The word spirit, pneuma, occurs 20 times
in John's gospel. With possibly one or two exceptions (11:33; 13:21), these
references all seem connected to roughly the same invisible, inner reality
which John at times calls "the holy spirit." This is our first impression when
reading John's text, as we saw in the previous chapter. But in our
twentieth-century situation we cannot but fill the word spirit with
unwarranted connotations. We should guard ourselves against such unproven
assumptions. We may not read into the text ideas about the Holy Spirit that
have become commonplace in later centuries. We are not allowed to take for
granted that Matthew, Luke or Paul had the same concept of spirit as the
evangelist John. This means that we have to study the data objectively and be
prepared to come up with surprises.
The evangelists were not philosophers. They did not employ well-defined, precisely circumscribed terms. They used language as we use it ourselves: with one and the same word denoting a whole range of objects and associated ideas. The simple word "rail" may refer to a metal bar extending from one post to another or to a railway track; or to a whole railroad system as when we say "I'l1 send it by rail." Language defies precise definitions because words do not cover entire meanings. They refer loosely to different aspects of a cluster of experiences. Take the word "ghost.'' It can stand for a disembodied soul; for an apparition haunting an old mansion; for something flimsy ("You have not a ghost of a chance"); for an unseen presence (as in "ghost writer'); or for God in the ancient expression "the Holy Ghost."
What we shall try to do in this chapter is to identify, as well as we can, that mosaic of experiences which in John was somehow evoked by the expression "spirit." As always, our way in will be through language. Although John's gospel was written in Greek, we will have to start with Hebrew and Aramaic, the source languages from which he drew his religious terminology.
Manifestations of the Invisible God
John is so Hellenistic in his thinking that the question might arise whether we need to dig deeper than Greek. Scholars have sometimes debated the precise extent of John's preoccupation with Jewish tradition. Were there converts from Judaism in the Johannine communities? Did John need to anchor his theological reflections in Jewish thought?
The question has been adequately resolved. There are clear indications in the gospel that the Johannine community had to defend itself against persecutions by the orthodox Jews. It seems almost certain that the gospel, at least in its final redaction, sought to counter the anti-Christian decisions of the Council of Jabneh (95 AD). There the Rabbis under Rabban Gamaliel had reformulated the Eighteen Benedictions in such a way that no Christian Jew could any longer pronounce them. The twelfth benediction now read: "Let the Nazarenes and heretics be destroyed in a moment. Let them be blotted out of the Book of Life.'(1) The excommunication of the blind man (9:34) refers to the historical confrontation thus caused.(2) The typically Johannine way of making "the Jews" responsible for Jesus' death, of holding them up as models of unbelief, points in the same direction.(3)
But John's Jewish thinking goes deeper than that. The whole scheme of the gospel rests on the Jewish number of blessing: seven weeks of encounters, seven "I AM'' image words, seven miracles.(4) John frequently refers to OT figures, such as Moses and Elijah. John betrays familiarity with rabbinical jargon and rabbinical theology as found in the Targums.(5) John knows his Jewish sources.
Pneuma is the Septuagint translation of ruach, wind. The wind is an extraordinary phenomenon. It cannot be seen; but it can be known by its effects. lt can overthrow buildings (Ezek 13: 13) and wreck ships (Ezek 27:26). It can scorch the earth (Ex 14:21) or carry clouds filled with rain (1 Kings 18:45). Though escaping direct observation, it can be known by what it does. Every living being, whether animal or human, has such a wind, or "breath" that gives life to the body and drives it from inside. This original meaning agreed well with the classical meaning of pneuma in Greek, which in its root and daily usage carried the sense 'wind' and 'breath.' lt was entirely natural for John to make Jesus say: "The pneuma blows where it wills. You hear its sound, but you do not know its origin or destination. So it is with every person who is born of the pneuma'' (3:8).
What is typically Jewish was that pneuma was never separated from God. lt was God who had direct control over the wind. It was God, too, who infused breath into living beings (Gen 2:7; 6:3; Job 33:4) and who claimed it back at death (Job 34:14-1S; Eccl 12:7; Wis l5: l l). Everything that belonged to human psychology: joy, sorrow, jealousy, anger, hatred, love, manifested the spirit. But even the evil manifestations of this spirit owed their existence to God. He made Abimelech's spirit contentious (Judg 9:23), Saul's spirit envious (1 Sam 19:9) and Zedekiah's spirit deceitful ( 1 Kings 22:23).
God's action was seen even more clearly when ordinary human beings were suddenly empowered to give leadership. It was as if human psychology was then temporarily taken over by God himself. "The spirit of Jahweh came upon Othniel and he ruled Israel" (Judg 3:10). "The spirit of Jahweh took charge of Gideon and he sounded the trumpet" (Judg 6:34). "The spirit of Jahweh came mightily upon Samson and he tore the lion to pieces" (Judg 14:6). Again, God's presence could not be directly seen; it was known by what it did.
The spirit of God was to be manifest in a particular way in his ideal servant foreseen in Isaiah. "The spirit of Jahweh shall rest upon him" (Is 11:2). The image is enlarged in Deutero- and Trito-lsaiah. "This is my servant . . . 1 have put my spirit upon him" (Is 42:1). "The spirit of the Lord is upon me" (Is 61:1). All such texts enumerate the tangible effects by which God's intervention shall be known: the servant's sevenfold wisdom (ls 1 1:23), his gentle and effective witness (Is 42:1-7), his acts of liberation (Is 61:1-4).
These then were the associations which John knew from his OT sources: God's direct intervention; inner dynamism; marvellous effects that go beyond human power; manifestations of God's interior reality. All these associations of spirit we find back in John. And he might have been struck by the opposition between the power of the spirit that comes from God and the weakness of human flesh. "The Egyptians are human, not divine; their horses are flesh, not spirit" (Is 31:3).
Such thinking in opposites was rather characteristic of Greek thought. Hellenist as he was, John was influenced by a dualistic world view. The universe could roughly be divided into two halves: the upper sphere, home of the divine, and the lower sphere, abode of material things. ln the realm above resided the eternal, unchangeable realities of God: light, knowledge and mind. In the realm below, which John calls "this world," we find darkness, ignorance and matter. Speaking about Jesus, John can say: "He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth, belongs to the earth and of the earth is his message" (3:31). Or more directly: "You are from below, I am from above. You belong to this world; 1 do not" (8:23).
In some Greek thinking, spirit was an entity where the 'above' and the 'belong' compenetrated. It was thought of as a tenuous form of air that came from above, but that pervaded the whole material world, causing life to erupt in plants, animals and human beings. This life-giving and thought-producing gas was said to be infinite and to animate the whole universe so that through it we are united to all other living beings. “This spirit all things need; for holding up all things, in proportion to what they deserve, it gives them life and feeds them. It depends on the holy fountain. It sustains all spirits and produces life in all. It is the only reality that generates new life.” (6) In every man and woman there was a manifestation of this spirit. ln fact, all psychological phenomena were attributed to this inner reality which was sometimes distinguished from, sometimes identified with 'soul,' psyche. John reflects this usage when he says that Jesus was moved 'in the spirit' (1 1:33) or that he was troubled 'in the spirit' ( 13:21).(7) Stating that Jesus 'gave up the spirit' ( 19:30), in the sense of returning life to its source, would agree both to OT and Greek language.
But spirit had come to mean much more in the religious circles to whom John was trying to present Christianity. They were seeking direct access to the world of incorruptible light and life.
They wanted to be liberated from matter and darkness by an experience of the eternal realities. They were hoping to reach out to God by the experience of spirit in themselves. In the Hermetic treatise on Rebirth the initiate prayed in these words:
I thank you, O Father, energy of the powers.
I thank you, O God, power of my energies.
Your Word praises you through me....Save us, O Life.
Enlighten us, O Light.
Give us spirit, O God!The understanding (you gave me) protects your Word,
O Spirit-bearer,
O Creator!You are God! Your man cries this
through fire,
through air,
through earth,
through water,
through spirit,
through all your creatures.(8)
The experience of spirit had become a mystical link to God.
For Jewish Hellenists it was not difficult to see the connection between this 'experience of spirit' in mysticism and the experience of Jahweh's spirit recounted in the OT. Philo of Alexandria (30BC-50AD) described how it happened to Moses. Notice the transition from a state of rest to dynamic insight and activity:
“Moses said these things, still in a calm way. Suddenly he paused. Then becoming possessed by God, inspired by the spirit which habitually and often came upon him, he uttered this prophetic oracle: ‘Those fully armed troops which you now see . . . will disappear into the ocean depths!’”(9)
Philo narrated a similar transformation in Moses on other occasions. "No longer being in himself, being carried away by God, he prophesied" (II,250). And, "Moses no longer remained his own self and utterly changed both in appearance and in mind, as he prophesied'' (II,272). Praising the profundity of Moses' teachings, Philo ascribed them to the same gift of spirit. 'Such insights are natural in prophecy. For his mind could never so accurately have hit the right points, if it had not been for a divine spirit guiding him to that truth" (II,265).
We can be sure that this mixture of Greek and Hebrew thinking was the context for John's use of the term 'spirit.' Spirit was a natural element in all living things, the underlying cause of life and mind. But spirit could break through in a spectacular way whenever God took hold of a human person; when God filled a chosen servant with his energy so that he or she could perform extraordinary things.
The third source of Johannine terminology was Christian tradition. In spite of John's bold adoption of Hellenistic turns of phrase, he can consistently be shown to have been faithful to the same traditional beliefs that underlie Mark, Matthew and Luke.(10) John for example, makes Jesus frequently speak of "life" and "eternal life" in a Hellenistic sense; on closer analysis, we find it is his ingenious and inventive translation of the Semitic term "the kingdom of heaven."(11) What did his Christian sources say about spirit?
The apostolic preaching that can be distilled from the synoptic gospels and the Acts contained the firm belief that the spirit promised to the Suffering Servant in Isaiah had been poured out with the coming of Jesus. John the Baptist had announced a baptism in the holy spirit (Mk 1:8; Mt 3:11; Lk 3:16). Jesus, himself, was anointed with the holy spirit, fulfilling Isaiah 42:1 (Mk 1:10-11; Mt 3:16-17; Lk 3:21-22) and Isaiah 61:1-2 (Lk 4:18-19). Jesus promised the gift of the same spirit to his disciples (Mk 13:11; Mt 10:20; Lk 12:12; 11:13). This outpouring of spirit took place after the resurrection, fulfilling Joel 2:28-32 (Acts 2: 1-21).
John retained all these traditional articles of the early creed in his gospel. It is striking that he even retains the expression holy spirit when touching on them directly; he normally avoids the adjective 'holy.' John the Baptist testified: "1 have seen the spirit descending from heaven as a dove. It rested on him. I myself did not know him; but the one who sent me to baptize with water, he it was who told me: 'If ever you see the spirit descending and resting on a person, he it is who baptizes with holy spirit" (1:32-33). After the resurrection he breathed over his disciples and said: "Receive holy spirit" (20:Z2).
Even in these traditional texts the ambivalence and fluidity of John's terms are apparent. Sometimes he speaks of the holy spirit in personifying images: he descends as a dove. But then again he speaks of holy spirit without article as a quality, as a gift we receive, as an experience overwhelming us at baptism. And how to sum up the reality he describes as 'spirit and truth' (4:23) or 'spirit and life'(6:63)?
ln the chapters that are to follow we will try to untangle different knots in that complex Johannine notion of spirit. From our study of its contextual meaning in rabbinical, Hellenistic and Christian circles we may identify one element as central: wherever there is spirit, people are seen to be seized by God, are being overwhelmed. As with Philo's Moses, the core of the 'spirit event' is an experience: the experience of a transformation that empowers and endows. John tells us that we will have such an experience, if we live in Jesus.
1. J.L. Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel, Abingdon, Nashville 1969, p. 58.
2. F. Manns, "L'Evangile de Jean, réponse chrétienne aux décisions de Jabne," Studii Biblici Franciscani Liber Annus 32 (1982) 85-108.
3. R. Fuller, "The 'Jews' in the Fourth Gospel'" Dialog 16 (1977) 31-37; S. Wilson, "Anti-Judaism in the Fourth Gospel? Some considerations," Irish Biblical Studies I (1979) 28-50; U.C. von Wahlde, "The Johannine 'Jews': A critical survey," New Testament Studies 28 (1982) 33-60; J.E. Leibig, "John and 'the Jews': Theological Antisemitism in the Fourth Gospel," Journal of Ecumenical Studies 20 ( 1983) 209-234.
4. M.E. Boismard,"L'Evangile à quatre dimensions," Lumière et Vie I (1951)94-114.
5. J. Luzarraga, "Fondo targúmico del cuarto evangélio," Estudios Eeclesiásticos 49 (1974) 251-263; G. Reim'"Targum und Johannes-evangelium,'' Biblische Zeitschrift 27 ( 1983) 1 -1 3.
6. In Discourse of Hermes to Asclepius quoted by Cyril of Alexandria. C.H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, Cambridge University Press, London 1980, p. 216.
7. G. Ferraro maintains 'spirit' should not be interpreted anthropologically in this text. He sees in it a working of the Holy Spirit (Revista Biblica 28 (1980) 185-211). Since the various meanings of'spirit' overlap in John, we need not exclude an allusion to the Holy Spirit, even if the evangelist used a standard psychological expression.
8. Corpus Hermeticum XIII, De Regeneratione. cf Dood, o.c. p.47.
9. Philo, De Vita Moses 1, par. 175; cf. Documents for the Study of the Gospels, ed. D.R. Cartlidge and D.l,. Duncan, Collins, London p.275.
10. A.M. Hunter, According to John. A new look at the Fourth Gospel, Westminster Press, Philadelphia 1968, pp. 90-96.
11. J Wijngaards, The Gospel of John and his Letters, Michael Glazier, Wilmington 1986, pp. 209-215.