word stands for. Men have, in fact,
ascribed very different effects to the Spirit, and the
most contradictory modes of religious thought have
claimed the word as their own. It is claimed by the
worshipers of the letter of Sacred Scripture. The
Spirit of God, they say, is the author of this book,
and of no other. The book is the distinctive work
of the Spirit of God in the minds of men. It is
claimed by high-churchly sects. The Spirit of God
resides, they believe, in the organization, the officers,
the rites of their church. God touches the world
directly here and nowhere else. The word is claimed
also by emotional types of religion, by the men and
sects that depend on revivalism, or other more
physical or more refined forms of excitement, and
believe that it is only in the rare times of special ten
sion, or peculiar exaltation, that the Spirit of God
really descends into the minds of men and produces
demonstrable effects in the world. Then, again, the
ix

Introduction
word is claimed by those who profess greater en
lightenment and a more rational faith. In their view
the Spirit of God is the source of all the good im
pulses and true insights of men. Indeed, the word
is useful not only to those who thus emphasize the
immanence of God in the world, but also to those
who identify the world and God. The pure pantheist
must conceive of God as an ethereal essence, enfold
ing and penetrating all things, the ultimate substance
and only reality of matter and force and mind ; and
even by the ancient Stoics this ultimate being, of
which all things are parts, or models, or aspects, was
already called Spirit.
So the most dualistic types of supernaturalism, on
the one hand, and pantheistic or semi-pantheistic
monism, on the other, agree in giving to the word
"Spirit" a chief place in their systems of thought and
modes of speech. To the supernaturalist Spirit is
the name of the divine force which here and there
breaks through the natural order and produces those
miraculous effects which are to him the chief proofs
of God and the sole assurance of salvation. To the
rationalistic mind Spirit is the name of the all-per
vading, all-moving, all-ordering divine Presence,
Will, Thought, in which the spirit of man sees its
own likeness and greets its Father and Friend.
What, then, are the effects of the Spirit of God
by which we may be sure of its being and understand
its nature? Shall we look for them in common or in
exceptional facts of experience, in all men because
of their humanity, or in good men because of their
x

Introduction
goodness, or in men of peculiar gifts, like the
prophets, or in men of peculiar office, like the priests?
Shall we look for the Spirit of God in nature, or
apart from it? Shall we use the word to describe
the relation of our intelligence and freedom and con
science to God, or to describe the experience of an
influence that comes upon us as if from without, and
endows us for a time with powers and qualities not
ours by nature, not belonging to this world-order at
all, but attesting a heavenly realm? It is only the
history of the word "Spirit" that can at the same time
account for such contrasted uses and help us to the
best choice among them. And since we owe the
significance of the word primarily to the Hebrew
language and literature, and secondarily to the
Greek, it is evident that the history of the word
which we need is the history of its biblical use, such a
history, critical and comprehensive, as the volume
before us presents.
The fact that the conception as it has come to us
has two distinct roots, the Hebrew and the Greek,
accounts in part for that diversity in its meaning
which perplexes and confuses us. To the Greeks the •
spirit belonged to nature, though it came to express
the highest part and inmost essence of nature. To;
the Hebrews the Spirit was primarily the power of
God above nature, which worked often with violence
from without, like the wind, after which it was
named. Its effects in man were wonders of all sorts,
but especially the wonder of prophetic inspiration.
It named and described experiences primarily ex-
xi

Introduction
ceptional, though in part more usual, in which man
felt the presence and pressure of God.
The word "Spirit," formed and filled with sugges-'
tions and with testimony from the past and with
hopes for the future, was one of the great gifts of
the Israelitish mind to Christianity, and so to the
modern world. It is well worth while to trace its use
and estimate its value in both religions. Israel, with
out fully knowing it, had prepared in this word a
mighty instrument for the simplifying and universal
izing of religion. But before Christianity made its
great use of the great word it had a great experi
ence to bring to expression. An inflowing of divine
energy, going forth from Jesus, gave to the leaders
of the earliest Christianity, and through them to
many besides, a sense of abounding life and freedom
and joy, a sense of power, which at first, as was nat
ural, expressed itself in enthusiastic forms, and some
times ran to excess. But more and more the char
acter of Jesus, the memory of his mind and ways,
became the regulating principle by which the new
Messianic enthusiasm was restrained and directed.
Paul was the great prophet of the new Christian
doctrine of the Spirit. He stood on Hebrew ground
rather than Greek, but developed with marvelous
sureness and insight a truly ethical and religious view
of the Spirit, of which the Old Testament had made
only a beginning. This he did under the impulse
and in the light that proceeded from the earthly life
of Jesus. Paul still regarded the Spirit as the divine
power that works miracles in human life. He was
xii

Introduction
himself a man whose spiritual experiences were
varied and intense, and in part quite of the old and
current type. Yet he put the normal life according
to Christ's example and teaching far above abnormal
outbursts of feeling and the ecstatic states and
miraculous powers so much sought after. But the
normal life according to Christ was the life of love
and love's upbuilding and transforming ministry in
human society. Love, then, was the supreme work
and regulative principle of the Spirit of God in the
minds of men. It was the first of the fruits of the
Spirit, the gift apart from which all other gifts, even
prophecy itself, were worthless. This surprising
conclusion of Paul, that love is the most divine effect
in human life, must have been due in part to the fact
that this was the ruling characteristic of Christ, the
name, in one word, of his personality, and in part to
the fact that in Paul's own experience nothing
seemed so wonderful, so miraculous, as the posses
sion through Christ of the power to love as Christ
loved. With the wonder of this no vision, or
prophecy, or gift of healing, or wisdom could com
pare. One would think that the way to an ethical — that
is, to a truly spiritual — conception of the Spirit would
be more direct from a Greek starting point, yet it is
the Hebrew, Paul, who reaches this goal. Not by a
closer identification of the divine Spirit with nature,
or human nature, was the end to be reached, but by
the lifting up of human life in Christ toward God.
Not by the insight, great though it is, that in God
xiii

Introduction
we live and move and have our being, but by the
faith that God is love, that in Christ God'5 love was
realized in a human life, and that through Christ it
can be realized in our own lives, though the forces
of nature are all against it. It is through Hebrew
supernaturalism that the lofty conclusion is reached
that the tempers and qualities of love are the char
acteristics of the Spirit of God, and that the various
works of love in human characters and in hum?n
society are the proper and most marvelous arti
divine effects of the Spirit's presence in the world.
One would like to add to the demonstration o?iV» J<?
through history contained in the book before us*VV>c
beautiful expression of it by one who was not a
critical historian, but in whom the experience of Paul
was in good measure repeated. Jonathan Edwards
writes, in his Treatise on Grace, of those in whom the
Spirit of God abides : "The very Deity does, in some
sense, dwell in them. That holy and divine love
dwells in their hearts, and is so united to human
faculties that it is itself become a principle of a new
nature. That love, which is the very native tongue
and Spirit of God, so dwells in their souls that it
exerts itself in its own nature in the exercise of those
faculties, after the manner of a natural and vital
principle in them." Frank C. Porter.
Yale University,
October, 1904. xiv

PART I
THE SPIRIT OF GOD IN HEBREW
THOUGHT

CHAPTER I
The Writings before the Exile
Modern biblical study has usually found little
place for the treatment of the Hebrew idea of the
Spirit of God. This is not surprising. The sub
ject itself is very obscure. The Spirit of God seems
at first sight to be hardly more than "an aspect of
God." If pursued until it can become somewhat
understood in its historical relations, it is found
to be intimately connected with certain conceptions
of early Hebrew thought, like that of the angel of
Jehovah, and with certain experiences of Semitic
life, like that of prophecy, the understanding of
whose early significance still remains obscure to us,
even after scholarship has given us all the help in
its power. Only a long and careful study can clear
up its most obvious difficulties. The data for com
plete explanation are difficult to read, or, in some
cases, wholly lacking.
The subject, however, is not of such slight im
portance as is sometimes assumed. It might be a
sufficient claim on the attention of the biblical
student that the New Testament conception of the
Spirit rests on the Old Testament conception as
its basis, and does not admit of explanation without
Old Testament aid. But the subject has a value
entirely within itself; it furnishes a definite con
tribution to our understanding of the Hebrew con-
3

The Spirit of God
ception of divinity. The Spirit of God was not the
simple equivalent of God. Had the Hebrew no
independent idea to convey by the phrase, he would
not have used it; or if he had found its use in
ancestral Semitic language, would not have per
petuated it. It must have been significant for him.
It must have added to the range of expression open
to him regarding either the nature of God or the
relation of God to man. These two great themes
are the subjects on which Hebrew thought has
added to the sum of the world's religious knowl
edge, and anything which will help us to understand
better the Hebrew ideas regarding them is of great
importance to the history of religious development.
The problem of the origin of the conception of
the Spirit is, like most problems of religious origins,
one whose solution is a matter of inference rather
than of direct testimony. The earliest traces of
the idea which we can find in literature represent
a stage of considerable advancement in its growth.
From this we must work back, by the methods
known to the study of the history of religion, to
earlier stages, and, if possible, to the earliest stage.
It follows that a study of the Hebrew conception of
the Spirit cannot begin at the beginning; it must
begin with the earliest literature, the pre-exilic his
tories and prophecies, and make its inferences from
this to still earlier periods on which no literature
throws its light. It is a matter of course that such
inferences contain elements of greater or less un
certainty. The whole question resolves itself into a
4

The Writings before the Exile
series of probabilities. It makes the matter still less
certain that comparative religion, much as it has
been able to accomplish, can formulate mathemat
ically no fixed laws of religious progress which will
unmistakably guide us in our researches. It can,
however, furnish principles of religious history
which create probabilities in specific instances like
that furnished by our study. In spite, therefore, of
all uncertainties and difficulties there is hope that
some progress may be made toward the discovery
of the origin and early history of the idea of the
Spirit of God.
It seems best for our purposes to treat all pre-
exilic^ prophetic and historical writings together.
The examination of the separate writings shows
no special progress, except in one or two particulars
to be hereafter noticed. They all represent the pro
phetic school of thought, much of the historic writ
ings being, of course, no less prophetic than the
writings we call prophecies. We find in these writ
ings the following distinct uses of Spirit of God
or" Spirit of Jahveh :
A. The Spirit used of God in the sphere of in
dividual mental life:
I. For endowment with charismatic1 gifts:
(a) Prophecy: Mic. a. 7; 31-&& Hos. 9. 7; 1
Sam. 10. 6, 10; 19. 9, 20, 23; 1 Kings 22. 22, ff. ;
Num. 24. 2. »**C*f \

dd.1

•The term "charismatic," from the New Testament word xaPlalJ-ai maan-
ing a spiritual endowment or gift fora special purpose, expresses so clearly
a fundamental idea of the work of the Spirit in all stages of the history of
the conception that it may well be used in the period of the Old Testament
as well as in that of the New Testament.
2 Wellhausen, Nowack, and Briggs regard as a gloss.

The Spirit of Gob
(b) Skill in ruling: Num. n. 17; Gen. 41. 38;
Isa. 28. 6.
(c) Prowess in war: Judg. 6. 34; 13. 25; 14.
19; 1 Sam. 11. 6.
(d) Bodily strength: Judg. 13. 25 (?); 14. 6;
15. 14 (all of Samson).
(e) Skill in interpretation of dreams: Gen. 41. 38.
(/) Without designation of purpose: 1 Sam. 16.
13, 14a.
2. For guidance, influence, or direction in the
sphere of human operations, without the implica
tion of direct charismatic gifts. A conception some
what broader than 1, generally conceived as look
ing toward a result in the field of historic movement.
A telic use: 2 Kings 19. 7 (parallel, Isa. 37. 7) ; Isa.
29. 10; 32. 15; 30. 1.
Sometimes this spirit is evil, not as being morally
wicked, but as producing a result which is evil.
Some of these cases, like that of Saul, contain ele
ments akin to a charismatic use:1 Judg. 9. 23; 1
Sam. 16. i4b-22; 18. 10; 19. g2 (comp. 1 Kings
22. 22).
1 Briggs (Journal of Biblica Literature, 1900) classifies the references to
the evil spirit which came upon Saul under ecstatic prophecy.
a 1 Sam. 16. 14b speaks of a spirit from God. All other connected pas
sages say "Spirit of God" or "of Jahveh." This one variation remains to be
accounted for. The conception is certainly somewhat different in the two
setsof passages. "A spirit from God" seems to be a later idea than "A
spirit of God." It maybe that the text was originally "an evil spirit of
Jahveh," and that an editor, in the interest of later orthodoxy, has changed
it to "an evil spirit from Jahveh" by inserting HNM. Possibly he also
inserted 14a, in accord with the idea that the Spirit was a divine endowment
for kingship. Such an idea he might infer from 10. 6, 10; n. 6; and 16. ij.
That the text has received emendations is generally acknowledged. H. P.
Smith (Commentary, p. 149) says, "Both flSH D^TON ml [an evil spirit
of God] and TlS^t ST1!"P ftY"! [an evil spirit of Jahvehl seem to me to be
ungrammatical, and I suspect that the original was simply OVtbN Tlfl
[a spirit of God] throughout this paragraph." A similar change in the
interest of orthodoxy is that from God (2 Sam. 24. 1) to Satan (1 Chron.
21. x).

The Writings before the Exile
B. The Spirit used for God acting in the phys
ical world, but for the sake of man:
I. As the basis of physical life: Gen. 6. 3 ( ?).
2. Acting in the external physical world : 1 Kings
18. 12; 2 Kings 2. 16.
This classification brings out the following no
ticeable points:
1. The Spirit is used of God acting, never of the
absolute divinity, ab intra. It is always dynamic,
never static.
2. The Spirit is always used of God acting, di
rectly or indirectly, in reference to man. Where
used of action on external nature it is still for the
sake of man. In the one passage where Spirit re
fers to the plan of God it is his plan with reference
to man. To infer from this set of passages that the
Spirit never meant to the Hebrew the absolute
divine, God ab intra, would doubtless be unwar
ranted. These writings are not philosophical nor
introspective. They do not discuss the idea of ab
solute divinity, and only incidentally introduce the
conception. Their range lies largely in the thought
of the activity of God, and especially of that activ
ity in relation to man. It would be wrong to say
that the Hebrew of this time never thought of
the Spirit as referring to God except as acting. It
is right to say that the predominant usage, and, so
far as our sources go, the exclusive usage, is for
God as acting.
3. The dominant idea of the Spirit in our sources
is the charismatic. Of the various gifts which come
7

The Spirit of God
from the Spirit the most extraordinary and infre
quent are evidently conceived with the greatest
clearness as being the direct product of the Spirit.
With less clearness and somewhat more rarely other
gifts of less extraordinary character are also as
cribed to the Spirit. The bearing of this on the
problem of the origin of the idea we shall see later.
4. The Spirit as the basis of physical life is rarely
found — only once, according to our classification.
Again the argument from silence must not be
pressed too closely, for the writings have little
occasion to deal with the problems of the origin of
either physical or mental life. Where we do find
it, however, the thought is uniform. The JE story
of creation indicates the same conception in its use
of the term the "breath" of God ("breath," rratiD,
not "Spirit," mi, but the connection of life with the
divine is evidently the same) as the origin of dis
tinctively human life. Hebrew thought regarding
the origin of life had already worn its channel for
any future philosophical speculation.
The effects in man which were ascribed to the
Spirit were the ecstasy of prophecy, skill in ruling
and in giving judgment, interpretation of dreams,
fear, erroneous decision and action; then, passing
by imperceptible shades of difference into phys
ical realms, insanity with accompanying abnormal
bodily conditions, prowess in war, extraordinary '
strength. The one principle which binds this vary
ing group of psychical and physical phenomena to
gether is that they all represent some phase of the
8

The Writings before the Exile
extraordinary. Sometimes it is psychical manifesta
tions which cannot be accounted for in ordinary
ways, such as the prophetic ecstasy or Saul's insan
ity. Sometimes it is only an unusual manifestation
of what is in less degree normal, like the traditional
ideas of Samson's strength. Sometimes it is merely
the unexpected, which seems to observers to happen
without sufficient external reason, like the affright
of the Assyrian army (2 Kings 19. 7).
Was the fact that a phenomenon was extraor
dinary and infrequent sufficient in itself to cause
the ascription of the event to the Spirit of God?
In the naive condition of thought which the early
Hebrews represent it would not be surprising if
this were the case. Where great mountains were
the mountains of God and the thunder the voice
of God it can hardly be otherwise than that every
unusual and inexplicable phenomenon in man should
be ascribed to the Spirit of God as its cause. In
primitive races the god is always the deus ex ma-
china which is brought in when other explanations
fail. But it is an interesting fact that in our literary
sources the Spirit is never used as a cause except
of those things which have to do with the affairs
of the people of Israel. The personal experiences
of the private Hebrew are not ascribed to the Spirit
of God, but only those which bear directly or indi
rectly, for good or ill, upon the progress of national
matters, or, at least, of those whose results bear
in some obvious way upon the life of considerable
portions of the community. This may be partly
9

The Spirit of God
because our authors are all prophets and are inter
ested in national affairs. There must be added to
this, however, the fact that early religion was always
tribal. In their earlier forms religious and public
life were the same thing. An individual religion
had not yet developed in Israel. Jehovah was a
national God, and his relations were with national
matters, not with those of individuals. It is true
that individual religion was a direct inference from
the ethical positions of Amos, Micah, and the later
prophets, but not till the exile did the Hebrews
make this inference in any clear and complete way.
Had it been made before, Ezekiel's elaborate argu
ments for a personal religion would have been his
torically out of place.
With this view of the relation of Jehovah to
Israel it is easy to see that no religious writer in
terested in national affairs would demean the Spirit
of Jehovah to the, for him, trivial position of a guide
in private action. The work of the "seers" in Israel
in the earliest literary period, as shown in the case
of Saul's appeal to Samuel in the matter of his
father's lost asses, is not a contradiction of this.
It is true that "the man of God" was expected to
assist in the needs of private life, and doubtless his
work, like that of all the prophets, was regarded
as the product of the activity of the Spirit. But
such a public character had a relation to more than
individual life. His work, even in the simple pic
ture presented in the earliest Samuel document, was
quasi-tribal, in that it might affect an entire com-
10

The Writings before the Exile
munity in Israel. The Spirit was not given to the
prophet for his individual behoof or for that of any
other single person, but for the good of the people
of Jehovah, in whole or in part. He used it in cer
tain cases for the advantage of individuals, but it
remained a sort of public possession, whose usufruct
rested in the body politic. Every man might use it
in case of need, but the motive of Jehovah in the
prophetic gift was the benefit of his community,
considered as a community. That this tribal re
ligion logically involves an individual religion Israel
saw later. That they did not see it in an earlier
age only shows that they had not yet passed out
of that tribal stage in the development of religion
which has been common to all nations.
This helps us in some measure to answer a related
question: Were certain phenomena always and
everywhere regarded as the work of the Spirit, with
out regard to their importance or the range of their
results? The worship of every wandering band
of dervish-like prophets in Israel was, judging from
i Sam. io and 19, regarded as the result of the work
of the Spirit, but certainly it did not always have a
national importance. But the entire significance of
the prophetic order lies in its relation to the com
munity. The order is public per se; therefore all
phenomena connected with it are the result of the
spirit of the god which rules in the community.
More difficult are the problems raised by such a
case of peculiar and unaccountable disease as that
under which Saul suffered. Would a peasant in
11

The Spirit of God
Israel, subject to the same maladies which afflicted
King Saul, have been regarded as the victim of a
"spirit from God" ? Was it the national importance
of Saul which caused his suffering to be ascribed to
a spirit? One cannot be dogmatic on this point,
for we have no case in the literature which will de
cide the question for us. The general principle of
the unity of religious and public life would seem to
give the events of the life of the king a religious
significance which those of a peasant would not
have, but the distinction between public and private
life is not easy to draw. Private conduct was early
recognized as having public bearings, as in the
story of the sin of Achan, and private misfortunes
as due to public faults. Even apart from this con
nection popular religious thought assumed a rela
tion between God and the private individual before
the leaders of religion were ready to recognize it.
Sometimes the strength of "orthodox" thought com
pelled popular religion to go outside the tribal re
ligion for this relation, when it became illicit religion
or "black magic." Possibly this is partly the ex
planation of the cult of the familiar spirit (tin),
in Israel at the time of Saul. But the care of the
god for his people furnishes a ground of private
relation between them to which men have never
been quite oblivious, however little their literature
has recognized it. One cannot feel at all sure that
the peasant suffering from a disease kindred to
that of King Saul would not have been supposed
by his neighbors to be afflicted by the Spirit of God,
12

The Writings before the Exile
without thought of any immediate connection be
tween his malady and the welfare of the community.
The literature, however, presents us with no such
case. In the case of traditional matters, like the warlike
valor of Gideon or the strength of Samson, it is
easy to see how the importance of the work of
these heroes for national progress may have led
naturally to the ascription of their peculiar quali
ties of leadership to the Spirit of God. The same
was the case when, looking forward to the ideal
ruler of the future, the prophet pictured the Mes
siah as possessing powers of leadership which were
to be the gifts of the Spirit of God.
There is no evidence that any warrior or ruler
of pre-exilic time claimed for himself personal guid
ance by the Spirit of God. But why should he not,
as well as the prophet? In general his work had
a much more obvious relation to public welfare.
We must not forget that we usually have in view
only the mountain tops of Hebrew prophecy. Be
neath the lofty prophets of individual fame there
lay a great substratum of obscure and sometimes
ignoble professional prophets, most of whom were
very insignificant by the side of the great warriors
and rulers. Yet they claimed the Spirit of God, and
the warrior and ruler did not. Obviously the dif
ference was not wholly a matter of public impor
tance. It must have lain, then, in the difference of
psychical experience between the two. The mental
and sometimes physical phenomena which attended
13

The Spirit of God
prophecy were entirely different from anything ex
perienced by the warrior or ruler. They were un
accountable by ordinary means, and demanded a
supernatural explanation. We must return to this
prophetic experience later. Now we can say, in
answer to the question under discussion, there are
certain phenomena always and everywhere ascribed
to the Spirit, namely, those of prophecy. But the
entire purpose and significance of prophecy lies in
its actual or potential public character. The human
experiences which are assigned to the Spirit of the
national God as a cause in Hebrew literature, then,
contain two elements : they were inexplicable by
nature as the Hebrew knew it, and they had a
national character.
Another element in the idea of the Spirit is
brought under consideration by the question, Was
it regarded as adding to man's natural powers, or
as always endowing those upon whom it came with
powers wholly new? Gunkel1 holds that it was
not conceived as adding to natural powers: "The
working of the Spirit is not in any way the enhanc
ing of a nature common to all men, but is plainly
supernatural and therefore divine." Certainly in
some cases we must agree with Gunkel that the
powers were wholly new. The wrapt ecstasy of
prophecy was not part of the normal life of man.
That it was not regarded by the people as normal
is shown by the use of NMrti, "to act the proph
et," to indicate the conduct of a madman. The
1Die Wirkungen des Heiligen Geistes, 1899, p. 22.
14

The Writings before the Exile
whole content of the picture of the prophet is that
of one moved by an external power. Duties and
missions are forgotten under its influence (i Sam.
19. 18-24). There is a compulsion in it. "The
Lord hath spoken, who can but prophesy?" In the
later pre-exilic time the prophet is in many cases
a clear-eyed, reasoning statesman, yet still the ele
ment of compulsion remains. He is moved by a
power from without. His words are the result not
of a heightened human reason, but of a divine
power, external to himself. As the obligation
changes from the older, cruder physical compul
sion it takes on the still stronger form of moral
compulsion. Prophecy in Semitic life is by its
nature a power external to man's consciousness.
But when the Spirit is conceived as acting in
fields in which man has natural powers, as wisdom,
strength, skill in ruling, it is entirely gratuitous to
suppose that the Hebrew thought of it as intro
ducing a new power ab extra. Why should it?
What relation would the new superhuman power
be conceived of as bearing to the natural human
power? Would it take the place of the human
power, rendering it for the time inoperative, or
would it add a foreign element, like a mercenary
army assisting a native troop? It is by asking
such questions that the difficulty of the position
Gunkel holds is best realized. There is nothing in
either the sources or the situation itself which com
pels us to take any ground except the natural one
that the Spirit was conceived as supplementing or-
15

The Spirit of God
dinary human powers, so that they might meet
extraordinary demands.
On the one hand, then, we have the Spirit giving
superhuman powers; on the other, aiding and aug
menting human powers. The point of distinction
between them is this: Powers which were in them
selves abnormal were regarded as caused by new
endowments, which were the direct result of the
Spirit ; while powers which were in themselves nor
mal, but which were developed to an extraordinary
degree, were ascribed to the Spirit in so far as they
exceeded the usual and normal condition. The
seeming discrepancy between the two classes of
cases causes no difficulty. The discrepancy is in
the nature of the phenomena. The conception of
the action of the Spirit remains the same. The
Spirit is regarded as the cause of the extraordinary
and unusual in mental life. We have already
seen, however, that the explanation of augmented
human power as caused by endowment of the Spirit
is never assumed by anyone, but in every case is
ascribed by others to a traditional character, like
Gideon or Samson. For the purposes of living re
ligious experience the Spirit is in this period always
conceived as an external power acting supernatu-
rally upon the person.
A question of greater importance is whether the
operations of the Spirit in early Israel always had
a religious value. Here there has been a differ
ence of opinion. Most have held that even in the
Old Testament the work of the Spirit had always
16

The Writings before the Exile
a religious significance. Gunkel, who says that
this has been the opinion "fast regelmassig auf-
gestellt" (page 15), cites for it Wendt, Pfleiderer,
Kleinert, in the Jahrb. f. deutsche Theol., 1867, and
Schultz. To these we may add Davidson, in the
Expository Times, October, 1899, who says, "The
Spirit given to men such as Gideon, Jephtha, Sam
uel, and others was this theocratic redemptive Spirit
[perhaps even Samson's inspiration may be brought
in here] ; it was Jehovah operating in men for re
demptive purposes, saving and ruling his people."
Gunkel, however, takes a different ground (page
16). He admits that in many cases the action of
the Spirit has significance for the purposes of God
in Israel, but denies that it is so in all. What mean
ing for these purposes, he asks, could Samson's
slaughter of the lion in the vineyard have? (Judg.
14. 6.) Or what religious value is in the spiritual
manifestations related in 1 Sam. 10. 6, ff. ; 19. 20,
ff. ? He directs special attention to 1 Kings 18. 7,
ff., and 2 Kings 2. 16, ff., as cases which have no
conceivable religious significance.
One queries whether either side has quite pene
trated to the region in which we must find the true
answer. The question they discuss is, Would the
developed religious ideas of the nineteenth century,
or at least of the New Testament, find their wants
met in these phenomena? Doubtless they would
not. But, after all, that is not the question. The
real problem is much more difficult. It is, Were
these manifestations regarded by the Hebrews as
(2) 17

The Spirit of God
of religious significance? This demands for its
answer an appreciation of some elements in the
Hebrew religious consciousness.
/ We must remember two things: first, that re
ligious values are not always, from the point of
view of our ethics, moral values ; and, second, that
religious values, in the cruder stages of civilization,
often attach themselves to any extraordinary phe
nomena. Witness the power of the merely unusual
in the determination of sacred objects and places.
The fact that a certain spring in Ceylon issues from
the ground at the seashore below the level of high
tide has been sufficient to make its waters sacred.
Witness the "power" and the "holy laugh" in re
vivals in our own country. The "special provi
dence" which plays so large a part in the religious
experience of many is often little more than a mod
ern form of the belief that the unusual is specially
divine. All this opens up the possibility that all
the phenomena ascribed to the Spirit in our sources
may have had a religious value. To prove that they
did have such a value is somewhat more difficult.
With regard to most of them, however, the case is
clear. Prophecy was always religious. It formed
the most direct link between God and man. All
cases of extraordinary wisdom or skill in war or
government are for the direct behoof of the people
of Jahveh. Remembering that early religious sig
nificance is largely — at a certain stage exclusively
— tribal, these must all be classed as religious. The
case of Samson is governed by the same considera-
18

The Writings before the Exile
tions. His strength was an element in the conflict
between the Philistines and the Hebrews, for the
sake of which the editor of the present book of
Judges preserves the stories of his prowess. The
fact that this strength was once, according to the
story, used in the slaughter of a lion does not take
the work of the Spirit which gave it outside of the
realm of religion. Somewhat akin is the evil spirit
which came upon Saul. The editor of the books of
Samuel wishes to show that all the events of Saul's
reign were designed by God to prepare the way
for the ascent of David to the throne. The edi
torial purpose accounts for the preservation of these
stories of Samson and Saul. Both seem to be de
rived from popular folk-tales, which probably al
ready contained the supernatural elements, and for
the people the extraordinary and inexplicable, when
related to the public welfare in any way, needed no
special significance to make it religious. The very
fact that it was inexplicable showed that in it the
god was approaching his people, and this approach
might be for evil as well as for good, i Kings 18.
7, ff., and 2 Kings 2. 16, which Gunkel so strongly
emphasizes, are both to be interpreted as attached
in religious significance to the conception of God's
relation to the prophet. So realistic was the belief
in the divine control of the prophet that the Spirit
might be expected to transport him bodily at will,
even without the prophet's desire and to his bodily
harm. Such a conception is not religious when de
tached from the connected thought of the whole
19

The Spirit of God
meaning of the prophet's work. Neither has the
organ prelude in a modern church any religious
significance apart from the rest of the service. We
have no right to make such detachments. A con
cept must be taken for religious significance, in
either ancient or modern times, in its whole con
tent, not with isolation of its component parts.
It is true that nothing is more difficult than to
reproduce exactly the religious values of another
age, but our sources seem to show no case in which
a phenomenon ascribed to the Spirit may not be
supposed to have religious content. When we re
call that we are here dealing with phenomena
which, by the very terms of their description, are
placed in connection with the national God, the con
clusion that the working of the Spirit always had
a religious value for the early Hebrews becomes
strengthened until it amounts to a practical demon
stration. Did the Hebrews make a clear distinction be
tween Jahveh or Elohim and the Spirit of Jahveh
or the Spirit of Elohim? There is no reason to
suppose that, in the times we are considering, they
did. All the phenomena ascribed to the Spirit were
also ascribed directly to Jahveh and Elohim. The
narrative of the oracles of Balaam is instructive on
this point (Num. 22 to 24). The story is a com
posite of J and E, though the points of division
are not always clear. Addis1 suggests that the
ancient poem at the basis of the two accounts may
•Article "Balaam" in Encyclopedia Biblica.
20

The Writings before the Exile
go back in its kernel to the time of Solomon, while
he places the poems as we now have them not earlier
than the beginning of the work of the literary
prophets. In any case they represent popular thought.
The J portion uses the Spirit of Elohim as the agent
of prophetic inspiration (see Num. 24. 2). E uses
the following phrases to express the same fact:
"Elohim came to Balaam by night" (22. 20) ; "Eio- y
him met Balaam" (23. 4) ; "Elohim came unto
Balaam" (22. 9) ; "Jahveh put a word in Balaam's
mouth" (23. 5) ; "Jahveh met Balaam, and put a
word in his mouth" (23. 16). (In the last two
passages "Jahveh" is to be assigned to R.) Pro
phetic ecstasy is, as we have seen, the one kind of
phenomenon which is most characteristic of the
Spirit. If it can be ascribed to either God or the
Spirit of God, it is difficult to suppose that the same
might not be done with any other class of the works
of the Spirit.
The most difficult group of cases is undoubtedly
those which ascribe evil to the Spirit of God or to
a spirit from Jahveh, as 1 Sam. 16. 14, ff. Yet
when the appendix to Samuel (2 Sam. 24. 1) says
that "Jahveh moved David against Israel to number
them" the idea is essentially the same. "I make
peace and create evil" (Isa. 45. 7) is an exilic
phrase, but the idea belongs to the old Hebrew
range of thought.
In some cases possibly we may see a preference
of authors for one or the other form of expression.
In the stories of the judges the heroism of the dif-
21

The Spirit of God
ferent judges is frequently ascribed to the Spirit of
Jahveh. (See Judg. 3. 10; 6. 34; 11. 19; 14. 19.
Compare 1 Sam. 11. 6, which belongs to the same
range of thought if not to the same cycle of stories.
See Smith, Samuel, page 76.) The editor of
Judges, though he summarizes the whole period in
2. 1 1- 18, does not use the term, but says that "Jah
veh raised up judges" (2. 16, 18). "Jahveh raised
up a saviour" (3. 9, 15) also comes from the editor,
while "the Spirit of Jahveh came upon him" (3.
10) is probably preserved from the sources of the
Judges stories.
Parallel to the use of the editor of Judges is the
usage of the editor of Kings, where the Spirit is
never regarded as the source of prowess in war.
One questions whether here we may not have an
element of progress from the earlier and more naive
conceptions of the tales of the judges. It is of
interest in this connection to note that the crudest
Hebrew ideas of the relation of the Spirit to mental
and physical phenomena are found in these tales of
the judges, in the Elijah stories, and in the earlier
document of Samuel. All these are among the
earliest portions of Hebrew literature. They bear
marks of the popular story of the East, and may
be supposed to represent popular conceptions.
Seemingly in the ideas of the Spirit, as elsewhere,
the prophets refined and spiritualized popular re
ligious ideas.
But if there is no clear distinction between God
and the Spirit of God, can we still find at the period
22

The Writings before the Exile
of Hebrew thought with which we are dealing any
special classes of phenomena habitually ascribed to
the Spirit? Was there any tendency toward the
differentiation of the work of the Spirit from that
of God ? Let us take the sources which use the term
most frequently, the stories of the judges and the
earlier documents of Samuel. The cases of use
are: Judg. 6. 34: The Spirit of Jahveh came upon
Gideon, and he made war upon Midian.
Judg. 13. 25 : The Spirit of Jahveh began to stir
Samson. Judg. 14. 6: The Spirit of Jahveh came upon
Samson, and he rent a lion.
Judg. 15. 14: The Spirit of Jahveh came strongly
upon Samson, and he performed feats of strength.
1 Sam. 10. 6, 10: The Spirit of Jahveh came
strongly upon Saul, and he prophesied.
1 Sam. 11. 6: The Spirit of Jahveh came strongly
upon Saul, and he led Israel to the relief of Jabesh.
1 Sam. 16. 14: An evil spirit of Jahveh came
upon Saul.
1 Sam. 16. 15, 16: An evil spirit of Elohim came
upon Saul (so 19. 23, except with omission of
"evil,"Wi). 1 Sam. 18. 10: An evil spirit of Elohim came
strongly upon Saul, and he prophesied.
1 Sam. 19. 9: An evil spirit of Jahveh came on
Saul, and he attempted to kjll David (Budde,
Wellhausen, Driver, and Smith agree in emending
to "Elohim"). 23

The Spirit of God
The above list includes only passages from J and
E, according to the analysis of Moore's Judges and
Budde's Samuel. The careful reader will observe
that various passages of the books using the Spirit
of Jahveh or the Spirit of Elohim are omitted. They
are those assigned to later writers. In some cases
they are obvious imitations of the usage in the sur
rounding narratives (comp. Judg. 14. 19) or in
kindred accounts (comp. Judg. 3. 10). In at least
one case (1 Sam. 19. 20, 23) we probably have
some elements of an early source preserved in a
later section (see below). The complete list of the
remaining passages is as follows :
Judg. 3. 10: The Spirit of Jahveh came upon
Othniel, and he judged Israel (Imitation of kindred
accounts). Judg. 9. 23: Elohim sent an evil spirit between
Abimelech and the men of Shechem (E2).
Judg. 11. 29: The Spirit of Jahveh came upon
Jephthah, and he made war upon Amon (Post-
exilic addition. Imitation of kindred narratives.
See 6. 34).
Judg. 14. 19: The Spirit of Jahveh came strongly
upon Samson, and he slew thirty men of Askelon
(RJE. Imitation of other Samson stories. See 14.
6; 15. 14).
1 Sam. 19. 20, 23, is assigned to a late date by
Budde et al., but the conception of prophecy which
it shows is certainly early. Perhaps its present form
and exaggerated supernaturalism is late (see 23,
where the Spirit seizes upon Saul before he comes
24

The Writings before the Exile
under the influence of the prophets). The essence
of the account* however, must be early. It shows
a very vivid recollection of early forms of Semitic
prophecy. It would seem to be a proper witness
to early popular conceptions of the Spirit.
These passages which represent directly or by
reflection early popular thought show that the un
usual in mental and physical life, for which no
natural cause could be found, was, when connected
with national progress, assigned to the Spirit.
While the early stories show a preference for the
use of the Spirit, they also assign kindred phenom
ena to the direct action of God (see i Sam. 9. 15;
Judg. 6. 14, 25). That it is exactly the same phe
nomena as is the case in the Balaam stories noted
above is not so clear. Revealed knowledge, theoph-
anies, and commands lie in a different category from
prowess in war, physical strength, or prophetic
ecstasy. This group of conceptions was surrounded
by a penumbra which gradually faded off till the
distinction between the operation of God and of
the Spirit of God was completely obscured. That
the whole conception of the Spirit grew up out of
the root idea of the unusual in mental and physical
life seems, however, quite clear.
25

CHAPTER fl
The Origin of the Conception
Any attempt to find the origin of a religious con
ception must take its point of departure from the
central form of the idea in its earliest discoverable
expression. That meaning may be many stages in
advance of its original conception, but it will be at
least on the way along which we must retrace our
steps to reach the original conception.
Another aid in the study of origins which is
sometimes — not always — of great value is the mean
ing of words, the etymological aid. All who are
familiar with the history of Aryan mythology know
the great assistance which it has rendered there.
The battles which have raged about the question
of its application do not touch the fact of its real
value. Both these two aids of research we may
use in our study.
The central thought of the popular interpreta
tion of the idea in its earliest attainable form is
1 that of the Spirit as God acting in the extraordinary
and infrequent phenomena of human life. This we
'may well take to have been a part of the original
idea. Early man did not consider it necessary to
bring in the divine to explain the ordinary. He
accepted that in a childlike way as a part of the
expected. The unexpected demanded explanation,
26

The Origin of the Conception
and to that he applied the idea of divine aid to
account for its existence.1
We have seen how wide was the range of activ
ities covered by this seemingly contracted term even
in the earliest literary period; we might indeed say
in the pre-literary period, for much of the folklore
had certainly hardened into the main lines of its
structure before it came to the hands that wrote
it down. The term covered deeds of war, bodily
strength, prophecy, unaccountable disease — in fact,
anything inexplicable which could be thought of as
in any way connected with tribal or community
advantage. Is it possible to push our investigations
behind this somewhat promiscuous mass, and find
some one class of phenomena which was probably
the central point from which all the rest radiated?
That there was such a central point we may be sure.
It is hardly possible that from the earliest use of the
term any unusual human phenomena whatever, if
only it was of tribal significance, might be assigned
to. the Spirit.
Indications point toward prophecy as being the
central point around which the conceptions of the
Spirit's activity were built. Early Hebrew prophecy '.
had no lofty religious content and manifested itself
in no lofty mental results. ' It was essentially an
experience which carried the prophet outside of him
self. In the earliest Hebrew literary period it
could be induced at will by the mental excitement of
music — that intoxicant of the emotions which has
•Jevons, Introduction to the History oj Religion, p. 19.
27

The Spirit of God
inspired so much of religious feelings and their
results in both the ancient and the modern world1 —
or might come unwittingly by the very contact with
the experiences of others (i Sam. IO. 10; 19. 18-
24 ).2 It seemed obvious that such facts could be
accounted for by no human means. It must be the
god in the man.
Here Hebrew thought is in the same range of
ideas as that of all early nations. ... Everywhere :_an
essential element of ..religion Jias -been the. idea that
God could coirijnunkat.e-dir-ectly with man,.that man
could speak words and do deeds that were directly
inspired by God.3 Peculiar mental and physical
conditions which were inexplicable to him easily
passed for the states in which the god was giving
his special communications. To this range of ideas
belongs a wide circle of religious conceptions, in
cluding some which are by no means yet outgrown.
In fact, the idea of the direct communication of God
with man is the essential thought of religion.
Without it no religion worthy the name is possible.
Here belong, along with the Hebrew prophet, the
shaman of central Asia, the medicine man of the
American Indians, the Greek oracle, Socrates's be
lief that he was guided by a daemon, and, not less,
the modern Christian conceptions of conversion.
1 2 Kings 3. 15. The cycle of Elijah-Elisha stories represents the older
type of Hebrew prophecy.
* The writer remembers observing in a mosque of the "howling dervishes"
how a group of women, ranged outside the windows of the central cupola,
were gradually brought under the spell of the motion of the worshipers
below until their heads and bodies were swaying in perfect, though seem
ingly unconscious; unison with every form of the varying contortions of
the band of dervishes beneath.
* Brinton, Religions of Primitive Peoples, p. so, ff.
28

The Origin of the Conception
Hebrew prophecy is but the representatiye of this
great universal religious idea. It is natural to sup-
~pose that" from this early and universal conception"
proceed other ideas of the communication of God
with man.
_But^ why the Spirit? We have seen that, so far
as we may judge from our earliest" sources^ this
influence was sometimes assigned to God himself,
There is no reason to suppose that this was not true
in Hebrew thought earlier than our sources. Why,
then, the idea of a Spirit at all?
The first answer to be suggested comes from
early Semitic religion. It is evident that early Sem
itic religion was full of divine and semi-divine
beings. Schultz regards the Elohim of the early
Hebrew writings as plain traces of such beings (Gen.
i. 26; Exod. 23. 23; Gen. 6. 1, ff. ; Psa. 29. 1, etc.).
tie says, "It is reasonable to suppose "that these rep-
resent the gods of the old Semitic religion, who have
shriveled up into subordinate heavenly beings."1
Nor are we left to Old Testament sources alone. The
Arabic jinn seem to be representatives of kindred
early Semitic conceptions. One is compelled to be
lieve also that the early and extensive cult of the si in
Babylonia was not without its influence on Hebrew
thought, even if its origin be Sumerian rather than
Semitic. That all this mass of divine beings was
simply blotted out of existence by the rise of
Mosaism we can no longer suppose. The history
of religion does not progress that way. No case
1 Old Testament Theology, II, 21S1 Eng. tr.
29

The Spirit of God
parallel to such a result can be found. Moreover,
Jhejjpassages cited above show that these beings had
a long existence as subordinate to Jahveh. Now,
iiT the "process of syncretism which every religion
is liable to undergo one of two things takes place:
The divine beings which are for any reason of less
importance may be absorbed into the personality
of the more important, and become mere phases of
their manifestation. ^ This is partly the history of
syncretism in Egypt and Babylonia and in some
of the Vishnu avatars of modern Hinduism. Or
these lesser divine beings may become the servants
and messengers of some of the greater gods. In
stead of losing their personality they are, in anthro
pomorphic fashion, set in personal relations to those
who have usurped their place. , This we find in
Egypt, Babylonia, and Greece. It is a peculiarity
of the Saivite development in modern Hinduism as
over against the Vaishnuvite development, Fre
quently both movements are found in the same re
ligion, as is probably the case in both Egypt and
Babylonia, where the histories of Osiris and Marduk
seem to represent the former and the relations of
Horus to Ra and of Nebo to Marduk the latter.
Can we detect either of these movements in the
half-obliterated traces of early Hebrew syncretism?
Gen. i. 26 and 3. 22 might suggest a tendency to
the absorption of different deities into the same per
sonality, but it is doubtful if these passages are best
explained in this way. Much more clear are traces
of subordination. Gen. 6. 1-6; Psa. 29. 1; 86. 8
30

The Origin of the Conception
may be explained by this idea.' This tendency of
syncretism early disappeared under the jealous iso
lation of Jahveh as the one God of Israel. The
references from Psalms given above are the linger
ing echoes of a former faith, used to express a
present belief in the absolute supremacy of Jah
veh. Mosaism had no room even for divine serv
ants of Jahveh, much less for a son. The gods of
other nations are recognized, but are not placed
in any organic relation to Jahveh (Judg. n. 24;
Exod. 15. 11). It seems possible, however, that in
the transition from the older polytheism, which we
are compelled to posit as the Semitic background
of the Hebrew religion, to the new henotheistic
position of Jahvism there may have been a stage
when the subordination of the divine beings to
Jahveh played a more important part than the lit
erary period of the Hebrew religion reveals. If
so, it will help account for the somewhat strange
phenomenon of a religion with strong tendencies
toward monotheism, yet using with perfect freedom
the idea of a Spirit of God, or even of a spirit from
God, figured as in 1 Kings 22. 21, f., as a distinct
personality which Jahveh might send on his be
hests. It will help account for the semi-hypostasis
of the Spirit, which always introduces an element
of vagueness into its use in this period of Hebrew
thought. On this supposition the phrase, together
with some fringes of polydemonistic meaning,
comes from a period when a multitude of divine
beings were somewhat more distinctly conceived
3i

The Spirit of God
than even in the earliest period of Hebrew litera
ture — conceived, however, not as independent,
but as subordinate in personality and power to
Jahveh. But if this aids us to understand the notion of
the Spirit of God or the spirit from God, of Spirit
as the medium of activity in distinction from God
as the actor, it still leaves the notion of Spirit itself
to be explained.
Here etymology will assist us. The Spirit, used
for the active power of God, is the breath1 of God.
The divine psychology of the term, if we may use
such a phrase, rests, as all scholars see, upon its
human psychology. The breath was the manifesta
tion of the active life. In excitement it came more
quickly. With vigorous activity, running, severe
exertion of any kind, it became fuller, stronger,
more rapid. In sleep it was slower, and in death
it disappeared altogether. It offered itself as the
most obvious measure of vital activity. In this it
contrasted with the blood. "The blood is the life"
is perhaps as old a generalization as that the breath
is the life. But blood differs from breath in two
important ways: First, it is always material, and
does not suggest an invisible power connected with
life; second, it is not possible to think of it as
something which may be sent out, and so it is more
appropriate as a symbol of the static than of the

1 Wendt (Fleisch und Geist) carries it back a step farther, to the wind (p.
41). it seems doubtful whether the living breath is not more close to the
basal idea than the invisible, immaterial wind. Early religious ideas more
often start with a conception of a living power than with a lifeless force.
32

The Origin of the Conception
dynamic life. Thus we find it in the Old Testa
ment. It is never used of the divine life at all,
though there is no inherent reason why it should
not be, as well as the hands or the feet or the heart.
When used of man it is never in the sense of psy
chical activity. The nearest approach to such use
is in Gen. 4. 10, "The voice of thy brother's blood
crieth unto me from the ground," where the very
strength of the figure lies in the powerlessness of
the passive life, represented by the blood, to accom
plish its own vengeance.
As we have already seen in the case of the Spirit
of God, the use of the term "spirit of man" as
applied to man soon broadens out from one sense
into others, and we have the spirit as meaning the
essential life of man. Still it differs from the use
of blood in being his essential life as a conscious
soul rather than as a physical being.
It is now easy to pass to the use of the term
"spirit" as descriptive of the divine life. 1. Direct
anthropomorphism would lead to the use of the
same term to describe the divine life as was used
to describe the human life. God is like man. But,
since God is an immaterial and invisible being, the
term connoting the relatively immaterial and in
visible elements of human life would naturally be
used of him. 2. Since early man was everywhere
interested in the activity of God rather than in his
passive life, that term would be chosen which was
most closely connected with man's activity of life.
Thus the direct anthropomorphism found in all
(3) 33

The Spirit of God
early religion led to the use of the term "spirit" for
the activity of God.
Can we now build the different results of our in
vestigation into an explanation of the particular
central idea of the early Hebrew usage — that of
the Spirit as the cause of prophecy and of other
like inexplicable phenomena? It would seem to
be possible to do this. These phenomena were re
garded as manifestations of a direct contact between
God and man. They came and went independently
of visible or audible cause. They constituted a
vivid experience to those who were their subjects.
Sometimes they were even almost unwelcome.
Compare the "calls" of the great prophets, every
one of which implies almost a dread of the divine
afflatus. At all times these experiences had, even
to the subjects of them, a certain fearsome quality.
They were inexplicable and uncanny, but very in
tense, very real. Their explanation could only be
in a connection with God as intense and real as was
the experience. The term which denoted active
divine energy, vital but invisible, was peculiarly
appropriate for the explanation of these phenom
ena. The most immaterial term that the language
possessed was the most fitting for such mysterious
movings of divinity. It was never even forgotten
that back of the term stood the figure of the
breath, the same element as the wind, whose mys
terious changes and invisible motion but served to
add power to the figure. Even as late as the gospel
of John we have still the memory of these two ele-
34

The Origin of the Conception
ments of the figure: "Jesus breathed on them and
said, Receive ye the Holy Spirit;" "The wind blow-
eth where it listeth, and thou hearest the voice
thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh and
whither it goeth : so is everyone that is born of the
Spirit." At the same time this psychical conception, with
its roots in anthropomorphism, was strengthened
by a religious conception, with its roots in polyde-
monism. Subordinate divine beings were messen
gers of God, and might be sent hither and yon on
his bidding. As Jahveh's personality becomes
more clear theirs become more shadowy, until
finally they almost disappear from view, and all their
functions become absorbed by this expression for
the active God. And so two forces working inde
pendently unite to lay the foundations for a semi-
hypostasis of the activity of God. It is not sur
prising if this double origin causes certain elements
of vagueness in the later structure of Hebrew
thought. Thus we account for the conception of the Spirit
as God active in those extraordinary phenomena of
human life which constituted early prophetic ex
perience. This was doubtless the earliest phase of
the idea. But there is another element which seems
to have lain in Hebrew thought in the pre-literary
period. It is that of the Spirit as the basis of the
entire rational life. What were the steps which led
to this stage of thought? They were examples of
early philosophizing. Men soon found that the ex-
35

The Spirit of God
traordinary was not the only range of life which
needed explanation. Life itself, as well as the
strange ecstasy of prophecy, needed a cause. The
same course of thought was in progress in all grow
ing civilizations. The best example outside of
Hebrew thought is that of India. The Hindu and
the Hebrew alike were led to the conclusion that the
life of man, with all its phenomena, both ordinary
and extraordinary, was due to the activity of God.
The Hebrew had what the Hindu had not — a term
which expressed the active God, and which was
already closely connected with that activity as
shown in the psychic life of man. It was easy for
him, by the use of this term, to affirm that God
was the cause of the life of man, even that the life
of man was itself the breath of God, thus making
the closest possible connection between God and
man that could be made without the assumption of
identity, and yet not to affirm that God was man
or that man was God. The temptation to panthe
ism was thus avoided, even had the Hebrew been
more inclined to philosophize than he was. The
Hindu had no such convenient distinction. He was
feeling after the same truth of a close relation of
God to man. He could only say, however, that the
life of man was the life of God; which, after all,
is exactly what the Hebrew said, but in different
language. That difference of language makes
much difference in the history of thought. The
Hindu could logically reach by his expression noth
ing but pantheism, with its inevitable outcome of
36

The Origin of the Conception
Vedanta and Maya. The Hebrew, without con
scious philosophy and yet with perfect logic, could
reach the conception of a transcendent God at the
same time immanent in the world of human con
sciousness, and therefore in the world of external
nature as well.
The origins of the idea of the Spirit lie in the
common ground of early religious concepts. The
growth of it may be explained by laws which we
find working in all early religions. Its peculiarity
is that it started very early along a line of develop
ment which is, as far as we can see, the only line
that could have prepared it to receive the rich re
ligious content with which Judaism and Christian
ity later filled it. If there is ever a providence in
the history of human thought, surely here is a place
where it may be seen. 37

CHAPTER DI
The Canonical Writings after the Exile
The post-exilic literature presents a much more
complicated field of study in our subject than does
the pre-exilic literature. This is partly due to the
wider range of thought expressed in it, partly to the
difficulty of dating certain portions of it, but mainly
to the fact that the term "the Spirit of God" had
lost its former simplicity of meaning, and was used
of a wider variety of phenomena, but had not yet ac
quired the somewhat clear definition that it did at
a later period. Such a time of more or less con
fusion of meaning is not uncommon at the period
when a term passes from the unreflective use to the
beginning of a more philosophic use.
To make a satisfactory classification of Hebrew
and Jewish literature after the exile is not easy.
For our purpose, however, it will divide fairly well
into three sections: Post-exilic literature to the
Greek period; Palestinian- Judaistic literature after
the beginning of the Greek period ; and Alexandrian-
Judaistic literature. This chapter will be devoted
to the first period, the writings of which will be
designated simply as post-exilic Hebrew literature.
In this literature we find the following uses of
the "Spirit of God" or the "Spirit of Jahveh :';1
1 The following classification follows, as far as possible, the form of that
of the pre-exilic writings, given on p. 5, ff.
38

Canonical Writings after Exile
A. Spirit used of God acting in the sphere of in
dividual rational life?"
I. For endowment of individuals with charis
matic gifts:
(a) Prophecy: Num. n. 29 (P) ; Ezek. 2. 2;
3. 12, 14, 24; 8. 3; n. 1, 5, 24;1 37. 1; 43. 5;
Neh. 9. 30; 1 Chron. 12. 18; 2 Chron. 15. 1; 20.
14; 24. 20; Isa. 48. 16 (perhaps) ; 61. 1 (if refer
ring to a prophet) .
(&) Skill in ruling: Num. 11. 17; 27. 18 (P).
. (c) Skill in artisan work: Exod. 28. 3; 31. 3;
35- 31 (p) (all refer to one person, Bezaleel).
(d) Prowess in war: Judg. 11. 29.
^(e) Wisdom: Deut. 34. 9 (P) ; Job 32. 8; 33.
4(?)-
2. As the basis of human life. This list is made
to include both the rational and the physical life.
In many cases it is impossible to distinguish be
tween them.- The Hebrew writers of this period
often treated man as a unit, and conceived of the
Spirit as the basis of his life quite without refer
ence to the distinction of physical and mental : Isa.
42. 5; Job 27. 3; 33. 4; 34. 14; Zech. 12. 1; Mai.
2. 15 (?);2 Num. 16. 22; 27. 16; Eccles. 3. 21
(comp. 12. 7).3
B. Spirit used for God acting in the physical
world and in the development of human history :

1 Cornill regards as a gloss.
3 For text of this obscure passage see Smith, Book of Twelve Prophets.
p. 364, note; Wendt. Fleisch und Geist p. 36; Nowack. Kleine Propheten.
¦ Ecclesiastes is treated in this period because, even if written slightly
later, its general attitude of thought is conservative; as, for example, its
skepticism regarding the new doctrine of the resurrection.
39

The Spirit of God
(j; Acting on external nature apart from man:
Job 26. 13; Gen. 1. 2 (P) ; Psa. 33. 6;1 104. 30.
r%\ Guiding or influencing in the field of human
actions. In these books it always has to do with
the .past or the future of Israel. It shades off into
the distinctly Messianic use: ,
fCay\Oi Israel's past history: Isa. 63. 10, 11,
i4VNeh. 9. 20; Psa. 106. 33.
((Jb) Of the Messiah: Isa. 11. 2, 4.
\c) Of the "Servant of Jahveh," in whom the
Spirit is a present possession: Isa. 42. 1; 59. 21;
61. 1 (if of the Servant) (comp. Psa. 51. 13 [Eng.
12] ; 143. 10. If these psalms are national, the
useie still the same).
Ad)) Of the future of Israel (that is, a Messianic
promise): Psa. 143. 10; Ezek. 11. 19; 36. 26, 27;
37. 14; 39. 29; Isa. 4. 4; 32. 15; 34. 16; 44. 3;
Zech. 4. 6; 12. 10; Joel 3. 1, 2 (Eng. 2. 28, 29)
(cprnp. Psa. 51. 11; 143. 10).
\C.' Spirit used in a general way of the plan or
purpose of God in relation to man: Isa. 40. 13.
D. Spirit used in the sphere of the religious life:
Psa. 51. 11, 12 (Eng. 10, 11); 143. 10; 139. 7.
On page 7 attention was directed to certain con
clusions from the pre-exilic use of Spirit. Com
paring the passages noted above with the treatment
there, we find :
1. In pre-exilic literature Spirit was never used
of God ab intra. Here there is an approach to such
1 This passage denotes the power of God under the figure of the breath.
the double meaning of mi allowing this use.
40

Canonical Writings after Exile
a use, though only once. In Psa. 139. 7 the Spirit
of God is parallel with the "presence" (^s). Both
are figurative expressions, used pleonastically for
God, considered not dynamically but statically.
Not activity but omniscience is here posited of the
divine Spirit. During this period the spirit came
to be used statically of man, to indicate his per
sonality (Eccles. 3. 21; comp. Num. 16. 22). An
extension of the same psychological use is here made
to fae divine Spirit.
p. There Spirit was always used of God acting,
directly or indirectly, in relation to man. Here it
is not. God's action in creation and in the ordinary
processes of external nature is here assigned to the
Spirit, quite apart from any bearing which these
may have on human life (see Job 26. 13 ; Psa. 104.
29; 33- 6)-
/""^ryrhere the dominant idea is the charismatic.
Here the charismatic no longer holds such promi
nence. The change in the main emphasis may be
traced in the literature of the period itself. In
Ezekiel the Spirit of prophetic inspiration is still
prominent. The usage occurs ten times (nine if 11.
24 is discarded as a gloss). As prophecy disappears,
this phase of experience passes into historic memory,
and the conception of the Spirit as the source or
medium of individual gifts tends to decline with
it. The dominant thought then becomes more diffi
cult to name. Instead of one idea overshadowing
all others, we discover two quite different concepts
of approximately equal^onmiehce nTthe literature,
4i

The Spirit of God
and both of great value for the future history of
religion: One is the Spjrit^sjthe-fkst. cause and con
trolling power TrTthTocteraal world; the other, the
~SpTrif "as"the "guide of Israers past history and the
force that will shape its future destiny. In the last
phase it becomes the name for God's activity in the
Messianic time.
/J^The concept of the. Spirit as the basis of hu
man life, without separation between the rational
and the physical, now rises into importance. The
thought had already appeared in the earlier writ
ings (Gen. 6. 3): Two things tended to develop
the idea in later literature : One was the tendency to
expand an idea from a narrow to a wider range,
which we have already noted as at work in this
field; the other was the growing attention to the
question of origins, a part of the philosophizing
development of the human race which even Hebrew
thought did not wholly escape.
In the study of the earlier literature emphasis was
laid on the close connection of the Spirit with the
extraordinary in life. The Spirit was there seldom
used except as the source of unusual phenomena,
while, conversely, unusual phenomena, when consid
ered in their religious aspect, might almost always be
explained as caused by the Spirit. We found also
that the predominant use of the Spirit was in con
nection with individual endowment. Its significance
was grounded ultimately in experience. It was the
interpretation of the feeling of uplift and inspira
tion, perhaps even simply of mystery, accompanying
42

Canonical Writings after Exile
certain experiences and emotions that strongly af
fected those who were subject to them. In post-
exilic literature the idea of individual endowment
was, as we have seen above, not so prominent. The
cruder conceptions tended to disappear. No case of
bodily strength was assigned to the Spirit, as in
the stories of Samson. The instance apparently
most nearly parallel to this is the ascription of the
skill of Bezaleel to the Spirit (Exod. 28. 3 et al),
but this, as will be seen later, represented a national
rather than an individual relation to the Spirit.
The same is true of Joshua's skill in ruling (Num.
27. 18). There is left only wisdom and prophecy.
Wisdom is an endowment of the Spirit only in the
Wisdom literature, and in connection with the con
ception of wisdom as divine in essence. The only
clear passage on this subject is Prov. 1. 23: "I
will pour out my Spirit upon you." It means, as
the parallel, "I will make known my words unto
you," shows, "I will utter myself to you" (Toy
in loco). The phrase and the idea are both directly
borrowed from prophecy. While the endowment is
clearly wisdom, the method of endowment is ex
pressed in a way entirely analogous to prophetic
usage. The peculiar physical accompaniments of pro
phetic inspiration had disappeared from the work of
at least the more valued prophets of Israel, but the
tradition of the presence and power of the Spirit
had remained. It is certain that even in the pre-
exilic time the prophets whose writings were pre-
43

The Spirit of God
served were conscious of a mental experience
which was to them not less supernatural than were
the physical, dervish-like manifestations of the
earliest Hebrew prophecy. The feeling of the im
perativeness of his message which Amos expresses
in 3. 3-8 can thus best be explained. This also gives
a hint of what the experience was through which
God revealed "his secret unto his servants the
prophets." They had a perception which consti
tuted for them a message. The clearness of this
perception was the proof to them that it came from
the Spirit of Jehovah. Its character, as a percep
tion of truths lying mainly in the field of the in
tellectual, made the phrase "God spake" most
natural. But doubtless we should not do justice
to this experience if we merely regarded it as an
intellectual perception with a moral content. That'
it had a content of emotion as well, we must be
lieve. The vividness and compelling power of the
conviction can be explained in no other way. The
prophetic writings are also full of expressions which
are strongly emotional.
This powerful conviction with its accompaniment
of a strong emotion was not resolved by the
prophet into elements of patriotism, reflection,
logic, and religious feeling, but taken entire, just
as he experienced it, for a divine gift. It was not
for him the labored working of a human mind,
but the direct inbreathing of God himself. In the
early post-exilic times this experience was still felt,
and so long as it was, the Spirit was regarded as
44

Canonical Writings after Exile
its origin. It is worthy of note that the Spirit was
still confined to experiences of strongly emotional
content, expressed in traditional terms of bodily
meaning. The Spirit "falls upon" the prophet
(Ezek. n. 5), "enters into" him (2. 2), "takes"
him "up" (3. 12), "carries" him "away" (3. 14),
but never speaks. God speaks. In the New Testa
ment this distinction is lost, and the Spirit is re
garded as speaking through the prophet (for exam
ple, Acts 1. 16). It will be noted that all the pas
sages above are drawn from Ezekiel. He is the last
prophet who expressed his emotional experience in
this form, and in this respect he belongs to the
period of pre-exilic rather than of post-exilic re
ligious thought.
With the exile began the period of reflection upon
the nation's past. Now the older historic writings
were reedited in the spirit of a reflective moral crit
icism. The traditional thought that God had
guided the nation now came with new force. It is
not surprising that the Spirit was used of that guid
ance. It was the strongest term the Hebrew pos
sessed for the activity of God. Another element
tending to this use is that the reflection on the past
national history was all passed through the filter
of prophetic thought. Even the editors of the
priestly codes were indebted to the pre-exilic proph
ets for their general ideas of God's relation to
Israel in the past. Even the most priestly writers
were therefore in a measure the disciples of the
prophets. Now, to all disciples of the prophets God's
45

The Spirit of God
guidance of the nation seemed to come largely
through the prophets, that is, according to tradi
tional conceptions, through the Spirit of Jahveh
(comp. Neh. 9. 30). From the guidance of God
by his Spirit in the prophets it is a short and easy
step which is taken by the authors of Psa. 106. 33 ;
Isa. 63. 10-14; and Neh. 9. 20, when they speak of
the Spirit of God as in Moses for the direction of
Israel. In fact, this .is hardly an advance at all,
for already Deut. 18. 18 assumes that Moses was
a prophet. There seems, however, to be in these
passages the reflection of a thought somewhat wider
than merely that of the prophetic inspiration of
Moses. The thought seems to center about God's
general attitude toward Israel rather than about
Moses as the special medium of God's action. In
Neh. 9. 20 the Spirit for instruction is coupled with
manna and water. In Psa. 106. 33, so far from
making prominent the divine inspiration of Moses,
the writer has in mind the human frailty of Moses's
rash speech. In Isa. 63. 10-14 the thought is still
more distinctly of the general providential guidance
of Israel.
If we question what is the significance of the fact
that, with the possible exception of Isa. 63. io,1 all
references to the past guidance of Israel by the
Spirit relate to the period of the wilderness wan
derings, we shall find the answer lying in the con
ception of Hebrew history quite as much as in the

1 If this passage also Tefers to the wilderness wanderings, there is no ex
ception.
46

Canonical Writings after Exile
doctrine of the Spirit. The Mosaic period was that
to which Hebrew thought always turned most
readily when it considered the care of God in the
nation's history, as in Mic. 6. 4, 5; Psa. 135. 8-14.
To this period it was easy to assign special workings
of the Spirit. All religions are prone to find the
activity of God specially manifest in those periods
of the distant past which are glorified by heroic
legends. This also furnishes the explanation of
P's use of the Spirit for artisan inspiration. It
was no derogation of divine dignity that an artisan
of the distant past, when Jahveh so manifestly led
his people, should be considered under the control
of the Spirit when engaged in work connected with
Jahveh's worship. This is plainly traditional de
velopment, not grounded in the facts of experience.
The like is assumed in no other case in the Old
Testament, nor in any other Jewish literature.
There is no evidence that any Hebrew artisan ever
regarded himself, or that his contemporaries ever
regarded him, as under the control of the Spirit.
It is not correct to imply that the Hebrew artisan's
labor might be regarded as the fitting subject of the
Spirit's inspiration. That an artisan in a time of
special divine guidance of the nation, concerned in
a special religious work, is regarded in a late
priestly writing as having been directed by the
Spirit, by no means justifies such a statement.
There is nothing in the experience of ordinary arti
san labor that would suggest a belief in its inspi
ration, and living ideas of inspiration have always
47

The Spirit of God
been determined by the interpretation of actual
experience. The same principles will apply to the
representation of the Spirit as imparting skill in
ruling which P gives in Num. 27. 18.
The charismatic Spirit is more clearly confined
to endowments for direct religious purposes here
than in pre-exilic literature. What has just been
said shows that the cases of artisan labor and of
skill in ruling cannot be regarded as secular. The
literature presents us with no other charismatic en
dowments except prophecy and wisdom, both of
which were strongly religious.
"Of greater importance than all other changes is
the rise of a new use of Spirit which connects it
with the personal character, the ethical-religious
use as distinguished from the emotional-religious
and the ceremonial-religious. It is true that the
cases of Spirit used in this sense are few, but they
indicate with sufficient clearness the existence of
this factor in Hebrew thought. It is true also that
the only clear passages, Psa. 51. 11, 12; 143. io,1
are in psalms whose interpretation is in question.
If they refer to national rather than to individual
experiences, it would seem at first sight that they
do not belong in this classification, and that we
cannot be sure that Hebrew thought had even yet
taken this important step. But if the author of
Psa. 51 "spoke in the name of the church" (Cheyne,
Bampton Lectures, page 161), it still remains true
1 If the date of Cheyne be accepted, Psa. T43 would fall in the next period
CPost-Persian. Bampton Lectures, p. 66), but Psa. 51 would still fall in this
period (Restoration, Bampton Lectures, p. 162).
48

Canonical Writings after Exile
that he, as also the author of Psa. 143, uses the
figures of individual life in which to clothe his
thought. The subject of the poems is conscious of
sin, his spirit faints, his soul longs for God as a
weary land, he flees to God, he rejoices in forgive
ness. Nothing in these psalms stands opposed to
a personal interpretation, whether literal or figur
ative. The Psalms lie within the range of personal
experience, and can only be explained as national
under the supposition of a personal experience trans
ferred to the nation. Whether the Psalms are
national or not, then, does not affect the interpreta
tion of the meaning of the Spirit. That interpreta
tion remains personal.
In a general way the transition to this ethical-
religious conception is clear. It follows inevitably
from the exilic consciousness, such as Ezek. 18 and
33 reveal, of a personal relation to God. It is the
logical outcome, in minds strongly imbued with
religious thought, of the newly perceived idea of
personal worth. But such a general statement does
not satisfy the demand for genetic analysis. When
we examine more closely, four ways by which the
idea may have taken shape suggest themselves :
/i) The Spirit may have been used of the origin of
physical life; then, as religious consciousness grew,
it may have been transferred from the origin of
physical life to the origin of religious life. This
would be growth by analogy.
(2} There may have been a growing tendency to
use the Spirit of God only for phenomena of clearly
(4)" 49

The Spirit of God
religious value. Then the idea of the Spirit of God
working in man may have become in a kindred way
limited specially to the religious consciousness.
This would be growth by limitation.
A. At the same time that the religious conscious
ness of the Hebrew grew, the physical phenomena
which had formerly been referred to the Spirit de
creased. The term formerly used of the origin of
these physical phenomena may have been trans
ferred to the ethical-religious, as being now the dom
inant element in the thought of divine activity. This
would be growth by transference between phases
of personal experience. This differs from the
change noted under i in connecting the origin of
this use with the charismatic rather than with the
cosmical idea.
4. '-National religious life had come to be con
ceived as under the guidance of the Spirit of God.
As personal religious consciousness grew, the per
sonal religious life, like the national, may have
come to be considered as under the same guidance
of the Spirit. This would be growth by transfer
ence of idea from national to individual life.
All of these may have been factors of develop
ment. Our knowledge of the steps of progress in
Hebrew thought is so slight that it would be rash
to exclude any of them. We can, however, say as
much as this : that the transition of the idea of the
Spirit from national to individual life was very
probably a large factor in this development. Cer
tainly in the minds of some the working of the
SO

Canonical Writings after Exile
Spirit in the nation's life had come to be predom
inantly ethical-religious. Such was largely Ezekiel's
idea, even with all his priestly tendencies (see, for
example, 36. 16-38). Nor was it a prophetic nov
elty. Its germs go back to the eighth century proph
ets. Then, when the holiness of the nation as a
result of the Spirit's work was a dominant thought,
the holiness of the individual as the result of endow
ment by that same Spirit follows naturally.
Why, then, did it not arise earlier? While it is
true that the great emphasis on the future of Israel
as a holy nation belongs to the exilic prophets, the
idea was not so foreign to earlier prophets but
that it might have led to the corresponding idea of
ethical holiness in the individual. Why had it not
done so? Because national holiness was only one
element in the idea. The other element, no less
necessary, was the clear recognition of the concept
of personality. This is always assumed in modern
thought. It was not assumed in ancient thought.
A concept of personality so clear that it could stand
apart and be made the subject of definite consid
eration is not found in Hebrew literature earlier
than the exilic time. Ezekiel is the first writer who
clearly perceived it. Only after it had gained rec
ognition could the concept of personal ethical-re
ligious life as the work of the Spirit come into
being. It is probable that the change of experience in the
growth of religious thought which is summarized
above under 3 may also have had its bearing on the
5i

The Spirit of God
development of this new idea. We have seen that
the physical phenomena of early prophecy had
largely passed away. We have seen also that as
long as the peculiar mental and emotional experi
ences that made up later prophecy lasted the prophet
considered himself, and was doubtless considered by'
others, as inspired. When, however, prophecy de
clined there was no longer any experience except
that of simple religious consciousness which could
be ascribed to the Spirit. It would perhaps be more
correct to say that Hebrew thought had now
reached the stage where simple religious conscious
ness could take the place of the older and more
intense experiences which were interpreted to in
dicate union with God. It was a natural sequence
that the loftiest term Israel had for the expression
of this union should not be laid aside, but lifted to
a still loftier meaning and applied to what was now
the highest and purest religious experience that de
vout hearts in Israel knew. Thus always at a
certain stage in advancing religious thought the
external has yielded to the internal, the ritualistic
to the ethical and spiritual. Thus, for example,
prayer ceased to be a mere appendage of sacrifice
and rose to an independent expression of com
munion with God. This change in the experience
which was ascribed to the Spirit is but part of the
working of a law which the history of religions
abundantly exemplifies elsewhere.
No period of profound reflection on God and his
work could long confine the active power of God to
52

Canonical Writings after Exile
the field of individual consciousness or of national
life. Already in the earlier period it had begun to
reach beyond that into the realm oflnaturei but as yet
only for the sake of man. In the time of the exile,
when new national experiences were yielding so
many new religious ideas, this idea of God in nature
also passed through a period of very rapid expansion.
Then for the first time cosmogony interested He
brew thought.1 Here, too, God was conceived of
as active. What more natural than to say that the
agent of this activity was the Spirit of God? If
Jahveh was the God of all the world, not of Israel
and Palestine only, then all the operations of nature
were the working of the Spirit of God. The very
growth and decay of the transient grass and flower
proceeded from the Spirit (Isa. 40. 7). No opera
tion of nature was too insignificant to be under the
guidance of the Spirit of God. Man's connection
with natural operations now disappeared as a reason
for the interest of God's Spirit in them. To God
the Creator nature is an end in itself, not merely a
means. In this period Hebrew thought passed
from the anthropocentric to the cosmocentric phase,
and the change in the usage of the Spirit is one mark
of that transition.
1 Gen. 1 ; Psa. 8, 104; Job 26, the chief cosmological passages of the Hebrew
Scriptures, are all exilic or later. N"li (create) is used of the creation
in pre-exilic writings only in Amos 4. 13; Deut. 4. 22 (exilic?). In P it is
used 9 times, allowing Gen. 6. 7 to stand apart as R, in Second Isaiah 17
times, in Psalms 3 times. The title of God as Creator (NTii) is wholly
post-exilic (Isa. 40. 28; 43. 15; Eccles. 12. 1). t"nUy (make) is used
of creation in pre-exilic writings only in J, Gen. 2, ff. (Exod. 20. n is R,
dependent upon P); Amos 4. 13; 5. 8; Isa. 27. 11; 29. 16, f.; 37. 16; Jer.
10. 12, f.; 14. 22; 27. 5; 32. 17; 51. 15, f. It is thus used in Second Isaiah
12 times, in Job 6 times, in Psalms 17 times (all plainly post -exilic, from
Psa. 86 to end of the book), and in Ecclesiastes 7 times.
S3

The Spirit of God
In the literature of this period what is the rela
tion of the Spirit to the created universe? To
material nature the Spirit stands in the relation of
a transcendent cause. It caused the change from
chaos to the ordered cosmos (Gen. I. 2), made the
heavens (Psa. 33. 6), "garnished" them (Job 26.
13), withers the grass and the flower (Isa. 40. 7),
controls the floods of waters (Psa. 18. 15), endows
the beasts with life (Psa. 104. 30). Nowhere do
we have the assertion of any except the trans
cendental relation toward nature apart from man.
It is interesting to note that the author of Psa. 104.
30 avoids saying that the Spirit of God which is
sent out from him becomes the spirit of the beasts.
The idea is plainly that of external causation, as
determined by the preceding parallels, "Thou open-
est thy hand, they are satisfied with good; thou
hidest thy face, they are troubled ; thou takest away
their breath, they die." In all these, as also in the
verse following, "Thou sendest forth thy Spirit,
they are created," there is an elliptical omission of
the connective in the sense of result.
In certain passages where the Spirit is used of
man a transcendental interpretation is possible.
Such are Isa. 42. 5, God giveth the spirit to man;
Job 33. 4, "The Spirit of God hath made me;"
Eccles. 12. 7, "The spirit shall return to God who
gave it." Note that this last does not speak of the
human spirit as the Spirit of God, but the spirit
which God gave. Compare, for the idea of the re
turn of the Spirit of God, Psa. 104. 29, f. ; Zech.
54

Canonical Writings after Exile
12. I, God forms the spirit of man within him;
Num. 16. 22; 27, 16, "Lord of the spirits of all
flesh;" Mai. 2. 15. Other passages demand for ex
planation the idea of the Spirit as immanent cause :
Job 27. 3, The breath of God is in my nostrils ; Job
34. 14, "If he gather unto himself his spirit and his
soul" (if "his" refers to God).
The predominant use is here still the transcen
dental. The narrow range of literature in which the
immanent idea is found is noticeable. In charac
ter this literature is that which most closely ap
proaches the philosophical. The statement so often
made that in common Hebrew thought the spirit
of man was the Spirit of God is not entirely cor
rect. That certain Hebrew writers held such an
idea must be admitted. That it was a common
Hebrew notion does not seem to be the fact.
In the charismatic use some passages admit of
a transcendental interpretation. Such are Ezek. 3.
12, 14; 8. 3; 11. 1, 24; 43. 5; Zech. 4. 6. In these
the Spirit acts upon the prophet from without.
The Spirit used in the sense of immanent causa
tion is, however, more usual. Of individuals : Ezek.
2. 2; 3. 24; 11. 5; Isa. 61. 1 (?); Num. 27. 18;
Exod. 31. 3; 35. 31; Job 32. 8; Prov. 1. 23 (?);
Neh. 9. 20. Of the nation: Isa. 42. 1; 59. 21;
61. 1 (if of the Servant) ; Joel 3. 1 ; Ezek. 11. 19;
36. 26, f. ; 37. 14; 39. 29; Zech. 12. 10. Here the
Spirit "enters into" the prophet or the nation, and"
the action is from within. The idea seems also
usually to be that of a permanent force residing
55

The Spirit of God
in the person or nation, rather than a gift for a
particular time and purpose. Where the ancient
prophetic use is followed, as in Ezekiel, the use of
the immanent idea is easily enough accounted for
by ancient notions of the Spirit as immanent in
the prophets; so perhaps also in the wisdom pas
sages Job 32. 8; Prov. 1. 23. In the cases of the
use of the Spirit as the possession of the Servant in
the present or of all Israel in the future simple
tradition no longer serves to account for the im
manence. The old idea of prophetic inspiration
doubtless furnished the foundation, but the super
structure belonged to living thought.
Now, to gather up the facts: The Spirit is used
as a transcendent cause for all nature outside man.
It is sometimes used as a transcendent and some
times, but less often, as an immanent cause for the
life of man. It is used sometimes as a transcendent,
but much more often as an immanent, cause for in-
- dividual and national endowments. That is, the
Spiritof God operates upon nature, but operates both
in and upon man. This last clause expresses not two
s ideas, but one and the same idea stated in two dif
ferent ways. We find both used in the same writer,
as in Ezekiel. We must not complain that the
Hebrew writers did not see a discrepancy in these
different ways of looking at God's activity; nor
must we complain that they coupled the physical
and rational life of man together as over against the
physical external world.
This leads to the question, What is the distinc-
56

Canonical Writings after Exile
tion_ between G^d_anjlJhe--Spirit? - It is .still what
it_was in the earlier literature, that the Spirit is
God active in the world. The Hebrew now dif
ferentiates between God and the world more sharply
and philosophically than in the earlier period.
There is a clearer sense of theNtranscendence of God.
He is above the world, acting upon rTTforrrVithout.
This is God considered as the philosophizing tend
ency demanded. With the further growth of re
flection still more emphasis was laid on the tran
scendental character of God. It is the same tendency
that culminated in the refusal to pronounce the
name of the Deity. Had religion been only philos
ophy, the Spirit of God would have become only a
transcendental power acting on the world and hu
man life from without, not differing from God
himself. The term would have lost special meaning
and would perhaps have finally disappeared, as in
the next period of the literature it actually does
cease to be used in this meaning.
But religious feeling has ever made a different
demand. It has felt the sense of union with the
Deity, has striven to make that union as close as
possible, and has earnestly sought means for its
expression. Theology and ritual in early Judaism were put
ting God away from man, until in the second cen
tury before Christ the author of Daniel gave as a
commonplace the opinion that "the gods dwell not
with man." But Hebrew religion had another side,
that of religious feeling, and that side took refuge
57.

The Spirit of God
in the use of the ancient conception of the Spirit of
God. Sophistication had robbed religion of the old
and crude ways of expressing union with God
through the Spirit. Enthusiasm and exuberant
prophetic ecstasy no longer satisfied it. But that
only drove religion to a new ground. Deprived of
frenzy and emotional excitement as evidences of the
possession of the Spirit, it sought these evidences
in the calm and rational religious experiences. As
^said above, the Spirit is, as in the earlier literature,
God acting ; but here it tends to become God acting
in the human experience, and upon, not in, the ex
ternal world. The tendency was toward the posi
tion that the Spirit is God immanent in man, as
distinguished from God transcendent over the
world, including man. When this tendency had
become fully developed theological thought was
ready to enter upon the New Testament stage of
the subject.
It would be interesting to compare the search
for union with God in early Judaism with that
in other religions in periods of increasing theolog
ical and ritual activity. Essentially the same ele
ments would be found in all. The feeling of union
with God will not down. If crushed in one form,
it finds refuge in another. Neither philosophy nor
ritual are able to rob religion of this, its basal con
ception. Great activity in the field of thought or
of ceremonial usually produces great activity in
the field of religious feeling as its complement. So
it came about that in the Christian church the age
58

Canonical Writings after Exile
of. the triumph of scholasticism was the age of a
great outburst of mysticism. The period of great
activity in the purely deistic Mohammedan theol
ogy saw the rise of Sufism. In India a remark
ably mechanical, ritualistic theology developed, and
also the strongest mystical quietism that the world
has seen; and while we know so little of dates in
Indian history that we must speak with caution on
all matters involving them, yet everything that can
be discovered favors the view that the two devel
oped in direct relation to each other.
The comparisons here suggested show us that
the course which the conception of the Spirit took
in early Judaism was in no way an isolated or in
explicable phenomenon, but was subject to the com
mon laws of religious history. The only thing
about it which is peculiar is that the Hebrew had an
expression which, allowed for the full development
of the idea of man's union with God, yet without
in any way violating the conception of the tran
scendental character of God. 59

CHAPTER IV
The Palestinian- Jewish Writings
It will be best for our purpose to discuss the
later Judaic writings of the pre-Christian period in
two sections, the Palestinian and the Alexandrian.
Both the conception of the Spirit and the experience
which it represents differ somewhat in the two lit
eratures. In the Palestinian writings we include
those Jewish productions dating from about B. C.
200 to the end of the first century of the Christian
era which represent Palestinian as distinct from
Alexandrian Judaism.
Classifying the uses of the Spirit in this litera
ture as nearly as possible as in previous sections, we
have the following arrangement:
A. Spirit used of God acting in the individual
rational .. life :
1. For endowment of individuals with charis
matic gifts:
(a) Prophecy: Sir. 48. 24, "Isaiah saw by a great
spirit the last things." Test. XII, Levi 2, "A spirit
of discernment of the Lord came over me." This
spirit of vision seems to be essentially the same as
the spirit of prophecy.1
(b) Skill in judgment: Sus. 45, Theod., "God
raised up the holy spirit of a young lad, whose name
1 Add Mart.. Isa. 5. 14. During the martyrdom "Isaiah cried not nor
wept, but his mouth discoursed" "mit heiligenGeist" (so Beer, in Kautsch,
Apoc. u. Pseudepigraphen).
60

The Palestinian-Jewish Writings
was Daniel." 42 LXX, "The angel, as he had been
commanded, gave a sagacious spirit to a young man,
namely, to Daniel"1 (comp. 64 LXX, "For young
men are piously disposed, and there will be in them
a spirit of knowledge and sagacity forever").
(c) Wisdom : Sir. 39. 6, "If the great Lord will,
he shall be filled with the spirit of understanding"
(comp. 4 Mace. 7. 14, where the Spirit which
revives life after death is called TTvevpa rov Xvyiafiov,
Spirit of reasoning).
(d) The interpretation of dreams : Dan. 4. 8, 9,
18; 5. 12, 14.
(e) An ethical use (see C).
2. As the basis of human life. As in the early
post-exilic literature, this division includes the whole
man, without sharp distinction between the physi
cal and the rational. Man is considered as a
unit over against the rest of creation. At the same
time the passages given below emphasize the rational
rather than the physical:
Jub. 5. 8: "My Spirit shall not remain forever
upon men, for they are flesh" (borrowed directly
from Gen. 6. 3).
Apoc. Baruch 23. 5: "My Spirit is the creator
of life" (said in speaking of life after death. The
book is comparatively late, coming from the last
half of the first Christian century).
4 Mace. 7. 14, quoted above, 1, (c).
1 Passages like this seem to be the meeting point of the idea of the Spirit
of God and the conception of the human spirit. The spirit is thought of
as being in some way connected with God, yet as being at the same time
the spirit of a man. 6l

The Spirit of God
Judith 1 6. 14:
" For all thy creatures serve thee
For thou spakest, and they came into being,
Thou didst send forth thy Spirit, and it fashioned them"
(this may include animal life as well; if so, it is
probably a borrowing of the common older idea,
perhaps from Psa. 104. 30).
The following passages belong here only by in
ference. They speak of the human spirit as cre
ated by God, though not explicitly mentioning the
Spirit of God as the active agent of creation :
2 Mace. 7. 22, f. : "I [the mother] know not how
you came into my womb, nor did I give you spirit
and life, and did not arrange in order the constitu
ent parts of each one. Accordingly the Creator of
the world, who originated and formed man, and
found out the origin of all things, will in mercy
give you back both spirit and life again."
2 Mace. 14. 46: "Calling upon the Lord of life
and spirit to restore him these again, he thus died"
(comp. 4 Mace. 16. 25, "If God would make them
life;" same idea, without use of spirit).
2 Mace. 3. 24 11 "The Lord of spirits," or "of
spirit." Enoch 37. 2, 4, 5, etc.: "The Lord of spirits."
Compare note in Charles's Enoch, in loco: "One
hundred and four times, twenty-eight of these at
least in interpolations." Its original meaning in
Enoch seems to be the Lord of the spirits of angels
1Fritzsch reads iraTipav; Sweet, Kamphausen (Kautsch's edition),
irvevfidTon/.
62

The Palestinian-Jewish Writings
and of the dead (see 40. 7-10), the principle of
whose life is spiritual (comp. 15. 4, 6; 61. 12).
B. Spirit representing God acting in the physi
cal world and in the development of history:
1. On external nature apart from man. While
there are no passages extant representing the Spirit
as acting on nature apart from man, it is not im
possible that there may be a remote connection
between that more ancient idea and the conception
which occasionally appears that the phenomena of
nature have spirits :
Jub. 2. 2 : "Then on the first day he created the
heaven and the earth and the water and all the
spirits who serve before him, . . . the angel of
the wind-spirit and the angel of the spirit of the
clouds of darkness and of the hail and of the
hoar-frost, . . . and the angel of the spirits of the
cold and the heat and the winter and the spring and
the autumn and the summer," etc. (so Enoch 60.
16, where much the same list of natural objects is
given). Charles (Assumption of Moses, page 106, ff.)
suggests that the original form of the Assumption
contained the claim of Satan to the lordship of the
world, to which Michael rejoined, "The Lord re
buke thee, for it was God's Spirit that created the
world and all mankind, so God is the Lord of the
world." The passages on the basis of which Charles
makes the above suggestion are the following: (a)
Acta Synodi Nicaen., II, 20, And yap -nvevfiaTog ayiov
avrov navrog eKTiaffrifiev. (b) An anonymous writ-
63

The Spirit of God
ing from Cremer's Catena in Epist. Cathol., page
1 60, TovreoTt 6 Kvpcog tuv ttveviiAtw Kai ttaarjg aapnog.
The total lack elsewhere in the literature of any
expression exactly equivalent to (a) and the very
frequent use of "Lord of spirits" in the Similitudes
of the book of Enoch would suggest the probability
that (b) more nearly represents the original, and
that Charles's reproduction should be revised
accordingly. 2. For guidance or influence in the field of hu
man actions. In these books always a possession
of the personal Messiah, working redemption for
Israel or judgment on her enemies. This becomes
a charismatic use, and might be classed under A, 1 :
Enoch 62. 2 : "And the Lord of spirits seated him
[that is, the Messiah] on the throne of his glory,
and the spirit of righteousness was poured out upon
him, and the word of his mouth slew all the sinners,
and all the unrighteous were destroyed before his
face." Enoch 49. 3 : "And in him dwells the spirit of
wisdom and the spirit of him who gives knowledge
and the spirit of understanding and of might and
the spirit of those who have fallen asleep in right
eousness." Psa. Sol. 17. 42: "God shall cause him to be
mighty through the spirit of holiness and wise
through the counsel of understanding, with might
and righteousness" (17. 37 in Kautsch's edition).
Psa. Sol. 18. 8: In the day of the Messiah the
Lord will bring goodness to pass through him, "in
64

The Palestinian-Jewish Writings
the spirit of wisdom and of righteousness and of
might" (18. 7 in Kautsch's edition).
Test XII, Levi 18: "The spirit of understand
ing and of holiness will be upon him."
Judah 24: "The heavens will open over him to
give him the blessing of the Spirit of the holy
Father, and the spirit of grace will be poured out
upon him."
All these passages seem to contain a reminis
cence of Isa. 11. 2, a passage which evidently had
a great influence on the Messianic thought of
Judaism. C. Of the ethical life :
Test. XII, Simon 4 : "Joseph was a good man, and
had the Spirit of God in him."
Benj. 4: "The good man . . . loves him who
has the grace of a good spirit with his whole
soul." Benj. 8: "He is unspotted of heart, since the
Spirit of God rests upon him" (this is charismatic
in form).
D. Spirit used of God ab intra:
Enoch 67. 10: "Spirit of the Lord" (unique in
Enoch and in this whole literature. Occurring in
the Similitudes, which use "the Lord of the spirits"
so often, the suggestion is obvious that it may be
an error of text. So Beer in Kautsch [page 274],
"viel. in 'Herrn d. Geister' zu verbessern").
Enoch 70. 2 : "And he [Enoch] was carried aloft
on the chariots of the Spirit, and the name vanished
amongst men" (comp. 2 Kings 2. 11).
(5) 65

The Spirit of God
Comparing these passages with those from the
earlier post-exilic period, we find:
i. The use of the Spirit for God ab intra gained
no ground. Judaistic thought does not incline to
identify God and the Spirit of God. The .word
"spirit" was coming into continually more frequent
use as a name for the personality of man, but the
analogy of this psychological usage was not carried
over into the realm of theological thought.
2. In the earliest Hebrew period the term was
only used in reference to God's action upon man or
for the sake of man. In early post-exilic literature
it was also used of God's action upon nature apart
from man. Here there is a return to the older
usage, but with a difference; for now all idea of
the Spirit as God acting on nature, for the sake of
man or otherwise, has disappeared, and the Spirit
acts only on man.
3. In the earliest Hebrew period the dominant
idea was charismatic and individual, based on the
manifestations of prophecy. In the early post-exilic
it was twofold, the Spirit in nature and the Spirit
in national history and hope. Here once more it
is charismatic, but with two elements: One is in
dividual, the thought of the ethical value of the
possession of the Spirit; the other is national, the
gift of the Spirit to the Messiah. This connects
itself, on the one hand, with the national hope so
prominent in the last period, and, on the other, with
the idea of the individual charismatic gift in its
ethical value. (Note that the Spirit given to the
66

The Palestinian-Jewish Writings
Messiah is a spirit of righteousness and justice,
qualities which immediately link with the individual
ethical idea.) One may draw these together, then,
in the statement that the dominant idea is that of
the ethical rather than the merely physical or psy
chical result of the possession of the Spirit of God.
4. The concept of the Spirit as the essential sub
stance of human life is nowhere clearly stated. It
would seem that God had become too far removed
from the world of human error and frailty for this
idea to be wholly acceptable. In its place we find
a rather numerous group of passages that affirm
that God is the creator of human spirits, without,
however, making the Spirit of God the means of
creation or in any way the point of contact.
Where, as in Judith 16. 14, the Spirit , of God is
the means of creation it is still not identified with
the spirit of man. This is doubtless due to a grow
ing hesitancy to affirm union between the erring
spirit of man and the holy Spirit of God.
The small part which the idea played in the
thought of this period is indicated by the narrow
range of literature in which the term occurs. In
the books of the Apocrypha it is found only in
Judith, Sirach, Susanna, Second Maccabees, and
Fourth Maccabees. It is lacking also in the As
sumption of Moses, as we now have it, Fourth
Ezra, and the Life of Adam and Eve.
The uses of the Spirit here may be reclassified
as follows: 1. The historical — the Spirit in the
past. With this falls the haggadic use in A, 1, (a),
67

The Spirit of God
(&), (c). 2. The Messianic— the Spirit in the fu
ture. 3. The psychological and religious— the Spirit
as the basis of rational and ethical life. 4. The the
ological—the Spirit as God ab intra. None of these
uses are new with this period. The ethical use, how
ever, is more fully developed than in the preceding
period, but is used only of traditional figures in the
distant past, except in Test. XII, Benj. 4.
The uses found in earlier periods, but lacking
here, are (a) the charismatic Spirit as productive
of physical and strongly emotional results, (b) the
Spirit as an active force in the external world.
We have tried to translate the literature of each
period into terms of actual experience. Let us see
if we can discover what experience lay for these
writers behind their use of the Spirit. In order to
do this we must exclude from consideration certain
groups of passages. On nearly all subjects the
writings of Judaism represent three classes of
material :
1. That borrowed directly from the sacred writ
ings, and used without assimilation or much effort
to find its exact meaning. This has little signifi
cance for the Jewish thought of this period.
2. That which, while not borrowed directly, is
yet so controlled by the usages of the sacred writ
ings that it is merely traditional and cannot be used
to represent the real thought of the period.
3. That which grows out of living experience,
and so forms an integral part of the body of
thought. 68

The Palestinian-Jewish Writings
Every religion with a history behind it has need
to classify its present possessions under these ru
brics. One might draw illustrations from modern
Hinduism or Buddhism or Parseeism or Confucian
ism. Those familiar with the present forms of
these faiths are continually reminding us that their
books do not fairly represent their real character,
because the traditions which the books contain are
so different from the actual religion. Christianity
furnishes no less illustrations. All historic churches
have in their theological lumber rooms traditional
elements not yet thrown away which do not repre
sent existing views of truth.
Cases of direct borrowing of the Spirit in Juda-
istic literature are such as Jub. 5. 8, "My Spirit shall
not always remain upon man," and, slightly less
direct, Enoch 70. 2, "He was carried aloft on the
chariots of the Spirit" (comp. 2 Kings 2. 11, where
the Spirit is not used).
Cases of traditional use are Sir. 48. 24, the as
cription of prophetic vision to "a great spirit." The
term "Lord of spirits" in Enoch is also tradi
tional, though its particular use as Lord of angelic
spirits or spirits of the dead is not. Charles notes
that the term occurs often in the interpolations with
out regard to its real significance in the genuine
passages. In such cases we have pure traditional
use, founded on Num. 16. 22, etc. Here belong
also all cases of haggadic stories in which the Spirit
is made to perform the offices that it does in ancient
national literature, without regard to contemporary
69

The Spirit of God
experience (for example, Dan. 4. 8, f. ; 5. 12, f.).
These form part of traditional theological belief,
but not of living experience. Excluding these two
classes, the uses of the term which express actual
experience reduce themselves to the following :
1. Wisdom, as Sir. 39. 6, "If the great Lord will,
he shall be filled with the spirit of understand
ing." 2. The basis of the ethical life.
3. The Messianic hope.
To this period the words of Wendt apply when
he says that in the sense of a certain bodily ecstasy
Spirit is applied either to "the ideal state of an an
tiquity garnished with tradition" or to an ideal
future (Fleisch und Geist, page 35). Wendt seems
to err in making this apply "im Grossen und Gan-
zen" to the Old Testament. Gunkel in criticising
the position (page 4) perhaps does not recognize
sufficiently the great difference between the different
periods of Hebrew thought, or how barren late
Judaism is of this use of the Spirit as applied to
any actual experience.
What are the reasons for this narrowed use of the
term? Two related reasons suggest themselves:
The first is the disappearance from experience, at
least so far as the authors of this literature were con
cerned, in large measure, if not entirely, of those
extraordinary phenomena which the early Hebrews
assigned to the Spirit. Prophecy with its inspired
afflatus had ceased (1 Mace. 4. 46; 9. 2y; 14. 41)"".
Dreams might still be treated in haggadic story as
70

The Palestinian-Jewish Writings
the revelations of God, as in Daniel, but in actual
life there was a psychological reason for them.
They came from the multitude of business (Eccles.
5. 3). Even where the experience occurred it was
no longer ascribed to God. The madman was not
under the inspiration of a Spirit of God, but of
a demon, or unclean spirit. It is notable that in all
this literature there is not one claim made of the
actual possession of the Spirit by or in behalf of any
contemporary. The contrast with the early Chris
tian literature in this respect is very striking.
Was, then, this Jewish period so totally lacking
in experiences connected with deep religious emo
tion? We are accustomed to call it a period of
ritualism, but did the ritualism produce a religion so
cold and barren as this would seem to indicate ? It
would seem an irreparable loss to religion if with
the disappearance or reinterpretation of old psychic
phenomena there had occurred also the disappear
ance of the accompanying religious feeling which
had caused these phenomena to be ascribed to the
Spirit. One cannot so read Jewish history. The mag
nificent heroism of the Maccabean time would for
bid it, if there were nothing else. First and Second
Maccabees and Daniel are each in a different way
witnesses for a very profound religious feeling of
exactly the sort that in other ages, either earlier or
later, would have been ascribed to the Spirit. Fancy
the deed of Mattathias told in the book of Acts
without a reference to the Spirit ! Nor is the Mac-
7i

The Spirit of God
cabean period the only one in which we must sup
pose intense religious experiences. The writers of
all apocalypses show that they possessed it. One
sees no good reason, so far as the feeling they ex
press is concerned, why their visions should not
have been introduced by "The Spirit of the Lord
came upon me, and I saw." The phrase would have
been appropriate enough in the mouth of Daniel
or Enoch or Baruch or the Twelve Patriarchs, but
the authors never allow them to use it. The New
Testament apocalyptist claims spiritual possession
(i. io), while Spirit, though not the Spirit, is a
part of the regular machinery of Hermas ( Visions,
I, i. 3 ; II, i. i). While, then, the ecstasy of prophecy
had failed, yet experiences and feelings appropriate
to be assigned to the Spirit had not failed. There
must be some other cooperating reason for the
meager use of the Spirit.
This reason is found in the growing tendency,
already noted in the last period, to put God far away
from the world and to avoid any phrase which had
an anthropomorphic relation. The angel of Jahveh
had disappeared, except as a figure borrowed from
the Scriptures in pseudepigraphic writings like Test.
XII. In place of it a hierarchy of angels had been
developed. This accounts for the meager use of
the Spirit as applied to human experience. It is also
closely connected with the further development of
the traditional theological idea of the Messiah as
possessed by the Spirit. This became an element in
setting the Messiah apart from other men, and
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The Palestinian-Jewish Writings
dignifying his age as unlike the present age in
being more closely connected with God.
This tendency also accounts for the total dis
appearance of the cosmological use, which had
developed so fully in the preceding period. In
the Psalms there had been, as Professor Toy
points out, "a certain warmth of coloring in
the representation of God's relation to the
world."1 This died away with the decline
of the poetic impulse in the later and less orig
inal psalmody, as the consciousness of God's
presence had died away with the decline of proph
ecy, and nothing had risen to take its place. The
Psalms of Solomon contain nothing of it, nor do
the psalms which can with certainty be assigned to
the Maccabean period.2 God was no longer im
manent in nature. That was beneath the dignity
of the God of heaven. It is true that the logical
outcome of God's overlordship of the world could
be nothing less than the care of all his creatures.
The germ of this always lay in the undeveloped
possibilities of Jewish thought. When Christ used
God's care for the sparrows to illustrate God's care
for men we do not learn that he met with any ob
jection as one who degraded God. In fact, one may
believe that he would never have used this picture
of the sparrow at all had it not met with a ready
response in Jewish popular thought, for he was too

1 Judaism and Christtamty, p. 80.
* Even Duhm, who perhaps assigns as large a proportion of the Psalter
to Maccabean times as does any recent writer, excludes the nature poems.
placing them in the Persian period.
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The Spirit of God
wise a teacher to load his argument with minor
points to which his auditors would take exception.
Yet, after all, so far as literature represents the
case, Paul was much nearer typical Judaistic
thought when he said, "Is it for the oxen that God
careth ?"
That this possible inconsistency existed is not
surprising. True religious thought has always, in
some form, left open the door for the idea of con
tact between God and the world of nature. Since
the essence of religion is the recognition of a real
relation between God and man, and since man is
so closely connected with the external world, sin
cere religion never completely loses sight of God's
connection with the world. The Palestinian Jews
did not philosophize about it. They hardly recog
nized that it was there, but it was, in germ, and in
due time it could bear its proper fruit. Indeed,
Judaism was fortunate in that it did not philosophize
about it, whether under the name of the Spirit or
under any other name. It was better in the end
that, while Judaism was exalting the might and
power of Jahveh from the circumscribed limits of a
national God to the supreme Ruler of the universe,
his relation to nature should for the present remain
in obscurity. To have brought it into prominence
would have necessitated one of two things : Either
the idea of God would have been kept from any
genuine advance, bound to conceptions that were
not lofty by shackles of connection with the material
world, remaining permanently to all intents a demi-
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The Palestinian-Jewish Writings
urge; or else some philosophic chain must have
been devised with links enough to stretch from
heaven to earth. The non-philosophic nature of the
Hebrew mind allowed the Jews to escape both of
these calamities. Alexandrian- Jewish thought took
the second of these alternatives, though only in a
half-hearted way. Neither the Logos nor the Spirit
was ever fully hypostasized by the system. Gnosti
cism was much more logical and thoroughgoing.
Its "aeons" and "powers" formed a definite system
of divine connection with the world. It raised
the conception of God to a fitting dignity and sat
isfied the demands of reason much better than did
the amorphous condition of Palestinian Judaism.
But here, as so often in the history of religion, the
more haste the less speed. The battle of thought
is not always to the logical. The line of religious
history does not lie through Gnosticism nor even
through Alexandrian Judaism, in spite of the
Christian Logos doctrine, but through Palestinian
Judaism. The Spirit was lifted forever above con
nection with nature. No other conception took its
place. But in time the religious thought could once
more set God himself in relation to his creation of
nature, for then God has advanced to a position
where this relation could not degrade him, but
only uplift nature. And so this whole range of
thought passes outside the history of the idea of
the Spirit, yet with no loss to its intrinsic religious
value. At the same time the idea of the Spirit gained by
75

The Spirit of God
this change. It became limited to the relation be
tween God and man. This gave it a religious force
and made it significant of an intimacy of relation
such as never could have been attained had it still
been used of God active in the wide range of all
his creation. By becoming narrowed it became
both intensified and elevated. The closer one studies
the history of this idea the more clearly it is seen
that the seemingly simple fact of dropping the re
lation to external nature from the idea of the Spirit
forms the greatest single crisis in its history. It
completed the foundation upon which the New
Testament structure of thought on this subject was
reared. We shall understand better the significance of
this historic process for the growth of religious
thought if we note the course of the same idea in
other religions. It was said above that a sincere
religion never completely loses sight of God's con
nection with the world. The statement was made in
the light of the history of religion. Everywhere
one finds this to be true, in some form or other,
and often the form is significant of the kind of
progress which it is possible for the religion in
question to make.
Early religions placed their gods in connection
with nature in a direct and naive way. There was
for them no problem about it, any more than there
was about man's connection with nature. But as
a religion developed the problem always arose, con
sciously or unconsciously. It was met in one of the
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The Palestinian-Jewish Writings
two ways mentioned above: Either the idea of re
lation to nature checked and limited the complete
growth of the conception of God, or the problem
was solved by some philosophical device which al
lowed the elevation of God, and yet kept his relation
to nature. Examples of the first class are found in
most of the earlier religions which we might desig
nate as non-philosophical, as, for example, the
Canaanite. The Baals of Canaan remained to the
end agricultural gods. Hebrew and Canaanite
alike worshiped them in this phase. They were
so closely connected with the operations of nature
that they could never be removed from this relation.
The spirits of China and Babylon were also orig
inally nature gods, whose connection with nature
remained unbroken. The result was that they did
not grow, but, remaining a sort of dwarf gods, had
value only for the lower phases of religion, magic
and demonology. The second class is illustrated
by the philosophical schemes of Gnosticism and of
the Sankhya and Vedanta schools of India. These
were carefully elaborated metaphysical devices by
which the Supreme was kept unchanged and un
changing, not sullied by the impurities of the world,
yet his connection with the world was made prom
inent and was carefully explained. The defect of
such religions as mediums of the advance of history
is that their metaphysical devices are only tempo
rary and are outgrown by the progress of philo
sophic thought. Few religions have, like the Jew
ish, steered a middle, course through the intricacies
77 .

The Spirit of God
of the problem, and adopted neither of the two
solutions which most naturally offered themselves.
Amid the limitations of usage, however, there
is one use which is quite as free as in former periods.
This is the Messianic use. The actual number of
passages in which it occurs does not increase so
much, but the increase in the proportion of use
seems to indicate that the idea was here more dom
inant than it had been in previous periods. With
this occurs a notable increase in the use of the spirit
in a purely psychological sense, meaning the per
son, both living and dead (for example, Enoch 22.
5; 49. 3; 67. 8; 71. 2, 6, etc.; 107. 17; 108. 11).
We again raise the question here, as in the last
period, of the relation of the Spirit to the created
universe. There we found that it always stood in
the relation of a transcendental cause to nature,
sometimes in that of a transcendental and sometimes
in that of an immanent cause to man. When
thought of as the cause of the life of man the pre
dominant use was transcendental; when as the or
igin of his endowment the more usual usage was
the immanent. As later Judaism never uses the
Spirit in reference to external nature the first class
of transcendental passages entirely disappears. The
Spirit as God acting upon man as the cause of
human life is in all cases transcendental. This is
so whether it is used of the Spirit as the cause of
life in general, as in Judith 16. 14; 2 Mace. 7. 22;
or of the rational life which survives the event of
death, as in 2 Mace. 14. 46; 7. 23. The life of
78

The Palestinian-Jewish Writings
man is never the Spirit of God, not even in Judith
16. 14. It is either, as there, caused by the Spirit
of God or, as is more usual, the spirit of man is
given by God, and there is no mention of the Spirit
of God. The separation between the spirit of man
and the Spirit of God is now complete. Man is
not considered to have the Spirit of God because
his spirit is created by God. This absolute separa
tion between the two is a necessary prerequisite in
preparing the older Hebrew anthropology for its
development into the New Testament anthropology.
In the charismatic use the following passages, in
cluding some of ethical import, are capable of a
transcendental interpretation : Sus. 42, "The angel,
as he had been commanded, gave a sagacious spirit
to a young man, namely, to Daniel."1 Test. XII,
Levi 2, "A spirit of discernment of the Lord came
over me." Enoch 62. 2, "The spirit of righteousness
was poured out upon him." Test. XII, Judah 20,
"The spirit of holiness will be upon him." In these
passages the Spirit works from without upon the
individuals. The following are more naturally interpreted as
immanent : Sir. 48. 24, "Isaiah saw by a great spirit
the last things." 39. 6, "He shall be filled with
the spirit of understanding." Test. XII, Simon 4,
"Joseph was a good man, and had the Spirit of
God in him." Benj. 4, "Him who has the grace
of a good spirit." 8, "He is unspotted of heart,
since the Spirit of God rests upon him." Mart.,
1 See the footnote on this passage, p. 61.
79

The Spirit of God
Isa. 5. 14, Isaiah "discoursed with the Holy Spirit."
Enoch 49. 3, "In him dwells the spirit of wisdom,"
etc. Psa. Sol. 17. 42, The Messiah will be "mighty
through the spirit of holiness." 18. 8, The Lord
will bring goodness to pass "in the spirit of wisdom
and of righteousness and of might." Dan. 4. 8, 9,
"In whom is the spirit of the holy gods," etc. In
these passages the Spirit operates from within the
individual. Here also the Spirit is usually an abid
ing possession rather than a temporary gift, though
it is not always easy to draw the distinction be
tween the two. Certainly where character is the
result of the Spirit, as in Test. XII, Benj. 8, the
possession must be regarded as permanent. A study
of the passages as a whole shows a tendency to
regard the charismatic Spirit as immanent, working
within the man, rather than as an external force,
acting from without upon him.
Jewish thought, then, is working to opposite re
sults along the two lines of the development of the
idea of the Spirit. In the act of creation the Spirit
of God works from without. Indeed, it is becoming
rare that the need of the intervention of the Spirit is
felt at all. In the endowment of man with gifts the
tendency is to regard the Spirit as working from
within. The tendency to retire the working of the Spirit
from all connection with the merely physical or
unusual and to limit it to the distinctly ethical and
religious is stronger at this stage than in any of
the previous periods, but — and this is important for
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The Palestinian-Jewish Writings
the future history of the conception — the Spirit
working ethically was never ascribed to or claimed
by a contemporary. It always belonged to the
past or to the present as a mere generality. This
shows a growing spiritual power and ethical sense
which is much greater than is sometimes recognized
by those who see in Judaism only a monstrous de
velopment of burdensome ceremonial. The abiding
religious power of Judaism was less in the elabora
tion of a ritual which isolated the Jewish from the
Gentile world than in the growth of a clear moral
insight which made the lower ethics of other re
ligions repugnant. Isolation by ritual alone is a
mere shell which never in the history of religion
constitutes the living germ of religious growth,
however much it may serve to protect it from ex
ternal forces of destruction. The outcome and the
great importance of this course of moral growth
in the concept of the Spirit we shall see when we
come to study its Christian use.
Up to this stage of our study we have found that
the idea of the Spirit of God was never the exact
synonym of the idea of God. Here also this is
true. The Spirit of God still meant for the Jew
what it had from the very beginning of his religion,
God active in the world. The only difference from
stage to stage has been in the delimitation of the
sphere within which the activity of God was as
signed to the Spirit. This sphere had been broad
ened from man to the cosmos. Here it was narrowed
again to man and to the higher side of his mental
(6) 81

The Spirit of Cod
activity, but still it is God acting. Everything
which was assigned to the Spirit could be equally
assigned to God. The question then naturally
arises, Was there, then, any need to preserve the
term "the Spirit of God"? The answer lies in
that religious feeling which we have before found
to be so important in connection with this subject,
the feeling of union with God. This feeling is very
persistent. Its manifestation always measures the
high-water mark in the advance of any faith, for
it is always found along the highest levels. The
exilic sense of God's relation to man and. the world
was higher than that which at an earlier period
found proofs of the relation only in the unusual and
ecstatic. But the Judaistic sense of this relation
was higher still and found its expression, so far as
experience went, in the ethical life and the higher
reason which it called wisdom; while it looked to
the future for a still closer union to be manifested
in the Messiah. Amid the externalism of the Jew
ish ritualism it kept and used this old expression
of the Spirit, and yet preserved the transcendence
of the mighty God, the Creator of heaven and earth,
untarnished by implication of contact with the
frailty and impurity of man. Thus the religious
longing for the union with God was satisfied, and
yet God was not brought down to the level of
man. We have before turned for comparison to India,
and we are again impelled to notice the likeness
and the contrast. In India there was also this long-
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The Palestinian-Jewish Writings
ing for union with God. Perhaps nowhere in the
world has that longing been more strongly felt.
There also it reached its highest culmination in a
period of elaborate ritual development. The Hindu,
like the Jew, came to see that the rational and the
ethical were the highest realms of life. He also
had in his religious history trance, ecstasy, and
vision as manifestations of man's union with the
divine; and he, like the Jew, had risen to the
thought that all the world was linked, like man,
in union with God. But he had no term by the use
or disuse of which he could mark nice shades of
distinction in the growth of his own religious ex
periences. They must all be lumped together as
union with the Supreme. Then union and unity
were confused, and so it came about that he wor
shiped himself, saying, "I am Brahm;" and all the
world was likewise Brahm, and cause and result,
maker and made, enjoyer and enjoyed, sunk into
one inextricable confusion whose only possible log
ical outcome was the absolute identity of all reality.
To this conclusion the Vedanta philosophy came.
Its most terse expression is "This is that" — what
ever you can call "this" is identical with "that." It is
the religious feeling- of union with God fructifying
in philosophy.1 Yet religion must have this feel-
1 How attractive this religious philosophy of the East is to some minds
of the highest order may be seen in the following quotation from the Auto
biography of Max Muller (p. 42): "The 'know thyself,' ascribed to Chilon
and other sages of ancient Greece, gains a deeper meaning with every year.
till at last the I, which we looked upon as the most certain and undoubted
fact, vanishes from our grasp to become the Self, free from the various
accidents and limitations which make up the I, and therefore one with the
Self that underlies all individual and therefore vanishing I's. What that
common Self may be is a question to be reserved for later times, though I
83

The Spirit of God
ing, else it possesses no quickening power. The
Jew, with his term, "the Spirit of God," could de
velop this feeling of union, and yet not lose him
self or his world in the boundless abyss of an un
conditioned Supreme.
The Hindu was compelled to retain the crudest
efforts of his religion to reach union with God,
side by side with the most lofty. No term distin
guished between them, and they all stood together
in one confused tangle of religious ceremonials. So
it happened that the philosopher, who in India was
often the man of strongest religious feeling, was
bound to the physical yoga exercises, whose aim
was to produce trance and ecstasy. Hindu religion
could not leave behind its outgrown expressions of
religious experience, but must mold the higher to
fit the lower and carry all forward with it, as alike
important, making for itself an intolerable burden
of old and new, crude and lofty, enough to bear
down any religious system. From all this the He
brew development of the idea of the Spirit relieved
the Jew. One does not see how any other usage
could have so well fitted his religion for advance.
This allowed him to pass through the same stages
of religious experience as the Hindu, to grasp all
the Hindu's religious truths, and yet to leave behind
the shell of the seeds from which a better fruitage

may say at once that the only true answer given to it seems to me to be
that of the Upanishads and the Vedanta philosophy. Only we must
take care not to mistake the moral Self, that finds fault with the active
Self, for the Highest Self, that knows no longer of good or evil deeds." It
is interesting to note that the Self as used here is the Atma, which, like
the mi. = spirit, = breath.
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The Palestinian-Jewish Writings
had sprung. It made his religion adaptable to the
needs of growth, and yet always kept it true to the
essential fact of all religion, the union of man with
God. Men sometimes question why it is that modern
critical scholarship, with its strong appreciation of
ethnic faiths, still holds to the unique value of
Hebrew thought for the history of religion. It is
because the more carefully it is studied the more
modern scholarship finds in this religion, together
with its successor, Christianity, the possibility and
the power of an infinite religious advance which
no other system of thought presents. Few elements
of the religion exhibit this more clearly than that
we are now considering. The reverent scholar is
impelled to believe that through this Hebrew and
Jewish progress of thought there worked the divine
power to which he still can give no better name than
the Spirit of God. 85

CHAPTER V
The Alexandrian-Jewish Writings
Successful attempts to combine elements from
two widely differing forms of religion into a single
system are somewhat rare in history. Moham
medanism is the only one which can be regarded
as having become a permanent force under its own
name. Next in importance to it, perhaps, is that
movement of Greco-Jewish syncretism usually
known as Alexandrian Judaism, of which Philo is
the best exponent and the Wisdom of Solomon the
most valuable and best known single literary prod
uct. In tracing the growth of religious thought it
is always possible to treat such a development from
either one of its two sides. So Mohammedanism
may be regarded as a development of Arabic re
ligion, under the influence of Jewish and Christian
ideas, or as a Christian sect corrupted to extreme
heresy by Arabic paganism and Mohammed's be
lief in his own inspiration. In the study of Alex
andrian Judaism the question is further complicated
by the fact that the Greek element comes into it not
in one pure strain, but mingled in varying propor
tions from at least three different forms of Hellenic
thought: Platonic, Stoic, and Neo-Pythagorean.
With these the student of Greek philosophy must
deal in detail. For him Alexandrian Judaism is
the development of a somewhat confused system
of Greek thought under Hebrew influence. We
86

The Alexandrian-Jewish Writings
are to approach it as the development of Hebrew
thought set in a framework of Greek philosophy.
In this approach we are certainly at one with the
authors themselves. Philo, for example, conceived
of his own work as the legitimate outcome of He
brew ideas. He always stood within the confines
of the Hebrew religion, and his Greek forms of
thought were only the platform from which he
hoped to make himself heard by those outside. He
called Plato "the great," but Moses was "the great
est and most perfect man that ever lived" (Vita
Mosis, I, i). The God to whom he offered the
allegiance of his thought was always the Hebrew
Jahveh. The problem before him was to make the
Hebrew religion speak Greek; to show that the
best Greek thought was essentially at one with the
eternal verities of the revelation of God through
Moses in the Hebrew law.
In this attempt he was seemingly hampered by
an almost total disparity in content and purpose be
tween the two. Greek thought was largely specu
lative. The Hebrew law, when not ceremonial,
was entirely ethical. If he would link them together,
he must either emphasize the ethical elements of
Greek thought or find speculation in the Hebrew law.
The practical demands of his purpose united with
his own philosophical inclination to lead him to the
latter choice. Yet, Hebrew-like, he continually
referred to the divine demands for purity and right
eousness and to the close relation between ethical
goodness and the possibility of gaining wisdom.
87

The Spirit of God
Philo used two general methods for the discovery
of speculation in the Hebrew law: first, allegory,
an instrument which the Greek interpreters of
Homer placed in his hand; and, second, the eleva
tion of certain Old Testament terms to a prominence
far greater than they occupied in Hebrew thought,
at the same time modifying, though never totally
transforming, their content. These terms he uses
for the expression of the relation of God and the
world. They are "Wisdom" and "Word." The
former brought its speculative suggestion from the
first nine chapters of Proverbs, where Wisdom is,
on one hand, the creative expression of God (8. 22),
and, on the other, the divine ideal of human life (8.
1-20). The latter was drawn from the numerous
Old Testament expressions of God as uttering him
self in his Word. Both were fused with Greek ideas
that are only somewhat dimly shadowed in the
Hebrew uses of the terms.
As we have found, Hebrew thought had already
a native term which admirably expressed the He
brew sense of the relation between God and the
world. This was the term "the Spirit of God."
It had a real content of thought, was venerable with
age, and was found in every class of Hebrew lit
erature. On the other hand, "Wisdom," in a philo
sophical sense, was late in origin and narrow in
usage, being only found in one class of literature;
while "Word" must borrow from Greek sources
nearly all its speculative significance. Looking at
the matter from the Hebrew standpoint, one would
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The Alexandrian-Jewish Writings
expect to find "Spirit" the great term of Philonian
philosophy. Two reasons may be suggested why
it was not: first and most important, the close af
finity of "Wisdom" (<so<t>ia) and "Word" (Adyoc)
with Greek philosophy; second, the very fact that
the term "Spirit" was so old and well fixed in He
brew literature and had received so definite a con
tent unfitted it for the use of Philo. The term was
no longer flexible. Its affiliations were so closely
linked with Hebrew ideas that it could not readily
take new contents. Yet Philo and his followers
did not wholly abandon the older term, though their
use of it is comparatively slight. A study of the
development of Hebrew thought on this subject
would be incomplete without the consideration of
the form it assumes here.
Using as nearly as possible the same classifica
tion as in former sections, we find the following uses
of the Spirit of God:
A. Spirit used of God acting in the sphere of
human life :
i. For endowment of individuals with charis
matic gifts:
(a) Prophecy:
"It is not lawful for a wicked man to be an in
terpreter of God, as also no wicked man can be
said to be inspired. . . . Accordingly, all those
whom Moses describes as just persons he also rep
resented as inspired and prophesying." He then
instances Noah, Isaac, Jacob, Abraham, and Moses
himself (Quis rer. div. her., 52).
89

The Spirit of God
In the prophetic trance "which proceeds from in
spiration" "the mind that is in us is removed from
its place at the arrival of the divine Spirit, but is
again restored to its previous habitation when the
Spirit departs, for it is contrary to holy law for
what is mortal to dwell with what is, immortal"
(Quis rer. div. her., 53).
The beginning of Moses's "divine inspiration"
was at the Red Sea, when the Egyptians pressed
from behind upon the Hebrews. "When the
prophet saw the whole nation now inclosed like a
shoal of fish and in great consternation he no longer
remained master of himself, but became inspired
and prophesied" (Vita Mosis, Lib. Ill, 33).
Conjectures — that is, inferences — are "akin to
prophecy, for the mind could never make such cor
rect and felicitous conjectures, unless it were a
divine Spirit which guided their feet into the way of
truth" (Vita Mosis, Lib. Ill, 36).
(b) Skill in artisan work. This is not properly
a separate division here, but is retained from former
classifications for the sake of uniformity. In the
cases cited the Spirit is obviously used only because
it is so used in the Old Testament text. The in
stances are used to illustrate (c), below:
"God summoned Bezaleel, and filled him with his
Holy Spirit, and with wisdom and understanding
and knowledge to be able to devise every good
work" (De Gigant., 5).
"For the divine Spirit is not a motion of the air,
but intellect and wisdom; just as it also flows over
90

The Alexandrian-Jewish Writings
the man who with great skill constructed the taber
nacle of the Lord, namely, upon Bezaleel, when the
Scripture says, And he filled him with the divine
Spirit of wisdom and understanding" (Quaest.,
I, 90). (c) Wisdom (see also (b), above) :
"The Spirit which is upon [Moses, or any other
subject of inspiration] is the wise, the divine, the
indivisible, the undistributable, the good Spirit, the
Spirit which is everywhere entirely filled up,1
which, while it benefits others, is not injured by
having a participation in it given to another" (De
Gigant, 6).
"The holy spirit of discipline will flee deceit, and
remove from thoughts that are without under
standing" (Wis. Sol. 1. 5). "I prayed, and un
derstanding was given me: I called upon God, and
the spirit of wisdom came to me" (7. 7). "For in
her [wisdom] is an understanding spirit" (7. 22).
"Thy counsel who hath known, except as thou gav-
est wisdom, and didst send thy Holy Spirit from
above?" (9. 17).
4 Mace. 7. 14: "The spirit of wisdom" (text
doubtful ; Lin. reads t£i Trvevfian did, rov Xoyiofiov) .
2. As the substrate of rational life. A use not
specifically found in the Old Testament :
In commenting on the passage, "God breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life:" "The forma
tion of the individual man perceptible by the exter
nal senses is a composition of earthy substance and
' On the text see Drummond, Philo Judaeus, 11, ai6, f.
91

The Spirit of God
divine Spirit. For that the body was created by
the Creator taking a lump of clay and fashioning
the human form out of it; but that the soul pro
ceeds from no created thing at all, but from the
Father and Ruler of all things. For when he uses
the expression 'he breathed into,' etc., he means
nothing else than the divine Spirit proceeding from
that happy and blessed nature, sent to take up its
habitation here on earth, for the advantage of our
race, in order that, even if man is mortal according
to that portion of him which is visible, he may at
all events be immortal according to that portion
which is invisible. . . . He is born at the same
time both mortal and immortal; mortal as to his
body, but immortal as to his intellect" (De Opif.
Mundi, 46).
"Man was not formed of the dust alone, but
also of the divine Spirit" (Fragment from John of
Damascus).1 "The divine Spirit is the essence of the rational
part [of the soul] , . . . for it is said, 'God breathed
into his face the breath of life' " (Fragment
from John the Monk, Concerning the Soul and
Mind). "The essence of the soul is truly and beyond all
question Spirit, . . . but has no independent place,
but is mingled with blood" (Quaest, II, 59).
"I ordered my wisdom to make man from seven
substances, ... his spirit from my Spirit and from
wind" (Secrets of Enoch 30. 5).
1 References to Fragments are to the Tauchnitz edition.
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The Alexandrian-Jewish Writings
B. Spirit used of God acting in the physical
world :
i. As the basis of physical life. This has no sep
arate representation here. It must be combined with
God acting on external nature apart from man.
Both together make
2. Spirit used of God in his relation of cosmical
immanence :
"The mind, which is intrinsically light," can "be
raised up by the nature of the divine Spirit, which
is able to do everything and to subdue all things be
low," as material things may be raised by the wind
(De Plant. Noe, 6). Though the direct reference
is to the mind, yet the words "to subdue all things"
seem to go beyond mental action, and to have a
cosmical significance. Yet perhaps the fact that
this is the only case of such a significance in Philo
should make us careful not to insist too strongly
upon this interpretation.
"Because the Spirit of the Lord hath filled the
earth, and that which sustaineth the universe [ra
ndvra, the all] hath knowledge of the voice" (Wis.
Sol. i. 7).
"For in her [wisdom] is an understanding
spirit, . . . having all power, overseeing all things,
and permeating all intelligent, pure, and most subtile
spirits" (Wis. Sol. J. 22, 23).
"For thy incorruptible Spirit is in all things [ev
Ttaoiv]" (Wis. Sol. 12. 1).
Gforrer has pointed out that the Spirit is used
in Philo only where it is brought over from the Old
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The Spirit of God
Testament, but certain differences in usage are
immediately obvious. The first is the great empha
sis on the connection of the Spirit with wisdom.
The second is the lack of the national sentiment in
connection with the Spirit. This arises from its
close relation to wisdom, which, following out the
suggestions of the Wisdom literature, is not con
ceived of as national, but as cosmic. Philo's pur
pose, also, does not lead him to deal with the
national hope. A consequence of these things is
the total disappearance of the Messianic hope, and
so of the Spirit as a force in the Messianic time.
This takes away from the Alexandrian thought the
hope, which always remained a living power amid
all the Palestinian dogma, of a time in the future
when the Spirit should again be a potent fact in
actual life, once more entering into experience in
new forms and with a more powerful energy than
ever before.1
The peculiarities of Philo's idea of the Spirit as
related to God depend primarily upon his cosmic
conceptions. In Palestinian Judaism there was, as
we have seen, a growth of the term "Spirit"
to mean God himself, God's being apart from God
conceived as acting, God ab intra. Philo does not
1 In order to complete the uses of spirit the following are added:
C. Used of angels :
" The essence of angels is spiritual, but they are very often made to
resemble the appearance of men " (Fragment from John of Damascus;
comp. Quaest., I, 92).
D. Used of human beings, equivalent to souls:
"All intelligent, pure, and most subtile spirits" (Wis. Sol. 7. 23). It
would be possible to interpret Trvei)fiara here of angels or other non-human
beings, but there seems to be no real demand for it.
" A man indeed killeth in his wickedness; but the spirit, when it hath
gone forth, he bringeth not back" (Wis. Sol. 16. 14).
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The Alexandrian-Jewish Writings
use it in this sense, for the reason that his concep
tion of God did not allow it. The essence of God
remains unknown. That he exists is evident, but
what is the noumenal content of that existence must
remain hidden. He is without qualities. The Spirit
which is the expression of God cannot then be iden
tical with God ab intra, since he in his real nature
is inexpressible.
But if the Spirit is not used as the equivalent of
God himself in his eternal nature, is it equivalent
to the powers of God? That it stands in close con
nection with the two most prominent of these
powers, Wisdom and the Logos, is plain. Is it
identical with them, thus forming a triad of biblical
expressions for the relation of God to the world,
or is there such a difference between them that the
relation becomes other than that of mere parallelism?
Certainly some passages seem to imply an actual
identity with Wisdom. It is directly defined, in the
passage based on Bezaleel's possession of the Spirit
for work in the tabernacle, as "wisdom and under
standing and knowledge to be able to devise any
work." Once again, returning to the same incident
of Bezaleel, Philo says, "The divine Spirit is not a
motion of the air, but intellect and wisdom." Here
is an obvious reference to the literal meaning of
¦nvevfia as air. Philo means that he is not using
the word in this sense. As Wisdom the Spirit can
not dwell with man forever, since the "disposition
of the flesh is inconsistent with wisdom" (De
Gigant, 5; Quaest, I, 90; in both the above cases
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The Spirit of God
he is commenting on Gen. 6. 8, "My Spirit shall
not always dwell with man"). Spirit is then in
one of its uses an equivalent of Wisdom, as one of
the powers of God. This identity is approached in
Wis. Sol. 7. 22, "An understanding spirit is in
wisdom" (some texts, "is wisdom," omitting ev).
Still, perhaps by reason of its traditional Hebrew
use, it is only identified with Wisdom when in re
lation to the mind of man. The distinction becomes
more sharp as we study the uses of Wisdom itself.
Wisdom has certain cosmical relations. It stands
as the highest of the divine powers. It is the me
dium of creation. The Spirit is not given such
cosmical relations. Indeed, it is never used at all
in this sense by Philo, although it is by the writer
of the Wisdom of Solomon. The fact that Philo
only uses it where it is carried over from the Old
Testament, and that in the Old Testament passages
which fall under his consideration the use is always
the charismatic, would seem to explain his lack of
the cosmical usage in connection with Wisdom.
The definition of this form of the idea may be
stated as follows: The Spirit is Wisdom considered
as an endowment of man's soul for special ends and
at special times.
The relation of the Spirit to the Logos depends
on the relation between the Logos and Wisdom, for
the Spirit is never set in direct connection with the
Logos. The question of the relation of the Logos
and Wisdom is not one belonging properly to this
study, and comprises such curious equalities and
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The Alexandrian-Jewish Writings
subordinations and seeming contradictions that it
would demand more space than we could afford it.
The matter is fully investigated in Drummond,
Philo Judaeus, II, 201-213. The general conclusion
is that the Logos and Wisdom are ultimately iden
tical. Our interest in this is that the Spirit is thus
made ultimately identical in its essence with the
Logos. What now shall we say of the relation of the
Spirit to the created world ? We have seen that the
Hebrew conception of the Spirit had its origin in
an explanation of the relation of God to man, and
that only in post-exilic times was it used with a
cosmic significance. In Alexandrian Judaism it
is also used in a cosmic sense, but only in the most
general way and in rare passages. The reason for
the rarity of its use is plain. The Logos and Wis
dom have taken its place. The emphasis of it is
once more, as in ancient Hebrew thought, thrown
upon the inspiration of man. In Philo the Spirit
is said to "subdue all things." Here, though the
context is of the mind, the Spirit as a cosmic force
would seem to be meant. The Wisdom of Solomon
gives a few more passages, though almost as vague
and general. Here it is said that the Spirit in wis
dom "oversees all things" (7. 22), "filleth the
earth" (1. 7), and is "an incorruptible Spirit in
all things" (12. 1). That here is a side glance at
the Platonic soul of the universe may very likely
be true. Plato's word for it is vovg. He never
uses Trvevfia in the cosmic sense. When the Alex-
(7) 97

The Spirit of God
andrian writers thus use it probably one must al
ways see the reflection of Hebrew terminology. As
already noted, Philo never uses nvev/ia except when
led to do so by the use of the biblical passage upon
which he is commenting. The author of Wisdom
combines a Hebrew term with Greek thought.
The fullest passage is that whose concluding
clause is quoted above (Wis. Sol. n. 24 to 12. 1) :
"For thou lovest all the things that are, and abhor-
rest nothing that thou didst make ; for if thou hadst
hated anything, thou wouldest not have made it.
And how could anything have persisted if it had
not been thy will, or been preserved if not called
into existence by thee? But thou sparest all be
cause they are thine, O Lord, thou lover of souls.
For thine incorruptible [deathless, a00apToi>] Spirit
is in all things." The loving care of God over his
creation is due to the fact that it embodies his
Spirit. This is quite plainly a statement of the
doctrine of immanence. The cosmos is God's own;
it contains his own expression; his Spirit not only
created it, but is in it. This is the philosophical
side of that conception of relationship which has its
ethical expression in the Hebrew notion of holi
ness. There it was the relation of ownership based
on creation; here it is the relation of ownership
based on consubstantiality ; but in both the empha
sis is on the relation, not on its ground. The prin
ciple of the permanence of the cosmos is based upon
the idea of the indwelling Spirit. That Spirit is
deathless (eupdaprov). Therefore, since it is in the
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The Alexandrian-Jewish Writings
universe, the universe abides. Thus the ground of
the uniformity of law, or, in other words, of the
permanence of phenomena, is laid for this author
in the permanence of God. Compare 7. 22-27,
where the permanence of wisdom is due to a Spirit
in her.
It is to be remembered that the author of Wisdom
is not dealing with the eternity of the cosmos or
with its independent existence, but only with its
permanence in the realm of experience. Philo,
however, deals with the problem of the eternity of
the cosmos. The treatise on the Incorruptibility of
the World rests under suspicion. Zeller supposes
it to be the production of a Peripatetic, revised by
a Jew of the Alexandrian school. Schiirer says
that its genuineness has been "generally given up"
(Jewish People, II, 3, page 359). It deals with
the relation of God to the universe only in the
fashion of a dialectic on the perfection of God. If
the universe is destroyed, it must be either in order
that no other may be produced or that a new one
may be created. Both are impossible, for both
would imply less than perfection in the work of
God; the first in his work in the future, the sec
ond in his work in the present. Here there is
obviously no kinship to the idea that the permanence
of the cosmos is because of the immanence of the
Spirit of God in it.
But aside from this more than doubtful treatise
the subject is touched, though briefly, elsewhere.
The world is imperishable, but because it is in a
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The Spirit of God
state of constant flux, not because of its stability;
for it is not stable. The creations of God differ
from those of man because the "ends of things God
creates are the beginnings of other things" (Leg.
Alleg., I, 3). For example, the end of day is the
beginning of night. So transformation, not destruc
tion, is the order of the universe. "It is by pro
portion [of its elements] that the whole world is
compounded together and united and endowed with
consistency so as to remain firm forever, proportion
having distributed equality to all its parts" (Quis
rer. div. her., 30). Compare De Opif. Mundi, 27,
where man and heaven are placed in comparison,
each as the best of its kind : the heaven, the best of
incorruptible things; man, the best of perishable
things. It is tempting to say that the preeminence of the
things of God's creation over those of man's as
presented in the first passage may be due to the
fact that the Spirit of God was conceived of as in
them, but the second passage seems to put it on
quite a different ground, namely, the constitution of
the cosmos itself. Indeed, if Philo held to the eter
nity of matter and made the creation its organiza
tion, not its origination, as Drummond suggests
(I, 299, ff.), there is little chance for this attractive
speculation to be true.
One expects to find Philo's treatment of the Spirit
as a cosmic principle more fully expressed in his
comments on Gen. 1. 2, "The Spirit of God moved
upon the face of the waters," than anywhere else.
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The Alexandrian-Jewish Writings
But instead of that he treats -nvevfia here simply in
its literal meaning of air, which forms a third ele
ment with water and earth, and no cosmic signifi
cance's given to the passage (see De Gigant, 5).
In the treatise De Opif. Mundi it is treated in the
same way. There is no quotation of the passage
itself, but the following sentences seem to be based
on it : "In the first place, therefore, from the model
of the world perceptible only by intellect, the Cre
ator made an incorporeal heaven and an invisible
earth, and the form of air and of empty spaces:
the former of which he called darkness, because the
air is black by nature; and the other he called the
abyss, for empty space is very deep and yawning
with immense width. Then he created the incor
poreal substance of water and of air, and above
all he spread light. . . . And air and light he
considered worthy of preeminence. For the one he
called the breath of God, because it is air, which
is the most life-giving of things, and of life the
cause is God; and the other he called light, because
it is surpassingly beautiful" (7. 8).
To conclude: In Philo the Spirit is used only
once of the power of God active in the world. In
the Wisdom of Solomon it is used in the same mean
ing, with the added idea of the Spirit as inherent
in the cosmos, thus forming the ground of confi
dence in its permanence and its place in the power
of God. The conception of the Spirit as the direct
cause of particular phenomena in nature, a use so
frequent in Hebrew literature when the Spirit first
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The Spirit of God
began to be thought of as applied to nature, is
here, as in Palestinian Judaism, totally lacking.
In the relation of the Spirit to man Hebrew
thought brought to Alexandrian Judaism two ele
ments: the Spirit as a permanent basis of rational
life, and the charismatic Spirit as the ground of
special gifts. But Greek philosophy brought to it
what early Hebrew thought never possessed, the
philosophic theory of a soul. We are not here con
cerned with the origin and constituent elements of
this theory, but with its form as found in Philo.
The soul is used by Philo in two senses : (a) The
soul in its sensorium, the sum total of living person
ality apart from the body; and (b) the rational soul,
the human spirit, which constitutes the essential per
sonality. The first is shown, among other passages,
in the comments on "Thou shalt not eat the flesh
with the blood:" "For there are three divisions
of the soul: the one part nutritious, a second
endowed with the outward senses, and the third
endowed with reason." It is the second part of
which "the divine nvevw is the essence," for it is
said, "God breathed into his face the breath of
life." Drummond (I, page 320, f.) maintains that
the meaning of nvsvpm, here is air, and that the con
tinuance of the fragment in Armenian proves it.
It is certainly in favor of this interpretation that we
have m/ev/ia used in the sense of air in a cosmic rela
tion ; but compare De Special. Legibus, Concerning
the Life of Man, I: "For the essence of the soul
of man is the breath of God. . . . That which
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The Alexandrian-Jewish Writings
was thus breathed into his face was manifestly the
breath of the air, or whatever else there may be
which is even more excellent than the breath of
the air, as being a ray emitted from the blessed and
thrice-happy nature of God." This seems to sug
gest that the principle of even the more irrational
part of the soul may be some substance of which
air is only a coarser and cruder representation. On
such matters it is not impossible that we may be
obliged to allow a certain vagueness in the expres
sions of Philo.
Of the rational soul, however, it is said that the
divine Spirit is its essence: "The divine Spirit is
the essence of the rational part, ... for he
says, 'God breathed into his face the breath of
life.' " Nay, the soul is an immigrant into this
sphere of human life. It originally came down
from above and goes back to the place whence it
came (Quaest, III, io). "Souls are sent down from
heaven to earth as to a colony" (De Conf. Ling.,
17). This accounts for the longing they have to
return to their original country. Souls, demons,
and angels are really one and the same thing (De
Incor. Mundi), but souls have, for some unex
plained reason, taken up their abode in mortal bod
ies, as the others have not. They are spiritual ex
istences made in the likeness, not of the Most High,
for that would not be fitting, but of the Logos
(Fragment from Eus., Prep, of the Gospel). Be
fore the fall the divirj^Spirit was more evident than
now (Fragment from John of Damascus). The
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The Spirit of God
Wisdom of Solomon has also the same idea of the
soul as an immigrant from a region outside, though
not saying in express terms that the soul is a spir
itual essence. "Being good, I came into a body
undefiled" (Wis. Sol. 8. 20).
The difference between Philo and the Old Testa
ment thought is interesting. In the Old Testament
the Spirit is the transcendental part of man, and of
beast as well. It is not in itself personal, and could
never be called a soul. It is not a separate entity.
It is the power of God expressing itself in life.
Without this power of God there is no life. When
that is withdrawn life disappears. In Philo the
Spirit is not an impersonal power of God, dependent
for its operation upon the divine will, but a distinct
entity. It is spiritual in its nature — that is, it be
longs to a class of beings whose essential quality is
that they partake of the characteristics of the divine
Logos or Wisdom. Quite in accord with the gen
eral trend of Alexandrian thought, the emphasis is
no longer laid on the direct communion of God with
men, but on the series of gradations from God to
men. To represent it graphically, Hebrew thought
makes the steps of relation thus : God (= Spirit)
— men. Alexandrian thought, thus : God — Logos
(= Spirit) — souls — men.
In the later portions of the Old Testament the
Spirit plays a vital part as the expression of God
in creation. Here that function is performed by
the Logos, and the Spirit in the cosmic sense is a
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The Alexandrian-Jewish Writings
supernumerary, only used of the creation of the ra
tional soul, and yet the Spirit is not differentiated
from the Logos in any essential manner. The same
cannot be said of the cosmic relation in the Wisdom
of Solomon, where the Spirit fulfills a real purpose
in relating the universe to God.
The charismatic Spirit has a much narrower range
than in Hebrew literature of either the earlier or
the later periods. It concerns itself with two fields
only: the gift of wisdom and the gift of prophecy.
The connection of the Spirit with wisdom has been
already touched upon. In Philo it is a common
thought, and in the Wisdom of Solomon is not
infrequent (see I. 5; 7. 7, 22; 9. 17). There it
is considered as being sent from God (9. 17) in
answer to prayer (7. 7).
In Philo the typical instance, twice used, is that
of Bezaleel. It is, as shown in this case, "wisdom
and understanding and knowledge to be able to de
vise any work" (De Gigant, 5). "The divine Spirit
is not a motion of the air, but intellect and wisdom ;
just as it flows over . . . Bezaleel" (Quaest, I,
90). This Spirit is a single force. It is not sep
arated by being divided, as when it is taken from
Moses and put in the seventy elders. Like fire, it
can light others, yet not be diminished itself (De
Gigant., 5, 6). This last passage is interesting as
a reminiscence of the Old Testament conception of
the Spirit of God as the single basis of a variety
of phenomena. We have seen that separate souls
take the place of the single divine Spirit as the
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The Spirit of God
ground of rational life, but as the ground of charis
matic gifts Philo still keeps the old Hebrew idea
of the single and indivisible Spirit. >
Philo distinctly regards the charismatic Spirit as
temporary. "The Spirit comes upon men, but does
not continue or abide in them, . . . because they
are flesh" (Quaest., I, 90). A passage already
quoted, on page 90, would seem to suggest that
Philo may have regarded the charismatic Spirit as
a temporary substitute for the permanent possession
of the Spirit, which would have been man's priv
ilege had he continued without sin. It is temporary
because of the impossibility of the permanent con
nection between the Spirit and the flesh. Possibly
the experience of a temporary "frenzy" in prophecy
may have combined with the Philonian philosophical
positions in producing this idea,
Philo's doctrine of the Spirit has been, up to this
point, a matter of tradition and dogma rather than
of experience. In the charismatic Spirit of proph
ecy one approaches the field of his own experience.
He himself had been a subject of visions which
he could explain by no natural means. There had
been moments when he had, seemed lifted out of
himself, possessed by a power that was not himself.
This could be none other than a work of the Spirit
of God. The passage in which these experiences is
described is worthy of being quoted in full :
"I am not ashamed to relate what has happened
to me myself, which I know from having experi
enced it ten thousand times. Sometimes, when I
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The Alexandrian-Jewish Writings
have desired to come to my usual employment of
writing on the doctrines of philosophy, though I
have known accurately what it was proper to set
down, I have found my mind barren and unpro
ductive, and have been completely unsuccessful in
my object, being indignant at my mind for the
uncertainty and vanity of its then existing opinions,
and filled with amazement at the power of the
living God,1 by whom the womb of the soul is at
times opened and at times closed up. And some
times when I have come to my work empty I have
suddenly become full, ideas being, in an invisible
manner, showered upon me and implanted in me
from on high; so that, through the influence of
divine inspiration, I was filled with enthusiasm,
and have known neither the place in which I was,
nor those who were present, nor myself, nor what
I was saying, nor what I was writing; for then I
have been conscious of a stream of interpretation,
an enjoyment of light, a most penetrating sight, a
most manifest energy2 in all that was to be done,
having such an effect on my mind as the clearest
ocular demonstration would have on the eyes" (De
Migration. Abraham, 7).
Few passages in the literature of this subject are
more important than this. Here is a philosopher,
a careful thinker, capable of introspection, speaking
frankly of his own experience as the illustration of
his conception of the contact of God with man. It
1 Him who is (Drummond, U n).
'Rather read evdpyetav, '"distinct view of the subjects treated" (see
Drummond, I, 15).
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The Spirit of God
marks the intensity and vividness of this experience
that he drops his philosophy of "powers" and "en
ergies" and speaks of the contact with God as simply
and directly as any old Hebrew prophet. It is not
Wisdom or the Logos that came upon him, but God
himself, "the all-accomplishing Father," "He who
is." This is not dogma, but life.
It is possible to make a psychological analysis of
this experience. It has several elements of origin.
The first is intellectual. The experience came at
moments when the mind was extremely active and
closely attentive to the subjects of its thought, so
absorbed in them that it became oblivious to all
about. The second element is one of feeling. Ac
companying the stress of attention was an emotion
which he recognized under the name of enthusiasm
(nopv(3avTiav) ,2 while the subjective result was also
an emotion which he seems to distinguish, very
properly, from the "enthusiasm" of the process it
self. The third element is the sense of the worth
of the results, considered not as objective thought-
products, but as subjective feelings which have
their place in the highest ranges of personal life.
The fourth element is the sense of the remoteness
of this experience from the normal life. It is
not the usual mental processes that are the ground
of this experience. They offer no analogy to it or
explanation of it. One hesitates at first as to
whether this should not be called rather an infer-

1 The use of this word, with its connotation of wild and uncontrolled ex
citement, is significant.
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The Alexandrian-Jewish Writings
ence from the experience, but it seems to be so
interwoven into its emotional content that one is
compelled to regard it as a primary factor of the
experience and itself a ground for the further in
tensity of the ecstasy. Philo's conclusion was that
the moments of ecstasy into which these factors
entered were only to be accounted for as the direct
inspiration of God.
In the light of this experience must be interpreted
all that Philo says of Hebrew prophecy. His fullest
treatment of it is given in connection with Moses.
When Moses saw the people entrapped at the Red
Sea "he no longer remained master of himself, but
became inspired, and prophesied" (Vita Mosis, III,
34). This was the beginning of his divine inspira
tion. In the speech that follows Moses is repre
sented as seeing the Egyptians overwhelmed in the
Red Sea. So in the destruction of Korah he saw
what immediately afterward happened. He also
gave oracles about manna, the Sabbath, the destruc
tion of Korah, and his own death. A frenzy which
left no consciousness is supposed. The soul abdi
cated its seat, and the Spirit of God took its place,
using the body as the medium of its supernatural
manifestations. What are the antecedents of Philo's theory of in
spiration? First, his own experience. However
mechanical the above theory may have become when
held in modern dogmatic theology, historical theol
ogy must never forget that with Philo it was simply
the application to the Old Testament prophets of what
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The Spirit of God
he believed to be his own experience. The strong
ethical element in prophecy was marked in his expe
rience by the emphasis on the religious and moral
worth of the results. It was marked, in his con
ception of the Old Testament prophecy, by the de
mand for righteousness in the prophet. "No wicked
man can properly be said to be inspired;" "for a
prophet says nothing of his own, but everything
which he says is strange and prompted by some one
else," and it is not lawful for a wicked man to be
the interpreter of God (Quis rer. div. her., 52).
Here speaks the Hebrew, with the ethical concep
tion of God, and so of a prophet in connection with
God. A curious contradiction, which perhaps
marks the Greek element, is found in Flaccus, 2 1 :
"For every man's soul is very prophetic, especially
of such as are in misfortune." Not only is every
man, especially those in misfortune, given this gift,
but the passage is about Flaccus, whom Philo
especially hated as a monster of iniquity. With
this may be compared De Somniis, II, 1, where the
third class of dreams are those in which the mind
is set in motion by itself, and filled with "frenzy
and inspiration, so as to predict future events with
a certain prophetic power." In both cases a closer
examination shows that the "prophecy" is wholly
lacking in the elements of moral and religious emo
tion, which are so strong in the narrative of Philo's
experience. God is not even mentioned. In fact,
the last passage quoted makes the power of proph
ecy a quality of the soul itself. It is simply fore-
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The Alexandrian-Jewish Writings
telling (comp. Sibylline Oracles, III, 816, f., 297,
ff., 163, 491). It finds its appropriate representa
tive in the widespread belief in "second sight."
This idea of prophecy also was founded on ex
perience, but experience of quite a different nature
from Philo's lofty joy in conscious communion with
God. Philo, then, like Hebrew history, has two
kinds of prophecy, a higher and a lower, and the
two sets of terms used in describing it show that
he meant quite different things by the two kinds
of use.
It is usually held that this theory of inspiration
rested upon Greek sources. Beyond doubt Greek
ideas were factors in it. The inspiration of the
oracle is like the inspiration of Moses. A frenzy
is the accompaniment of inspiration. A state of
trance is natural to it. There can be no doubt that
the phenomena of prophecy as Philo considered it
take much of their coloring from Greek conceptions.
The same idea appears in the Sibylline Oracles
(III, 812-816) : " Others say
I am a sibyl and of Circe born
And father Gnostos, raving mad and false.
But at the time when all things come to pass
Ye will make mention of me; no one more
Will call me mad, but God's great prophetess."
Less obvious are the Hebrew sources of Philo's
idea. Certainly such descriptions of the prophetic
method as are given in connection with the life of
Moses are entirely aside from the Hebrew narra
tives of the same events. They are not compatible
in

The Spirit of God
with the facts of higher prophecy. They are, how
ever, closely akin to the conceptions of the lower,
cruder Hebrew prophecy of the earlier period.
Saul among the prophets, Elisha under the spell of
music, Balaam compelled to speak the thing he
would not, are best explained by some belief kin
dred to Philo's. We have seen that without doubt
this was the early Hebrew conception of the source
of prophecy, a conception based upon an experience
comparable in its fundamental factors to that of
Philo. But still it does not follow that Philo drew
his conceptions from these sources. One can hardly,
however, use the fact that he never cites these cases
to prove that he did not draw from them, for he
does not deal in his extant writing with these
portions of Scripture.
The fact is that the Greek oracle represented
the same stage of religious thought as the early
Hebrew prophet. In Greece prophecy remained
permanently crystallized in its lower and cruder
form. The Hebrew records have nothing to add to
that form which could not be gathered from the
fuller and clearer experience of Greek life. It is
not necessary, then, to posit the early Old Testa
ment form of prophecy as one of Philo's sources,
especially as we have no evidence that he ever gave
conscious attention to the particular cases which
might have served as ground for his concept.
Philo's idea of the action of the Spirit in prophecy
forms a backward movement in the history of the
idea of the connection of God with man. It be-
112

The Alexandrian-Jewish Writings
comes important, however, in the study of the in
terpretation which the writers of the early church
put upon certain events in the history of the first.
Christian century. It was an essential factor in
the preparation of conditions out of which the later
Christian theological conception of the Spirit arose.
Many of the modern theories of the Spirit's activity,
notably certain post-reformation theories of biblical
inspiration, allow of explanation only on the basis
of the conception of the Spirit in Alexandrian
Judaism.
(8) 113

PART II
THE SPIRIT OF GOD IN NEW
TESTAMENT THOUGHT

CHAPTER I
Introduction
There are only four possible factors in the origin
of New Testament theological conceptions. They
are (i) the Hebrew tradition, in which is included
both Palestinian Judaism and the Old Testament
system of thought; (2) Greek influences; (3) the
teaching of Christ ; (4) the experiences of the early
Christians, in which are included the experiences of
the writers of the New Testament. Alexandrian
Judaism comes in some things under the Hebrew
tradition, and in others under the Greek influence,
according to the affiliation of the particular elements
with Hebrew or Greek thought. In some cases the
Christian thought is not the representative of any
thing existing in contemporary Hebrew conceptions,
but reflects by a sort of intellectual atavism the
ideas of ancient Hebrew thought. Such leaps in
the heredity of religious thought are not uncommon
where there are sacred books to furnish links of
connection. Some phase of experience or of
thought may produce a revival of an idea obscured
by time and half forgotten. This is sometimes
only a passing phase, where a conception out of
harmony with the present is merely galvanized
into an artificial semblance of life, but often it is
the application to present conditions of an old idea
which has actual vital content. In such cases the
117

The Spirit of God
once antiquated idea becomes a new force, and
enters on a new career of transformations and his
toric influences.
Such a movement, however, has its real cause
in some contemporary development of religious life.
A partial illustration of this is the attempted re
vival of Mosaism, resulting in the real revival of
Scribism, in the Puritan movement, when there was
an attempt, under the influence of a very genuine
religious impulse, to mold the state and certain
social and religious customs after the supposed de
mands of the Old Testament. Outside of Chris
tianity the present Vedantism and the Arya Somaj
of India furnish illustrations. They are attempts
to revive Hindu philosophy as the basis of modern
religious movements. Theosophy is in like manner
based less on present Buddhism or Yogaism than
on an attempt to interpret the classic books of these
religions. Whether any of these will prove to be
more than the attempted galvanism of dead ideas
remains yet to be seen. Something of this harking
back to earlier thought one finds in certain New
Testament ideas, perhaps nowhere more than in
the conception of the Spirit. There is a life, a vivid
ness and force, about the New Testament teaching
regarding the Spirit that one does not find elsewhere
this side of the ancient Hebrew prophetic literature.
The likeness of idea was caused by the likeness of
experience. In both periods belief in the possession
of the Spirit was a factor in actual life. Thus the
Hebrew tradition and the experience of the Chris-
118

Introduction
tian church combine in the shaping of this idea.
For the rest the idea depends largely on contempo
rary Palestinian-Jewish ideas.
The chief points of the Palestinian-Jewish con
ception of the Spirit were, as we have seen, the
withdrawal of the activity of the Spirit from phys
ical nature, the limitation of its operation to the
range of human activities, the use of it to explain
the ancient national history and literature, the de
nial of its activity in contemporary life, and the
expectation that it would once more operate in the
future Messianic kingdom. All these assumptions
lie in the background of the earliest New Testa
ment thought on the subject. Here, too, it is used
only of man, never of nature. Its application to
the history and writings of ancient Israel is one of
the most frequent New Testament usages, while the
idea of the working of the Spirit as a part of the
Messianic program is the main taproot from which
springs the entire growth of the peculiar New
Testament doctrine of the Spirit. Two elements of
Jewish conception which may seem at first sight
contradictory to the New Testament doctrine are
the moral and religious work of the Spirit and the
denial of the Spirit's operation in present life. The
last, however, is only a seeming discrepancy, for
the Christian belief that the Messianic age had come
carried with it, on the presupposition of Judaism,
the idea of the present operation of the Spirit. The
Spirit as working in the purely ethical and religious
realm was not a thought that was particularly dom-
119

The Spirit of God
inant in later Judaism. The course of development
which was begun in Psa. 51 and 139 never reached
in Judaism its full fruition. There is no evidence
that in the first Christian century it formed any
appreciable element of Judaic thought. We shall
not be surprised, then, to find that early Christianity
ignores it. It is taken up and developed by Paul,
but under influences so new that when we come to
its consideration we shall need to raise the question
whether there is in it any element of old Hebrew
thought. The portions of the conception which are due to
the other three elements vary much in quantity and
importance. Greek thought coming through the
medium of Alexandrian Judaism contributed very
slightly if at all. It influenced later philosophy in
the mechanical dictation-theory of the inspiration
of Scripture, but few distinct traces of this appear in
the writings of the New Testament. The teaching
of Jesus emphasizes certain elements, but, strangely
enough, adds nothing that is essentially new, and
is far less important for the genetic study of the
doctrine than one would naturally expect in the
case of an element of Christian theology which
has held so important a position in the struc
ture of the Christian system. The element of ex
perience was much more significant. Without
the widespread and firmly fixed belief in the early
church that certain phenomena of their religious
life were produced by the Spirit of God the doc
trine of the Spirit would have taken an entirely
120

Introduction
different form and would have had a very different
history. This was the warp into which the woof
of traditional concepts, from whatever source they
came, was woven. This experience is worthy of
the most careful study. The neglect of this study
of actual life has been one reason for so much in
terpretation of this doctrine which has been me
chanical and unpsychological and which has refused
to lend itself to the demands of progressive theolog
ical thought.
The term for the Spirit which has become almost
the peculiar characteristic of the Christian litera
ture, namely, "Holy Spirit" (ayiov trvevfia), is a
direct borrowing from Judaism. The contribution
of Christianity to the thought of God is not his
holiness, but his Fatherhood. The peculiarly Chris-
tion addition to terminology is "the Spirit of
Christ." "Holy" as the qualifying adjective of
"Spirit" belongs to the cycle of Hebrew thought.
Its origin preceded the Christian period, and yet its
development is not wholly easy to trace. The term
appears first in the later Old Testament literature
(Psa. 51. 11; Isa. 42. 1). In the Jewish literature
it became more common.
Two reasons for the growth of the term may be
found. One is the Jewish hesitancy to use the
name of God. As "Heaven" and "the Most High"
and sometimes "the Holiness" came to be used for
Elohim and Jahveh, so "the Holy Spirit" came to
be used for the Spirit of Elohim and the Spirit of
Jahveh. The substitution was not universal in the
121

The Spirit of God
one case more than in the other, but in both it was
so general as to make a distinct usage which con
forms to a well-marked type.1 That "Holy"
was chosen as the qualifying adjective is in accord
with the Jewish exaltation of holiness as the chief
characteristic of God. It is a part of the large un
conscious tribute of Judaism to the work and
influence of the prophets. The second reason for
the growth of the term "Holy Spirit" is the devel
opment of the idea of the spirits which are not of
God. The Jewish mythology of angels and demons
had made the old term "the Spirit" vague and am
biguous. That we find this term used later in
Christian literature is due to the fact that, while
there was in early Christian thought no decrease
of belief in the existence of evil spirits, there was
at the same time a great emphasis on the work of
the Spirit of God; so that "the Spirit" came to be
used commonly of "the Holy Spirit" par excellence.
How different this familiar Christian usage is from
the Jewish, and how the demon mythology assisted
in the development of the term "Holy Spirit," is
shown by Dalman: "The Targums have conjoined
£11 [Spirit], wherever in the Old Testament it is
not expressly called the Spirit of God, either with
&"$> [Holy] or 'rt^a3., to make it clear what spirit
was contemplated. ... In Jewish literature it
1 " IXtii'lp til1!' not NtlbN ffil. is the common Jewish expression; and
when Jesus uses kv jrvei/iari 6eov (Matt. 12. 28), the original would be the
Aramaic NUJ1P nT"D, unless the preference were given to the fuller form
suggested by Matt. 10. 20, 'by the Spirit of my Father in heaven' " (Dal
man, Words of Jesus, p. 203).

122

Introduction
is so unheard of to speak of 'the Spirit,' C<I>1!7, when
the Spirit of God is meant that the single word
'Spirit' would much rather be taken to mean a
demon or the wind" (Words of Jesus, page 203,
Eng. tr.). In Christian literature the use or omis
sion of the adjective "Holy" is quite incidental.
The meaning is not thereby affected.
123

CHAPTER II
The Synoptic Gospels
I. The Teaching of Jesus
It is necessary to distinguish in the synoptic
gospels between the teaching of Jesus and the con
ceptions of the writers of the gospels or of the
sources which they used. Even in subjects regard
ing which the teaching of Jesus was entirely, or even
largely, original this problem of distinction is not
always easy. In those regarding which early Chris
tian thought contained a large infusion of inherited
Jewish ideas the problem becomes very important
and sometimes very difficult. Nor can this dis
tinction always be the same as that drawn between
the words of Jesus and the narration of the evan
gelist. It is always possible that in the transmission
of the words of Jesus some infusion of Christian
interpretation or of Jewish inheritance may color
the impression which the words leave upon the
reader, even if it has not modified in some measure
the record of the words themselves.
The words of Jesus recorded in the synoptists
give the following uses of the term "the Spirit"
(rd trvevua) , in the sense of the Spirit of God :
Matt. io. 20: "It is not ye that speak, but the
Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you" (par
allels, Mark 13. 11; Luke 12. 12).
Matt. 12. 31, 32: "Every sin and blasphemy
124

The Synoptic Gospels
shall be forgiven unto men; but the blasphemy
against the Spirit shall not be forgiven ; and whoso
ever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it
shall be forgiven him; but whosoever shall speak
against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven
him" (parallels, Luke 12. 10; Mark 3. 29).
Luke 4. 18, in the quotation from Isa. 61. 1 de
scribing the "Servant:" "I will put my Spirit upon
him." Matt. 12. 28: "If I by the Spirit of God cast out
demons, then is the kingdom of God come upon
you" (parallel, Luke 11. 20, "by the finger of God,"
instead of "by the Spirit of God").
Luke 11. 13: "How much more shall your heav
enly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask
him" (parallel, Matt. 7. 11, "good things," instead
of "the Spirit").
Matt. 22. 43 : "How then doth David in the Spirit
call him Lord, saying" (parallel, Mark 12. 36,
"David himself saith in the Holy Spirit").
Matt. 28. 19, the baptismal formula: "Into the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit." Attention is immediately drawn to the two pas
sages where mention is not made of the Spirit in
the parallels: Matt. 12. 28 and Luke 11. 13. Matt.
12. 28 ascribes the power to cast out demons to
"the Spirit of God;" Luke 11. 20, to "the finger of
God." There are no other cases in which Christ
ascribes the miraculous elements in his ministry to
the Spirit. The Spirit as the divine guiding power
125

The Spirit of God
in the Messianic career is, however, expressed in the
quotation from Isa. 61. i (Luke 4. 18). It is, then,
quite possible that such an expression as is used in
Matt. 12. 28 may have come from Christ. The
question comes to be one of probabilities rather than
one in which we can expect to find absolute proof.
On the principle that the more difficult reading
is probably original Luke's phrase, "the finger of
God," would be preferred. It is also true that it is
easier to suppose the change of this more unusual
phrase to the very common Christian term "the
Spirit" than to suppose the opposite change, particu
larly in Luke, who uses "the Spirit" with such fre
quency. Especially is this change probable in a
passage which a moment later implies the Spirit's
power in healing demoniacs. At the same time
there is a certain liking for Old Testament phrase
ology shown by the Lucan editor, and this phrase
has its prototype in Exod. 8. 19.1 The question is,
then, one which does not admit of absolute decision.
The probability remains against the phrase "the
Spirit of God." That Christ does not elsewhere
lay stress upon the Spirit as the source of the power
of his miraculous works makes the probability yet
stronger. The second text in which the parallel passage
does not sustain the use of the Spirit is Luke 11. 13,
the promise that the Father will "give the Holy
1 Holtzmann notes the Lucan fondness " for certain plastic expressions
like the arm and hand of God " (Luke i 51, 66, 71. 74). He is still more
fond, however, of the expression "the Spirit," as its frequent use in Acts
shows. That he has not used it here is a somewhat strong argument for
the originality of the form he does use.
126

The Synoptic Gospels
Spirit to those that ask him." The parallel passage,
Matt. 7. 11, promises instead the gift of "good
things." This case seems to be less doubtful than
the one just considered. It is a promise of the Holy
Spirit to the disciples; yet not to the disciples in
any time of great future need or for the advance
of the Messianic kingdom, but at any time and for
the behoof of the personal relation between the be
liever and God — a use not made of the conception of
the Spirit elsewhere in the teaching of Christ and
hardly in the literature representing the primitive
Christian idea of the Spirit. Besides, the gift of the
Spirit in response to the prayers of the disciples is
more akin to later Christian ideas than to the teach
ing of Christ. In that teaching the expression has
no parallel. In John 14. 16, which is most nearly
akin, the Spirit is promised in response to the prayer
of Christ. We conclude, then, that the insertion of
the common Christian term of "the Spirit" in the
synoptic source or by the Lucan editor, with whom
it is a favorite, is more probable than is the opposite
change.1 Having, then, excluded those two passages on
the basis of the parallel texts, let us gather up the
uses in the remaining passages :
1. The Spirit is used only in respect to the Mes
sianic kingdom, and in respect to the inspiration of
the Old Testament writers.
1 D and Codd it , Orig. read ayaBov ddfia, but doubtless influenced by
the text of Matthew. Lucan forms of text are also seen in vn&p%eiv (Luke
uses thirty -three times) and in the attraction of 6 (if d is to be read) in the
phrase o e£ ovpavov Suact.
127

The Spirit of God
2. It is used by implication of the Messiah's
activity in the quotation from Isa. 61. i (Luke 4.
18), and, somewhat more directly, in Matt. 12. 31,
32. 3. It is used of the divine power which will here
after help the disciples in their labor and in their
witness for the Messianic kingdom (Mark 13. 11).
So far the representation is entirely Palestinian
Jewish. The Spirit is not regarded as the origin
of the external world. It is limited entirely to the
divine influence upon human activity. It is a tem
porary gift for special needs, not a permanent pos
session. It is not the basis of a moral or mystical
"new life." All these are marks of the Palestinian-
Jewish phase of thought. Christ neither introduced
original interpretations into this conception nor did
he go back to those Old Testament elements which
had dropped out of the Jewish usage. His expres
sion was quite that of contemporaneous thought.
It is notable, however, that if we lay aside Matt.
12. 28, his teaching never ascribes the unusual, the
mere "wonders," to the Spirit. Standing between
the Jewish conception of the wonder-working Spirit
and the later emphasis in the church upon the "gifts
of the Spirit," the moderation of Christ in this re
spect is notable.1 It forms the link between the
Jewish conceptions and the later development of an
1 Wendt (Gospel of John, p. 8) calls attention to what he regards a mark
of the subapostolic origin of the editor's framework of John as distinguished
from the apostolic "source," in that the framework emphasizes the value
of Christ's "signs," while the source keeps to the ethical evidence of the
divinity of Christ's mission. Whether Wendt's analysis of the gospel be
correct or not the dependence upon the ethical evidence is in greater
harmony with the synoptic teaching of Jesus than is an emphasis upon
external signs.
128

The Synoptic Gospels
ethical doctrine of the Spirit under Paul. Whether
or not the teaching of Christ contained elements
more closely in harmony with the later Pauline doc
trine is a question which arises more distinctly in
the consideration of that teaching as presented in
the fourth gospel. If there were such teachings, it
is certainly singular, but yet not wholly impossible,
that they should not appear in the synoptic gospels.
The obscure saying about blasphemy against the
Holy Spirit (Matt. 12. 31, 32; Luke 12. 10; Mark
3. 29) is connected in both Matthew and Mark with
the charge that Jesus cast out demons "by Beelze
bub, the prince of the demons." It is seemingly an
assertion of the Spirit as the source of the miracles
of Christ. From it one might even gather a some
what strong implication that the healing of the de-
monized was the one great proof that Christ's work
proceeded from the Spirit. Yet he who could say
of the exorcism of demons, "If I by Beelzebub cast
out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out?
Therefore shall they be your judges," could hardly
have given such a unique and transcendent impor
tance to this particular miraculous work as the lim
itation of this saying to that work alone would im
ply. Nor do we find that elsewhere Christ places
his miraculous works upon so high a plane. It is
likely, then, that Christ in this saying had in mind
not merely the phenomenon which formed the occa
sion of the saying, but that he included in his mean
ing rather the sum total of the evidence for his
Messianic mission.
(9) I29

The Spirit of God
The saying is of further significance as marking
Christ's conception of the transcendent importance
of the Spirit's work. That conception finds its best
explanation in the idea that Christ here speaks in
the language of Palestinian-Jewish notions of the
Spirit. For long generations the Spirit had been
withdrawn from the world. From the close of pro
phetic times it had been reserved for the Messianic
period. When it was now once more operative in
Israel, when it was present in the fulfillment of the
long-desired Messianic hope, for Jewish leaders to
deny its manifestations was a sin of peculiar hei-
nousness. The saying gets its sting not from its
comparison of blasphemy against the Spirit and
against Jesus, but from the Judaistic background of
the connection of the Spirit with the national Mes
sianic hope.
For Christ's conception of the work of the Spirit
the most central synoptic teaching is Mark 13. 11;
Luke 12. 12; Matt. 10. 20.1
The Spirit here is the Old Testament Spirit of
inspiration. Compare, for example, the idea in the
Balaam fragment, where Balaam waits upon the
word of Jahveh (Num. 22. 8; 23. 3; and especially
24. 13). True, it is here promised by Jesus not for
prophecy, but for testimony; but Christian testi
mony is the correlative of the Old Testament proph-
1 Gilbert (The Revelation of Jesus, p. 297) supposes the teaching to have
been given on two occasions, but Matt. 10. 17-22 and Luke 12. 12 seem to
be parallel with Mark 13. g-13 and to be a doublet of Matt. 24. 9-14 (see
Holtzmann in loco). Only the occasion suggested in the latter passage
furnishes a proper historical basis for the teaching in general. The promise
of the Spirit also points to a time when the Messianic nature of Christ's
mission was well understood by the apostles.
130

The Synoptic Gospels
ecy. The apocalyptic writer was but following the
lead of this teaching of Christ when he wrote, "The
testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy" (Rev.
19. 10).
The work of the Spirit is connected with the de
velopment of the Messianic kingdom, not with the
safety of the individual disciple. The purpose of
the speaking is "for a testimony to" those before
whom the disciples will be brought. (Luke's
thought in 21. 13 is, as Wendt suggests,1 a change
not in strict accord with the teaching of Christ ; see
also Holtzmann in loco.) But the testimony of the
disciples in the New Testament has for its purpose
the advance of the Messianic knowledge and belief
(1 Cor. 1. 6; 2. 1). Mark 13. 12 shows that the
result of the guidance of the Spirit is not personal
safety. The guidance of the Spirit is for special needs.
The promise is not for general assistance, nor for
a continual control, but only for guidance on partic
ular occasions. It is the particular charismatic use.
The promise of the Spirit is a promise of divine
help when human resources fail. The simple dis
ciples might well be alarmed at the prospect of
facing the religious and civil power of their own
nation and of the Roman empire; for thus they
must have understood Jesus's words. His promise
was obviously that of help where their own re
sources of wisdom and eloquence were too feeble
to avail. 1 Teaching of Jesus, Eng. tr., I, p. 238, note.
131

The Spirit of God
The promise was not of the Spirit as ground
ing the ethical life, but of the Spirit as inspiring
for utterance which will further the purposes of
God, as in the Old Testament prophecy. In fact,
the closest affinities of this thought are with the
ideas of Old Testament prophetic inspiration.
The intimate association of the Spirit with the
activity of the disciples is marked by as strong an
emphasis as the most anthropomorphic Old Testa
ment writer could use. "It is not ye that speak, but
the Holy Spirit." It is a most absolute expression
of the doctrine of the individual as the instrument
of the Spirit. In Luke 21. 15 the same guidance
is assigned not to the Spirit, but to Christ himself.
This unification of the two is quite in line with the
early Christian thought which spoke of the Spirit
as "the Spirit of Christ." This passage may be
summarized as follows: The Spirit so inspires the
disciple of Christ that his natural powers are sup
plemented whenever the needs of the Messianic
kingdom demand it. This is, then, the conception
of a supernatural inspiration, akin in psychological
character to the Old Testament prophetic inspira
tion, a temporary gift for special occasions.
In Luke 4. 18 Jesus applies to his mission the de
scription of the Servant in Second Isaiah (61. 1).
He uses it as a Messianic passage, in which the
entire Messianic mission is ascribed to the Spirit.
This was one of those indirect and tentative claims
to the Messiahship which were frequent in the early
middle period of Jesus's ministry. It is possible
132

The Synoptic Gospels
that some inkling of his high claim penetrated the
minds of the men of Nazareth on that occasion,
for Jesus's refusal to repeat "the things done in
Capernaum" here in "his own country" could not
have been thrown cavalierly upon a friendly audi
ence. It is not improbable that the outbreak of
wrath which followed his address may have pro
ceeded in part from his claim of the Spirit's guid
ance, which could have meant to a Palestinian audi
ence nothing but an assumption of the Messianic
mission. Even John, the prophet of the wilderness,
had been careful not to arrogate to himself the pos
session of the Spirit. Who was this fellow, that he
should claim that which only belonged to the Mes
siah or to the Messianic era? The Messiah was
not yet come. Did he himself claim to be that per
son? "And they were filled with wrath."
There remains the formula of baptism in Matt.
28. 19: "Into the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Spirit." Does this proceed
from Jesus?1 The fact that the full formula is not
elsewhere given in the New Testament creates a
probability against it, but by no means makes, as
is often assumed, a conclusive objection to it. Else
where in the New Testament we have no occasion
for a full formula. The incidental references to
baptism do not demand the formula. At the same
1 The investigations of Conybeare, published in the Zettschrift fur die
N. T. Wissenschaft and in the Hibbert Journal, Vol. I, and summarized by
Professor Lake in his inaugural lecture at the University of Leyden, Jan
uary 27, 1904, throw grave critical doubt upon the trinitarian formula as
a part of the original text. There seems reason to believe that the early
church fathers knew the text without the formula. Should the position be
proved, the problem of the use of the Spirit in this text disappears for
biblical theology.
133

The Spirit of God
time the slight reference to baptism in the activity
of Christ (baptism seems to disappear totally from
Christ's work after the beginning of the Judean
ministry), the fact that Christ so filled the content
of the religion of the early church, coupled with
the use of Christ's name only in all references to
baptism, make it probable that the trinitarian for
mula does not come from Christ.
The study of the use of the Spirit furnishes a
more sure ground of conclusion on this subject than
does historical criticism. What could baptism "into
the name of the Spirit" have meant in the mouth of
Jesus, judging by his use of the same term elsewhere
in the synoptists? What but baptism into the oc
casional possession of a divine power in times of
great need, when ordinary human abilities did not
suffice to advance the Messianic purposes of God?
One may well question whether Christ would have
put a term with this meaning by the side of God
and the Messiah in a solemn formula of baptism.
If, on the other hand, we could suppose it to have
been in some sort a synonym for the power or
"name" of God — a meaning sanctioned by neither
the teaching of Jesus nor the remains of contempo
rary Jewish literature — it would still be difficult to
account for the use of synonyms in this way. We
can explain this formula neither from the use of
the term "the Spirit" in the words of Jesus nor
from its use in Palestinian-Jewish writings. It is,
however, not difficult to explain it from the point of
view of the early church. No sooner did Chris-
134

The Synoptic Gospels
tianity pass from the Jewish into the Gentile world
than the belief in God "the Father" became an article
of Christian faith in a much more important sense
than among monotheistic Jehovah-worshiping Jews.
The Spirit, too, as the basis of the new life, as both
the essence and the evidence of the connection of the
Christian with the supreme God, as the divine guiding
power of the Christian community in all its ecclesi
astical organism and its missionary activity, came to
be an essential element of Christian belief. It meant
a rich heritage, a precious experience, a high voca
tion. It meant a form of divinity, not less divine
than God the Father or than Christ. It is not sur
prising that the church embodied its conscious
ness of the value of this relationship to the divine
in the formula of baptism. To find its value, how
ever, we need to go not to the teaching of Christ,
but to the thought and life of the early church. For
these reasons, as well as for those which historical
criticism more often presents, one is compelled to
withdraw the formula in Matt. 28. 19 from the
genuine words of Jesus.
There remain, then, as probably genuine words
of Jesus regarding the Spirit: 1. Mark 12. 36 (par
allel, Matt. 22. 43), a reference to the Old Testa
ment writers as speaking "in the Spirit." 2. Matt.
12. 31, 32 (parallels, Luke 12. 11 ; Mark 3. 29), the
sin against the Holy Spirit. 3. Luke 4. 18, the Mes
sianic Spirit, quoted from Isa. 61. 1, connecting
the Spirit with the mission of the Messiah. 4.
Matt. 10. 20 (parallels, Mark 13. 11 ; Luke 12. 12),
135

The Spirit of God
the promise of the aid of the Spirit to the disciples
in future times of need.
Summarizing the teaching of Christ in the synop-
tists: The Spirit is a manifest revelation of God,
present in the work of the Messiah and guiding his
action. It will also furnish needed divine power to
the members of the Messianic kingdom when Christ
is absent and their own powers no longer suffice.
It is not a new life or the basis of a new life, but
a special gift, superadded to the ordinary life.
This is thoroughly Palestinian Jewish. There is
here no hint of the peculiar Pauline development.
The whole conception is in line with that of the early
Jewish apostolic church. There is elsewhere in
the synoptic teaching of Jesus the equivalent of
Paul's idea of the new life in the Spirit. It is-
expressed as coming into the kingdom; as a life
with new aims and purposes; as the life of faith,
its ethical aim, righteousness, its inspiration, trust;
as the gift of God, its connection being with God
directly, not with the Spirit of God.
The small part which the Spirit plays in the teach
ing of Christ needs explanation. It certainly can
not be taken as indicating that Christ placed little
value on the idea which that term represented. The
intimate relation between God and man which this
term had indicated in the Hebrew literature was
exactly that which Jesus was most concerned to
bring about. It may very possibly be his clear reali
zation of this relation that led to the rare use of
the term "Spirit of God" to express it. Christ
136

The Synoptic Gospels
taught a perfect harmony with God. He himself
stood in such a relation. He desired it for his fol
lowers. He would have his disciples brought into
direct and immediate connection with God himself.
Even so thin a veil as the idea of the Holy Spirit
might tend to obscure the relation. Of the classes
of instances which can be traced undeniably to his
use one is of the past, when the Spirit spoke through
Hebrew inspiration (Mark 12. 36), one is of the
future, after his departure (Mark 13. 11), and the
third is such a statement as could by no possibility
obscure the fact of an immediate relation between
God and men (Matt. 12. 31, f. ; Luke 4. 18 and
parallels). It is significant that in no case does Christ speak
of the Spirit as acting upon his followers while
he is present with them. He would keep the thought
of the disciples fixed upon himself as the revelation
of the Father. It is only when his thoughts recur
to the gloomy future that he appeals, in either the
Johannean or the synoptic tradition, to the Jewish
thought of the Spirit as an element of comfort to
the "orphaned" disciples. Even this use of it is
in the nature of a concession to Jewish usage.
Really his disciples had what was better than the
Spirit; they had Christ himself. Even after his de
parture the presence of the Spirit would still be his
own presence, so that he could say, if we may trust
the Johannean tradition, "I will not leave you or
phaned. I will come unto you." It is in line with
this that Luke substitutes, for the promise of the
137

The Spirit of God
Holy Spirit to the disciples when brought before
kings and rulers on account of the gospel, the
words, "/ will give you a mouth and wisdom which
none of your adversaries shall be able to withstand."
Certainly Christ's teaching resulted in the con
sciousness of the presence not only of the Spirit,
but of Christ himself, active and energizing in the
Christian church. One queries if this may not be
due, at least in part, to Christ's sparing use of the
Spirit and his great emphasis on the direct and
immediate relation of the believer to himself and
to the Father. II. The Synoptic Narrative
There is one section of the gospel narrative which
represents entirely Jewish thought, except as it may
have been colored by the Christian medium through
which it has passed. This is the preaching of John
the Baptist. The Jewish element is seen in all the
concepts of John's teaching. The Messiah as the
purifier of his people (Mark i. 8) ; the need of re
pentance as the preparation for his coming (Matt.
3. 8) ; the Messiah as being present, but hidden in
obscurity until the time of his manifestation (John
1. 26) are all common Jewish ideas. The one ref
erence to the Spirit which the tradition of John's
preaching has preserved in the gospels is also wholly
Jewish : "I baptize you with water : he shall baptize
you with the Holy Spirit and with fire" (Matt.
3. 11; Mark 1. 8; Luke 3. 16; comp. Acts 1. 5).
It is worthy of note also that the idea of the Spirit
138

The Synoptic Gospels
is Jewish rather than Hebrew, even though one
finds in other elements of John's teaching a revival
of Hebrew concepts. For example, his sense of his
own prophetic mission is Hebrew, not Jewish.
Judaism, as we have seen, did not thus interpret
its religious experiences. John feels that he is "a
voice" through whom God speaks. He is now
ready to say, "I say unto you" (Luke 3. 8), quite
in the manner of the ancient prophet. One can
only think of him as recognizing within himself
that divine guidance which made the prophetic con
sciousness. Yet with all his claims for himself he
did not claim to possess the Spirit. That he keeps,
with characteristic Jewish reverence for the idea,
exclusively for the operation of God in the fully
developed Messianic kingdom. So thoroughly was
he imbued with the Jewish idea of the Spirit as
being the peculiar property of the Messianic king
dom in the future that the old prophetic language
which called the prophet the man upon whom the
Spirit of God had come was no longer the natural
language to use. He is a prophet, but the Messiah
will have the Spirit.
While this conception of the Spirit is Jewish, still
its interpretation is based on Hebrew prophecy.
The Messiah is regarded as mediating the Spirit to
his followers. "I baptize you with water: but he
shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with
fire." The figure of baptism in the Spirit (ev
-nvevfiari) is not to be carried too far, as though
the Spirit were an element by means of which the
139

The Spirit of God
Messiah would accomplish his purpose, as water
is the element of baptism. The use of fire in the
same phrase shows that the whole double figure
must be taken in the broad sense of its inner fig
urative meaning. It is as though John said, "I
am placing you in relation to God by a symbol
which expresses your desire for purification from
sin. The Messiah will place you in a relation to
God which shall exceed what I can offer as much
as purification by fire exceeds washing by water."
Not only will it be different in power, but in con
tent. "Your baptism expresses your own purpose.
The Messiah will offer you a baptism in which
God's power shall meet with your purpose. The
purification shall be God's work, not yours only."
Nor was the idea of purification the only, or per
haps the most important, idea of the Baptist in his
use of the Spirit. The promise of the Spirit con
stituted a claim for the fulfillment of the old pro
phetic promise of the return of the Spirit to the
people. It was the affirmation in another form that
the Messianic age was at hand.
Closely akin to this Messianic teaching is the
incident of the vision at Jesus's baptism. Mark, our
first source for this tradition, makes this a vision
of Jesus (i. 9, io), without, however, implying
that John did not also see it. Matthew follows
Mark in part. In Luke the rhetorical figure of the
Spirit descending "like a dove" is transformed into
literal fact, "in bodily form as a dove." John i. 33,
"I saw the Spirit descending as a dove out of
140

The Synoptic Gospels
heaven," contains a reminiscence of the same figure.
One would not press the phrase "as a dove" here
or elsewhere as necessarily from the Baptist; but
it seems not impossible that the vision may have
been to the Baptist,1 and that the fourth gospel
may have at the basis of its account the most cor
rect form of tradition when it puts the story of
the vision of the Spirit in the mouth of the Baptist.
It would, at least, be in perfect accord with his Jew
ish conception of the Spirit as a peculiar possession
of the Messiah.
When we pass in the earliest gospel source from
the tradition of the Baptist to the narratives of the
ministry of Christ we are struck by the meagerness
of reference to the Spirit. We might expect that
in the light both of the Jewish Messianic idea and
of the later Christian experience there would be an
abundant use of the Spirit to explain the life and
works of Christ.2 On the contrary, the narrative
portions of the oldest tradition present only one
passage, aside from the story of the baptism men
tioned above, in which this explanation is offered
for an event in Christ's life. That is the tempta
tion (Mark i. 12), an event not a part of the
expected Messianic activity. So far, then, as our
1 There is little use in trying to rationalize this account or to discuss
various vision hypotheses in connection with it. He who recognizes how
easily the periods of religious enthusiasm evolve psychological experiences
which take the form of visions, and also how easily events become thrown
into vision form in the telling, will be but little inclined to dogmatize about
this dove. The important thing is the conception of the Spirit. The figure
of the dove may have come into the narrative in any one of several ways.
3 The few references in Acts must be from a later date. They_ occur in
later documents, which use the Spirit very freely as an explanation of all
-Christian phenomena. The same would, of course, apply to the Johannean
literature (for example, John 3. 34). 141

The Spirit of God
literature allows us to judge, the earliest Christian
thought did not explain the Messianic work as being
due to the possession of the Spirit by Christ. This
paucity of use may be due to two influences: the
very meager use which Christ himself made of the
conception in explaining his work, and the feeling
that Christ stood so close to God that there was no
need for the intervention of the Spirit. This would
have been quite in accord with the Jewish notion
of the Spirit. The Spirit was God's medium for
the inspiration of the prophets and other men
through whom he wrought his will upon earth. So
long as the Messiah had been thought of, as he was
by Hebrew prophet and Judaistic scribe, as a
prince-prophet, a man whose official position deter
mined the relation in which he stood to God, so
long he had, like other prophets and national lead
ers, been regarded as holding this official position
by the gift of the Spirit. There is abundant evi
dence, however, that with the disciples, who had
known Jesus, the personal element dominated the
official. He was the Messiah to them, having all
the Messianic offices; but as he had seldom if ever
spoken to them of the Spirit as the source of his
revelation of God, but rather of his relation as being
immediately with the Father himself, so the dis
ciples found no need of supplying, in their thought
of him, a medium of connection with God through
the Spirit. Another element seems to have assisted
in this change from Jewish ideas: that the teach
ing of Christ himself took up the Jewish conception
142

The Synoptic Gospels
of the Spirit in the Messianic time, but applied it
especially to the time following the earthly presence
of the Messiah. In that time the disciples would
need the Spirit to assist them in the midst of ene
mies (Mark 13. 11). Here also belongs, as will be
shown more fully later, the conception of the Spirit
which is found in the last discourses of John, the
account of Jesus's breathing upon his disciples, and
saying, "Receive ye the Holy Spirit" (John 20.
22) ; and the instructions to the disciples given at
the ascension, as told in Acts 1 ; all of which are
in harmony with the teachings of Christ about the
Spirit, and doubtless rest upon genuine tradition.
The reference to the Spirit as driving Christ into
the wilderness to be tempted seems to have been
made under the impulse of the desire to account for
such an unexpected circumstance as a temptation of
the Messiah. Even this temptation, the author of
the narrative wishes to affirm, was not apart from
the divine plan of his work.1
The Matthean account of the nativity unites with
the Lucan account in ascribing the divine agency
in the birth of Christ to the action of the Holy
Spirit (Matt. 1. 18, 20; comp. Luke 1. 35). The
whole critical question of the stories of the nativity
1 Since the account of the temptation must, if it has any historical basis
at all, have come in some form from Christ himself, there is a possibility
that this reference to the Spirit is also to be ascribed to him. All the prob
abilities, however, are otherwise. The paucity of the references of his
own activity to the Spirit unites with the great improbability that he
would assign this event to the Spirit, when he does not so assign his great
works of grace and teachings of mercy. On the other hand, nothing would
be more probable than that early Christian tradition should attribute this
event, so strange, so unexpected in the career of the Messiah, to the direct
action of the Spirit of God, under the feeling that it stood in peculiar need
of an element of defense.
H3

The Spirit of God
is involved in any discussion of this matter. With
out entering here into an extended treatment of the
subject one may assume that they do not represent
in their present form the earliest period of the apos
tolic church. They are attempts to account for
the unique personality of Christ. They must have
taken literary form after the personality of Christ
had become in some measure a problem for the
church. The idea often advanced, that these narra
tives in their present form belong to the earliest
stage of Christian tradition,1 seems hardly borne
out by a close study. It is true that the Messianic
mission of Jesus appears prominently in both narra
tives. This would, however, hardly need a birth by
the Spirit of God. Nothing in Jewish thought
would demand that. Nowhere in Judaism is the
Messiah a person of supernatural birth, though
sometimes he is regarded as a supernatural person,
come down from heaven. The Spirit, however, is
nowhere connected with his personal appearance.
On the other hand, a vivid realization of the won
derful character of Jesus demanded an explanation
of his person. It is this explanation rather than the
recognition of Jesus as the Messiah which would
give occasion for the publication of the narrative
of the miraculous birth.2
1 For example, in Hastings's Bible Dictionary, article "Holy Spirit," p. 405.
2 Dr. Hoben ("The Virgin Birth," in The American Journal of Theology,
July, 1902) suggests three possible conceptions as finding explanation in
the miraculous birth: the moral purity of Christ, his Messianic mission,
and his moral likeness to God. He excludes the explanation of the divine
nature of Christ from the purpose of the gospel writer. What is said above
would serve to exclude the Messianic mission also from the lists, and would
leave the explanation of the unique personal elements of Christ's char
acter, his moral purity and moral likeness to God, as the reason for the
narrative of the story of the miraculous birth.
144

The Synoptic Gospels
The conception of the Spirit presented in the gos
pel of the infancy is unique, different from any that
preceded it. In the broad sense it is charismatic
and connected with the element of character. At
the same time the Spirit seems to be regarded as
the origin of the physical body of Christ, and so
it connects with the middle Hebrew idea of the
Spirit of God active in the physical world. There,
however, it was God moving upon the physical
world directly and for the sake of an end within that
world. Here it is for the sake of the religious
rather than of the physical,1 an idea more in the
line of later Judaic thought. One may perhaps call
this the earliest attempt to explain the person of
Christ. The explanation is in accord with the Juda
istic Christian ideas of the Spirit.
Nor, despite the unique character of the concep
tion, is it difficult to see why the Spirit is used as
the active agency of God in the birth of Christ. It
lay so closely related in Jewish thought to the Mes
sianic office that it offered an easy and natural term
to use for the explanation of his person. In this
¦There seems to be no doubt that the creation of Christ's physical
body is included in the action of the Spirit. Walker (The Spirit and the
Incarnation, p. 302} says of the ordinary understanding of the passage that
it seems "an irruption of the spiritual and the divine into, the physical and
natural sphere so entirely out of harmony with the idea of evolution as an
orderly process by means of resident forces as to be incredible." Perhaps
that is true, but the story seems, nevertheless, to mean just that. Walker
calls_ it. "a narrative in the naive biblical style," expressing 'in semi-
poetical form the great fact that underlay the second creation in Christ."
He would find its significance in the entrance into the world "of a dis
tinctly new and higher kind of being — man wholly after the Spirit, man as
the Son of God, nay, the Divine Life realizing itself as man." To make
this a naive poetical account of so profound a truth is to deal with the New
Testament in a way out of all accord with the type of literature it repre
sents. It is not easy to believe that the early church either had such an
elaborate theory of the person of Christ or that, if they had, they would
have taken this enigmatic way to express it. It looks too much like Philon-
izing rationalism.
(IO) 145

The Spirit of God
way, too, the Christian church avoided the offensive
physical conceptions of the Fatherhood of God
which would otherwise have lain so near the sur
face and which Professor Curtiss1 shows to be within
the actual range of the Syrian peoples. Without
the idea of the Spirit the thought of the divine Son-
ship of Christ, had it ever been carried into the
physical realm at all, would almost certainly have
become a conception of mythical nature not essen
tially unlike Greek and Hindu myths of divine-hu
man beings.
Even as it is, the enemies of Christianity actually
charged this mythical belief against the church. It
was possible to avoid this physical mythology, and
yet to express the profound truth of Christ's unique
personal relation to God, by the use of that concep
tion of the Spirit which the Hebrew religion had
developed. Without the use of this inherited term
and the idea which it represented the Christian
conception of the person of Christ would have been
either much lower or vastly poorer and more bar
ren than it has been. With it the early church
could think of its Messiah as coming body and soul
from God, yet perfectly human, and could so con
ceive his nature as neither to lower his character nor
make an idea impossible to picture from their Jew
ish point of view. It was only when Greek meta
physical notions entered Christian thought, and the
simple Hebrew conception of the Spirit as the divine
power dropped away before a metaphysical ideal-
1 Primitive Semitic Religion To-day.
I46

The Synoptic Gospels
ism, that the person of Christ became a mystery.
To the theologians who discussed the person of
Christ in the terms of homoousios and homoiousios
the Spirit of God was a term of hidden meaning.
The explanation which had met the first needs of
the Jewish Christian church played absolutely no
part in the great classic theological debates regard
ing the divinity of Christ. Doubtless the scholar
ship of the world can never retreat from complex
and philosophical to naive answers to its riddles,
but meantime the great mass of the church will
continue to find if not a complete, yet a satisfactory,
provisional answer to its questions of the person of
Christ in the earliest Jewish Christian explanation,
"conceived by the Holy Ghost," even if it is not able
to comprehend speculations of scholastic theology.
As one follows the attempts of other religions to
express kindred ideas of their leaders and divine
heroes one is thankful that the providence of God
furnished the Christian church with this old He
brew term for the divine activity operating in the
world. In spite of their great differences there seems to
be some relation between the Matthean and Lucan
accounts of the infancy. The resemblances are too
great to permit the view that the accounts have an
entirely disconnected origin. Whether that connec
tion be in a form of an original Jerusalem-Bethle
hem saga, as Wernle1 suggests, or in some other
way, is a problem which would lead us far afield.
1 Die Synoptische Frage, 1899.
147

The Spirit of God
Certainly the original form contained the reference
to the Spirit which is common to the two accounts
(Matt. i. 18, 20; Luke 1. 35). The Lucan ac
count has been largely expanded. The annuncia
tion of the birth of Jesus has been balanced by an
annunciation of the birth of John the Baptist, and
a different cycle of stories of the infancy of Jesus
has been employed. The history of these changes is,
at least in the present state of the study, a hopeless
problem. There is, however, a series of phrases in
the Lucan narrative whose affinities reveal their
origin with sufficient plainness: Luke 1. 15, (John)
"shall be filled with the Holy Spirit." 1. 41, (Elisa
beth) "was filled with the Holy Spirit." 2. 25 (of
Simeon), "The Holy Spirit was upon him." 2. 26,
"It had been revealed unto him by the Holy Spirit."
2. 27, "He came in the Spirit into the temple."
These are all the references to the Spirit in the
infancy passages aside from the one common to the
two accounts. To these may be added the Lucan
phrases inserted in the Christian tradition: 4. 1,
Jesus, "full of the Holy Spirit." 4. 14, "Jesus re
turned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee." 10.
21, Jesus "rejoiced in the Holy Spirit."
Whether in the infancy narratives the insertion
of the references which we call Lucan was made
by the editor of the writings is a question which
belongs to criticism rather than to biblical theology.
It may be that the Lucan story of the infancy was
a part of the document which furnished the material
for the first part of Acts. If so, the likeness of
1148

The Synoptic Gospels
phrases in the two sections is thereby accounted
for as the mark of the source common to both.
"Filled with the Holy Spirit" ('EnXriodi] -nvevjiaTog
ayiov) occurs in Luke i. 15, 41, 67; Acts 2. 4 (in
pi.) ; 4. 31. "Full of the Spirit" (nXijodeig or ttXripug
TrvevfiaTog) occurs in Luke 4. 1 ; Acts 4. 8 ; 6. 3 ; 7.
55; 9- l7\ :i- 24; !3- 9- Some of these, however,
as Acts 13. 9, cannot belong to the source common
to Luke and Acts, if, indeed, such a source is to
be assumed, but must be the work of the Lucan edi
tor. References to the Spirit are far more abundant
in the earlier portion of Acts than in the later,
and they are akin in character to those in the in
fancy accounts. They are mostly statements that
individuals were possessed of the power of the
Spirit, or acted, either habitually or on occasion,
under the Spirit's impulse. Of the same sort are
all the references in the infancy accounts which are
peculiar to Luke. These give no new material for
the history of the concept in general. They simply
add further instances of the common Christian idea
of the charismatic Spirit, which we have already
seen sparingly expressed by Jesus and which we
shall find abundantly used in the literature reflect
ing the thought of the early church. The only
peculiarity is that they ascribe the prophetic Spirit
to individuals in the pre-Christian period; but this
is limited to those who had to do with the fulfillment
of God's plans for the Messiah — John, Elisabeth,
Simeon. The passages could not have originated
in Judaism, for in Jewish literature, as our study
149

The Spirit of God
of it has shown, the Spirit is never ascribed to con
temporaries. They represent the reflection of
Christian Messianic thought upon the period of the
beginning of the Messiah's life.
150

CHAPTER IH
The Primitive Christian Conception
The study of our subject in the New Testament
literature presents a wholly new phenomenon. There
is a mass of conceptions, perfectly explicable histori
cally, covering the entire period of the early church
and appearing in all its literature. In the midst of
it appears, like the little horn of the apocalyptic
vision, a new conception, speaking things that for
the history of religion are truly great. It is not
easy to trace the history of its growth. It belongs
to genius, and genius is never amenable to the
common laws of evolution. But beside it, in the
same composite life, nay, even in the same mind,
the old ideas still stand and pass on to the next
age with no one, not even he who originated the
new, perceiving that they are merely relics of the
past, doomed to be silently pushed aside without even
a chance to arm themselves for the battle of self-
preservation. Such a phenomenon is not uncommon in the his
tory of religion. The growth of high religious ideas
has always been due to personal religious insight,
whether one calls that insight genius or inspira
tion. A course of religious growth will often pro
ceed naturally and explicably for a certain dis
tance. The student almost feels that he can
calculate its orbit and project its future course,
I5i

The Spirit of God
when suddenly and unexpectedly he finds that the
idea has come into the grasp of some new person
ality and has shot off from its former course at a
most inexplicable tangent. For the psychologist
here lies the spontaneity of personality. Religion
has always explained such events as showing the
inspiration of the divine. It is at least noteworthy,
let us repeat, that every lofty religious idea which
has passed into the world's possession has been thus
struck out at a flash from the religious insight of
some lofty soul. It would be possible to divide,
not religions indeed, for they are always complexes
of the lower and the higher, but religious concep
tions, into lower and higher according as they were
the gradual developments of religious thought
influenced by environment or the sudden trans
formation of old ideas in the mind of some religious
genius. Such a division would be the modern cor
relative of the old distinction between natural and
supernatural religion. The former might be called
racial religious concepts; the latter, personal re
ligious concepts.
The new ideas of the Spirit were the Pauline;
the old, those which we may, for want of a better
name, call primitive Christian. We shall attempt
first to trace the connection and growth of these
older ideas. They are found in all parts of the early
Christian literature. It so chances that Acts fur
nishes the best examples, but no portion of the lit
erature, not even the Pauline epistles, is wholly
without its additions to this phase of thought.
152

V The Primitive Christian Conception
The following classifications may be made:1
A. The Spirit used of God acting in the individ
ual life-. .
i. In the endowment of individuals with charis
matic gifts:
(a) Prophecy: Acts n. 28; 20. 23; 21. 4, 11
(comp. Rev. 2. 7 and parallels, 14. 13; 22. 17).
(b) Tongues : Acts 2. 4, 38; 10. 44, ff. ; 1 1. 15, f. ;
15. 8; 19. 2, ff.
(c) Wisdom: Acts 6. 10.
(d) Power to perform miracles: Acts 13. 9.
(e) Vision: Acts 7. 55; Rev. 1. 10; 4. 2; 17.
3; 21. 10.
(f) Power in Christian testimony on specific
occasions: Acts 4. 8, 31.
(g) Specific or general direction in the progress
of Christian activities: Acts 8. 29, 39; 10. 19; 11.
12; 13. 2, 4; 16. 6, 7; 20. 28; Jude 20.
(h) Charismata, without more specific defini
tion: Acts 5. 32; 8. 15, f.
2. In the more continuous and permanent control
of individuals. "Full of the Spirit," used only by
Luke, of the individual as a mark of character, but
not resulting in any specified charismatic power.
An approach to the ethical meaning, possibly in
fluenced by the Pauline use: Acts 6. 3, 5; 9. 17;
11. 24 (comp. Heb. 6. 4; see also corresponding
Lucan usage in Luke 1. 15, 41; 4. 1).
B. The Spirit used of God active in the church *\
'This list of passages is from the extra-Pauline portions of the New
Testament, outside the gospels. For the corresponding Pauline usage see
p. 202.
153

The Spirit of God
as a whole, especially for the development of its
5 Messianic testimony: Acts i. 8; 2. 33; 5. 3, 9> 32;
9- 31; 13- 52; 15. 28; Heb. 2. 4; 10. 29; 1. Pet J;,
12; 4. 14; Jude 19.
C. The Spirit as present in Christ, guiding
his Messianic activity: Acts 1. 2; 10. 38; Heb.
9. 14.
* D. The Spirit used as the medium of revelation
in the Old Testament: Acts 1. 16; 4. 25; 7. 51 ; 28.
25; Heb. 3. 7; 9. 8; 10. 15; 1 PetJ. 11; 2 Pet.
I. 21?*"
E. The seven Spirits of God, used symbolically
for the complete self-revelation of God. A use
peculiar to apocalyptic symbolism: Rev. 1. 4; 3.
1; 4- 5; 5-6-
If we compare the use of the Spirit here with
that in earlier periods of Hebrew history, we find
that the growth has been intensive rather than ex
tensive. No new use has appeared. On the other
hand, there has been a very full development of
certain of the older uses. The Spirit now means
not something different from what it did formerly,
but means, in the large, the same things, not now
as matters of memory or of hope, but of a vital,
vivid experience in actual life.
1. The use of Spirit for God ab intra has entirely
disappeared, yet the identification of God and the
Spirit of God is more close than in Palestinian
Judaism. God as manifesting himself in the new
Messianic movement, as active in the Christian com
munity, had very largely taken the place of the dis-
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The Primitive Christian Conception
tant, abstract Deity whom the Jew worshiped. The
result was a new sense of relation to God, a closer
drawing together of God and man, and, because of
this, a greater unification of God in his essence and
God in his active and intimate connection with
man — that is, of God and the Spirit.
2. Here, as in Palestinian Judaism, the Spirit
acts only upon man, never, as in earlier periods,
upon nature. Here, however, there is a still further
narrowing. The Spirit is no longer conceived as
acting on any man or for any divine purpose, but
only on Christ, the believer in Christ, and the writ
ers of the Old Testament who prophesied of Christ.
The human use has become narrowed to the
Messianic. 3. The Judaistic Messianic conception was na
tional. The Spirit was an expression for the future
guidance of God over the whole people, which cor
responded to the past guidance of God, in, for
example, the Mosaic period. In the earliest Chris
tian conception it is still national, for the Messiah
is "the hope of Israel," but the possession of the
Spirit belongs only to Christians. They are now
the part of the nation through which God works.
Other Jews are urged to become believers in the
Messiahship of Jesus in order that they too may
share in the possession of the Spirit (Acts 2. 38).
Not only is the trend of the entire conception of the
Spirit national, but the individual conception, prop
erly so called, is entirely absent. The Spirit never
comes upon any man for any individual purpose,
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The Spirit of God
but only for the development of the purpose of God
in connection with the Messianic kingdom.
4. The conception of the Spirit as the basis of
human life entirely drops out of view in this litera
ture. It had already disappeared in the period of
Palestinian Judaism. Its disappearance was prob
ably due, at least in part, to the influence of the
growing hesitancy to affirm union between the err
ing spirit of man and the holy Spirit of God. Such
hesitancy belongs to the deistic thought of Judaism
rather than to the rich experience of the life of early
Christianity. The usage is lacking in the latter
rather because the early church had no need for it.
The whole field in which it stood had disappeared.
God's relation to the spirit of man was now thought
of under the category of direct creation. Occasion
for the former phase of thought has dropped out
of existence, and with it the usage has disappeared.
We have seen that the early Christian conception
of the Spirit took its point of departure from Pales
tinian Judaism, but even this statement is too broad
to express the facts. The Jewish element in the new
thought of the Spirit came exclusively through its
Messianic side. We have seen in former chapters
how the Spirit came to be to the Jew only the mem
ory of God's activity in the past periods of his
history and a hope for his activity in the Messianic
future. To the Jewish believer in Christ this future
had become present, and all the promises and hopes
of the Messianic Spirit he claimed for himself. All
else suddenly drops out of sight. This situation
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The Primitive Christian Conception
shows the overpowering effect of the belief that
Jesus was the Messiah. All thought, all life, all
personal experience, all past history, all idea of
God's activity, was interpreted by the early Chris
tian in the light of that belief. God himself was
transformed from the God of Israel into the "God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." All his
activity — that is, his Spirit — was reckoned as hav
ing to do with the Messiah. This simply means
that the Christian looked not backward, but for
ward, and stood in a light of truth so intense that
all the rest of the world became for the moment
darkness; and when later Christian thought was
again attracted to the world-wide activity of God
it bore this light with it as an explanation for God's
work in the world.
But Palestinian Judaism, even though on the
basis of infrequent Old Testament prophecy it had
emphasized here and there the idea of the Spirit
in Messianic times, can never in itself account for
the superabundant use of the Holy Spirit in the
literature of early Christianity. If that literature
represents with any adequacy the life of the early
church, that life was full of the thought that the
Spirit was an actual possession of the Christian.
The Spirit manifested itself in every church and
was a part of the common experience of many
Christians. Its gifts were so frequent that they
served as the main test for the approval of the
churches and individual Christians by God (Gal.
3. 2; Acts 11. 15-18). No inherited belief will ac-
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The Spirit of God
count for such a state of things. That can rest
only on experience.
Next to the conceptions borrowed from Pales
tinian Judaism the experience of the early church is
the most important factor in the study of the growth
of the Christian idea of the Spirit. The experience
which connects itself most closely with that of the
former periods of history is prophecy. The mere
use of the word in the New Testament, however,
does not of itself give the key to its description.
We have found in Hebrew thought two distinct
kinds of prophecy: one, earlier, cruder, with less
ethical import and more ecstatic impulse; the other,
that which produced our prophetic literature, where
the element of ecstasy was reduced to the vanishing
point and a deep religious and ethical conviction
took its place. We have, then, seen what was essen
tially the first element reappearing, partly under
the influence of the Greek oracle, in Alexandrian
Judaism. Meantime Palestinian Judaism — partly
because it had little experience of a lofty and in
tense religious emotion; partly, perhaps, because of
its reverence for the Most High — forbade the pro
phetic explanation of whatever profound religious
experience still persisted. These hindrances must
have been great, for it is plain that the nation at
large longed for prophecy. Suddenly and, it would
seem, almost unexpectedly the barriers were broken
down in the Christian community. It could have
been nothing less than a great flood that swept away
the obstacles which had so long hindered the flow
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The Primitive Christian Conception
of the sense of prophetic inspiration. Two things,
both elements of experience, seem to have caused
this flood: One was the feeling that in Christ God
had once more come close to the race of men; the
Judaistic Most High had become the Father. The
other was based upon this fact and grew out of
it; it was the intensity of the newborn experiences,
the strong emotion which could only find its ex
planation in the belief that its origin was not human,
but divine. When an experience becomes so emo
tionally intense that one can say of it as Paul did,
that it took place "whether in the body or out of
the body I cannot tell," it has reached a pitch where
some explanation aside from the ordinary is im
peratively demanded. In a period when life is
dominated by religious thought the religious expla
nation is sure to be the one applied.
All this has to do with much else besides proph
ecy, but it applies with peculiar force to prophecy,
the traditional Hebrew means of divine communica
tion with man. The question arises as to the kind
of prophecy we find in the New Testament. Where
shall we classify it ? Does it fall under either of the
older categories, or must we make a new place for
it? The New Testament offers no full description
of its prophecy, but it gives us several instances of
it and such touches of description as allow us to
draw inferences with considerable fullness. We
must start with the common New Testament in
terpretation of Old Testament prophecy. Here we
find representations which suggest the mechanical
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The Spirit of God
ideas of prophecy characteristic of Philo. There is
in the New Testament, however, no passage so
extreme as many in Philo, who teaches that the
prophet becomes simply the unconscious mouth
piece of the Spirit. The writers conceive of the
Spirit as speaking, through the Old Testament
prophet, of future times (i Pet. i. 10), with espe
cial reference to the work of the Messiah. We
cannot minimize the idea underlying the frequently
recurring "that it might be fulfilled." Beyond
doubt the writers of the New Testament considered
Old Testament prophecy as having been given un
der such a guidance of the Spirit that its words,
without regard to their immediate historical ref
erence, had reference to the Messianic future of
Israel. The method of interpretation was rabbin
ical. The main idea of prophecy was drawn from
orthodox Judaism, but the details of interpretation
were determined by the Christian Messianic con
sciousness. The early Christian understanding of
prophetic inspiration as represented in the Old Tes
tament, then, was that it was God's absolute control
of the prophetic utterance for Messianic purposes.
When we pass over to the Christian life what
kind of experience shall we expect to find receiving
the interpretation of prophecy? Obviously it must
be utterance controlled by the Spirit for God's Mes
sianic purposes ; or, what was for the Christian the
same thing, for the purposes of the Christian church.
This defines prophecy in two directions : One is that
of experience; it must seem to the subject of it and
1 60

The Primitive Christian Conception
to others to be superhuman. The other is that of
purpose; it must be for the good of the church. It
is possible to lay down other limits. I Cor. 14
suggests that prophecy is not only "for edifica
tion" — that is, for the good of the church — but also
"with understanding" and subject to the conscious
control of the prophet. "The spirits of the prophets
are subject to the prophets," so that the coming of
a revelation into the mind of a prophet does not
involve unseemly interruption of other teachers in
the Christian congregation (1 Cor. 14. 29-33).
This presents a picture far different from that of
the irresponsible frenzy of the early Hebrew pro
phetic companies or of the rapt experience which
Philo relates. The New Testament nowhere con
siders prophecy to be uncontrollable rhapsody. In
this respect early Christian prophecy is not to be
classed with the early Hebrew prophecy. On the
other hand, there is a certain external and mechan
ical element in the early Christian conception of the
content of the message. It sometimes deals with
the future, and is to a certain extent "history re
lated beforehand" (for examples, see Acts 21. 10,
11 ; 11. 27-30). Nay, the oracle may be one whose
significance is not perceived by the prophet himself
if he is not in accord with the will of God (John
11. 47-52). It is neither wholly the older, cruder
Hebrew ecstasy nor wholly the later, higher proph
ecy. It is much nearer the last than the first, with
mechanical elements which come from the rabbin
ical interpretation of Old Testament prophecy, and
(11) 161

The Spirit of God
all fused in a fire of actual experience and fervent
zeal which transformed inherited dogmas of in
spiration into vital facts of personal religious life.
There was no wholly novel element either of belief
or of experience, but there was such a new com
bination of old factors that one must make a new
category for Christian prophecy. It will not fall
under any that earlier Hebrew history provides.
Closely connected with prophecy stands the ex
perience which New Testament writers call "speak
ing with tongues" (XaXelv yX&ooaig or yXuooq). If
one may judge from the frequency of references to
it in the literature, it was common in the Christian
communities and was much desired not only by the
ambitious and factious, but by the most sincere and
devout as well. Paul thanks God that he speaks
with tongues more than all the Corinthians. It was
used as a common test of the believers' acceptance
by God (Acts 10. 45-47; 19. 6). Probably this is
also the correct interpretation of the gifts of the
Spirit in Acts 8. 18 and Gal. 3. 2 (comp. Acts 11.
15; 15. 8). It was the spiritual gift par excellence,
so that those who had it were called "the spiritual,"
as in mediaeval Christianity, with its idea of
monasticism as the religious life par excellence,
monks and nuns were "the religious." That such
a usage should arise indicates that the experience
was not only much desired, but very common.
The nearest approach to a description of it is
in 1 Cor. 14. The most evident thing about it is the
lack of reason in its utterances. It is "without
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The Primitive Christian Conception
significance," like a trumpet which gives a blast
that is no recognized call (verse 8). It is a sort
of prayer, a natural utterance of the spirit of man
guided by the Spirit of God, but is not edifying to
the hearers (verse 14). To one not accustomed
to the phenomenon it might as well be a word in
a foreign language. If he is inclined to> be hostile
to the Christian community, he may charge those
who speak with tongues with insanity or drunken
ness (Acts 2. 15). It arises under influences of
strong religious emotion — the pentecostal fellow
ship of the early Christian church (Acts 2), the
enthusiasm of newly awakened faith in Jesus as
the Christ (Acts 8. 17; 10. 44; 19. 6), or the excite
ment of a religious assembly (1 Cor. 14). In at
least the first and last cases (Acts 2 and 1 Cor.
14) we perhaps see the influence of the power of
suggestion. On the basis of the New Testament
description, and leaving out of account now some
elements of the pentecostal phenomena in Acts 2,
one may define the glossolalia as the emotional ex
pression of religious feeling uncontrolled by the
reason.1 In the lack of the control of reason lies
the difference between speaking with tongues and
New Testament prophecy. The last was always
for edification; it appealed to the reason; it con
veyed a message that could be understood.
1 Bruce (St. Paul's Conception of Christianity, p. 244): "The gift consisted
in ecstatic utterance, not necessarily in any recognized language, and not
usually intelligible to hearers. . . ." "The speaker was not master of
himself; he was carried headlong, as if driven by a mighty wind; he was
subject to strong emotions which must find vent somehow, but which
could not be made to run in any accustomed channel" (see also Encyclo
pedia Biblica. article "Spiritual Gifts").
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The Spirit of God
Having arrived at this definition, a host of anal
ogies in religious history immediately offer them
selves. We find that instead of being, as has been
so often assumed, a thing unique in the history of
religion, it is quite identical with very widespread
elements of religious life which are found in
all periods of religious history, and that it has
analogies in many religions in all parts of the
world. One finds it connected with ancient Hebrew
prophecy itself. The worship of the schools of the
prophets was much more analogous to the phenom
enon of tongues than to that of later prophecy.
One recalls, too, that to prophesy was to play the
madman (comp. i Cor. 14. 23). So of the Greek
oracles (Trvda, called fiavTig by the later Greeks),
whose meaningless sounds must be interpreted, as
Paul advises that the utterances of the tongues
should always be. In the Christian church proph
ecy has often been the name applied to what was
essentially this phenomenon. Weinel1 has very prop
erly recognized this, and has gathered instances of
the use of incoherent and meaningless expressions
from the Gnostics of the early church, from the
Camisards of southern France, and the Irvingites
of England. John Wesley recounts thus an inter
view with "one of those commonly called French
Prophets :" "Presently after she leaned back in her
chair, and seemed to have strong workings in her
breast, with deep sighings intermixed. Her head
and hands, and, by turns, every part of her body,
1 Wirkungen des Geistes und der Geister, p. 73, ff.
I64

The Primitive Christian Conception
seemed also to be in a kind of convulsive -motion.
This continued about ten minutes, till, at six, she
began to speak (though the workings, sighings, and
contortions of her body were so intermixed with
her words that she seldom spoke half a sentence
together) with a clear, strong voice, 'Father, thy
will, thy will be done.' . . . She spoke much (all
as in the person of God and mostly in Scrip
ture words) of the fulfilling of the prophecies, the
coming of Christ now at hand, and the spreading
of the gospel over all the earth" (Journals, Janu
ary i, 1739).
Although Wesley doubts the divine source of
these manifestations, he has no doubts when kin
dred experiences come in connection with his own
preaching. In the midst of a theological contro
versy "one who sat at a distance felt, as it were,
the piercing of a sword, and before she could be
brought to another house, whither I was going,
could not avoid crying out aloud, even in the
street" (Journals, March 8, 1739). A few months
later (October 28) certain persons "fell into a
strange agony." "The violent convulsions all over
their bodies were such as words cannot describe.
Their cries and groans were horrid to be borne."
The whole Journal furnishes a museum of religious
emotions, working in all degrees of intensity and
producing a wide variety of physical and mental
results. It is not strange that Wesley regarded
the experiences as manifestations of the Spirit kin
dred to those of the New Testament time. On the
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The Spirit of God
side at least of psychological phenomena he was
correct in his opinion that they were alike.
The use of "prophecy" for such experiences
began very early. Weinel notes (page 75) that
Irenaeus, speaking of Acts, already uses "prophesy
ing" (npocpriTevovTeg) for "speaking with tongues"
(XaXovvruv yXuooaig),1 but he does not raise the
question of the cause for this change. It lies in
the fact that the Christian church inherited the
Alexandrian-Jewish idea of prophecy as being a
possession of the body by the divine Spirit to the
exclusion of the human consciousness. Probably,
however, this came into the church not from the
direct influence of Alexandrian Judaism, but
through the Gnostic sects with their large infusion
of ideas from Greek conceptions of the oracles. The
first generations of Christians understood the re
lations of prophecy to human consciousness bet
ter, for they drew more largely from Hebrew
sources of thought. This inheritance of semi-Greek
conceptions has greatly obscured the study both of
prophecy and of the glossolalia in the Christian
church. Christianity, however, has frequently had the
same phenomenon without designating it prophecy.
The excitement connected with the worship of the
madmen of Miinster in the Reformation, and the
strange hysterical sounds called "the holy laugh"
in the revivals of Kentucky in the early part of the

1 Iren. Adv. Haer, III, 12, 15. In III, 12, 1 Irenaeus uses the expression
"speak with tongues," referring to the day of Pentecost.
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The Primitive Christian Conception
nineteenth century, belong to the same category.
When in the excitement of revivals in the early and
middle part of the last century the people rose up
and gave expression to the intensity of their re
ligious emotion in incoherent shouts or detached
exclamations of praise or prayer, neither the feeling
nor its expression seems to be essentially different
from those which issued in the early Christian
speaking with tongues. Here, again, one also finds
the frequent temptation on the part both of the
subject of the experience and of the believing ob
servers to regard this peculiar gift as the supreme
test of spirituality. The very name most commonly
used for it in America among the classes which have
emphasized this experience points in the same direc
tion. It is "the power," as though this was the
manifestation of the Spirit par excellence.
There are few religions making much of the facts
of emotion where one does not find emotion ex
pressed in some form of sounds uncontrolled by rea
son. The groans and cries of a Siberian shaman
or an Indian medicine man, the shouts of a Hindu
saniyasin as he follows the car of a god at some
great temple feast, the indescribable noises which
mingle with the cries of "Allah" in the worship
of Mohammedan dervishes, and the meaningless
shrieks and yells of religious orgies over whose end
all civilization gladly draws a veil, are all to be
put in the same psychological category with the
speaking with tongues. But because the dragnet
brings in such a heterogeneous collection of. good
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The Spirit of God
and bad alike its contents are not all to be treated
as of the same moral value. The ethical worth of
religious phenomena depends on the ethical worth
of the religion rather than on the psychological
nature of the phenomena. And yet it is true that
the emotion ungoverned by the reason is a dan
gerous force. The higher exponents of religion have
always been, like Paul, distrustful of an emotion
whose expression to others breaks away from the
bounds of reason. It places too strong a force in
the hands of a single one of the factors of the human
soul. Montanist prophecy and Gnostic ravings may
have played a more important part in personal re
ligious' development than the history of Christianity
has sometimes been willing to admit, but the line of
growth in religion has, after all, not lain through
them. It is possible that this comparative study may
help us to some further knowledge about the early
Christian glossolalia. We find everywhere that
this emotional expression ranges itself under two
categories ; first, disconnected words and phrases
more or less exclamatory in form; and, second,
sounds which in themselves are meaningless. The
less extreme forms of the phenomenon, particularly
where it appears under the criticism of modern
civilization with its exaltation of reason, are apt
to take the first form. Certain modern revivals,
with their shouts of "Amen," "Glory to God,"
"Come, Lord Jesus" — the last descended from the
ancient "Maranatha," which was itself, perhaps, an
168

The Primitive Christian Conception
expression of the glossolalia — are examples. So are
the "Allah, Allah," "Hassan, Hosein, Hosein, Has
san," "Siva, Siva," "Ram, Ram," "Hara, Hari,"
of the Mohammedan and Hindu devotees. The
more extreme forms produce, naturally, meaning
less expressions, where the intense emotion com
pletely banishes the desire and sometimes even the
possibility of reasoned utterance. The "holy
laugh" and the unintelligible cries and moans, like
those of wild beasts, which have accompanied cer
tain religious gatherings among the lower classes
of America, are illustrations. Schmidt (Gnostische
Schriften in koptischer Sprache, 1892) has gath
ered a list of such "senseless combinations of vowels
and consonants" (quoted in Weinel, page 77, note) :
teova, tea, uieov, teov, i-utyZaZ, . . . x&&£> etc. As in
this case, such words are usually vowel sounds, like
"O," "Ah," or such repetitions of consonantal voca
bles as the organs most easily produce.1
There is every reason to suppose that, as indeed
usually happens, the early Christian glossolalia
combined both these elements. 1 Cor. 12. 3 sug
gests that "Jesus is Lord" (Kvpiog 'Irjcovg) was a
common exclamation, and, under a perverse influ
ence not unknown in other religious gatherings, but
naturally ascribed by the Christians to a demon,
"Jesus is anathema" (Av&Oefia 'Irjaovg) was not
wholly unknown. And yet the expressions could
not all have been of this intelligible sort. Leaving
'Compare however, the "languages" of the medium Helen Smith, in
Flourney's From India to the Planet Mars, and Henri's Le Lcmgage Martien.
i6g

The Spirit of God
aside the presumptive judgment of insanity which
Paul says the stranger might pass upon the phe
nomenon, the symbols which Paul uses would seem
rather to indicate meaningless words. He speaks
of them as like the meaningless blast of a trumpet,
the speech of a barbarian, the pipe or harp sounded
to no tune, and contrasts them with voices that
have significance. Nay, the utterances of the
tongues, unlike a series of exclamations which have
acquired a sort of symbolic significance to the as
sembly accustomed to them, are here so meaning
less that they cannot even elicit the response of
"Amen." It is also easier to explain the origin
of the story about other languages in Acts 2, if
we assume the phenomenon to include meaningless
sounds, than if we only assume significant exclama
tions. Such indications as we possess, then, lead
to the same conclusion to which the analogies of
comparative study point, namely, that both kinds of
phenomena were found in the glossolalia.
There is one narrative of the New Testament
that has long been recognized as containing factors
impossible to harmonize with the uniform repre
sentation of speaking with tongues elsewhere. I
refer to the account of the Pentecost in Acts 2.
The comparative study which we have instituted
leads to the same suspicions of the accuracy of the
account which have long found expression in the
works of New Testament critics. The implications
of the narrative are perfectly obvious. The editor
of the book or of the source used sees in this event
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The Primitive Christian Conception
a speaking in other languages, so that those from
different countries heard persons speaking in their
own tongues. To assume a miracle of hearing
rather than of speaking offers no help and is a flat
contradiction of the meaning of the editor in saying
that they spoke with "other" tongues (verse 4).
Not only, however, is this a unique event in New
Testament story and unprovided for in any promise
of Christ, but the historical study of religion, which
finds the glossolalia a quite common phenomenon, is
able to bring nothing to compare with this. The
glossolalia is psychologically explicable as the tem
porary dominance of the person by emotion. The
account in Acts is totally inexplicable by psychol
ogy. No religion ever wrought thus anywhere else
in the world. This story is not supernatural; it is
unnatural. The comparative study of religion which we have
been using takes one step further along the road
with the literary critical study of the New Testa
ment. One deals somewhat cautiously with minute
analysis of Acts, and yet it cannot but be observed
that if "other" (krepaig) in verse 4 is taken out, and
also verses 6-1 1, we have a narrative which accords
exactly not only with the experience of speaking
with tongues elsewhere in the New Testament, but
with all that the study of other religions can bring
in comparison. Add to this the fact that Peter's
speech (verses 14-36) knows nothing of a gift of
languages, and the presumption of interpolation
becomes very strong. One would not say that this
171

The Spirit of God
proves an interpolation into a fairly correct nar
rative rather than a legendary development of the
narration as a whole, but if the textual critic can
make a case for editorial additions, the student of
the history of religion will certainly stand ready
to furnish some aid to his claim. We can, at least,
say with assurance that when the portions sug
gested above are omitted we have left a narrative of
glossolalia perfectly explicable and quite credible.
The interpolations are often assumed to be proof
that the editor lived in a day when these appear
ances were no longer known (so Weinel), but pos
sibly that conclusion is not necessary. It may be
that to him or to the author of his source the occa
sion seemed, as it has seemed to so many modern
commentators, to be so great, so significant in the
light of the past promise of Christ and the future
growth of the church, that he could easily have in
serted elements of a tradition already for the same
reason taking shape in the church, which made the
uniqueness of the manifestation correspond to the
uniqueness of the occasion.
It is easy to see why the whole group of phenom
ena called glossolalia was assigned to the Spirit.
The experience was the result of an emotion so
strong that it seemed extra-human. It was inti
mately connected with the church, the realm of the
Spirit's activity. It was a witnessing for Christ,
for which purpose the Spirit was poured out upon
the church. The very great dominance of the fac
tor of emotion in the experience then soon led it
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The Primitive Christian Conception
to be regarded as above all other experiences the
manifestation of the Spirit.
It is at first sight rather surprising that the use
of the term should have disappeared so early.
After the earlier New Testament times it is never
heard of again. A factor in this disappearance is
doubtless the emphasis put by the church upon in
struction as over against emotion, following the
spirit of Paul's words to the Corinthians. But the
emotional elements persisted in the Montanists, and
yet the term disappeared. The significant thing,
however, is that the experience did not disappear.
It persisted in Montanism1 and Gnosticism2 under
the name of prophecy. It was the Greek and Alex
andrian-Jewish idea of prophecy entering the church
which made unnecessary the continuance of this
term, for that idea included within itself the earlier
glossolalia. The use of prophecy in this sense was
a kind of historical atavism, a looking backward to
an earlier and more amorphous condition of reli
gious experience. Christian prophecy and glossolalia
actually belong to two quite different categories
of religious expression. Greek influence, both di
rectly and through Philo, was responsible for a long-
continued use of ideas in Christian thought which
Hebrew conceptions had already in the New Testa
ment times outgrown. The result in religious life
has been the occasional attempt to exalt under the
properly revered name of prophecy a type of ex-
1 See Eus. H. E., V. 16, and especially Tertullian, Adv. Marc, V. 8.
aSee Iren. Adv. Haer., I, 13, 3.
173

The Spirit of God
pression which actually belongs to a very low grade
of religion and experience. The result in theolog
ical thought has been that the crude conceptions
of this lower grade of religious life have been ap
plied to the higher biblical prophecy and extended
from that to all the biblical writings, and a theory
of biblical inspiration has been built up which is
based on these emotional crudities. It has in it
more of the Greek conception of the oracle than of
the Hebrew conception of the Spirit of God.
Somewhat more vague is the expression of the
connection of the Spirit with miraculous manifesta
tions. In the inception of the Samaritan church
there were wrought signs and great powers (Acts
8. 13), and yet the Holy Spirit is not connected
by the writer immediately with them. More inti
mate is the relation manifested in the account of
the blinding of Bar-jesus (Acts 13. 9, f.), but even
there the Spirit is the origin of the prophetic word,
while the miraculous act is ascribed to "the hand
of God." The one miracle for which an explana
tion is given in Acts, the healing of the lame
man at the gate, is ascribed by Peter not to the
Spirit of God, but to "the name of Jesus Christ of
Nazareth" (4. 10). It accords with this that a
distinction is drawn between the Spirit and "pow
ers" (Swdfieig) — that is, miracles — in Christ himself
(Acts 10. 38). The "power" of Acts 1. 8 prom
ised to the apostles "after the Holy Spirit has
come upon them" is not the miraculous power, but
the power for witness, as the next clause shows.
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The Primitive Christian Conception
There is, then, a relation of somewhat peculiar com
plication here. The Spirit is the cause of visions,
tongues, prophecy, but is not directly affirmed to
be the cause of healing and other miraculous mani
festations of divine power in the external world
through the hands of the apostles. These are as
cribed directly to "the hand of God" or "the name
of Jesus." And yet the Spirit is so often mentioned
in connection with them that there must have been
in the mind of the early church some relation. The
early church uses the Spirit for the manifestation
of God in subjective experience, like visions, and
in the immediate outcome of that manifestation in
personal expression, like prophecy and tongues.
The facts with regard to miracles would seem to
show that when the results passed into the realm
of life outside of the person the event was not
thought of as due to the action of the Spirit, even
though, as in the case of Paul's word to Bar-jesus,
it took place as the result of an experience which
was ascribed to the Spirit. This careful limita
tion of the Spirit to the personal experience is an
other mark of the freshness, power, and intensity
of the early Christian religious life. The limitation
did not last very long. The distinction is a fine one,
and yet the New Testament writers seem to draw it
somewhat clearly. The power to perform the
miracle and the impulse to use that power were the
working of the Spirit. The miracle itself, the actual
external event, was the work not of the Spirit, but
of God. 175

The Spirit of God
All the charismata which have been considered
thus far are plainly those which would be classed
by most students of this subject as gifts of new
powers. We now come to a group which it would
be possible to regard as augmentations of the natu
ral powers, namely, wisdom and boldness in utter
ance (Acts 6. 3, 5, io; 4. 8; 13. 9). Compare also
the effect of the Spirit on the whole church in 4. 31
and the entire resultant impression of the events
of chapter 2. This distinction, however, is not one
of any great value. Perhaps Gunkel is right in
assuming that all manifestations of the Spirit in
the New Testament were supposed to be the gift of
new powers, and yet it would be hard to prove that
this position is correct. It is true that Paul speaks
of a "wisdom not of this world," especially shown
"among the perfect," but it is difficult to see in the
desire of the apostles that the seven should be men
"full of the Spirit and of wisdom," or in the irre
sistible "wisdom" with which Stephen met his
disputants of the synagogue, any idea other than
that of superlatively good judgment in the affairs
concerned. It is not mere intellectual knowledge,
to be sure, but rather the Hebrew idea of Hokh-
mah, as practical skill in meeting the actual needs
of life. There is no reason to suppose this to be
a new power inserted from without into the Spirit-
filled man. Indeed, that would inject an unnatural
meaning into the word which the exegesis of the
narrative in no way demands.
The distinction between supernatural powers
176

The Primitive Christian Conception
directly given and natural powers augmented is
artificial. The only form in which it could be de
fended, aside from an unreal supernaturalism,
would be to show that from the point of view of
the early church such a distinction could be made.
Probably they made no such distinction. Doubtless
in a rough way all spiritual phenomena seemed to
them to be directly supernatural in origin, but it
is certain that they did not draw fine lines of dis
tinction upon the basis of introspective psychology.
Certainly we can make, from the modern point of
view, no absolute distinction. All the manifesta
tions have alike a psychological basis. Even such
phenomena as visions and the speaking with
tongues are in reality as much the augmentation
of natural powers as are wisdom and boldness of
utterance. The reason for the ascription of wisdom and
boldness to the Spirit is easy to see. "Wisdom"
and "boldness" are never ascribed to the Spirit ex
cept when they are a part of the means of develop
ment of the church. The "wisdom" is skill in
making arguments for the Christian belief; the
"boldness" is boldness in pleading the Christian
cause in the face of popular hostility. We may
well surmise, however, that in addition to this re
lation to Christian progress there must have been
a relation to Christian experience. The "wisdom"
and "boldness" must have been accompanied by an
emotional element to have caused their assignment
to the Spirit. The narratives themselves give some
(12); 177

The Spirit of God
indications which would lead us to judge that this
is so, especially in the case of boldness. The in
stances cited above occur in connection with events
which would be the natural causes of emotional
excitement: a crisis in the life of the community
(Acts 4. 5, ff.), a common prayer, with all the
accompaniments of contagious enthusiasm, ending
in an occurrence which seemed to them to be mirac
ulous — "the place was shaken" — and as the result
of this experience, which could not but have had a
strongly emotional element, they "were all filled
with the Spirit, and spake the word with boldness"
(Acts 4. 31). The connection of the Spirit with
"comfort" (Acts 9. 31) and "joy" (Acts 13. 52)
also indicates emotional experience like that which
is assigned to the Spirit.
When, therefore, we gather up all these gifts of
the Spirit and ask ourselves the question, What
were the experiences for which the early church
gave this explanation? we find a certain common
underlying ground: The Spirit was used as the
name for the divine cause which the early church
assumed to lie beneath those experiences whose
strong emotional element seemed to mark their
extra-human origin, and whose providential end
was the advancement of the Messianic kingdom.1
The two essential elements of this definition are:
1 Compare Gunkel's definition: "The workings of the Holy Spirit are
certain mysterious powers operating in the range of the life of men, which
stand in a certain definite relation to the life of the Christian congregation,
which in no case work damage to men, which frequently take place under
the naming of God or Christ, and in all cases belong only to such men as
are not unworthy of a connection with God" (p. 43). This includes the
two essential elements noted in the following paragraph, but seems to
include certain nonessential accompaniments as well.
178

The Primitive Christian Conception
First, the fact of emotional experience. The proof
of the possession of the Spirit lies within the life of
the feeling. This was the case from the beginning
of the Hebrew usage of the word. The earliest
prophets believed that the Spirit of Jahveh had
come upon them because of what they felt with
in their own consciousness. In this respect the
primitive Christian conception is in the closest pos
sible relation to the primitive Hebrew conception.
It represents the same fundamental idea. The
second essential element is the Messianic purpose
of the experience. This is the direct outgrowth of
the Hebrew Messianic hope, but to say it repre
sented only that hope would be to put much too
narrow an interpretation on it. We have seen that
from the first, and especially at the first, the idea
of the Spirit of Jahveh working in the mind of
man was only applied to such experiences as could
be interpreted to have in some way a bearing upon
the development of the purposes of Jahveh. They
must be religious or national, and we remember
that those ideas were not two, but one. To the
early church the religious and national purpose of
God summed itself up in the development of his
Messianic purpose through Christ. It is of interest
to note that the Spirit thus really plays the same
role in the early church that it does in the early
Hebrew nation. It has already been noted that the
Spirit had also in the early church returned once
more to its ancient limitations. It now meant only
the divine working in man, having lost the wider
179

The Spirit of God
meaning of God in nature that it had acquired in
the middle Hebrew thought.
This spiral movement of thought is not without
its reason. The early Hebrew idea arose because
of profound emotional experiences for whose origin
men felt that they must posit a power of God. Not
less profound were the emotional experiences of the
early church which they assigned to the Spirit of
God, while the connection of these experiences with
the plans and purposes of God was to them even
plainer than it had been to the early Hebrews. Ex
periences of the same nature suggested religious
thoughts of the same purport.1 We are here only
following once more a common movement in the
history of religion. It has already been illustrated
so fully that we hardly need again to return to it.
A great emotion must have a great occasion. It
must also have a great outcome in life. All men
of strong religious feeling in all races have felt
that their profounder emotions could have no occa
sion less than the working of a god, and no out
come in life less than the great purpose of fulfilling
his designs. The man who interprets in this way
the stirring in the depths of his soul cannot but
feel himself to be inspired. Visions, as in the case
of Mohammed and Buddha, not to mention many
a saint of the Christian church, have often been the
1 If the principle here expressed, of like results from like psychological
causes, had always been adhered to, it would have saved a vast amount of
fruitless labor in the field of religious history. The futile attempt to trace
historic connections between widely scattered myths, like that of a flood,
or of a first man. or of the divinity of the sun, or of rites like totemism
or sacrifice, has been a work of supererogation. Like causes produce like
results in the minds of prehistoric men as well as in those of later ages.
1 80

The Primitive Christian Conception
product or the accompaniment of the feeling, but
back of the vision has lain the divine force of an
emotion, without which the vision would never
have been interpreted as containing a divine
message. Herein lies the justification for placing the mod
ern experience of emotional conversion in this
chapter of common religious history. It is essen
tially the same mighty emotional experience inter
preted religiously as the presence and power of God
in the soul. Traditional theology has made a
correct use of the term, from the point of view of
the earliest Christian terminology, when it has
called this the work of the Spirit. We shall see
later that Pauline theology contributes an element
to this phraseology, but the Pauline element, except
where it is a mere phrase of dogma, has come to
be fused in the alembic of religious feeling; indeed,
it had its origin with Paul in religious feeling. It
matters little that in the early church the emotion
and its accompaniments which were called the gifts
of the Spirit usually came not at but after con
version. With the Jewish Christian the moments
of strong religious feeling were usually experienced
after conversion, as he came somewhat slowly to
realize the bearing of his new-found faith in Jesus
as the Messiah on the national hope and on his re
ligious life. In the modern world the moment of
strong religious emotion usually comes, if it comes
at all, at the moment when a person realizes the
conquest of egoistic impulses by the higher life of
181

The Spirit of God
an altruistic sympathy — that is, when he purposes
that God rather than self shall rule his life. Doubt
less the average Jew who became a believer in.
Christ had no such battle to fight between the
fundamental forces of human nature. Not until
somewhat later in the church did the question of
self or not-self become the supreme test of Chris
tianity. The Jew to whom Christianity made its
appeal was already religious. The problem which
it presented to him was not ethical, but intellectual,
namely, Was Jesus the Messiah? If he were, then
the Hope of Israel had drawn near, the last days
were at hand, and the more the Christian, be he
Jew or Gentile in origin, saw the full bearing of
this, the more motive his religious faith presented
not only for an urgent activity, but for a mighty
emotion. So it comes about that the New Testament
emphasizes the working of the Spirit, not so often
at the moment of conversion as on later occasions
under the impulse of Christian labor or in the sym
pathy of Christian fellowship.
There is a group of experiences referred to the
Spirit the psychological nature of which is less easy
to ascertain than that of those we have been con
sidering. This is the group in which the author
of the book of Acts assigns to the Spirit the guid
ance of the church in its progressive expansion.
The purpose of Acts has been much debated, and
this is not the place to enter upon any extended
study of it. It is necessary for us, however, to note
that at least a part of the evident design of the
182

The Primitive Christian Conception
writer is to show that the progress of Christianity
from a Jewish sect to a universal religion was made
under the direct guidance of God. It was not at
all according to the plan of man, but of God. In
his emphasis of this polemic purpose the author
returns with constant reiteration to this point.
Again and again at crucial periods of the history he
marks how God led the church into some new field
of expansive labor.
These marks of divine guidance fall under two
categories: the providential control of circum
stances, as when the persecution at Jerusalem drove
the church into Judea and Samaria (chapter 8) ;
and the guidance of direct divine suggestion, as
where two visions and a message of the Spirit insure
the preaching of the gospel to Cornelius and his
friends. Such circumstances of guidance are usually
assigned to the Spirit.
In Acts 2 the first expansion of the church is as
cribed to the Spirit. Stephen was "full of the Spirit"
(6. 5). When the disciples, driven from Jerusalem
by the persecution which arose about Stephen's
death, preached at Samaria the gift of the Holy
Spirit marked God's approval (Acts 8. 17). The
conversion of the eunuch by Philip was under the
direction of the Spirit (8. 29, ff.). In verse 26
"an angel of the Lord" implies a vision. Peter's
preaching to Cornelius and his friends was pre
pared for by a message of the Spirit and confirmed
by the gift of tongues from the Spirit (10. 19,
44) . The beginning of Paul's missionary journeys
183

The Spirit of God
was the result of a message from the Spirit (13.
2), and the passage into Europe was the result of
hindrances of Paul's plan by the Spirit (16. 6, f.).
These events include prophetic utterances of the
Spirit and the phenomenon of the tongues, but most
of the indications are so vaguely given that we can
only surmise what experiences they represent. We
may make such surmises on the ground of our
study, for we have found the classes of experience
fairly well defined. It may be regarded as probable
that the gift of the Spirit to the Samaritans was the
glossolalia, as Gunkel surmises. This would ac
count for the desire of Simon Magus that he might
possess the power to give the Holy Spirit. It is
probable that the message of the Spirit to Philip
and Peter is to be interpreted as of the nature of
prophetic impulse. One can see its psychological
origin in the suggestion of circumstances. When
Philip is already in the presence of the eunuch the
impulse comes to join him as a traveling com
panion.1 As the story of Cornelius lies at present
in the narrative the impression is conveyed that
the message of the Spirit to Peter contained in
formation supernaturally supplied: "Three men
wait thee. Go with them, nothing doubting, for
I have sent them." We certainly cannot say with
any assurance, however, that this would be the in
terpretation of the facts if we had them as they
1 Possibly the mention of the Spirit is an editorial insertion, in accord
with the conception of the author of Acts that all progress of the church
was under divine guidance. The element of emotion, which was usually
the cause of a belief in spiritual suggestion, is not evident on the face of
the narrative; still it may have been present, induced by some circum
stance to us unknown.
184

The Primitive Christian Conception
occurred. The knowledge that three men had
presented;, themselves in search of him lies so near
the surface that one cannot claim its supernatural
impartation to Peter as any part of the necessary
interpretation of the story. What is- essential in
both these cases is an impulse so strong that it
seemed to those who received it to possess a divine
force. It came from God. It was a voice of the
Spirit. Whether that interpretation would have
been given to the experience had it not resulted in
Christian progress is a question which we have no
data to answer.
What shall we say of such an expression as "the
Spirit caught away Philip" ? What kind of an ex
perience does this indicate? It is not necessary to
suppose that it indicated any direct effect of the
Spirit upon the material body. It contains a
superficial resemblance to such uses as 2 Kings 2.
16, with its suggestion of the Spirit of Jahveh as
a physical force, transporting human bodies at will.
Possibly its form may have been suggested by that.
But it belongs to a period which possessed an en
tirely different conception of the Spirit from that
of the time of Elijah. To put this interpretation
upon it would remove it from the analogy of New
Testament usage, and that should only be done as
a last resort. The same prophetic impulse which
suggested to Philip that he should join the eunuch
seems to have impelled his hastening away at the
end of the interview. "Upnaaev ("caught away"),
which implies a hasty or violent snatching away,
185

The Spirit of God
a supernatural physical action as well as a prophetic
impulse, is probably due to the development of tra
dition. We have seen in the case of the Pentecost
narrative that the editor of Acts is not always
critical in his treatment of the phenomena of the
Spirit, especially when they mark the divine guid
ance of the progress of Christianity.
Even more undefined is the experience which lies
behind Acts 16. 6, f. Paul and his companions
sought to preach the word in Asia and later in
Bithynia, but the Spirit in each case hindered them.
That it is called in one place the Holy Spirit and in
the other the Spirit of Jesus cannot be supposed to
indicate any difference in the experience repre
sented. One may surmise a prophetic message or
impulse to some member of the party, like the one
which came to Paul on the voyage to Rome (27.
23), or a vision, like the one which soon after
called them to Macedonia. The mere force of cir
cumstances is hardly a sufficient explanation unless
the references to the Spirit be assigned to the tradi
tional development, for, wherever its meaning can
be ascertained, a message of the Spirit is found to
stand for some personal religious experience.
These indefinite references require no change in
the definition of the charismatic Spirit given above.
The charismatic gifts were not the common pos
session of all Christians. They did not flow di
rectly from the fact of Christian faith, as the phrase
"faith and the Spirit" shows. The Spirit was never
regarded in the pre-Pauline church as an essential
186

The Primitive Christian Conception
part of the ordinary Christian life, but as a donum
superadditum. In every instance which is recorded
the charismata came in special circumstances, where
strong emotional feelings were natural. The com
pany of the disciples, the combat of strenuous con
troversy, prayer in a time of crisis, the suggested
opportunity of Christian work — such as these are
the occasions which produced the gifts of the Spirit.
Nowhere in the book of Acts is there proof that
the author regarded the Spirit as the basis of the ,
ordinary religious life. In this respect the book
is not Pauline. The only phrase which points in
a Pauline direction is one which is used of the body
of disciples in 2. 4; 4. 31 ; 13. 52; of Peter in 4. 8;
of the seven in 6. 3; of Stephen in 6. 5; 7. 55; of
Paul in 9. 17; of Barnabas in 11. 24. It occurs
most frequently in the earlier part of Acts, but this
is true also of all uses of the Spirit. It is con
nected in some places with particular charismatic
gifts which were temporary in their nature; as the
gift of tongues at Pentecost, Peter's speech on the
same occasion, the vision of Stephen (7. 55), Paul's
prophetic words to Bar-jesus (13. 9), boldness of
preaching on the part of the disciples (4. 31). The
"fullness" (-nXriQWfia) of the Spirit seems sometimes
to be only an emphatic way of expressing the action
of the Spirit in various charismatic gifts. There
is no reason to suppose that these particular gifts
seemed to Christian tradition to be of more power
or strangeness in themselves or of any greater im
portance in the development of the character than
187

The Spirit of God
gifts which are not so designated. There are, how
ever, cases of the use of this phrase which seem
to connect it with the description of character and
to make the Spirit a permanent abiding element of
the Christian life.
This would be the most natural interpretation of
the phrases "full of faith and the Holy Spirit,"
"full of- wisdom and the Spirit," "a good man and
filled with the Spirit," where the Spirit is correlated
with permanent elements of character. Such a use
suggests Pauline affinities. It is probable that a
Pauline element is to be recognized here. The com
parison of the gospel of Luke with the gospel
sources shows that the phrase, when used in the
third gospel, belongs to the vocabulary of the
author rather than to that of the original sources.
When Acts was written the Pauline use of the term
as the basis of Christian life and character must
certainly have been common in the Christian church.
This author seems to make use of it on occasion in
a Pauline way, but without careful discrimination,
and without holding in mind, in any clearly defined
way, the Pauline use as a part of his conscious
theological furnishing.1 The use of the phrase in
Acts, then, is not uniform; but the element of
Pauline use is slight. The general thought of early
Christianity as represented in the book is very
clearly that of the Spirit as a temporary possession
of particular men, the evidence of which consisted

1 This would point toward an author who knew Pauline terms, but was
not thoroughly imbued with Pauline thought.
188

The Primitive Christian Conception
in particular powers that came and went in ways
which seemed to the early church to be unaccount
able, and so supernatural.
The relation of the Spirit to Christ also takes its
starting point from charismatic usage. We have
found the Messianic significance to be one of the
most frequent uses in Palestinian- Jewish literature.
The hope for the presence of God in the future his
tory of Israel was correlative with the memory of
his presence in past history, in the work of the
prophets, and the same term, "the Spirit," was used
of both. In early Christian usage Christ was a
person who had the Spirit of God. "God anointed
him with the Holy Spirit, and with power" (Acts
io. 38). Acts 1. 2, "after he had given command
ment through the Holy Spirit," indicates the same
thing. The words of Christ are the words of the\
Spirit. Nor does 16. 7, "the Spirit of Jesus," need I
an interpretation essentially different. It is the-
Spirit of God in its Messianic activity, called the ;
Spirit of Jesus because of its mission in developing
the work which Jesus began. The use is akin to
that in 2 Cor. 3. 17, 18, without being in any way
a direct borrowing of the Pauline usage.
Is the Spirit used in primitive Christian thought
for God ab intra? We found in the middle period
of the Old Testament the beginning of the use of
Spirit for God ab intra. This use did not grow
later. It tended rather to disappear, inhibited by
the growing transcendental idea of God in Judaism.
Now that the belief in Christ as the Messiah and
189

The Spirit of God
the appearance of phenomena regarded as spiritual
in human life had once more brought God near to
man, one would naturally expect the use of the
Spirit for God ab intra to be revived. There is
evidence that such was the tendency, although the
cases are not so clear as to make it more than a
tendency. Passages where the words of Jahveh in
the Old Testament are ascribed to the Spirit should
not be used in this connection.1 The conception of
the Holy Spirit as the active originator of the Old
Testament and the Hebrew institutions does not
amount to identification of the Spirit with God.
The idea of the Spirit as the source of the Old
Testament writings had its rise in the most barren
periods of Judaism, when all the tendencies of
thought were against any identification of the Spirit
and God. There is no evidence that its use in the
New Testament will bear any different interpreta
tion from that in the preceding Judaism. Occa
sionally the writers say "the Holy Spirit spake"
(Acts 28. 26), and at other times assign authorship
to Jahveh (13. 47); yet at still other times a
writing is ascribed to David (2. 25) or a prophet
(2. 16). All these are condensed expressions.
When the writers become definite they specifically
recognize the three elements of the Old Testament
revelation: God, the Spirit of God as inspiring
the writers, the writers themselves. Compare Acts
1 Denio (The Supreme Leader, p. 48) so uses such cases as Heb. 0. 8:
"The Holy Spirit is the author of the Old Testament regulations as to wor
ship, the authorship of which is attributed in verse 20 to God. In Acts
28. 24-27 the utterance of Jehovah (Isa. 6. 6-10) is called'that of the Holy
Spirit." I9O

The Primitive Christian Conception
4. 24, 25, "O Lord, thou who didst make the heaven
and the earth and the sea, and all that in them is:
who by the Holy Spirit, by the mouth of David our
father, didst say" ('0 rov Trarpog rjfiibv did rrvevfiarog
ayiov ordfiarog Aaveid -naiddg aov hrtuv).1 With this
accords 2 Pet. 1. 21, "For no prophecy ever came by
the will of man; but men spake from God, being
moved by the Holy Spirit." This passage probably
represents the conscious judgment of the early
church more nearly than any other in the New Tes
tament, and here God and the Spirit are as clearly
distinguished as in any Hebrew or Jewish writing.
We must be careful not to use popular condensed
expressions as the scientific statements of complex
ideas, especially where exact distinctions are at best
drawn only with difficulty.
Not less erroneous is it to assume that because
the Spirit does the work of God it is therefore equiv
alent to God ab intra. The case in Acts which comes
nearest to the use of the Spirit for God ab intra is
in the story of Ananias and Sapphira. Deceit is
against the Spirit, for the Spirit is the controlling
force in the Messianic movement (5. 3), but verse
5 affirms that this is also a sin against God. And
yet it is easy to press even this case farther than
the facts will allow. The starting point is not God
ab intra, but God's active working through the
Spirit as guiding the destinies of the church. It
was this Spirit that Ananias attempted to deceive.
JThe text presents variations, but it is still possible that dia irv- dy-
(rr6{iaToc all belong to the original. See Westcott and Hort, note in Vol.
II; Blass' s Acta Apostolorum, in loco, also note in Stuttgart edition N. T.
191

The Spirit of God
But this Spirit was divine, and the most natural
contrast between it and men would be in the terms
used — "thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God."
It hardly affirms so conscious a theology as is im
plied by the equation, the Holy Spirit = God ab
intra. The thought is still moving in the realm of
the Spirit as the Messianic activity of God, and does
not go beyond it. The identity of the Spirit with
God is not necessarily an identity of essence, but
of operation and interest.
The introduction to the decision of the council
in 15.-28, "it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and
to us," bears essentially the same significance. It
is a recognition of the Spirit's active operation in
the church. Its special interest lies not in the identi
fication of the Spirit and God, but of the Spirit and
the thought of the church, in the confidence with
which they venture to interpret "the mind of the
Spirit." One questions whether it does not imply
the experience of some prophetic impulse or other
manifested phenomenon in the assembly of the
church, which authenticated to them their decision
as that also of the Spirit. It is not certain that thus
early in the church the mere unanimous decision of
a Christian assembly without prophetic or other
verification would be so pointedly identified with
that of the Spirit.1 The older commentators inter-
1 If, as Weizs&cker and others suppose, the decision must be put at a later
time (comp. 21. 25, where, it is said, the Jewish Christians, seem to assume
that Paul has not heard of the decree), this statement would still be true.
It would need modification only if the text is the product of post-Pauline
Christianity. Even then it would be an unusual form in which to state
the belief that a mere decision of judgment was made under the guidance
of the Holy Spirit. Its parallel, if this be the meaning, is not known
elsewhere.
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The Primitive Christian Conception
preted, quite naturally, "the Spirit in us," but this
is not what the passage says, nor would the analogy
of usage elsewhere seem to warrant this. In fact,
later scholars usually reject it. In some marked
way the decision must have been approved by the
Spirit. This interpretation places the passage in
the class of charismatic uses.
Only one other passage needs attention here: 7.
51, "Ye always resist the Holy Spirit, as your
fathers, so also ye." In this we have plainly the
prophetic Messianic use, linking together the word
of the Spirit through the prophets and the word
through the Messianic activity of the church. In
neither case is there an identification of the Spirit
with God in any different sense than in all prophetic
charism. That the Spirit was divine goes without saying.
The entire significance of all the experience we have
been studying was that its subjects believed that
they were directly moved upon by God himself. The
experience was their closest personal relation to
God. That their "gifts" were the direct result of
the operation of God they no more doubted than
they doubted the evidence of their senses. The
immediate inference from the phenomena to its
divine causation was to them perfectly evident.
With simple naivete they found no difficulty in sup
posing that the great God himself was stirring in
them. And yet they were not so narrow and self-
confident as might be made to appear. It was not,
to use the phrase one sometimes hears, that God
(13) 193

The Spirit of God
was concerned with their affairs; they were
concerned with God's affairs. The Spirit never
came for their individual behoof or advantage. It
was only when their labor was in behalf of the
progress of the cause of the Lord that God moved
upon them. That God should, under those cir
cumstances, personally direct their lives to the
fulfillment of his own great purposes of cosmic im
portance seemed to them to be no strange thing;
nor, for that matter, did they find much skepticism
in the life about them, so far as it influenced them.
Jewish Sadduceeism and Greek Epicureanism prob
ably had little weight in the classes from which
Christianity drew its first converts. God acting
upon men through their conscious experience was
the Spirit. They drew no fine-spun distinctions
between God acting and the activity of God. To
use a Ritschlian phrase, the Spirit had for them the
value of God even before that could be said of
Jesus the Messiah. From the first God came nearer.
to them personally by the Spirit than he did by
the Christ. This does not make the Spirit histori
cally more important for the explanation of Chris
tianity, because the Christ stood behind the Spirit.
The ground for the explanation of these experiences
through the Spirit lay in the fact that the Messiah
had come, and God was therefore revealing him
self more clearly to men than ever before. Certainly
the Spirit was God. But quite as certainly the
difference drawn in modern theology between the
Spirit as God and the Spirit as the influence of
194

The Primitive Christian Conception

*f

God would have been meaningless to the early
church. The Spirit was both. They unified or
separated the Spirit and God in a way that is very
puzzling to a logical theology, but very reasonable
when we take our stand on experience rather than
on dogma.
We have found the beginning and the end of all
our explanations here, as in the Old Testament, in
the study of experience. The test to which all
theories must be brought is, Do they help to eluci
date the experience of the early church? If not, we
may pass them by as irrelevant to an historical
study. In this light certain questions which have
been prominent in the history of the doctrine of
the Spirit become meaningless. They have to do
with logic rather than life.
It is well for us to emphasize the religious value
of these experiences which the early Christians as
cribed to the operation of the Spirit. To feel that
they were standing in immediate relation to the
great purposes of God; that they were working in
accord with those purposes; and that he himself,
at times, consciously and visibly, moved in their life,
made the presence and power of the Almighty ex
ceedingly real. Add to this the belief that the direct
channels of the revelation of God to man which had
been known to the ancient prophets were once more
opened, and that too under a movement of vastly
more importance, and, speaking reverently, of more
concern to God, than was that of the prophets, and
we have an impulse for the religious interpretation
195

The Spirit of God
of experience, richer, fresher, and more command
ing than the world has ever seen before or since.
Weinel suggests that the first century of the Chris
tian era saw an epidemic of nervous disorders, like
the mediaeval St. Vitus's dance and the "prophecy"
of the Camisards, assisted by suggestion and auto
suggestion, and stimulated by the expectation of
the speedy end of the world (pages 219-227). It
may be. Certainly psychology has not yet spoken
its last word upon the interrelations of the nervous
and the religious life. But no psychological inter
pretation of the phenomena of the first Christian
century will be complete which leaves out of account
the tremendous power of the religious convictions
as aids to the explanation not merely of the signifi
cance, but of the facts of those experiences which
the early church called spiritual. Leaving aside
the fact of chronological nearness to the life of
Christ, it is not surprising that an age which real
ized so intensely its nearness to the divine should
have produced a religious literature which later
ages have never been able to supersede. It is of
little use for the church of one age to simulate the
phenomena of another. Each age must interpret
life into its own language. But the principle of re
ligious life ever stands the same, in all ages and all
faiths. It is found in that contact of the divine
and the human which the early church called the
Holy Spirit. The section of literature which we
have been studying does not represent the highest
mark of its realization, for it discovered the evi-
196

The Primitive Christian Conception
dence of that contact only in marked and extraor
dinary experiences, not in the facts of daily life;
but its intensive power made up in a measure for
its lack of extensive application. We shall find the
completion of this idea in the writings of Paul.
197

CHAPTER IV
The Pauline Writings
Among the many contributions of Paul to the
developed thought of Christianity only one, that of
the universality of the gospel apart from the law,
is more striking in itself or more far-reaching in
its effects than his theory of the Spirit. It is very
natural that the doctrine of the Spirit in Paul should
have received much careful and elaborate study.
So prominent has the Pauline phase of the doctrine
been in the Christian church that it has practically
overshadowed every other, and the theory of tradi
tional orthodoxy has been consciously based on
what it supposed to be the teaching of Paul, the rest
of Scripture being used simply to illustrate or sup
port Pauline thought. The older theology, with its
ideas of mechanical unity in Scripture, interpreted
the Old Testament as containing the same doctrine
as the writings of Paul, "only not so clearly re
vealed," while all the New Testament was inter
preted as containing a doctrine exactly identical
with Paul's. Later scholarship has laid aside so
unnatural a theory of the unity of Scripture, and
yet has not always gained as much as it might from
its recognition of the variety of biblical ideas.
Especially has the doctrine of the Spirit lacked the
light which might have come from more careful
198

The Pauline Writings
attention to its genetic development. The rich con
tent of the fully developed Pauline thought can
never be properly understood unless we take into
account the stages by which it grew and its relation
to the experience not only of Paul himself, but of
the Hebrew nation and the Christian church. Then
only can the doctrine be seen in its proper relations
and each of its factors receive due emphasis. Then
only, also, can we avoid the danger of interpreting
Paul's thought by the subjective judgment of later
Christian thought as to what is important or rea
sonable in the spiritual life — a danger to which the
doctrine of the Holy Spirit, with its affinities for
mystic and pietistic thought, has been peculiarly
liable. Paul's uses of "Spirit" and its derivative adjec
tive "spiritual" have been often gathered. Any
'attempt to state them in summary must present
material often before collected in various ways. It
must proceed upon certain assumptions of exegesis,
for nowhere in the entire treatment of the subject
do we meet so many passages where the meaning
of "Spirit" is obscure or in dispute. The question
has been asked whether Paul may not have covered
two or more meanings in the same use of the word.
The problem was raised in an essay in Jowett's
Commentary on Thessalonians, Galatians, and
Romans, and is treated at length and somewhat
cavalierly in Dickson's St. Paul's Use of Flesh and
Spirit (page 98, ff.). Dickson asserts that there
can be in the mind of a writer but one meaning of
199

The Spirit of God
a word in each of the cases of its use, and/that we
must not attribute the indecision of the eiegete to
the mind of the author. "Exegesis can only address
itself to its task with any hope or confidence of a
successful result on the assumption that the author
whom it seeks to interpret has not thus played fast
and loose with language, but has attached to it in
each instance a definite meaning, not manifold, but
one" (page 101, f.).
In a general way this principle of exegesis is
sound, but in the application of it certain modifying
facts must be borne in mind. First, not every writer
thinks so clearly as never to mingle two shades of
meaning in one instance of the use of a word. Cer
tainly Philo's use of "Logos" was not always either
personal or impersonal. It may be questioned
whether even in so vigorous a thinker as Paul words
are always used with sharply defined distinctions.
Is it always true, in Paul's epistles, that "law," for
example, means one of two quite separate things —
either the law of Moses or the divine commands
revealed through conscience and nature?
In the second place, inclusiveness of meaning is
different from ambiguity or duplicity of meaning. In
clusiveness is very common and perfectly legitimate.
In such cases there is a unity in which the two mean
ings combine in the mind of the writer. In such
cases we do not say "either-or," but "both-and."
The ideas are combined in a concept, not vague and
undefined, but definitely gathering both in a higher
unity. It is by a concept of this nature that we
200

The Pauline Writings
interpret Christ's meaning in the phrase "the king
dom of God." The meaning is both moral and
eschatological, yet not as distinct from each other,
but as both included in a more complete conception
than either alone represents. We do not speak in
such cases of vagueness, but of comprehensiveness.
Whether there is any such higher unity back of
Paul's uses of the Spirit it will be our duty later
to inquire.
Yet, again, modern distinctions, often the result
of ages of philosophical thinking and long courses
of thought, did not always exist for the ancient
thinker. The modern interpreter will not, if he
wishes to become a true interpreter, carry back mod
ern distinctions and attempt to make them apply
to ancient literature. He will bear in mind the
simpler stage of thought that his author represents.
Often the thought of an ancient writer was vague,
as is that of childhood, and words were used upon
which we now sometimes put distinctions of mean
ing not present to those who first spoke them. For
example, it is quite possible that to Philo, strange
as the idea may be to us, the Logos may have been
neither personal nor impersonal, because the con
ception of personality had not yet clearly defined
itself. A modern case in point would be the popu
lar use of the theological term "the Trinity." Is it
certain that the Christian in the pew, or even always
in the pulpit, attaches either a tritheistic or a mono
theistic concept to the term, or may it be that he
sometimes uses it in so vague a way that his thought
20 1

The Spirit of God
does not penetrate to the distinction of one and
three ?
The following are the uses of the Spirit, in the
sense of the divine Spirit, in Paul's writings :
A. The Spirit used for God acting in the indi
vidual life:
i. In the endowment of individuals with charis
matic gifts :
¦(a) Prophecy: i Thess. 5. 19; 2 Thess. 2. 2;
1 Cor. 12 to 14, passim; 1 Tim. 4. 1.
•(b) Tongues: 1 Cor. 12 to 14, passim.
<c) Wisdom: 1 Cor. 2. 6-13; 7. 40; 12. 8 (comp.
also "the word of knowledge," 1 Cor. 12. 8).
(d) Power to perform miracles: 1 Cor. 12. 9,
10. (e) Discerning of spirits: 1 Cor. 12. 10.
(/) Interpretation of tongues: 1 Cor. 12. 10.
Xg) Faith: 1 Cor. 12. 9; 2 Cor. 4. 13.
(h) Specific or general direction in the progress
of Christian activities : Eph. 3. 5 ; Rom. 8. 26 ; Eph.
6. 18.
^(i) Boldness in Christian testimony: 2 Cor. 3.
17, £
(;') Charismata, without more specific defini
tion: 1 Thess/ 1. 5; 4. 8; Romy'15. 19; 1 CoK 2.
4 ; 2 Cor. 1^22 ; 5.^5 ; 1 \Ya I Gal. 3. 2-5 ; Eph. 1. 13.
B. The Spirit used of God as the originating
force of the Christian life, and as manifest , in its
ethical and religious development : 1 Thess/ 1 . 6 ;
2 Thess. 2.^13; Rom. 5^5; 8. 2, 6, 9, n, 14, f.,
16, 2^; 9. 1; 14. V7; 15. 13, 16, 30; 1 Cor. 2. 10-
202 -

The Pauline Wrjtings
, v yv \S v
13; 3. 16; 6. 11, 19; 2 Cor. 1. 22; 3. 3, 8, 17, f.;
6. 6; 12.-18; 13. V4; Gal. 3.^14; 4/6; 5/5. 16b;
6>«; Eph. 2M8, 22; 3V16; 4/3, f., 36; 5. V8; 6.
i# Phil. 1V19; 2V1; 3/3; Col. 1. 8; 2 Tim. 1. 14;
Titus 3. 5.
If we, as before, compare this use with earlier |
periods of Hebrew thought, we find that, aside from ;
the one great new feature of use, the ethical usage,
the former tendencies have continued to develop.
1. The use of the Spirit for God ab intra has now
completely disappeared. Even such identifications
as Acts 5, where a lie to God is a lie to the Spirit,
are not found in Paul's writings. Clear thinking
has taken a step forward. There was a possibility
in early Hebrew post-exilic literature that God act
ing would come to be so identified with God in es
sence that the advantage which Hebrew thought pos
sessed in a distinguishing term might be lost. This
did not take place. In the Pauline thought the sep
aration was made so plain that the danger passed
entirely beyond the horizon. In Hindu thought the
procedure was in the opposite direction. First,
there was a monotheistic identification of all divine
power. This included within itself both the first
cause and its manifested activity; in Hebrew
terms, both God and Spirit. Then, since result is
an essential part of manifestation, and since, as in
dreams, the essence which is also the active power
is the sole cause of the seeming material product,
cause, actor, and result were all identified, and pan
theism was the outcome. This pantheism became
203

The Spirit of God
the more completely impossible to the Hebrew, even
had he been inclined to philosophize, because he had
a term which, as thought developed, led to a sharp
distinction between the first cause and its mani
festation.
/ 2. Here, as in Palestinian Judaism, the Spirit
' acts only upon men ; and, as everywhere else in the
New Testament, only upon the believer in Christ
and upon men in the field of Hebrew history. The
entire usage is Messianic. As the idea of the or
ganized church evolved we find the Spirit used with
growing frequency for the divine control of the
church as a whole. This use, however, is the same
that occurs in the document which is incorporated
in the early part of Acts. The basis of the concep
tion is always individual. The church has the
Spirit because its members have it. The idea that
the church is itself an entity independent of its
membership, and that its members have the Spirit
because the church has it, is a fiction which it is
impossible to take as reality so long as we keep
Paul's figure of the "body, the church," where he
himself keeps it, in the realm of illustration. The
church as the repository of the Spirit is a Greek
notion which rests on Platonic idealism and finds
fno sanction in Paul's theology. He knows of no
' Spirit-filled substance called the church, but only
l of Spirit-filled persons, who together make up the
i church. 3, 4. The positions with regard to the Messianic
conception and to the Spirit as the origin of physical
204

The Pauline Writings
life are identical with those of primitive Christian
usage (see page 155, f.).
Paul's ideas of the Holy Spirit group about one
conception, that of God manifest in the individual
life of the Christian. This is shown (a) with re
gard to the beginning of the Christian life. To
the Spirit is due its inception (Rom. 8. 2). (b)
It sanctifies the life ( 1 Cor. 6. 11). The holiness
and the ethical value of the life are due to the Spirit.
(c) It directs all the expressions of the Christian
life, whether of prayer, of public worship, or of any
form of witness for Christ. No part of the religious
life is outside the range of the Spirit's activity. At
the same time there is a special emphasis on the
Spirit as the source of sanctification. Now, sancti-
fication is considered by Paul not primarily as an
element in the witness of the church, although it
has its value for that, but as the essential of the life
that is related to God. The Christian is holy be
cause God is holy ; his body is a temple of the Spirit
of God, and so must be holy. The whole matter
of sanctification is an immediate inference from the
holiness of God.
This takes the subject out of the range of Chris
tian witness, where the conception of the Spirit
had before rested in the early church, but not out
of the range of the progress of the Messianic king
dom. The Spirit is still conceived of as working
for that, and for that only. Before only the work
of the Messiah himself and the propagation of the
kingdom in the lines of its external growth had
205

The Spirit of God
been assigned to the Spirit. Paul has now brought
into account the internal development of the king
dom in the individual life. These are the two hemi
spheres which together make the entire content of
the kingdom of the Messiah. All has now been
brought within the range of the Spirit's activity.
Paul has made complete the theoretical apprehen
sion of the envelopment of the world's religious
progress within the folds of the purposeful activity
of God, under the name of the Spirit. The progress
of the conception has reached perfection, so far as
its definition as a conception is concerned. The
only possible enlargement beyond the Pauline idea
is in the broadening of the definition of religious
progress. That progress remained for him, as for
the rest of the early church, limited to the work of
the Messiah through the Christian church.
No question of genesis in the entire range of this
study has received so much attention as has the
problem of the origin of the peculiar Pauline con
ception of the Spirit. In fact, it is the only question
of genesis in the history of this subject which has
received any treatment that could be called at all
.adequate. The possible sources of Pauline religious ideas
are Greek, Alexandrian Jewish, Palestinian Jewish,
the Old Testament, the tradition and the experi
ence of the Christian church, and Paul's own ex
perience. To each of these, excepting the first and
third, the origin of the Pauline idea has been
ascribed. 206

The Pauline Writings
Pfleiderer (Philosophy of Religion, page 161)
finds the origin in the Alexandrian dualism of flesh
and Spirit, the heavenly and the earthly world, and
compares in proof i Cor. 2 and Wis. Sol. 8 and 9 ;
"but this dualism" — and this is what is distinctively
new in his view — "was overcome in principle in the
one person of Jesus Christ, the spiritual man who
sprang from heaven and was elevated to heaven;
and from this one historical point the advancing
subduing of it, through the abiding dominion of the
Spirit of Christ in the Christian community, is once
for all secured."1
The derivation of Paul's idea from Palestinian
Judaism is never claimed, for there was nothing
in that form of Jewish thought from which Paul
could have immediately derived his conception.
Dickson (St. Paul's Use of the Terms Flesh and
Spirit, page 146, ff.) assigns the origin of Paul's
use to the Old Testament, not merely as furnishing
the language, but also "the warrant and encourage
ment" to give the language the wider scope which.
Paul does. Dickson finds this warrant in the pro
phetic use of the Spirit as the power of God in the I
Messianic kingdom. The difficulty with this posi
tion is that it really offers no origin. The charis
matic Spirit and the Spirit as the basis of physical
and mental life are the only uses which were known
to the prophets. All their Messianic references
find explanation under these categories, and indeed
1 One should, however, compare Pfleiderer's Hibbert Lectures (p. 62) for
some modification of this position.
207

The Spirit of God
are all charismatic. If, then, Paul puts upon them
another meaning than they originally bore, the ques
tion whence he derived that meaning is still to be
answered. The facts, however, exempt us from
. the need of raising this problem. Nowhere do the
Pauline writings point to an Old Testament origin
for his peculiar idea of the Spirit.
Bruce (St. Paul's Conception of Christianity,
page 243, ff.) derives the ethical idea of the Spirit's
work from the charismatic idea. Paul's percep
tion of the disaster that would come to Christian
life if these gifts became divorced from reason and
conscience "was probably one of the causes which
¦ led St. Paul to study carefully the whole subject"
and to insert an ethical element in the Spirit's work
ing. The common factor in the new view and the
old was "the axiom that the supernatural is divine;
the element peculiar to his, that the moral miracle
of a renewed man is the greatest and most impor
tant miracle of all" (page 249). "Divine action.
when transcendent and miraculous, is intermittent."
"To eliminate this fitfulness and secure stable spir
itual charismata, transcendency must give place to
immanence" (page 252). "The immanency of the
Holy Spirit carries further along with it . . .
that his influence as a sanctifier is exerted in ac
cordance with the laws of a rational nature" (page
253)- This is a logical statement of what is sometimes
put in condensed form, as though it needed only to
be stated in order to be accepted, that Paul consid-
208

The Pauline Writings
ered "the Christian life to be as miraculous as was
the speaking with tongues." The distinction be
tween the natural and the miraculous was not one
of the postulates of early Christian thought. It is
certain that neither Paul nor any other Christian
of the first or second generations made his philos
ophy of the Spirit on any such hypothesis. All the
phenomena of life were "powers of God," and Paul^
was too much of a Hebrew to distinguish between
first and second causes.
Another form of derivation from Old Testament
ideas by logical processes is that suggested by Bey-
schlag (Biblical Theology, II, 208, f., Eng. tr.) :
"The human pneuma is to him [Paul] originally an
individualized spark of the divine, which, however,
could not burst into flame, because of the pressure
and dominance of the o-dpg [flesh] . But there comes
upon it the power of that very Spirit from which it
sprang, and the smoking wick, in that element of
fire, becomes a clear burning flame." So arises the
new life, which, because it is a life of God, is holy,
and the Spirit becomes a Spirit of sanctification.
This theory would trace the origin of Paul's doc
trine to the Old Testament idea of the spirit of man
as coming from God. The great objection to this
is that it leaves out of account the continuity of
thought through Jewish and early Christian media,
and assumes that Paul abandoned the conceptions
of his own day to turn back to older ideas whose
power, and even whose presence, cannot be traced
in the literature which reflects his immediate mental
(14) 209

The Spirit of God
heritage. That is not the way thought usually pro
ceeds. The charismatic Spirit had completely dis
placed the cosmic Spirit in Jewish thought, and one
looks with suspicion on any theory of Pauline origin
which ignores this displacement.
Still another type of reference of this idea to
the Old Testament is that of Wendt.1 According
to him Paul derives his doctrine from the ethical-
religious (sittlich religiosen) activities of the Spirit
in the Old Testament. Gunkel objects to this that
the fundamental thought of the apostle must come
not from reading, but from experience (page 79).
In addition, however, one may object that the eth
ical-religious is, after all, not prominent in the Old
Testament and that the early Jewish-Christian
thought had almost if not entirely ignored it. The
theory encounters, as does that of Beyschlag, the
difficulty of assuming that Paul quite ignored the
Judaic and Christian thought on this subject, leap
ing in an unexpected way to an old and never
prominent usage of a limited period of Hebrew
literature. Gunkel (page 79, ff.), with his emphasis on the
environment of Paul and the Jewish meaning of
the Spirit in extra-Pauline parts of the New Testa
ment, naturally makes much of Paul's own experi
ence as the source of his doctrine of the Spirit.
This must, on any hypothesis, have been a large
factor. Paul's doctrines were never scholastic or
logical. They all represented life, and that life his
1 Die Begriffe Fleisch und Geist.
2IO

The Pauline Writings
own. His belief was always the explanation of his
own life, but to understand his life one must take
into account his surroundings. Two questions then
arise : What was the contribution of Paul's environ
ment to his idea of the Spirit? and, What elements
did his own experience furnish?
The environment of Paul contained two factors
which influenced his religious thinking: Judaism
and the Christian church.
Paul's dependence upon the theology of Judaism
is most often thought of in a negative way. He
revolted from it, we say, and struck out his own
path of thought through much mental strife. And
yet, after all, that is only true of certain phases of
it, especially of those which were intimately con
nected with the results of the belief in Jesus as the
Messiah. It is true chiefly of ideas of salvation and
of the function of the law ; in general, of the realm
of soteriology. In relation to other subjects it is
doubtful if his ideas could be described as more than
a very slightly modified Judaism. In everything
not affected by the belief that Jesus was the Messiah
he stood to the end on the traditional ground cu>
Judaism. Witness his conception of idols as the
representations of demons, of the Old Testament
Scriptures, of eschatology.1
We may then expect to find the Palestinian- Jew
ish idea of the Spirit at the basis of his conceptions
on this subject. In this he simply shares the con-
1 An admirable presentation of this whole subject has been made in The!
Relation of St. Paul to Contemporary Jewish Thought, by H. St. John Thack-
ery. 211

The Spirit of God
r "
dition of the early church. He presents the same
idea of the Spirit as connected with the Messianic
manifestation, the same ascription of peculiar
wisdom or mental gifts to its power, the same belief
that the history of the Old Testament times, and
especially the writers of the Old Testament, were
under its guidance. Not less is the Judaistic lim
itation of the Spirit seen. It is not operative upon
nature, but only upon man, and is limited in history
to Israel, with a wide expansion of manifestation
in the Messianic time. That Paul was dependent
upon Jewish rather than Alexandrian ideas is seen
most conclusively in his utter neglect of one im
portant element characteristic of that system of
thought, the Spirit as a cosmic power. Pfleiderer
sees dependence for the antithesis of oap% and
¦nvevfia upon the Wisdom of Solomon, yet it is this
very book which, more than any other extant work
of the Alexandrian- Jewish school, emphasizes the
Spirit as a cosmic power. Now, Paul seems not to
have been without glimpses of cosmic relations in
the purpose of God, as in Rom. 8. 22, but he never
jplaces the Spirit in any connection with them. The
[ Spirit is, as in Palestinian Judaism, reserved solely
$for divine action upon human hearts.
When Paul came into the Christian church,
bringing with him the beliefs of his Jewish theol
ogy, he came into a community which had already
moved somewhat from his own former Jewish
point of view. Its progress had been along the
most direct and simple lines. The Messianic time
212

The Pauline Writings i
was to be a period of remarkable manifestations of \
the Spirit. That time had now come. Moreover,
the experience of the Christian community pre
sented a wealth of phenomena explicable most easily
by this belief in the Spirit. The belief and the
experience acted and reacted upon each other. The
explanation which was ready to hand furnished a
ground of expectation for more phenomena, and
the great abundance of charismata in the early
Christian church followed.
It may be that Paul's conversion is to be put
within the first two years after the crucifixion.
Whenever it was, the time was so early that Paul
came into the Christian church while its concep
tions of the Spirit were in the formative period.
His own conceptions followed, for a time, the same
direct path. As we have seen, he shared to the end |
in all the ideas of the Spirit current in the early
church. It is impossible to differentiate between i
the Jewish basis and the early Christian develop- ;
ment of the doctrine of the Spirit, except to say that I
the pneumatic experiences of the early church made
a vivid present reality out of what had before been
a dogma of memory from the national past and of
hope for the national future. There is every reason
to suppose that Paul was largely influenced in the
form of his beliefs by the Christian churches with
which he was in contact. It is inconceivable that
several years of intercourse with the churches of
Syria and Cilicia should have left no molding im
press upon the structure of his thought. His claim
213

The Spirit of God
of independence in the autobiographical sections of
Galatians does not imply any such unnatural
severance from the influences of environment.
That claim of independence has to do with the origin
of his "gospel," and is limited to his conception of
the method of salvation.
But Paul did not depend for his conception of
the charismata of the Spirit simply upon Jewish
tradition and the experiences of his fellow-Chris
tians. He himself was, as all scholars recognize,
a pneumatic of the highest degree. To the Corin
thian church, a church in which spiritual gifts
seem to have been somewhat unusually abundant, he
says, "I thank my God that I speak with tongues
more than you all" (i Cor. 14. 18). He had
visions (2 Cor. 12. 1, ff.). The ground of his
! Christianity was itself a revelation (Gal. I. 12).
The most striking and popularly valued gifts of the
Spirit were parts of his own experience.1
Thus far Paul's thought followed the channels of
ordinary early Christian ideas. The problem of
real difficulty comes in the attempt to pass from
this common idea over to the conception of the re
lation of the Spirit to the personal religious life
1 The psychology of religious leaders is an interesting study. Few have
been without visions or their psychological equivalents. Nearly, if not
quite all, of the Hebrew prophets come into this category. . In addition,
one may mention Zoroaster, if one may trust not merely tradition, but the
Gathas (see Yasna XXIX); Buddha, whose "enlightenment" was evidently
of the nature of a vision; the Hindu philosophers, in whose works the
terms used of the perception of the truth are such as to presuppose a kin
dred experience; the Yogis, who aimed directly at the production of such
psychical phenomena; Mohammed, whose best religious utterances were
all the result of visions; Philo (seep. io6,f.). The Christian world furnishes
such classic examples as Francis of Assisi, Bernard, St. Francis Xavier,
Loyola, Luther,_ Edwards, Wesley, in all of whom we find essentially the
same _ psychological phenomena of/'visions and revelations" which Paul
describes in 2 Cor. 1 2 as a part of his own experience.
214

The Pauline Writings
as a permanent religious force rather than as a
temporary charismatic gift.
Whenever Paul originates new theological con
ceptions it is worthy of note that he takes his point
of departure from what he conceives to be the cen
tral significance of the subject in question. Now,
the central significance of the Spirit in Christian
thought lay in its relation to the development of the
Messianic mission. It furthered this development
in three ways : first, by its witness to the believer
that God had approved his service; second, by the
direct guidance of particular plans or lines of labor
which the church or its members undertook; third,
by the witness to Christianity which unusual and
peculiar phenomena not humanly explicable offered
before the non-Christian communities.
When the question was raised of what events in
the religious life could be interpreted as proceeding
from the Spirit two possible tests could be applied :
One was the test which Judaism had never passed
beyond, that simply of the unusual and extraor
dinary. Whatever in the life lay outside the usual
and normal belonged to the activity of the Spirit.
This test seemed very obvious. It made its spec
tacular appeal. It was in accord with the only con
ception of the Spirit's work which the early church
had brought over from Judaism, and for some time
it seems to have been the only test that the churches
consciously applied. But it had about it an uncer
tain penumbra. Other spirits besides the Spirit of
God might produce like results ; nor was it always
215

The Spirit of God
possible, as in the case of the maid at Philippi
(Acts 1 6. 1 6- 1 8), to precipitate a direct conflict of
strength between the spirits. It was also external.
There was something profounder, something more
in accord with the emphasis which Christ laid upon
the internal rather than the external. This was
brought to light in the second test, that of value
. and result. To this test we find Paul passing. Any
event or experience which served to further the
interests of the Messianic movement might prop
erly be explained by the Spirit, even though it were
not unusual nor extraordinary. The entire discus
sion of gifts of the Spirit in i Cor. 12 to 14, with its
emphasis on the various values of the gifts, its in
sistence upon ranking these gifts according to their
use in edification, shows a complete abandonment
of the old Jewish test and a definite acceptance of
a ground which, so far as we know, was new among
the Christian churches.
The application of such a test, however, made a
further departure from the older application of the
Spirit to the range of experience. It made the gifts
of teaching or of administration or of any other
things by which the church might profit part of
the spiritual charismata, standing by the side of
the charismata of prophecy and the glossolalia and
claiming equal rank and dignity with them.
But among all these elements of the Christian life
what was of the highest value? Not external gifts,
I however important they might be for the churches,
¦ but the religious life, with its outcome in the ethical
216

The Pauline Writings
life. This formed the center of the Christian life,
this connected that life most closely with the life
of God. As Paul labored in the Gentile world this
sanctity of life came to be seen ever more clearly,
to be the most important element that Christianity 1
had to present. It meant the most for the advance 1
of the Messianic movement. It, too, then, must be
under the guidance of the Spirit.
It may be that with this argument from the test
of value must be coupled, as usually in the develop
ment of the idea of the Spirit, an argument from
experience. Paul had himself struggled for holi
ness of life. His struggle had seemed hopeless, un
til he had found help in the faith of Christ. Rom.
7 tells the story. We can hardly suppose that the
help to holiness of life came without a sense of
emotion. Victory in a long-fought mental battle,
as both psychology and common experience tell us,
always comes with emotion. To Paul this emotion
must have seemed akin to that which accompanied
the gift of the Spirit. Both reason and experience,
then, united in urging Paul to bring the religious
and ethical life into the sphere of the action of the
Spirit. Thus we may account for the religious use of the
Spirit. How did he come to use the Spirit also as
the divine force in the origin of the Christian life?
Several elements may be discerned here. One is
the mere logical inference from the Spirit as the
source of the religious life. If from the time of its
inception the Spirit has been the controlling divine
217

The Spirit of God
power of this life, must not the Spirit also be the
source of its beginning? The religious and moral
life is not a temporary endowment, to come and go
at will; it is a permanent possession. If its mani
festation is of the Spirit, its origin must also be of
the Spirit.
One may well suppose that Paul's procedure was
not by means of the conquest of territory step by
step. His system of thought was never a bill of
particulars, constructed inductively from details.
It was rather a deductive construction. Thus his
conception of Christ is not a conclusion from the
details of the life of Christ, but a deduction from
the principle of his Messiahship. It is probable
that his conception of the work of the Spirit was
also deductive. The principle was that of the unity
of the Christian life. The life as a whole makes its
appeal for Christianity. It cannot be divided in
r its witness. Now, that which constitutes the cen
tral fact of a life cannot be mere endowment, given
from without, to come and to go at the command
of an external will ; it must be the principle of life
itself. Here is psychological insight. But Paul's
psychology is not a matter of inference and cer
tainly not of philosophy, but of his own personal
experience. Unity of life as a matter of experience
means an absorbing intensity of interest in one
thing, the domination of life by one idea. It means
a concentration of purpose and attention which can
only take place in intense natures. A nature, how
ever, in which this is possible is of necessity strongly
218

The Pauline Writings
emotional, and the unification of life in experience
is of necessity linked with emotional experiences.
Thus it was with Paul. His own life was caught
up and absorbed in the thought of the revelation of
God through Christ. That had made life new for
him. He was in his own consciousness a "new cre
ation." Tides of strong emotion that could only
come from God had set through his soul and turned
its channels in new directions. They were tempo
rary prophetic ecstasies, but back of them there was
an abiding force which not only made his life new,
but was itself that new life, living itself out in his
life. A man of less intense experience might have
balanced the elements of this life — so much divine, so
much human. Paul could not do this. The life was
too much of- a unit for that, and his sense of God in
it was too large. It could not be divided, except
so far as elements of temptation and sin showed ,,
that "the old man" still persisted. 'The new life, ';
the life in Christ, was also the life in the Spirit. It j
was all the manifestation of God.J So out of the
intensity and strength of his emotions there came a
new step in the psychological interpretation of the
revelation of God to man.
In some such way as this we may venture to
suppose the rich religious experience of Paul
wrought with the logical processes of his mind to
bring about his new conception of the range of the ¦
Spirit's working in the life of man. It grew directly j
out of the older conceptions. It is evident that
Paul did not regard it as contradictory to these
219

The Spirit of God
older ideas, for he held the two together ; nor, if
the above account of its origin is in any measure
correct, was there any contradiction between them.
The new idea was only more comprehensive, and it
easily replaced the older idea by a more stable and
a more satisfactory conception ; but there is no rea
son to suppose that for Paul it had the great signifi
cance of a new and radical departure which it has
for us.
When we come to consider the expression of the
life of the Spirit we find it passing beyond the mere
range of witness, though that is never entirely ab-
1 sent, into the range of ethical life for its own sake.
Two thoughts combine to produce this result : that
the Messianic kingdom is a holy kingdom, and that
the Spirit is a holy Spirit. Both these belong to
Jewish theology, but now for the first time they
could come to ethical realization. They had both
been ancient prophetic thoughts which might, had
prophecy advanced to its natural end undisturbed
by either priestly or nationalistic developments,
have come by the natural processes of growth to
Paul's ethical position.
When, however, the priesthood placed its cere
monial definition of holiness by the side of the
prophet's ethical definition emphasis began to be
unduly placed on the priestly side. This was natu
ral. Usually in ancient religions the ceremonial
overcame the ethical when the two were placed in
competition. Perhaps, however, it would be more
true to say that the mass of men were unable to
220

The Pauline Writings
draw a distinction between them, and that the
priests themselves, by the very tendencies which
produced a priesthood, were of necessity blind lead
ers of the blind. The very essence of the priestly
tendency is the obscuration of the distinction be
tween ethics and ceremonial. Wherever that dis
tinction has not yet arisen in a religion the priest
hood is in the line of natural religious progress.
After it has arisen and ethical ideas have been
clearly and distinctly set forth, as they had been
in Israel by the prophets, the rise of a priesthood
to prominence is inevitably a religious retrogres
sion. There are many cases, as that of Israel itself,
where history may justify it as seemingly necessary
for the building of a shell so hard that it can pro
tect the life within from external assault, but it is
religious retrogression notwithstanding.
The prophets had suggested an ethical interpre
tation of all the life. The priests had inhibited its
growth, and the power of priestly ideas must be
broken through before it could become a fruitful
religious principle. Paul had to do what the dis
ciples of Jewish prophets should have been able to
do several hundred years before. Not that ethical
ideas had been entirely lost. They still formed the
comfort of many religious souls and inspired psalm
and prayer in those who humbly "waited for the
redemption of Israel." Without them Paul himself
would never have attained his freedom from Phar-
iseeism. But in general they had been overgrown
by a rank bramble of priestly notions.
221

The Spirit of God
If this seems too harsh a judgment on the Jewish
priesthood, we may remind ourselves that other re
ligions compel us to make the same estimate of the
priest as, after a certain period in religious growth,
a religious disaster. The Gathas bear evidence of
an ethical phase of thought in the growth of Zoro-
astrianism. When, however, Magism intervened
and purity was conceived of as having to do' with
earth and fire rather than with character, then
Zoroastrianism developed into a burdensome ritual,
a hard, merciless, persecuting religion, only able to
sustain itself because, like Judaism, it had linked
to itself the natural loyalty of nationalism.
Not less is the principle illustrated by the con
flict of the ages which has been waged in Hinduism
between ethics and the priesthood. Hindu panthe
ism, combined with what seems almost a racial
genius for assimilation and syncretism, obscures
the conflict, but it is still there. The result, as
usual, has been for the vast mass of its people the
complete obliteration of the ethical element of its
philosophy by the priestly doctrine of caste and
sacrifice. The persistence of the ethical still con
tinues to manifest itself in such movements as the
Somajes and in many humbler and more individual
efforts to find and to do the right. It is not neces
sary to go so far from home except to show how
widely this same law works. The Christian church
has in all ages furnished only too many illustrations
oi the power of ceremonial religion to inhibit ethical
growth. 222

The Pauline Writings
In Israel a nationalism, which, like the priesthood,
is a normal element of an earlier period of growth,
combined with priestly domination to still further
hinder ethical growth. Judaism never wholly rec
onciled the legal, the national, and the ethical
elements of its religious inheritance, but beyond
doubt the ethical ideas of the Spirit which Paul
developed might have appeared much earlier had
prophetism not been partially overthrown by the
persistence and the dominance of these other incon
gruous elements. It was not that the Spirit and the
Messianic kingdom were not recognized as holy,
but that, as always, priesthood and nationalism had
forced upon the people their own unethical, magical
definitions of holiness.
Now at last we have a clear answer to the ques
tion which we have raised at various former stages
of our study :Ts the Spirit a permanent element of ,<
character or a temporary endowment U So long as ,
it was an endowment at all the question was always !
debatable. "In most cases it was temporary!] In the
primitive Christian church that was probably always
the fact. In other cases it has seemed more diffi
cult to come to a decision, yet the presumption must |
always be in favor of the interpretation of it as j
a temporary endowment, except where Pauline |
thought has itself modified the earlier conception.
f""This is not true of Paul's conception of the Spirit. J
The ethical foundation of character is not an en-T
dowment; it is an essential element of the personal
This psychological truth Paul attempts to express^
223

The Spirit of God
in his "mystic realism" of the life "in the Spirit"
or "in Christ," for since Christ and the Spirit are
both expressions of God's relation to man, they are
used in this sense interchangeably.
In former sections questions of ontology have
not been raised. The Hebrews did not discuss the
problem of the ultimate nature of God, man, or
the world, and it is fruitless for us to attempt to
define their thought when they left it undefined.
All that we have been able to say was that the Spirit
was God working, without attempting a sharper
distinction. In the consideration of Pauline
thought, however, the question arises whether we
may not at last try to define the nature of the Spirit.
/"Here is where speculative theology has found its
main biblical basis for doctrines of the nature of
the Spirit, and here, if anywhere, we shall find such
a doctrine. The nature of the Spirit admits of discussion
under the following divisions: i. .The Spirit_as a
'.'heavenly substance ;" 2.^ Thj5_nJation_of the Spirit
to God ; 3. The relation of the Spirit to Christ.
1. That the Spirit represents ~a~lorTof~substance
is held by Holsten and Pfleiderer.1 The latter
argues that the use of speech in the term "a spir
itual body" (1 Cor. 15. 44) implies a spiritual ma
terial. Gunkel (page 59) compares the "psychical
body." As the body is the natural organ of the
soul, so the spiritual body is the natural organ of
the spirit, but that does not imply that the spirit
•(See Gloel, Der Heilige Geist, p. 372.
224

The Pauline Writings
is a substance. The meaning of "spiritual" here is
seen by comparing other cases where the adjective
is used: Rom. 15. 27, the Gentiles partake of the
spiritual things of Jewish churches (so 1 Cor. 9.
11; 10. 3, 4) ; 1 Cor. 15. 44-47, a spiritual body;
Eph. 1. 3, spiritual blessings; 5. 19, spiritual
songs; 6. 12, spiritual hosts; Col. 1. 9, spiritual
wisdom. The adjective describes that which the
Spirit produces or uses for the advancement of the
Messianic kingdom. It keeps Paul's test in view.
It is said that ancient thought could not conceive
of a thoroughly immaterial substance — that a being
of any sort was placed by the necessities of their
thought under the category of "stoff." It may be.
Certainly one cannot prove that it is not so. Then
one may speculate about the Spirit as being an ethe
real substance, like air or fire. But all this can
only be speculation, and it may be doubted whether
the writers in question ever made any such onto-
logical distinctions as these theories would credit
them with. Hebrew writings deal with phenomena"
rather than with substance. ^
2. Is the Spirit God himself? Up to this point
in our study the Spirit has everywhere been God
considered as active in the world. The distinction
between Spirit and God has been a distinction of
function rather than of substance. Traditional the
ology has maintained that, at least in the writings
of Paul, the distinction becomes one of substance.
It must be granted that Paul, like the other early
Christians, takes his idea of the Spirit from a sys-
(15) 225

The Spirit of God
tem of thought in which a difference between God
and the Spirit could of necessity be only functional.
I The monotheism of the Jews forbade the distinction
I of persons in the Divine Being. There is no evidence
that the primitive Christian churches had as yet any
idea on this subject different from their Jewish heri
tage. It may be fairly claimed, however, that with
the originality of Paul's conception of the function
of the Spirit a new conception of its ontology might
possibly arise.
Paul's use of the Spirit presents the following
phenomena as concerns the relation of the Spirit to
f God : ( i ) Paul ascribes the same results to God and
to the Spirit (Rom. 15. 16; 1 Thess. 5. 23). (2) An
f analogy is drawn between the spirit of a man and
the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 2. 11). The Spirit of
God sustains the same relation to his personality
that the spirit of a man does to his. (3) The func
tions of God are assigned to the Spirit.
It would seem, then, that Paul's position is that
j the Spirit is God. This, indeed, is the statement of
the creeds, but the creeds distinguish between the
Spirit and God. Now, Paul distinguishes between
them also, only in a different way. The creeds
make an ontological distinction ; there is a difference
ab intra between them. Paul makes a difference,
not ab intra, but ex officio, between them. Paul
uses the Spirit for God conceived as energizing in
a certain way; but God thus energizing is not lim
ited to this term, for Paul is free to use the term
"God" itself for the same divine activity. That
226

The Pauline Writings
is, the Spirit and God are not mutually exclusive. '
The Spirit did not mean one thing and God another.
The inclusive term was "God." The Spirit might
be used for a special way of divine energizing or it
might not. That was immaterial. The essential
thing was the realization that the Spirit's working ;
was the actual moving of God upon the heart. God, ;
not the Spirit, was the ultimate thought.
This disposes of the question of the personality j
of the Spirit. Certainly it was personal, for God is
personal. It was personal, as a man actively influ
encing his friend is personal. Confessedly this in
terpretation of personality is not that of the creeds.
The question is if it is that of Paul. Even if it
is, that does not of necessity condemn the creeds.
Paul's thought may not be final. It may be a stage
on the road by which logic is advancing, and a
stage at which it is impossible to rest. But at least
as interpreters we must not try to read the results
of later Greek speculations on the Trinity back into
the simplicity of his Jewish thought. And as
Christian thinkers we should not set up, as a test
of Christianity, a belief which arose after his day,
even if we ourselves, along with the historic church,
believe it to be the logical outcome of his thought.
Orthodoxy can hardly draw lines which will shut
out its own great theological protagonist, and with
him the entire early church.1
1 One must protest against the rather common assumption that if an
exegete does not find the modern sharp theological distinctions in a biblical
writer, it is because of his dullness. The philosopher makes no correspond
ing demand in the interpretation of Plato, nor the student of religion in
the interpretation of the Vedic hymns. We cannot too often repeat that
227

The Spirit of God
3. What is the relation of the Spirit and Christ?
The relation of God and the Spirit is not one diffi
cult to understand. We have the entire history and
literature of the Jewish nation to aid us, as well as
innumerable analogies from other religions. Not
so with the relation of Christ and the Spirit. This
has no parallel elsewhere. It was a problem new
to the Christian church. It had inherently several
possible solutions. Nor is it easy to know just
what the tendencies of the primitive church regard
ing it were.
So far as those parts of Acts which reflect the
f early church give us any information, Christ was
Ithe recipient of the Spirit as a charismatic gift (10.
S^S).1 The connection of this gift with the Mes
sianic office is indicated by the verb "anointed"
(expiaev), a term rarely used of the believers. The
Messiah received the Spirit by his Messianic office,
and thus far is unique, but there is nothing to show
S that the primitive Christians thought of Christ as
; standing in any different ontological relation to
, the Spirit from other men. The idea is dominated
by the conception of the relation of Christ to God.
So long as that was the relation only of the Jewish
the distinctions which are the outcome of long courses of growing thought
cannot be expected to appear in writings that have not inherited this
elaborate discrimination. The demand for it belongs to the stage of scien
tific reasoning which adopted the "box-in-box" theory in biology, and
thought of the oak with all its branches and twigs as literally embodied
in the acorn; of the whole human race in all its history as actually existing
in miniature in the first human embryo. We have laid aside such specu
lations in physical science. It is as scientific to recognize the amorphous
condition — vagueness, we call it in thought — where it really exists as it
is to recognize definitely organized structure where that is found.
1Acts 1. 2, Christ "had given commandment through the Holy Spirit"
is probably editorial matter rather than part of the Aramaic source. It
belongs to the condensed summary by which the author has joined his
dedication of the book to the history found in his sources.
228

The Pauline Writings
Messiah the Spirit could only be the traditional
charismatic presence of God in the Messiah. How
ever much the effect of that presence may differ
from the traditional conception of what its effect
would be or from what its effect actually was in other
men, the relation itself is not thereby made different
in kind. There is nothing that leads us to suppose
that the conception of this relation had reached any
point of change in the pre-Pauline church.
One comes, then, untrammeled to the Pauline
writings. The facts regarding Paul's usage are as
follows :
I. The Spirit and Christ are identified directly in
activity (2 Cor. 3. 17, 18). Paul has said that if
the ministration of the letter which came through
Moses was with glory, much more must the min
istration of the Spirit be with glory. This minis
tration of the Spirit is the ministration of the Lord.|
So far as the ministration is concerned "the Lord"!
and "the Spirit" are coequal terms. It is to be!
remembered, however, that the whole range of
thought in this passage lies in the sphere not of
substance, but of operation (comp. Rom. 8. 2, "The
law of the Spirit of life in Jesus Christ," and 8. 9).
2. Indirectly as well as directly the working of
the Spirit and of Christ are identified, as in Gal. 4.
6. Rom. 8. 9-1 1 identifies the life of Christ in
the Christian with that of the Spirit in him.1 The
Christian life may be spoken of as a life "in Christ"
¦Denio (The Supreme Leader, p. so) says of this passage, "There is union
in the being of the Son and the Holy Spirit and in their works as well,"
but the passage makes no statement regarding being. The thought lies
in the dynamic, not in the static, sphere.
229

The Spirit of God
or "in the Spirit." Both Spirit and Christ are con
nected with the life (comp. Col. 3. 4 with Gal. 5. 25).
3. The Spirit is "of Christ" (Rom. 8. 9). This,
however, is true because the Spirit is the energiz
ing of God for the development of the Messianic
kingdom. 4. This identification of working is not absolute.
Paul often distinguishes the two. It is only loosely
that the two can be said equally to "reveal God."
] Christ is the objective revelation of God, but this
I objective revelation is made effective in the heart
j through the working of the Spirit of God. Faith is
' in Christ, not in the Spirit (Gal. 2. 20). Grace is
from God, shown through Christ (Gal. 2. 21). The
Spirit is the gift of God to develop this faith, to open
the heart to the apprehension of this grace (Gal. 4.
6; 5. 5). All are combining for one result, but
their identity is not absolute. God is the ground
of all spiritual influences. Christ is the objective
exhibition of the love and purpose of God. The
Spirit is the sum of all divine influences acting upon
man to make effective this revelation in the life of
man. It is this life which is, so far as man is con
cerned, the object of all these operations. One may,
then, when speaking in terms of this life, speak of
God, of Christ, or of the Spirit as its source. The
Christian life may with equal propriety be said to
be in God or in Christ or in the Spirit. But that
by no means argues that each is conceived to be of
the same substance with the other.
At the same time it would be equally wrong to
230

The Pauline Writings
make a metaphysical separation between God acting
and God as the source of action, and not less wrong
to make such a metaphysical separation between
God revealing himself through Christ and that
divine action on the heart of man which gives him
power to grasp for himself and to exhibit to others
this divine revelation. The Spirit is wider than
the influence of the personal Jesus Christ ; although,
following Jewish limitations of thought, Paul con
fines it to the Messianic plan of God, and so finds
room for the Old Testament inspiration. It is not
simply the risen Christ, but it includes the sum total
of influences which come from him and from the
historic purposes of God which prepared for him.
For Paul it includes only these. ____
5. In no case is the question of the identity of
essence in Christ and the Spirit touched upon. The <
entire thought lies within the range of activity \
rather than of essence; of function, not of substance. \
If one choose to proceed to an identification of the
Spirit and the "personality in which God was in
carnated and through which the Spirit was mani
fested," as does Walker, in The Spirit and the In
carnation, that is perfectly legitimate as a Christian
speculation, but it is not biblical theology. Paul
does not raise the problem of a metaphysical Trin
ity; nor, whatever we may feel compelled to do as
the logical result of his expressions, is there any
evidence that he himself was consciously nearer to
it than were the Jewish Christians in the first decade
after the death of Christ. 231

The Spirit of God
The entire problem of the ontology of the Spirit
remains to the last where it stood at the first. On
this point Paul has not advanced one step beyond
the most primitive Hebrew ideas. The Spirit had
always been God himself, therefore always personal ;
/but it had always been, and was still, God dynamic
I and not God static — God in manifestation, not God
' in essence. What Paul would have done with this
idea had he been a Greek, or even an Alexandrian
Jew, does not concern biblical theology. Whether
the inferences drawn by theologians trained in
Greek thought from the postulates of his positions
were correct or not is also a question with which
biblical theology does not concern itself. Paul was
a Jew, and his thought clothed itself in Jewish form.
It was not speculative, but practical, and dealt with
^ religion rather than with metaphysics. Thus it was
'made a power in the ethical life, and Christianity
was saved, even when placed under the influence of
Greek speculative thought, from the fate which
overtook both Greek and Hindu philosophical re
ligion, of transferring salvation from a matter of
character to a matter of knowledge.
232

CHAPTER V
The Johannean Writings
In the synoptic gospels we treated the teaching
of Jesus and the synoptic narrative in different sec
tions. In the fourth gospel that method is not avail
able. The Johannean author has so assimilated
the teaching of Jesus, in both style and content, with
his own theological thought that no mere mechan
ical separation between the sections of Christ's
discourses and the gospel narratives will serve to
distinguish between the thought of Jesus and that
of the author. The gospel must be first treated as
a whole. Then we may properly raise the critical
problem, which in any case stands still in the back
ground, whether we can distinguish in the thought
of the Johannean author any definite factors of the
teaching of Christ. The question will arise in the
form of the problem of Johannean origins, How far
are the peculiar elements of the Johannean doctrine
based on the teaching of Jesus? With the gospel
the epistles of John may be coupled. It is certain
that they proceed from the same source and repre
sent the same system of thought.
In the former classifications we have distin
guished the Spirit when used to represent God
acting upon individuals from the Spirit when it
represents God acting upon classes of persons, like
the Jewish community in the Messianic time or the
233

The Spirit of God
Christian church. Both uses are charismatic, but
only the first is original, the other being a secondary
development. In the Johannean literature, how
ever, it becomes impossible to apply this distinction.
The Spirit is represented as given to individuals, but
not to individuals as distinguished from the Chris
tian community. Rather is the gift made to in
dividuals because they are members of the com
munity. The gift is in the mind of the author
primarily to the church, and is only individual in
that the recipient of an individual relation — and the
possession of the Spirit is always an individual re
lation — can never be the community as apart from
the individuals which compose it.
The divisions which have been classified as A
and B, then, here fall together into one. If we use
the symbol AB, it will cause no confusion and will
express this unification of meaning.
AB. The charismatic Spirit. God active in the
Christian church, for the development of the Mes
sianic community: John 7. 39; 14. 17; 15- 26; 16.
13; 20. 22; 1 John 3. 24; 4. 13.
C. The Spirit used in connection with Christ:
John 1. 32, 33, Spirit at baptism of Christ. 3. 34,
"God giveth not the Spirit by measure" (usually
interpreted of Christ). 6. 63, Christ's "words are
Spirit." D. The Spirit as the basis of Christian life: John
s-5,6,8.1
1 No cases are found of the Spirit as the source of the Old Testament
writings or of the Spirit used of God ab intra. "God is Spirit" (4. 24) is 4
234

The Johannean Writings
If we compare the use of the Spirit here with
that in other New Testament literature, we find a
difference of emphasis rather than a difference of
content. In the general field of Christian ideas,
with its common background of Jewish concept,
certain phases of the Spirit here gain promi
nence. Some differences of use occur, but mod
ify old uses rather than present any uses which are
new. i. The most notable difference is the total dis
appearance of the use of the Spirit for individual
endowment of miraculous charismatic gifts. Yet
we cannot be sure that this difference is not rather
seeming than real. The Spirit is thought of as
endowing the Christian community, which means
nothing else than the endowment of individual
Christians. If there is no mention of the Spirit in
connection with prophecy, vision, wisdom, or other
things which Jewish and early Christian thought
commonly explained by spiritual influence, it is be
cause there are no instances recorded where such
interpretation is called for. The one case of proph
ecy which the Johannean writings narrate is that
of the high priest Caiaphas (n. 49). A Christian
writer to whom the Spirit had come to be intimately
connected with devotion to the sacred memory of
his Lord might well hesitate to ascribe this prophecy
to the Spirit, even while recognizing that God was
an affirmation concerning the nature of God as affecting the method of
worship, not concerning the Spirit of God. The thought of the passage is
that God, being spiritual rather than material, must be approached by a
worship whose content is spiritual rather than material. The passage
does not properly fall under our subject.
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The Spirit of God
able to make the enemy of the Messiah utter a divine
oracle.1 2. There is here no reference to the Old Testa
ment as the word of the Spirit. This difference is
probably also purely incidental. It is hardly con
ceivable that the writer did not hold the general
Jewish and Christian conception that the Old Testa
ment writers were under the guidance of the Spirit.
3. The limitation of the Spirit to the Messianic
usage is the same as in other Christian writings.
4. The conception of the Spirit as the basis of
physical life is also absent here, as in other Christian
literature. The Johannean teaching of the Spirit, with all
its peculiarity, is less remote from the common
Christian teaching than it seems to be upon first
impression. Its beginning is the ordinary Christian
Messianic conception of the Spirit. The relation of
the Spirit to the Messiah himself is not essentially
different from that in the synoptists or in the writ
ings of Paul. God gives the Spirit without measure
to the Messiah, and through him it is mediated to
the disciples. All this rests ultimately on Jewish
hopes such as are expressed in Joel 2. 28. We have
seen such hopes in the late Jewish and early Chris
tian literature. The function of the Spirit is to
1Wendt(GospelofJohn,p. 202, f., Eng. tr.) regards the fact that there is in
the discourses "no forecasting of those miraculous gifts of the Spirit which
played so great a part in apostolic and sub-apostolic Christianity" as an
element of proof that the_ source from which they were taken corresponds
substantially to the teaching of Christ. He regards 16. 13, "He will show

you things to come," as indicating "prophetic prevision" and belonging
to the additions of the editor (p. 163). It is possible, however, that the
words may not be a promise of predictive power, but of spiritual insight

into the significance of "that future which is even now coming" (see West-
cott in loco)

236

The Johannean Writings
guide the disciples in their witness for the Messiah.
Here again the idea differs in no essential respect
from that of the synoptic teaching of Christ, or from
the conceptions expressed by Paul or other Chris
tian writers, on the same subject. The Spirit is
confined, in its direct working, to the Christian
disciples. Yet God designs to bring the whole world
to himself. The Spirit is given to the Christian,
then, not for his own behoof or delectation, but that
he may the better bear witness for Christ. The
Spirit witnesses to him, and he to the world; and
so the Spirit works upon the world.
All this thought of the Spirit, with the exception
°f 3- 5"8, starts from the idea of charismatic1 gifts.
It has its historical origin in the Old Testament
conception of prophecy turned to New Testament
Messianic uses. In one respect, however, it differs
from the primitive Christian idea. This gift of the
Spirit is not special and temporary, given for the
needs of a special occasion and passing away when
its purpose is fulfilled; it is an abiding gift. Its
value is for the permanent structure of the Christian
life. The older Jewish connection of the Spirit with
the extraordinary and unusual has been entirely
displaced by its connection with the usual and
normal. In this respect the Johannean position takes a
step beyond that of Paul, though making no new-
progress in thought. Paul regarded the Spirit as
1 The reader will recall that this word means any divine gift for a special
purpose, and is not limited to the miraculous.
237

The Spirit of God
a permanent part of Christian life, but he also held
and freely expressed the older Jewish idea of the
Spirit as an occasional charismatic gift. There
was no express contradiction between the two, but,
on the other hand, there was no attempt to unify
them. The Johannean position drops the older side
altogether, and only keeps the newer. All this makes
an harmonious picture. It is not quite that of the
primitive Christian thought; it is not quite that of
the Pauline thought; but it is self-consistent and
perfectly explicable from the trend of early Chris
tian conceptions. At one point, however, the Johan
nean literature is brought into still closer relation to
the Pauline. The peculiarity of Pauline thought is
its conception of the Spirit as not only the abiding
power, but the source, of the Christian life. In
one passage the Johannean gospel takes the same
view. John 3. 5-8 can be explained only as ex
pressing the idea that the Spirit is the source of the
Christian life. Instead of coming only after the
departure of Jesus, as in 16. 7, the Spirit is present
then or at any time when any soul enters "eternal
life." It is not impossible that the form of expres
sion, "water and the Spirit," may be suggested by
John's promise of the Messiah's baptism by the
Spirit (Beyschlag, I, 283). The idea of the Spirit
as the source of Christian life, however, does not
find expression elsewhere in the New Testament
except in Pauline thought.
Whence come these Johannean conceptions?
Many of them occur in the discourses of Jesus.
238

The Johannean Writings
May it not be that the peculiar Johannean view of
the Spirit comes from the teaching of Jesus? If
so, then the Pauline doctrine has some basis in the
words of Jesus, and the high-water mark of Chris
tian thought on this subject was reached by our
Lord himself.
It is not a violation of the proper objectivity of
scholarship to say that it would be a grateful re
sult could this be found to be the case. The loyal
disciple of Christ would be glad to see the highest
development of a course of thought on so important
a religious subject manifest in germ, even if not
finding complete expression, in the teachings of the
Master rather than in the thoughts of even his most
honored disciple. The question is whether the facts,
so far as they can now be recovered, would allow
this view to be taken.
Let us gather up the uses of the Spirit which
occur in the Johannean representation of the teach
ing of Christ. We find that they include the follow
ing classes of Johannean usage:
: AB. The charismatic Spirit: 14. 17; 15. 26; 16.
> 13; 20. 22.
C. The Spirit as the basis of Christian life : 3. 5,
6, 8.
John 3. 5, 6, 8, representing the Spirit as the
origin of the Christian life, is at the farthest re
move from the synoptic teaching of Christ. Ob
viously it will not do to say that this idea of the
Spirit could not have stood in the preaching of
Christ by the side of the ordinary Jewish charis-
239

The Spirit of God
matic view. We find that the two did so stand
together in the writings of Paul. But even so the
cases are not parallel. The Spirit was an element
of very great importance in Paul's system of
thought. It filled a large measure of the horizon
in the explanation of Christian phenomena both for
himself and for his contemporaries. We can see
how this new factor of his thought on the subject
took shape. With the teaching of Jesus it was
different. The Spirit was not prominent. It would
be impossible to explain how a new interpretation
of the Spirit could have grown up in the mind of
Jesus. The Pauline idea would be unnatural in the
teaching of Jesus, an isolated phenomenon without
connection. It is also strange, if this be a real
factor in Christ's teaching of the Spirit, that only
the fourth gospel contains any allusion to it. Gun
kel (page 82) naturally questions if such teaching
can be that of Christ, and decides that it must rather
be the author's.1 Whatever its origin it is improb
able that it belonged to the original teaching of
Jesus. The references to the Spirit in the last discourses
of Jesus belong to a different class of ideas. The
Spirit is here the Messianic charismatic Spirit, given
not only to comfort the disciples, but, through their
testimony, to "convict the world" (16. 8). It will
come only after the departure of Jesus (16. 7),
and promises to the disciples the divine guidance
1 Wendt, it is true, makes it a part of his apostolic "source" (p. 68), but
on the supposition that the Spirit is here psychological, not theological
and corresponds to "eternal life," as in 7. 63.
24O

The Johannean Writings
in their future need. It is thus far the correlative
of Christ's promise in the synoptists that when,
after his departure, the disciples are brought before
kings and rulers for his sake, the Spirit shall speak
through them. Only in one respect is the Johan
nean representation an advance upon the synoptic.
There the Spirit is evidently a charismatic gift upon
occasions of need. Here it is represented as a
divine power which will be with them "forever" ( 14.
16), which will "abide" with them (14. 17), in
contrast to Christ, who must "go away." There
we have only the Jewish charismatic Spirit. Here
we have a factor of the Pauline element of the Spirit
as an abiding presence, controlling the life not
merely in cases of special need, but in its continual
Christian activity; manifesting itself not merely in
occasional miraculous expressions, but in a con
tinual divine teaching (14. 26; 16. 13) of the sig
nificance of Christ's message to the church and the '
world. John gives us this much of the Pauline idea,
as distinguished from the Jewish, but Paul's idea
of the basis of this permanence of the Spirit in
Christian life, namely, that the Spirit is itself the
origin of the life, is not found in John's account of
the last discourses. How can we explain this min
gling of uses? Is it possible that it may go back
to the teaching of Jesus? If so, it might have
arisen from an expansion of the ordinary Jewish
temporary charismatic conception into the concep
tion of the Spirit as a permanent charismatic gift.
This would be a natural evolution of thought, and
(16) 241

The Spirit of God
would fit the general character of Christ's teaching.
Jewish thought had approached the line of distinc
tion between the two ideas before, if, indeed, it had
not, as some have maintained, actually crossed it,
in its thought of the Spirit as the source of wisdom
and prudence. Certainly we cannot confidently
affirm that this could not have been a teaching of
Jesus. In spite of this, however, the probabilities seem
to be against its being a teaching of Jesus, for the
following reasons: i. It is not found in the synop
tic teaching of Jesus. 2. The development of
thought usually takes place in topics which are
within the center of attention. In Christ's teach
ing the center of attention was not occupied by the
Spirit. 3. The idea of the Spirit as a permanent
possession being common in the Christian world
before the writing of the fourth gospel, it would be
natural that it should enter this gospel as one of
the unconscious modifications of the original teach
ing of Jesus. Since, then, it is difficult to account
for the idea as a part of the teaching of Christ, but
easy to account for it as a Christian addition, the
probability lies against its coming from Christ.
Does this carry with it, however, the probability
that the entire teaching of John 14 to 16 regarding
the Spirit did not originate with Christ? Not at
all. There is no adequate reason why the central
thought of the charismatic Spirit may not belong
to Christ's last talk with his disciples. In fact,
such a thought as this would be a most natu-
242

The Johannean Writings
ral, one might almost say an inevitable, element
in a farewell discourse of Jesus to them. We
may go farther. There are two lines of thought
regarding the future relation of Christ to his
disciples running through this discourse. Ac
cording to one Jesus himself will return to his
orphaned followers. According to the other the
Father will, at his request, send the Spirit. Now,
if one feels compelled, on account of a sense of their
lack of harmony, to deny one or the other of these
elements to the original teaching of Jesus, it must
be the first, not the last. Christ's future presence
with his disciples belongs to the author's Christo
logical scheme, but the Spirit as the future guide
of the disciples is verified as Christ's teaching by
the synoptic gospels and the natural conclusions
from Jewish Messianic thought. Not only, then, is
there no ground for rejecting from Christ's teach
ing the general doctrine of the Spirit in John 14 to
16, but there is every ground for retaining it. But
the probabilities are that the Spirit was originally,
as in the synoptists, a temporary gift for special
needs. If after passing through the Johannean
medium the Spirit appears in these chapters as a
permanent possession of the Christian, there has
only happened to it what has happened to other fac
tors of Christ's teaching in the fourth gospel.
There has, not unnaturally, gathered about it a
penumbra of early Christian thought and interpre
tation. As in other cases, also, the question of
separation between the original teaching and the
243

The Spirit of God
addition is not one of the dissection of words
and clauses, like the analysis of the Pentateuch,
but of the dissection of thought. It is not a prob
lem of documentary criticism, but of historical
criticism. Whence did the Johannean author obtain the
Pauline elements in the views which he presents?
This is a question involved in the general problem
of the origin of Johannean theology, a problem
which has not even yet received an adequate an
swer. Without doubt the Johannean author was a
religious genius, from whose deep mystical nature
there came an emphasis on certain aspects of Chris
tian life and thought that needs no other explana
tion. But back of all emphasis lies the question of
a theological substrate. Even a mystic does not
discover theology by intuition. The power of a
religious genius lies rather in the discernment of
certain relations and the ability to make prominent
certain elements in the common religious thought
of his time. Such power our author shows with
a clearness that few have equaled. He forces re
ligious thought to the central idea of union with
God. This would, however, lead to no new or
original conception of the Spirit. In fact, it would,
if it had any effect, tend to minimize that idea, to
make the Spirit of less importance as the soul ap
proached God more closely. This author is hin
dered by no Jewish fear for the dignity of God
which should make him hesitate to bring God into
contact with man. He uses the same freedom of
244

The Johannean Writings
expression for the close relation, the union, of God
and man which mystics have ever used. The use
of the Spirit by such a writer can only be tradi
tional. His own thought does not need it. Weiss
(II, 409) says, "The full joy of believers is not, as
with Paul, a work of the Spirit, but a result of abid
ing in Christ (15. 11), of their own prayers being
heard (16. 24), and of Christ's intercession (17.
13)." This is the true mystic position. Weiss
draws the distinction between the outpouring of
the Spirit in 3. 5, as the starting point of the moral
new birth, and the Pauline conception of the Spirit
as the principle of the new moral life. But wher
ever the Spirit occurs in early Christian thought it
is not treated as occasion, but as cause. It stands
in a causal relation to whatever phenomenon is
ascribed to it, whether that be a temporary gift or
a permanent life. One can hardly conceive that in
the Jewish background of Christian thought it
should not always have been regarded as a cause.
When it came to be applied to Christian life it could
hardly have been regarded otherwise than as the
cause of that life. Such would also be the most
natural meaning of 6. 63, "My words are Spirit and
life," interpreted by the preceding clause, "It is the
Spirit that quickeneth."
To state it in other words : There are two pos
sible ways of expressing the divine origin of the
new religious life of the Christians. One is to
regard it as proceeding directly from the soul's re
lation to God. This is the method natural to the
245

The Spirit of God
mystic. The other is to make not God, but the
Spirit of God, its source. This belongs to the
Judaic-Pauline growth of Christian expression.
Now, both these are found in John. The great body
of the gospel belongs to the first class. The entire
expression of the epistles also belongs to the first
class. Isolated expressions of the second class lie
in their context quite unassimilated. They are not
a part of the author's system of thought. Whence
did they come? They occur in the discourses of
Jesus, but, as we have seen, their Pauline elements
are quite as much out of accord with his teaching
as with that of the author. They must, however,
have come to the author as a part of the teaching of
Christ, but molded and colored somewhat by a de
veloped Christian thought. So far as we can trace
their origin, it is Pauline. How widely the Pauline
conception had become extended in the Christian
church by the time of the writing of the fourth
gospel, and by what means it had molded the ex
pression of the discourses of Jesus found in this
gospel, are questions to which no answer can be
given. The facts, however, seem fairly clear.1
1 Weiss and Beyschlag take different views of 3. 3-5. Beyschlag regards
John's idea as Pauline: "In John, as in Paul, the Holy Spirit is the prin
ciple of the life from God which distinguishes the Christian from the natural
man" (II, 452). Weiss says, "The Holy Spirit is never, as exclusively
with Paul, regarded as the principle of the new moral life"_ (li, 409, note).
Beyschlag's view is based on the identity of the Spirit with the glorified
Christ, while Weiss sharply distinguishes between the two. The latter
seems to hint at a double notion of the basis of Christian life in the follow
ing (IT, 375, note):" As the whole idea of being born of God is specifically
Johannean, so the idea, occurring in the speeches of Christ, of being born
of water and the Spirit (3 5) is nowhere further realized by the apostle."
Weiss is here distinguishing between what I have called the mystic con
ception of an immediate relation of the believer to God and the Judaic-
Pauline conception of that relation as mediated by the Holy Spirit. Weiss,
however, does not use that distinction further. Its full recognition seems
to be the only way to explain the peculiar contradiction in John.
246

The Johannean Writings
One element of the criticism of the Johannean
writings must enter into the final settlement of this
problem. It is the question of the Alexandrian
character of these writings. That certain factors
in them, notably the Logos doctrine, have at least
Alexandrian affinities has long been admitted.
How far this Alexandrian influence goes, how much
of the thought of the gospel it affects, whether it
is only a touch of the environment in which the gos
pel was produced or is an essential part of the au
thor's mental furnishings, are still open problems.
Quite as open, but lying in another sphere, is the
question of whether the gospel cannot be divided,
and the Alexandrian element traced only in one
source or group of sources. The full consideration
of these problems lies outside of our investigation.
The general question, however, of Alexandrian
material in the gospel enters into the problem of
the doctrine of the Spirit in the Johannean writings.
It is possible to discuss the relations of Alexandrian
thought to the doctrine of the Spirit without affirm
ing any certain conclusions regarding the questions
of detail suggested above. The problem of Alexan
drian affinities in the fourth gospel has been largely
discussed on the basis of the doctrine of the Logos
in the Prologue. But if the gospel is so thoroughly
Alexandrian as some have asserted, not only the
Logos doctrine, but other elements of thought,
would naturally be affected. Among these we might
naturally expect to find the Spirit. Upon examina
tion, however, the Johannean doctrine of the Spirit
247

The Spirit of God
does not prove to be Alexandrian. The following
differences are noted :
I. Alexandrian thought considered the working
of the charismatic Spirit to lie wholly in the sphere
of the unusual and extraordinary. It pertained to
¦prophecy, exceptional skill and wisdom, and the
like. It was not a part of the mental furnishing
of every good man or of every worshiper of Jah
veh. Johannean thought, on the other hand, has
ceased to emphasize the unusual as a proof of the
Spirit's possession. The Spirit is a necessary and
normal element in the Christian's life. Without
it he would be left in ignorance (John 14. 26; 16.
13), without proof of God's abiding in him (1
John 4. 13), and without power to advance the
Messianic kingdom (John 16. 8). In the matter
of the function of the charismatic Spirit the Johan
nean theology is more nearly akin to Pauline than
to Alexandrian thought. This leads naturally to
the second distinction.
2. Alexandrian thought treated the charismatic
Spirit as necessarily only a temporary possession.
It might have been a permanent possession had man
not sinned, but, having sinned, he has lost the abid
ing presence of the Spirit (see page 106). The
Johannean writings, as we have seen, represent the
Spirit as the permanent gift of God to the believer.
This difference is dependent on the preceding point,
for it belongs rather to problems of the function
than of the nature of the Spirit.
3. Alexandrian thought regards the Spirit as
248

The Johannean Writings
ultimately equivalent to the Logos. It is one of
the powers of God, all representing essentially the
same reality (see page 95, ff.). One might well
expect, therefore, if the Alexandrian affinities are
strong, that the author of the fourth gospel would
regard the two as equivalent; but there is nothing
in his use of the Logos and the Spirit to lead us to
suppose that he did. The fact that on the points
noted above Johannean thought does not agree with
Alexandrian also makes against the agreement of
the two on this point. So does the fact that the
Christian author develops his thought in the light
of the historical person of Christ. For the Alex
andrian writers speculative truth was the most im
portant thing in the horizon. For the Johannean
writer all thought and all speculation were dominated
by the figure of the man Jesus Christ. Along with
this there was the common Christian emphasis on
the Holy Spirit as present in the Christian church.
Christ and the Spirit were to Christian thought
more distinct and living ideas than were the Logos
and the Spirit to the speculative thought of Alex
andrian Jews. The distinctness of the figures of
Christ and the Spirit would tend against the identi
fication of their natures, as Alexandrian thought
identified the Logos and the Spirit. Only a writer
in whom the philosophical feeling dominated the
historical could so far isolate himself from the in
fluence of his Christian surroundings as to lose the
sense of ontological distinction between the glori
fied Christ and the Spirit. That this author uses
249

The Spirit of God
the return of Christ and the coming of the Spirit
as different expressions for the same historical proc
ess does not argue the ontological identity of Christ
and the Spirit, but only that their function is in
that respect the same. On exegetical grounds there
seems to be no reason to regard the relation of
Christ and the Spirit as different here from that re
lation in other parts of the New Testament. On
the whole, Alexandrian philosophy throws no light
on the origin or the meaning of the Johannean doc
trine of the Spirit. There is no evidence that the
two systems of thought were at this point in the
least affiliation.
When we turn to consider the place of the Spirit
in the Johannean system of thought three subjects
present themselves : the relation of the Spirit to the
believer, the relation of the Spirit to Christ, and the
relation of the Spirit to God.
It was said above that the thought foremost in
the mind of the author is the Christian community,
not the individual believer. Yet the individual
does not disappear, and the problem of divine rela
tion remains, as it must always remain, a personal
problem. The author's conception is not out of
accord with the historic Jewish conception of the
Spirit as God guiding, and lies within the Christian
idea of the Spirit as God guiding the development
of the Messianic kingdom through the believers.
He lays emphasis upon the idea that the Spirit takes
the place of the embodied Christ, but this is not
wholly new. The first two chapters of Acts ex-
250

The Johannean Writings
press the same idea (Acts i. 2, 5, 8; 2. 33). He
also holds that, although the Messiah had the Spirit
(3. 34), it was not given to the believers till after
Christ's resurrection (14. 16, f. ; 16. 7; 20. 22).
It could not then be the causal principle of the
Christian life, for that life of union with God which
he calls "the eternal life" was open to all men in
all time. According to the Prologue (1. 9) this
life depends on the Logos, who has ever been the
light of God, not upon the Spirit. The Spirit is
peculiarly the divine means of extending the work
of Christ. His function is entirely subordinate.
His work is, as Beyschlag puts it (I, 281), prophetic
rather than ethical. It is to instruct the believers,
to call to mind what Christ has taught, to lead them
out into a fuller revelation of God, that God may
through them convict the world without. We notice
a distinction between this and the Pauline view.
There the Spirit is also for the development of
the kingdom of the Messiah, but by means of the
development of the ethical life of the individual be
liever. The religious life was the Spirit of God
living itself out in the believer. The Johannean idea
is of the Spirit as preparing men for witness. We
see also a difference between this and the primitive
Christian ideas, as, for example, in the Lucan writ
ings. There the Spirit fills men for witness, directly
leads them to their work, and guides them in its per
formance. That is Jewish in its content, growing
directly out of the old charismatic conception. Here
it stands at a farther remove from the old concep-
251

The Spirit of God
tion. The Spirit instructs as well as guides, while
the initiation of Christian action lies with the soul in
communion with the Father through Christ. This
also is in accord with the common mystic thought.
Another and kindred function in the epistles is
that of the Spirit as a witness and pledge of the
acceptance of the believer by God ( i John 3. 24 ; 4.
13; 5. 7, 8). These passages imply some means of
judging of the possession of the Spirit, whether
by the exhibition of spiritual gifts or by a mystical
consciousness or in whatever way it may be.
Probably the author has in mind the possession of
love as the pledge of the Spirit's presence (1 John
4. 7-13). He who has Christian love may thereby
know that the Spirit dwells in him. 1 John 4. 1-6
couples with the assurance of the Spirit's possession
the confession of Jesus as the Messiah. As a matter
of course the whole Christian life in its power for
witness is based on that confession. The Spirit is
here, as in the last discourses in the gospel, charis
matic. It follows upon faith, rather than supplies
the ground of it. The Spirit is the result of the
abiding of Christ in the believer, and it is also the
witness of that abiding. Paul likewise (Rom. 8.
16) uses the idea of the Spirit as witnessing in the
heart of the believer, but there the Spirit is the
origin of the life of faith ; here that life is produced
by God, and the Spirit comes, charismatically, not
to cause the life, but to strengthen it.1
1 Beyschlag (II, 452) takes the opposite view. He does not find the full
expression of the position that the Spirit originates the Christian life in the
epistles, but he asserts that in 1 John 2. 20-27 the "anointing" (ypiofia)
252

The Johannean Writings
Passing from the relation between the Spirit and
the believer to that between the Spirit and Christ,
we enter upon a field which has received much study
and in which diametrically opposite opinions have
been advanced. Two views have been held: one,
that the Spirit is but a personification of the glori
fied Christ; the other, that the Spirit represents a
distinct personality. The first is held by Beyschlag,
and is the controlling element in his entire inter
pretation of the Johannean conception of the Spirit.
The teaching of Jesus, he holds, contained two fig
ures to express the future relation of the Messiah
to his followers: one, that of the continued pres
ence of the Messiah with his disciples; the other,
that of the Holy Spirit which would be present with
the disciples. The last was founded on the Old
Testament prophecy of the Messianic time. These
two modes of teaching "mutually exclude each other
as forms of representation." The contradiction can
of necessity, however, be only one of form ; the un
derlying idea must be a unity. The Holy Spirit in
the believer and Christ in him must be one and the
same thing. "He is the Spirit and the life of Christ
in the believer; he is — and this is the solution of
the whole riddle — the Christ in us (Rom. 8. 9;
comp. verse 10)." The Spirit cannot come until
Christ has departed, because the Spirit is the glori-

refers to the Spirit, and that "the author simply presupposes the sanc
tifying side of the possession of the Spirit." Why make him here presup->
pose what he nowhere else in the epistle expresses? Beyschlag takes the
"anointing" to mean the Spirit as the source of the Christian life because
he identifies the Spirit and the glorified Christ. If that identification is
not accepted, Beyschlag's interpretation falls with it.
253

The Spirit of God
fied Christ — a "pictorial representation" of his pres
ence. Yet there remains "a twofold distinction"
between the figure and its reality : First, the figure
is narrower than the reality. "Christ is not limited
to the Spirit, but also remains in his perfect per
sonal existence with the Father above the world."
Second, the activity of the Spirit is dependent on
the historical personality of Christ. The Spirit
can bring nothing new into the world, but can only
develop the meaning of Christ. Reuss also holds
that the Johannean author attempts to make no
personal distinction between Christ and the Spirit.
The view that the fourth gospel makes a personal
distinction between Christ and the Spirit is pre
sented by Stevens, in his Johannean Theology
(page 194, ff.). The argument as formulated is
exegetical. The Spirit is called "another com
forter," dXXog TTapdKXrjTog, Christ himself being one,
according to 1 John 2. 1, and is distinguished from
Christ by his dependence on Christ. If a person
at all, then, he cannot be the same person as Christ.
The use of pronouns indicates personality, for
"John, except when prevented from so doing by
the grammatical gender of nvevjj,a (Spirit), uni
formly designates the Spirit by masculine pronouns
implying personality" (page 196). A series of
activities only appropriate to persons is ascribed to
him — speaking, teaching, bearing testimony, hold
ing fellowship with the disciples, and the like.
These are the well-known exegetical arguments
for the personality of the Holy Spirit. They do
254

The Johannean Writings
not meet the position taken by Beyschlag, of the
Spirit as a "pictorial representation," where all the
elements of personality are confessedly present, but,
of course, only as a part of the figure.
One is led to question whether either of these
views takes into account sufficiently the Jewish
historical background of the doctrine. Had the
doctrine of the Spirit begun with Christianity, it
must have meant either a representation of Christ
or a distinctly separate person. But it came into
Christianity with its content already formed. The
Spirit was not only the representative of God; it
was God himself, acting in the world through the
Messianic kingdom. As far as the Messiah repre
sented God, so far the functions of the two were
the same; but there is no reason to suppose that
the problems of personality entered the thought of
the writer at all. Beyschlag and those who think
with him are right in affirming that the presence
of the glorified Christ and of the Holy Spirit in
the world must be one in significance. It is true
that the Spirit and Christ are both representations
of the divine care for the disciples and of the divine
control of the Messianic kingdom. One form of
expression comes from the teaching of Christ and
the feeling of the value of the historic person of
Jesus for Christian life, and the other from the
traditional Jewish ideas molded by Christian con
cepts and also expressed, although not prominently,
in the teaching of Christ himself. But because the
two expressions represent the same divine move-
255

The Spirit of God
ment in history it does not follow that they repre
sent the same personality in the usual sense of the
word. Doubtless it would be more logical that
they should, but conceptions determined by tradition
do not always follow the line of least logical resist
ance. It would have been somewhat unnatural if
the traditional distinctions between the Spirit and
the Messiah had been so speedily swallowed up in
the personality of the Messiah.
Does it follow, then, that the Spirit and the
Messiah were conceived of as distinct personalities?
One fails to see that the Johannean theology makes
a stronger demand for this than does the Pauline
theology or the conceptions of primitive Christian
ity. The expression in the Johannean theology is
somewhat different from that in the last two, but
the essence of the idea lying behind the expression
seems not diverse. As the Johannean thought
draws together Christ and God, so it draws to
gether Christ and the Spirit, the historic expression
for God acting, yet without making philosophical
affirmation about their personalities.
The Johannean writings add nothing to the com
mon Christian idea concerning the relation of the
Spirit to God. The Spirit comes from God; he is
the Spirit of truth because he witnesses to the truth
of God in the believer ; he is the pledge of the abid
ing presence of God in the heart. The relation of
God to the Spirit, however, seems to be no more
one of identity than it is elsewhere in Christian
writings. It is true, as Walker, in The Spirit and
256

The Johannean Writings
the Incarnation, says, that we cannot draw distinc
tions between God, Christ, and the Spirit. That,
however, is true only in a dynamical and not in a
statical sense. In one sense the Spirit is God
acting in the world. That lies in the field of opera
tion, of phenomenon; that is dynamical. In the
field of ontology, the statical sense, there is no af
firmation of either distinction or identity. The
question of identity and distinction of substance
had not yet arisen. Christianity was as yet un
philosophical. It is of little use to force back later theological
distinctions into the more naive and simple litera
ture of the New Testament. The assumption some
times made, that the Johannean writings may be
expected to yield a ground for such fine philosoph
ical distinctions because they are more or less
tinctured with an Alexandrian philosophical flavor,
is quite without warrant. On the subject of the
Spirit, moreover, the Johannean author is not
Alexandrian. Alexandrian philosophy, also, itself
is peculiarly vague on the point of the personality
of its divine "powers." That philosophy had evi
dently not only never come to any clear conclu
sions on the subject of the personality of the Logos,
the Spirit, and the other powers of God, but had
not even been conscious of any question regarding
it. Neither his Palestinian nor his Alexandrian
affiliations, then, would lead us to expect clear
statements on the subject of the personality of the
Spirit from the writer of the Johannean books.
(17), 257

The Spirit of God
After all, his contribution to Christian thought lies
in quite a different field from the conception of
the Spirit. Regarding that subject Paul, not the
Johannean writer, took the last step of biblical
progress. 258

PART III
CONCLUSION

PARTHI Conclusion
The key to the entire history of the development
of the idea of the Spirit is' experience* The study
of this development is primarily a psychological
study. Men explained the origin of certain expe
riences which were to them vital, vivid, profoundly
real, and religiously significant by the thought that
God was moving in them. This was the idea as
far back in Semitic antiquity as we can trace the
conception of the Spirit. This is the idea in the
New Testament period, when once more men felt
themselves to be the subjects of the direct activity
of God, who was working out his eternal purposes
by means of their lives.
But it was not upon any and all sorts of experi
ences that men felt they could place this explanation
of divine origin and force; it was only upon those
experiences in which, for some reason, they believed
that the hand of God could be seen. Primarily that
meant upon experiences accompanied by strong emo
tion. It was preeminently so at the first. The earliest
application of the idea of the Spirit of God that we
can find in Hebrew history is to the prophetic ec
stasy. This was supremely emotional. To understand
its meaning to those who experienced or witnessed
it we must leave our modern realm of logic and rea
son and transfer ourselves into an earlier and cruder
261

The Spirit of God
stage of thought, where emotion and imagination
ruled supreme. In this stage men surrendered them
selves to emotion as they do not in our day. There
was the same tendency to be swept away by emo
tion that one finds in childhood. All early history
and all crude races in late history show that same
subjection to emotion. Their experiences under its
influence had to them supreme value. They were
the most intense experiences in their lives. Natu
rally they were regarded as of the most value. That
necessarily meant for a religious race that a reli
gious interpretation was put upon them and that
they were thought of as coming from God. In all
periods of Hebrew history when there was a vigor
ous doctrine of the Spirit there were also intense
emotional experiences. This was not less true of
the New Testament period than of early Hebrew
history. It is probably difficult for us to exagger
ate the depth and strength of the emotion of the
first generation of Christians as they thought of
how God had at last once more come close to man,
chosen them personally for his high mission, and,
as they believed, would in a few years close the
history of this age with the coming of the Messiah
and the establishment of his kingdom. Should we
be inclined to depreciate a time because it made
emotion so prominent, it might be well to remember
that in all periods, even in our own boasted age of
reason, the supreme importance has, after all, been
attached to things of the emotions. People will
persist in believing that poetry is higher than prose
262

Conclusion
and that love is worth more than logic. It is not,
then, a degradation of the idea of the Spirit of God
to recognize that it had its origin, as it has always
had its best appreciation, in periods rich with emo
tion, and that any adequate study of it is primarily
a study of human emotions.
There are, however, elements in its history which
are not emotional. When the Spirit was assigned
to artisan work, like that of Bezaleel, emotion could
hardly have been thought to play a part in it. But
such a use has an important limitation. The Spirit
was never so used by any person of his own ex
perience or that of his contemporaries. In all cases
in Hebrew literature where living experiences were
explained as coming from the Spirit of God there
was an element of emotion to serve as the basis of
that explanation. All these things lead us to the
assertion made above, that the key to the entire
history of the conception of the Spirit of God is
experience, and, we may now add, emotional
experience. Taking this as the starting point, let us review
briefly the stages of development through which
the idea passed. The concept seems to have been
used first for the intense emotions which induced
or accompanied the early ecstatic prophecy that ap
pears in such narrations as i Sam. 10. How far
back into the pre-literary period this use extends it
is impossible to say, nor is the question one of spe
cial importance. In some of the earliest strata of
the Hebrew historical books we find the term al-
263

The Spirit of God
ready extended from ecstatic prophecy to warlike
prowess. The popular hero who led the nation in
war or did deeds of mighty valor was also said to
be under the power of the Spirit, though he never
claimed the experience for himself. Here also one
need not look far to find an emotional content. He
who knows his Iliad will not need to be reminded
of the fierce frenzy of the ancient warrior. But
now there begins to appear the second factor in
the development of this idea, that it must have a
value for the national religious life. From the
point of view of the period the word "national" is
superfluous. All religion was national, never merely
individual. Whatever emotional experience helped
the growth of the nation was from the national
God ; it was the power of the Spirit of Jehovah.
But with the growth of an ethical religion the
old ecstatic prophecy fell into a measure of disre
pute. There was a strife of prophecy against
prophecy, and the older and cruder went down be
fore higher ideas. But the older prophet, because
of his ecstasy, had been peculiarly "the man of the
Spirit." The later prophets used the Spirit less as
the explanation of their prophetic activity, so that
in the Deuteronomic literature the term has quite
disappeared in this sense.1 But meantime a new
emphasis has been thrown upon it, which intro
duces another factor in the development of the idea.
The idea has been, on the human side, emotion
1 As has been shownby Dr. Shoemaker in " The Use of ffi"l in the Old
Testament and of flrei/w in the New Testament," Journal of Biblical
Literature. 1904.
264

Conclusion
religiously interpreted. But it is also possible to
look at it from the divine side. Here it is — and
this is the third factor — God active in the human
life. When, however, the idea began to be used
less often for the explanation of individual effort
it was natural that the limitation of its meaning
to the human life should disappear, and that it
should be thought of as God active in any sphere
of his creation. This is what took place in the
exilic period: The Spirit of God brooded over
chaos and made creation. God sends forth his
Spirit, and the beasts of the field live ; he withdraws
it, and they die. All the history of Israel has been
under the guidance of the Spirit. The Spirit led
them in the wilderness. The Spirit will be with
the Messiah at his coming, and in that Messianic
age God will give the Spirit to all.
By the time of the post-exilic period the empha
sis of the idea had passed quite definitely from the
notion of emotional experiences to the notion of God
acting; and, since there had also been a growth of
reverence for God which had resulted in practi
cally putting him afar off from man, it now be
came impossible to interpret present experiences as
from the Spirit. Even when the deep springs of
religious and patriotic heroism were touched, as
in the Maccabean revolt, the Spirit was not used of
their origin. Thus widely had the term departed
from its original use. One might well suppose that
it had entered upon a new field so remote from the
old that it would never return.
265

The Spirit of God
On its human side, then, the Spirit as the ex
planation of experience became in the Jewish period
a memory of the past and a hope for the future.
On its divine side, as a name for God acting, it
became a dogma. As a dogma one step more was
possible for it. The distinction between God act
ing and God absolute, between the dynamic and the
static, might be lost, and the Spirit come to be used
as the exact equivalent for God. In Hebrew
thought this step was never taken. There were ap
proaches to it, but the absolute identification of the
Spirit and God was avoided.
That combination of Greek and Jewish thought.
which we call Alexandrian Judaism added no new
factor to the history of the development. It went
back, under the influence of ideas borrowed from the
Greek conception of the oracles, to the earlier and
cruder Hebrew stage in which the Spirit was used
to explain ecstasy; then it used that cruder concep
tion in an attempt to explain all the prophecy of
the Old Testament. In this way it became the pre
cursor of much later theological doctrine of inspira
tion, but it contributed nothing to the biblical
development of the idea.
Thus the matter stands at the beginning of the
New Testament period. The Spirit is a memory of
God's presence with his people in the past and
a hope for his presence once more in the person of
the Messiah who should come in the future. The
idea of the Spirit as God acting in the external
world seems already to have disappeared. It is
266

Conclusion
thought of only in connection with God's action on
men. Now comes Christianity, with its claim of Jesus
as the Messiah. With it there is a new wealth of
emotional experiences. Since the Messiah has
come all these experiences may once more be inter
preted as from the Spirit. So may all experiences
which advance the purposes of God in the new
Messianic movement. Theoretically this opens the
way for the assignment to the Spirit of much
besides the emotional. Practically it would seem
that in the first few years of Christian history the
Spirit was kept somewhat closely for the explana
tion of those experiences of the Christian church in
which there was at least an element of emotion.
Still such factors of experience as wisdom and
judgment were occasionally assigned to the Spirit.
The tendency to expansion was present. There is,
however, no hint in our literature that any tend
ency existed toward a form of expansion upon which
Hebrew thought had once entered and then drawn
back, that of the explanation of the cosmic process
as the work of the Spirit. The thought of the
Christian church connected the Spirit too closely
with human experience to allow of this. The
thought of the Spirit in the world outside of man
can only arise under one of two conditions : either
when the connection of the Spirit with experience
has been lost, and the idea has become a name
for God acting, as was the case in the exilic and
post-exilic Hebrew period; or when the distinc-
267

The Spirit of God
tion between the relation of God to persons and
his relation to the impersonal parts of the creation
has been lost. Christian theology has never lost
sight of that distinction. It is to be hoped that it
never will. The Spirit of God belongs of right only
to the action of God on human hearts. It is a term
for the action of the divine Person on human per
sons. Such is its New Testament meaning and its
only correct use.
Now, with its meaning fairly fixed to human
experiences, the last factor in its development en
ters. I have spoken of it as belonging to experi
ences, in the plural. It was the explanation of
specific events in life, of special mental powers
or emotional periods, considered individually.
Throughout its history the Spirit had been in large
measure God acting in temporary endowments. In
large measure, I say, for even Hebrew thought had
touched now and then in its later periods the idea
of the Spirit as an abiding ethical force in life, in
the same way that it had touched many things that
were fundamental in later Christian life and ethics.
But, as with so many of these things, that idea
was so rare that it could almost be called sporadic.
It did not become dominant. Paul grasped the idea
of the unity of the religious life, and spoke of the
Spirit not merely as God acting in an occasional
extraordinary and emotional experience, but as
being the divine source and basis of all the Chris
tian life. For him the Holy Spirit is the cause
not only of religious experiences, but of religious
268

Conclusion
experience. The test of the Spirit of God in a man
is no longer subjective emotion, but the objective
value of his life for the progress of the will of God
as working itself out in the church. '' Emotional
experiences do not, indeed, lose their value ; they are
still gifts of the Spirit, but are not to be reckoned
as of first importance. The place of prime im
portance is held by the religious ethical life in its
unity, conceived as divinely originated and guided.
The unification of all the religious life under the
Spirit is the last stage in the biblical development of
the idea. It is the last stage that ever can come in
its development, unless there be retrogression; for
nothing more complete, in the relation of God to
the human soul, can be conceived than the idea that
the entire religious life originates from and is
guided by God acting immediately on the human
spirit. In biblical literature itself, then, the concep
tion of the Spirit reaches its perfect end.
But what of the theological doctrine of the
Spirit? What of the personality of the Spirit in
the Godhead and the procession of the Spirit ? With
these things this study has nothing to do. It leaves
them to historical and speculative theology. They
belong to the ages after the biblical writings have
closed. Professor Clarke begins his Outlines of
Christian Theology with this sentence: "Theology
is preceded by religion, as botany by the life of
plants. Religion is the reality of which theology is
the study. "' The subject with which we have been
concerned in this book is religion, not speculative
269

The Spirit of God
theology with its distinctions drawn from Greek
philosophy. It is a very fundamental fact of re
ligion. There can be no religion at all in any strict
sense without the recognition of the primal fact of
God acting in the heart of man, which the Hebrews
called the Spirit. The biblical writers do not at
tempt to explain this fact. They believe it, they use
it for the explanation of the phenomena of life, they
find religious strength and comfort in it; but they
do not philosophize about it. In the sense in which
the word is used above there is little biblical the
ology of the Spirit of God. What theological in
ferences men drew later from the biblical religious
use of this idea, and whether those inferences were
correct or not, are subjects whose discussion does
not lie within the purpose of this book. That pur
pose is to deal with the religious fact which the
biblical writers explained by the Spirit of God.
If this little book has helped to make that fact
more vivid or the development of its meaning in
the biblical literature more clear, it has served its
purpose. May the people of God see with ever-growing
clearness what is meant by the most complete New
Testament expression of this basal religious ideal,
"Live in the Spirit"! 270

BIBLIOGRAPHY

This Bibliography does not profess to be com
plete, and excludes all books whose chief value is
devotional rather than scientific. It aims to furnish
a guide to the literature which is most useful for a
critical study of this subject.
I. SPECIAL BOOKS TREATING OF THE SPIRIT
OF GOD
Gunkel, Die Wirkungen des heiligen Geistes nach
der popularen Anschauung der apostolischen
Zeit und der Lehre des Apostels Paulus.
Gottingen, 1899.
Weinel, Die Wirkungen des Geistes und der Geister
im nachapostolischen Zeitalter bis auf Irenaus.
Freiburg, 1899.
Wendt, Die Begriffe Fleisch und Geist im biblischen
Sprachgebrauch. Gotha, 1878.
Sokolowski, Die Begriffe Geist und Leben bei
Paulus. Gottingen, 1903.
Gloel, Der heilige Geist in der Heilsverkiindigung
des Paulus. Halle, 1888.
Denio, The Supreme Leader. Boston, 1900.
Walker, The Spirit and the Incarnation. Edin
burgh, 1899.
Dickson, St. Paul's Use of the Terms Flesh and
Spirit. Glasgow, 1883. 271

The Spirit of God
Smeaton, Doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Edin
burgh, 1882.

II. MORE GENERAL BOOKS TREATING OF THE
SPIRIT OF GOD
Schultz, Old Testament Theology. Edinburgh,
1892.
Davidson, The Theology of the Old Testament.
New York, 1904.
Weiss, Biblical Theology of the New Testament.
Edinburgh, 1889.
Beyschlag, New Testament Theology. Edinburgh,
1896.
Stevens, The Theology of the New Testament.
New York, 1899.
 The Pauline Theology. New York, 1892.
 The Johannine Theology. New York, 1894.
Gilbert, The Revelation of Jesus. New York, 1899.
 The First Interpreters of Jesus. New York,
1901.
Bruce, St. Paul's Conception of Christianity. New
York, 1894. III. ARTICLES
Briggs, Use of nn in the Old Testament. Journal
of Biblical Literature, vol. xix (1900).
Shoemaker, The Use of rrn in the Old Testament
and of m>ev\ia in the New Testament. Journal
of Biblical Literature, vol. xxiii (1904).
Kleinert, Zur Alttestamentlichen Lehre vom Geiste
Gottes. Jahrbiicher fur Deutsche Theologie,
vol. xii. 272

Bibliography
Articles in Hastings's Bible Dictionary; Encyclo
paedia Biblica; Cremer's Biblico-Theological
Lexicon of the New Testament Greek ; Thayer's
New Testament Lexicon; Gesenius's Hebrew
Lexicon, ed. Brown, Driver, and Briggs.
IV. BIBLIOGRAPHIES
Appended to articles, Holy Spirit, Hastings's Bible
Dictionary; Spirit, Spiritual Gifts, Encyclo
paedia Biblica.
Denio, The Supreme Leader, page 239, ff. A full
bibliography; includes, besides "Biblical,"
"Historical," "Doctrinal," and "Practical"
lists. 273

INDEX

I. INDEX OF TEXTS

PAGE
Genesis i  S3.n.
i. 2  40, 54, 100
i. 26  .^r.29, 30
3-22  3°
4- 10  33
0. 1,1  29, 30, 96
6-3  7
41-38  6
Exodus 8. 19  126
iS- "  31
23. 23  29
28. 3  39. 43
3i- 3  •  39. SS
35-31  39. 55
Numbers n. 17  6, 39
n-29  39
16- 22  39, 41, ss, 69
22 to 24  20, ff.
22. 8; 23. 3; 24. 13  130
27. 16  39, 55
27- 18  39. 45.48, 55
Deuteronomy 18. 18  46
T 34- 9  •  39
Judges 2. 11— 18  22
3. 10  22, 24
6. 14, 25  25
6. 34  6, 22,f.
9- 23  6. 24
11. 19  22
11-24  31
ii- 29  24, 39
13-25  6, 23
14. 6  6, 17, 23X
14- 19  6> 23,f-
15- 14  °, 23
1 Samuel 9. 15  25
10  11, 264
10. 6, 10  5, 17, 23, 28
11. 6  6, 22,f.
16. 13, 14a  6, 23
16. 14b— 23  6, 21, 23
,j8. 10  6, 23
19  11, 23
19-9  5.6
19. 18-24  28
19. 20, 23  5, 17, 24
2 Samuel 24. 1  6,n., 21
1 Kings 18. 7,ff  17, 19
18. 12  7
22. 2i,f  31
22. 22  6
2 Kings 2. 11  65, 69

PAGE
2 Kings 2. 16. . . 7, 17, 19 185
3- 15  28,n.
J.9-7  6, 7
1 Chronicles 12. 18  39
21. 1  6,n.
2 Chronicles 15. 1  39
20. 14  39
24-20  39
Nehemiah 9. 20. . . .40, 46, 55
9-3°  39. 46
Job 26  33,11-
26. 13  40, 41, 54
27- 3  39, 55
32. 8  39, 55, 56
33- 4  39. 54
34- 14  39. 55
Psalms 8  53,n.
18. 15  54
29  29, 30
33-6  4°, 41, 54
Si  120
51. 11, 12  40, 48, 121
86. 8  30
104  53, n.
104. 29  41, 54
104. 30  40, 54, 62
106- 33  4°, 46
135- 8-14  47
139- 7  40, 41
143. 10  40, 48
Proverbs 1. 23  43, 55, 56
8. 1-20  88
8. 22  88
Ecclesiastes 3. 21  39, 41
5. 3  71
12- 7  39. 54
Isaiah 4.4  40
6. 6-10  190, n.
11. 2  65
11. 2, 4  40
28. 6  6
29. 10  6
3°-i  c 6
32. 15  0, 40
34- 16  4°
37-7  6
40. 7  53.54
4°- 13  4°
42. 1  4°, 55. 121
42- 5  54
44-3  40
45-7  21

275

Index

PAGE
Isaiah 48. 16  39
59- 21  4°j55
61. 1. .39, 40, 55, 125,
126, 128, 132, 135
63. 10, 11, 14  40, 46
Ezekiel 2. 2  39, 45
3- 12  39, 45, 55
3-i4  45
8- 3  39, 55
ii- 1, 5  24, 39, 55
"• 5  45
ii- iS  39. SS
ii- 19  4°, 55
i4- 24  39, 41, 55
18  49
33  49
36. 16-39  51
3»- 26, 27  40, 55
37- J  39
37- 14  4°, 55
39- 29  4°, 55
43- 5  39. 55
Daniel 4. 8, 9, 18. . .61, 69, 80
5. 12, 14  61, 69
Hosea 9. 7  5
Joel 2. 28, 29  40, 236
Amos 3. 3-5  44
Micah 2. 7  5
3-8  5
6- 4, 5  47
Zachariah 4. 6  40
12. 1  39, 54,f.
Malachi 2. 15  39, 55
Judith 16.14  62,78,79
Wisdom of Solomon:
1. 5  91, 105
i- 7  93. 97
7- 7  9L i°5
7. 22  91, 96, 97, 99
7- 22, 23  93, 94, n.
8. 9  207
8. 20  104
9- 17  91. io5
11. 24-12. 1  98, f.
12- 1  93. 97
16. 14  94,n.
Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) :
39-6  61, 70, 79
48. 24  60, 69, 79
Susanna 42  61, 79
45  6°
64  61
1 Maccabees 4. 46  70
9. 27  70
14-41  7°
2 Maccabees 3. 24  62
7. 22, f  62, 78
14. 46  62, 78

276

PAGE
4 Maccabees 7. 14  61, 91
Jubilees 2. 2  63
5. 8  61, 69
Martyrdom of Isaiah:
5. 14  6o,n., 79,f.
Psalms of Solomon:
17- 42 (37)  64. 80
18. 8 (7)  64,1., 80
Sibylline Oracles, III, 163,
297, ff., 441, 812-816.. . in
Enoch 15. 4, 6  63
22. 5  78
37. 2, 4, 5, etc  62
40. 7-10  63
49- 3  °4, 78, 80
61. 12  63
62. 2  64, 79
67- 8  77
67. 10  65
70. 2  65, 69, 78
107. 17  78
108. 11  78
Assumption of Moses ... . 63
Apocalypse of Baruch :
23-5  °i
Testaments of the Twelve:
Simon 4  65, 79
Levi 2  60, 79
18  65
Judah 20  79
24  65
Benjamin 4. 8. . . .65, 79, 80
Secrets of Enoch 30. 5. . . . 59
Philo: De Opif. Mundi 27. 100
46  91,1
Leg. Alleg., I, 3  100
De Gigant. 5. . 90, 95 , 101, 105
6  91. i°5
7. 8  101
De Plant. Noe 6  93
De Conf. Ling. 17  103
De Mig. Abra. 7  106
Quis rer. div. her. 30. . 100
52  89, no
53  9°
De Somniis, II, 1  no
Vita Mosis, I, 1  87
III, 33  9°
34  109
36  90
De Spec. Leg., I  io2,f.
Flaccus 21  no
Fragment from John of
Damascus . .92, 94,n., 103
Fragment from John the
Monk  52
Fragment from Eusebius. 103
Quaest., I, 90  91, 95, 106

Index

PAGE
Quaest., II, 59  92
III, 10  103
Matthew 1. 18, 20  143, ff.
3-8  138
3- 11  138
7- 11  125, 127
10. 17—22  i3o,n.
12. 28  125, 126, 128
12. 31, 32.. .124, 128,1,
129, 135, 137
22-43  125, 135
24. 9-14  130, n.
28 19  125, 133,8.
Mark 1. 8  138
1- 9, 10  140
1- 12  i4i,f.
3- 29  125, 129, 135
12- 36  125, 135, 137
13- 9-13  130, n-
13. 11  124, 128, 130, 133
_ 13-12  131, 137. 143
Luke 1. is  148, 149, 153
1 35  143. ff-
i- 41  148, 149. 153
1. 51, 66, 71, 74  126, n.
1-67  149
2. 25, 26, 27  148
3-8  139
3. 16  138
4- 1  148, 153
4. 14  148
4. iS. . . .125, 126, 128,
132, 135, 137
10. 21  148
11. 13  125, 126
11. 20  125
12. io,f  125, 129, 135
12. 12  124, 130, 135
21. 13  131
21. 15  132
John  34,f.
i-9  251
i- 33  140, 234
3. 5, 6, 8  234, 237,
239,1., 245,f
3- 34  141, n., 234, 251
4- 24  234, n.
6. 63  234, 245
7-39  234
7-<53  240,n.
11. 47-S2  161
14. 16  127, 251
14- 17  234, 239
14. 26  248
15- 11  245
15. 26  234, 239
16. 7, 8.-238, 240, 248, 251
16. 13.234, 236,n., 239, 248

PAGE
John 16. 24  245
17-13  245
20. 22  143, 234, 239, 251
Acts 1. 2  154, 189, 251
i-5  138, 251
i-8  154, 174
i- 16  45. 154
2  170, ff., 183
2-4  153. 187
2. IS  163
2. 16  190
2. 25  190
2-33  154. 251
2- 38r  153. 155
4- 5.1  178
4. 8  149, 176
4- 8, 31  153, 187
4- i°  174
4- 24, 25  154, 191
4-3i  178
5- 3. 9. 32  154. 191
5- 32  153
6- 3  149. 187
6. 3, 5. ..153, 176, 183, 187
6. 10  153, 176
7- 51  154, 193
7-55  149. 153. 187
8-13  174
8- i5,f  153. 163, 183
8. 18  162
8- 29, 39  153, 183
9- 17  149. iS3
9- 31  IS4, 178
io- 19  153. x83
10. 38  154, 174, 189
10. 44,ff  153. 162, 163
11. 12  153
ii- i5>f  153. 157. 162
ii- 24  149. iS3
11. 27—30  161
n. 28  153
13- 2, 4  153. l84
13. 9.149, 153, 174, 176, 187
13 47  19°
13- 52  154, 178, 187
15-8  153, 162
15. 28  154, 192
16. 6, 7 . . 153, 184, 186, 189
16. 16—18  216
19- 2  153
19. 6  162, 163
20. 23  153
20. 28  153
21. 4, II  153. I°I
27. 23  186
28. 25  154
28. 26  190
Romans 5. 5  202
77

Index

PAGE
Romans 7  217
8. 2, 6, 9, 11, 14, f. , 16,
23  202
8. 2  205, 229
8. 9  229, 230, 253
8. 16  252
8. 22  212
8. 26  202
9. 1  202
14. 17  202
IS- 13. i°. 3°  202
15. 16  226
15. 19  202
15- 27  225
1 Corinthians 1. 6  131
2  207
2. 1  131
2. 4  202
2. 6—13  202
2. 10—13  202
2. 11  226
3. 11, 19  203, 205
3. 16  203
7. 40  202
9-n  225
10. 3, 4  225
12—14  202
12. 8  202
12. 9, 10  202
14. 16  162, f.
14. 18  214
15- 44,f  224, 225
2 Corinthians 1. 21  202
1. 22  203
3- 3. 8  203
3. 17, 18.. 189, 202, 203, 229
4- 13  202
5-5  202
6. 6  203
11. 14  202
12. 1, If  214
12. 18  203
13- 14  203
Galatians 1. 12  214
2. 20, 21  230
3. 2  162
3- 2-5  202
3-8  157
3- 14  203
4. 6  203, 229, 230
5- 5  205, 230
5-25  230
6. 8  203
Ephesians 1. 3  225
1. 13  202
2. 18, 22  203

PAGE
Ephesians 3.5  202
3. 16  203
4- 3.f- 30  203
5- 18  203
S- 19  22s
6. 12  225
6. 17  203
6. 18  202
Philippians 1. 19  203
2. 1  203
3-3  203
Colossians 1. 8  203
1. 9  225
3. 4  230
» Thessalonians 1. 5, 6... 202
4. 8  202
5. 19  202
5. 23  226
2 Thessalonians 2. 2  202
2. 13  202
1 Timothy 4. 1  202
2 Timothy 1. 14  203
Titus 3.5  203
Hebrews 2. 4  154
3-7  154
6. 4  153
9. 8  154, 190, n.
9-14  154
10. 15  154
10. 29  154
1 Peter 1. 10  160
i- 11  iS4
i- 12  154
4- 14  154
2 Peter 1. 21  154, 191
1 John 2. 20-27  252
3- 24  234, 232
4- 1-6  252
4- 7-13  252
4- 13  234, 248, 254
T S- 7. 8  252
Jude ig  154
„ 20;-.  IS3
Revelation 1.4  154
i- 10  72, 153
2- 7  iS3
3-i  154
4-2  153
4- 5  154
5-6  iS4
14- 13  153
17-3  153
19. 10  131
at. 10  153
22. 17  153

278

Index
II. INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND PERSONS PAGE
Babylonian religion  29. 77
Beyschlag, Professor  209, 238, 245, 246, n., 251, 2S2,f.
Blass, Professor  19 i,n.
Briggs, Professor.  5,n., 6,n.
Brinton, Professor  28,n.
Bruce, Professor  i63,n., 208
Budde, Professor  23, 24
Canaanitish religion  77
Charles, Professor  62, 66, 69
Cheyne, Professor  48
Chinese religion  77
Clarke, Professor  269
Conybeare, Professor  i33,n-
Cornill, Professor  39,n-
Curtiss, Professor.  146
Dalman, Professor  i22,f.
Davidson, Professor A. B  17
Denio, Professor  190, n., 229, n.
Dickson, Professor  1 99 ,n. , 207
Driver, Professor  23
Drummond, Professor James  97, 100, 102, io7,n.
Duhm, Professor  73
Egypt  30
Eusebius  i73.n-
Fritzsch, Professor.  62,n.
Gforrer, Professor.  93,f.
Gilbert, Professor  I30,n.
Gloel, Professor  224, n.
Glossolalia  162
in Acts 2  170.fl.
Gunkel, Professor. .i4,f., I7,ff., 70, 176, 178, n., 184, 210, 224, 240
Hastings's Bible Dictionary.  144, n.
Hernias  72
Hinduism, on relation of God to man. .30, 36, 59, 77, 82,ff., 222
modern movements in  118
Hoben, Dr  i44,n.
Holsten, Professor  224
Holtzmann, Professor  i26,n., i3o,n., 131
Irenaeus  166, i73,n.
Towett, Professor.  199
Kautsch, Professor  6o,n., 62,n., 65
Kleinert, Professor  17
Lake, Professor  !33>n-
Maccabean period  7o,ff.
Mohammedanism  Sg, 86
Moore, Professor G. F  24
Muller, Professor Max  83,n.
Nowack, Professor.  5, 39,n.
Pfleiderer, Professor  17, 207, 224
Prophecy  io.ff .
ceasing of  7°>ff-
early idea  27 ,f., 34
early and later  43,ff-> S'.i-. '"
in Alexandrian Judaism  io6,ff.
Greek element in Philo's theory  1 io,f .
in primitive Christian church  i58,ff.
279

Index PAGE
Prophet and warrior  '  r3,f-
Schmidt, Professor  169
Schultz, Professor  17, 28
Schurer, Professor  99
Shoemaker, Dr  264
Smith, Professor G. A  6,n., 22, 23
Smith, H. P  39- n-
Soul, in Alexandrian Judaism  102, ff.
Speaking with tongues. See Glossolalia.
Spirit, aid to natural powers  14, ff.
supplies supernatural powers  14, f.r 176,1
as God absolute, in Hebrew thought  7, 40,f., 66, 81
in Alexandrian Judaism  94, ff-
in Christian thought. . .154, f., 189, ff., 203,1, 225,3., 256, ff.
as God acting on external world  42, 52, ff., 66, 72, ff.,
78, 8o,f., 97,ff., 104,1
asGodactinginfoUowersof Christ ..132, ff., 155, 204,205,1, 182
in artisan labor  39, 47, 105
as basis of human life. .8, 35, 42, 66, 78, 1, 102, ff., 156, 205, 236
charismatic  7, 41, 48, 66, 105, ff., 214, 235, 237, ff.
classified lists of use  S.S.. 38.6., 60, ff., 89, ff., 124, ff.,
153, ff., 202, ff., 234
in creation  54, 1
definition of, in early church  178
in emotional experiences  44,f-, 71, igs.ff-, 2i4,ff., 261
in emotional conversion  i8i,1
ethical and religious use. . . .48,ff., 58, 8o,l, 119,1, 205,
2I4,ff., 268,1
Holy, origin of usage  121, 1
in Israel's past history  42, 45,1
and Messiah (passing into personal Jesus) . .42,66,1,78, 119,
127, 128, 132, 155, 156,1, 189, 204, 228, ff., 236, 23Q, 253, ff.
and Logos  95,ff-, 247,6., 266,ff.
and Wisdom  95,ff., 105.fl
and miracles  i28,ff., i74,ff.
origin of Hebrew idea  26,6., 4g,f .
of early Christian idea, 156, ff. ;of Paul's idea  206, ff.
of the Johannean idea  238, ff.
Alexandrian element in John  247,6., 257
Pauline elements in Luke, 188; in John  241, ff.
and Old Testament writings  127, igo.l, 236
and prophecy. See Prophecy.
Spirits in early religion  29, 35
Stevens, Professor G. B  254
Tertullian  I73>n.
Thackery, H. St. John  2ii[n.
Theosophy  us'
Toy, Professor  73
Walker, W. L  i45,n., 231, 256,1
Weinel, Dr  164, 167, 169, 172, 196
Weiss, Professor B  24 ci 246, n.
Weizsacker, Professor  ' 102'n!
Wellhausen, Professor  S, 23'
Wendt, Professor. . 17, 32,n., 39,n., 70, i28,n., 131, 210, 236,11'., 24o,n.
Wernle  I4»
Wesley, John  '.'.'.'.'.'. i64,ff.
Zeller  gQ
Zoroastnanism  2i4,n. 223
280