Who Believes in “Spirit”? in Pagan Usage and Implications for the Gentile Christian Mission

Abstract

[squf ] Introduction As the Christian church spread into the Gentile world, one of the most prominent facets of its teaching and of the worship-experience of Christians was their understanding of the Holy Spirit. A great deal has been written during the past century on the Spirit in early Christianity, particularly in association with Paul's letters to the Corinthians. Yet surprisingly little has been done even in the last quarter century either to investigate the pagan conceptual world into which this preaching was introduced—in regard to this topic, that is—or to apply insights from earlier studies. This is true despite an increasing awareness of the importance of studying late Hellenistic and Roman culture for understanding early Gentile Christianity. What was the pre-Christian understanding of by pagan Greek-speakers? What was the shape of their religious conceptions? How did their worldview compare to the Christian message at this point? Aside from short notes in theological dictionaries and a few earlier studies, E.g., Ernest DeWitt Burton, Spirit, Soul and Flesh: The Usage of Pneuma, Psuche, and Sarx in Greek Writings and Translated Works from the Earliest Period to 180 A.D.; and of their Equivalents Ruach, Nephesh, and Basar in the Hebrew Old Testament (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1918); Hermann Kleinknecht, “ in the Greek World,” TDNT 6.334–359; Eberhard Kamlah, “Spirit, Holy Spirit” NIDNTT , 3.689–90; Marie Isaacs, The Concept of Spirit: A Study of Pneuma in Hellenistic Judaism and its Bearing on the New Testament (Heythrop Monographs 1; London: Heythrop College, 1976), though as the title indicates this last work devotes little space to non-Jewish Greek writers, and when it does there is no discussion of the evidence. Isaacs does make a number of comparisons between the Stoic use of and Hellenistic Judaism, depending on secondary works for the former, since the latter is her main focus. Generally overlooked by biblical scholars is Geerard Verbeke, L'Evolution de la Doctrine du Pneuma: du Stoicisme a S. Augustin (Paris: Descleee de Brouwer, 1945). David Aune also has some useful notes on Greco-Roman prophecy and oracles in Prophecy in Early Christianity and the Ancient Mediterranean World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), though he is not concerned to compare the conception of the Spirit in Christianity to pagan notions of divine intermediaries. The recent study by Franz Dunzl ( Pneuma: Funktionen des theologischen Begriffs in fruhchristlicher Literatur [JACSup 30; Munster: Aschendorf, 2000]) is concerned only with early patristic usage. one looks in vain in commentaries and monographs for an answer to these questions. Interest generally lies in the influences on Paul and what he thought about the Spirit, or to a lesser extent the postconversion views of his churches, but not their preconversion Gentile conceptions. And since the current trend in Pauline studies is (rightly, in my opinion) to look for the Jewish roots of his thought, there seems little incentive to pursue Greco-Roman notions. Yet the answer to these questions may give some insight into the early Gentile Christians' own understanding and, in addition, shed light on the process of cross-cultural communication of the gospel message in the first century.