RUACH PNEUMA WIND BREATH SPIRIT

Sunday is Pentecost, when we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit into the Church. From whence cometh the Holy Spirit? From where does the Holy Spirit come, proceed?

The Bible

Of the Holy Spirit, Jesus said (John 15:26) 

Ὅταν ἔλθῃ ὁ παράκλητος ὃν ἐγὼ πέμψω ὑμῖν παρὰ τοῦ πατρὸς, τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας ὁ παρὰ τοῦ πατρὸς ἐκπορεύεται, ἐκεῖνος μαρτυρήσει περὶ ἐμοῦ·

But when the Paraclete cometh, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceedeth from the Father, he shall give testimony of me. (Douay-Rheims Bible)

Incidentally, depending on the English translation, παράκλητος is rendered variously as Advocate, Comforter, Counselor, Helper, Paraclete. It's all the same.

The Nicene Creed

The original Greek form of the Nicene Creed of 381 A.D. says, as does Jesus at John 15:26, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. About the sixth century the Western (Roman, Latin) Church started adding the phrase “and the Son,” which is called the filioque (literally son-and). In the eleventh century A.D. the Vatican added the filioque as officially part of the Latin version of the Nicene Creed. Thus, being of the Western Church, we say of the Holy Spirit, “who proceeds from the Father and the Son.” 

The Western Church’s unilateral addition of the filioque was a cause of the Great Schism of 1054 A.D. in which the Eastern (Orthodox) Church and the Western (Roman) Church split. The schism is still not healed. But the 1994 General Convention of The Episcopal Church resolved to delete the filioque from the Nicene Creed at the next revision of The Book of Common Prayer. The filioque has in fact already been deleted in the authorized prayer book supplement Enriching Our Worship, such that the line now reads “who proceeds from the Father.”

So then, from whence cometh the Holy Spirit, and also, what is the Holy Spirit? 

In the New Testament the Greek word pneuma means wind, breath, spirit. It mirrors the Hebrew word ruach in the Old Testament: wind, breath, spirit. Interestingly, both words actually expel their meaning in their pronunciation: wind, breath is exhaled in saying the Hebrew word ruach; wind, breath is exhaled in saying the Greek word p-neuma (the “p” is not silent in the Greek pronounciation, but rather is “spit out” -- Pneuma). 

Bible Again

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit (Hebrew ruach) of God moved over the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:1f). Here ruach also is variously translated “wind of God,” “wind from God,” “breath of God,” even “breeze from God.” It conveys that in the beginning the wind blowing over the chaotic body of primeval sea was blown by God. Whoof! The intent of the Jewish “P or Priestly writer” (whom scholars say set the first creation story down in writing during the first millennium B.C., perhaps after the 538 B.C return from the Babylonian exile) -- the P writer did not mean to imply a spirit who was an individual being. Nevertheless, that is the meaning that we Christians bring out of the story. Thus, the wind of God, or breath of God, or spirit of God, or Holy Spirit, proceeded from the Father. 

In the Beginning (Genesis One), was that ruach or pneuma from God simply the force of God’s breath stirring a wind, or was the ruach or pneuma alive, enlivened, quickened, blown, blowing and proceeding with life?

Creed Again

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life (see Genesis 2:7); who proceeds from the Father. With the Father and the Son, he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the prophets.

Peace.

Tom+