Thomas Hobbes · Complete work
Part III, Chapter XXXIV, 1
Part III, Chapter XXXIV, 1 of 101. Read it here for reference, or continue through the entire work without leaving the reader.
Open the complete readerOriginal 17th-century English
OF THE SIGNIFICATION OF SPIRIT, ANGEL, AND INSPIRATION IN THE BOOKS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE
Seeing the foundation of all true Ratiocination, is the constant Signification of words; which in the Doctrine following, dependeth not (as in naturall science) on the Will of the Writer, nor (as in common conversation) on vulgar use, but on the sense they carry in the Scripture; It is necessary, before I proceed any further, to determine, out of the Bible, the meaning of such words, as by their ambiguity, may render what I am to inferre upon them, obscure, or disputable. I will begin with the words BODY, and SPIRIT, which in the language of the Schools are termed, Substances, Corporeall, and Incorporeall.
The Word Body, in the most generall acceptation, signifieth that which filleth, or occupyeth some certain room, or imagined place; and dependeth not on the imagination, but is a reall part of that we call the Universe. For the Universe, being the Aggregate of all Bodies, there is no reall part thereof that is not also Body; nor any thing properly a Body, that is not also part of (that Aggregate of all Bodies) the Universe. The same also, because Bodies are subject to change, that is to say, to variety of apparence to the sense of living creatures, is called Substance, that is to say, Subject, to various accidents, as sometimes to be Moved, sometimes to stand Still; and to seem to our senses sometimes Hot, sometimes Cold, sometimes of one Colour, Smel, Tast, or Sound, somtimes of another. And this diversity of Seeming, (produced by the diversity of the operation of bodies, on the organs of our sense) we attribute to alterations of the Bodies that operate, & call them Accidents of those Bodies. And according to this acceptation of the word, Substance and Body, signifie the same thing; and therefore Substance Incorporeall are words, which when they are joined together, destroy one another, as if a man should say, an Incorporeall Body.
But in the sense of common people, not all the Universe is called Body, but only such parts thereof as they can discern by the sense of Feeling, to resist their force, or by the sense of their Eyes, to hinder them from a farther prospect. Therefore in the common language of men, Aire, and Aeriall Substances, use not to be taken for Bodies, but (as often as men are sensible of their effects) are called Wind, or Breath, or (because the some are called in the Latine Spiritus) Spirits; as when they call that aeriall substance, which in the body of any living creature, gives it life and motion, Vitall and Animall Spirits. But for those Idols of the brain, which represent Bodies to us, where they are not, as in a Looking-glasse, in a Dream, or to a Distempered brain waking, they are (as the Apostle saith generally of all Idols) nothing; Nothing at all, I say, there where they seem to bee; and in the brain it self, nothing but tumult, proceeding either from the action of the objects, or from the disorderly agitation of the Organs of our Sense. And men, that are otherwise imployed, then to search into their causes, know not of themselves, what to call them; and may therefore easily be perswaded, by those whose knowledge they much reverence, some to call them Bodies, and think them made of aire compacted by a power supernaturall, because the sight judges them corporeall; and some to call them Spirits, because the sense of Touch discerneth nothing in the place where they appear, to resist their fingers: So that the proper signification of Spirit in common speech, is either a subtile, fluid, and invisible Body, or a Ghost, or other Idol or Phantasme of the Imagination. But for metaphoricall significations, there be many: for sometimes it is taken for Disposition or Inclination of the mind; as when for the disposition to controwl the sayings of other men, we say, A Spirit Contradiction; For A Disposition to Uncleannesse, An Unclean Spirit; for Perversenesse, A Froward Spirit; for Sullennesse, A Dumb Spirit, and for Inclination To Godlinesse, And Gods Service, the Spirit of God: sometimes for any eminent ability, or extraordinary passion, or disease of the mind, as when Great Wisdome is called the Spirit Of Wisdome; and Mad Men are said to be Possessed With A Spirit.
Other signification of Spirit I find no where any; and where none of these can satisfie the sense of that word in Scripture, the place falleth not under humane Understanding; and our Faith therein consisteth not in our Opinion, but in our Submission; as in all places where God is said to be a Spirit; or where by the Spirit of God, is meant God himselfe. For the nature of God is incomprehensible; that is to say, we understand nothing of What He Is, but only That He Is; and therefore the Attributes we give him, are not to tell one another, What He Is, Nor to signifie our opinion of his Nature, but our desire to honor him with such names as we conceive most honorable amongst our selves.
Gen. 1. 2. “The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the Waters.” Here if by the Spirit of God be meant God himself, then is Motion attributed to God, and consequently Place, which are intelligible only of Bodies, and not of substances incorporeall; and so the place is above our understanding, that can conceive nothing moved that changes not place, or that has not dimension; and whatsoever has dimension, is Body. But the meaning of those words is best understood by the like place, Gen. 8. 1. Where when the earth was covered with Waters, as in the beginning, God intending to abate them, and again to discover the dry land, useth like words, “I will bring my Spirit upon the Earth, and the waters shall be diminished:” in which place by Spirit is understood a Wind, (that is an Aire or Spirit Moved,) which might be called (as in the former place) the Spirit of God, because it was Gods Work.
Gen. 41. 38. Pharaoh calleth the Wisdome of Joseph, the Spirit of God. For Joseph having advised him to look out a wise and discreet man, and to set him over the land of Egypt, he saith thus, “Can we find such a man as this is, in whom is the Spirit of God?” and Exod. 28.3. “Thou shalt speak (saith God) to all that are wise hearted, whom I have filled with the Spirit of Wisdome, to make Aaron Garments, to consecrate him.” Where extraordinary Understanding, though but in making Garments, as being the Gift of God, is called the Spirit of God. The same is found again, Exod. 31.3,4,5,6. and 35.31. And Isaiah 11.2,3. where the Prophet speaking of the Messiah, saith, “The Spirit of the Lord shall abide upon him, the Spirit of wisdome and understanding, the Spirit of counsell, and fortitude; and the Spirit of the fear of the Lord.” Where manifestly is meant, not so many Ghosts, but so many eminent Graces that God would give him.
In the Book of Judges, an extraordinary Zeal, and Courage in the defence of Gods people, is called the Spirit of God; as when it excited Othoniel, Gideon, Jeptha, and Samson to deliver them from servitude, Judg. 3.10. 6.34. 11.29. 13.25. 14.6,19. And of Saul, upon the newes of the insolence of the Ammonites towards the men of Jabeth Gilead, it is said (1 Sam.11.6.) that “The Spirit of God came upon Saul, and his Anger (or, as it is in the Latine, His Fury) was kindled greatly.” Where it is not probable was meant a Ghost, but an extraordinary Zeal to punish the cruelty of the Ammonites. In like manner by the Spirit of God, that came upon Saul, when hee was amongst the Prophets that praised God in Songs, and Musick (1 Sam.19.20.) is to be understood, not a Ghost, but an unexpected and sudden Zeal to join with them in their devotions.
The false Prophet Zedekiah, saith to Micaiah (1 Kings 22.24.) “Which way went the Spirit of the Lord from me to speak to thee?” Which cannot be understood of a Ghost; for Micaiah declared before the Kings of Israel and Judah, the event of the battle, as from a Vision, and not as from a Spirit, speaking in him.
In the same manner it appeareth, in the Books of the Prophets, that though they spake by the Spirit of God, that is to say, by a speciall grace of Prediction; yet their knowledge of the future, was not by a Ghost within them, but by some supernaturall Dream or Vision.
Gen. 2.7. It is said, “God made man of the dust of the Earth, and breathed into his nostrills (spiraculum vitae) the breath of life, and man was made a living soul.” There the Breath of Life inspired by God, signifies no more, but that God gave him life; And (Job 27.3.) “as long as the Spirit of God is in my nostrils;” is no more then to say, “as long as I live.” So in Ezek. 1.20. “the Spirit of life was in the wheels,” is equivalent to, “the wheels were alive.” And (Ezek. 2.30.) “the spirit entred into me, and set me on my feet,” that is, “I recovered my vitall strength;” not that any Ghost, or incorporeal substance entred into, and possessed his body.
In the 11 chap. of Numbers. verse 17. “I will take (saith God) of the Spirit, which is upon thee, and will put it upon them, and they shall bear the burthen of the people with thee;” that is, upon the seventy Elders: whereupon two of the seventy are said to prophecy in the campe; of whom some complained, and Joshua desired Moses to forbid them; which Moses would not doe. Whereby it appears; that Joshua knew not they had received authority so to do, and prophecyed according to the mind of Moses, that is to say, by a Spirit, or Authority subordinate to his own.
In the like sense we read (Deut. 34.9.) that “Joshua was full of the Spirit of wisdome,” because Moses had laid his hands upon him: that is, because he was Ordained by Moses, to prosecute the work hee had himselfe begun, (namely, the bringing of Gods people into the promised land), but prevented by death, could not finish.
In the like sense it is said, (Rom. 8.9.) “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his:” not meaning thereby the Ghost of Christ, but a Submission to his Doctrine. As also (1 John 4.2.) “Hereby you shall know the Spirit of God; Every Spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God;” by which is meant the Spirit of unfained Christianity, or Submission to that main Article of Christian faith, that Jesus is the Christ; which cannot be interpreted of a Ghost.
Likewise these words (Luke 4.1.) “And Jesus full of the Holy Ghost” (that is, as it is exprest, Mat. 4.1. and Mar. 1.12. “of the Holy Spirit”,) may be understood, for Zeal to doe the work for which hee was sent by God the Father: but to interpret it of a Ghost, is to say, that God himselfe (for so our Saviour was,) was filled with God; which is very unproper, and unsignificant. How we came to translate Spirits, by the word Ghosts, which signifieth nothing, neither in heaven, nor earth, but the Imaginary inhabitants of mans brain, I examine not: but this I say, the word Spirit in the text signifieth no such thing; but either properly a reall Substance, or Metaphorically, some extraordinary Ability of Affection of the Mind, or of the Body.
The Disciples of Christ, seeing him walking upon the sea, (Mat. 14.26. and Marke 6.49.) supposed him to be a Spirit, meaning thereby an Aeriall Body, and not a Phantasme: for it is said, they all saw him; which cannot be understood of the delusions of the brain, (which are not common to many at once, as visible Bodies are; but singular, because of the differences of Fancies), but of Bodies only. In like manner, where he was taken for a Spirit, by the same Apostles (Luke 24.3,7.): So also (Acts 12.15) when St. Peter was delivered out of Prison, it would not be beleeved; but when the Maid said he was at the dore, they said it was his Angel; by which must be meant a corporeall substance, or we must say, the Disciples themselves did follow the common opinion of both Jews and Gentiles, that some such apparitions were not Imaginary, but Reall; and such as needed not the fancy of man for their Existence: These the Jews called Spirits, and Angels, Good or Bad; as the Greeks called the same by the name of Daemons. And some such apparitions may be reall, and substantiall; that is to say, subtile Bodies, which God can form by the same power, by which he formed all things, and make use of, as of Ministers, and Messengers (that is to say, Angels) to declare his will, and execute the same when he pleaseth, in extraordinary and supernaturall manner. But when hee hath so formed them they are Substances, endued with dimensions, and take up roome, and can be moved from place to place, which is peculiar to Bodies; and therefore are not Ghosts Incorporeall, that is to say, Ghosts that are in No Place; that is to say, that are No Where; that is to say, that seeming to be Somewhat, are Nothing. But if corporeall be taken in the most vulgar manner, for such Substances as are perceptible by our externall Senses; then is Substance Incorporeall, a thing not Imaginary, but Reall; namely, a thin Substance Invisible, but that hath the same dimensions that are in grosser Bodies.
By the name of ANGEL, is signified generally, a Messenger; and most often, a Messenger of God: And by a Messenger of God, is signified, any thing that makes known his extraordinary Presence; that is to say, the extraordinary manifestation of his power, especially by a Dream, or Vision.
Musean translation
Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from the complete 1651 English text (introduction, forty-seven chapters, review and conclusion) for fidelity, the author’s force and cadence, and modern clarity. Hobbes’s marginal summaries are omitted.
ON THE MEANING OF SPIRIT, ANGEL, AND INSPIRATION IN THE BOOKS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE
Since the foundation of all sound reasoning is the consistent meaning of words, and since in the doctrine that follows their meaning depends neither on the writer's will (as in natural science) nor on common usage (as in ordinary conversation), but on the sense they bear in Scripture, I must determine from the Bible, before proceeding further, the meaning of words whose ambiguity might make the conclusions I draw from them obscure or open to dispute. I shall begin with BODY and SPIRIT, which in the language of the Schools are called corporeal and incorporeal substances.
The word body, in its broadest sense, means something that fills or occupies a certain space or imaginable place; it does not depend on imagination, but is a real part of what we call the universe. For since the universe is the aggregate of all bodies, no real part of it is not also a body, nor is anything properly a body that is not also part of the universe, that aggregate of all bodies. This same thing, because bodies are subject to change—that is, to changes in how they appear to living creatures' senses—is also called substance, meaning a subject of various accidents: sometimes moving, sometimes still; seeming to our senses sometimes hot, sometimes cold, sometimes of one color, smell, taste, or sound, and sometimes of another. This diversity of appearances (produced by the different ways bodies act on our sense organs) we attribute to changes in the bodies that act, and call them accidents of those bodies. In this sense, substance and body mean the same thing. Thus the words incorporeal substance, joined together, cancel each other out, as they would if someone said an incorporeal body.
But in common understanding, not all the universe is called body, only those parts of it that people can perceive by touch to resist their force, or by sight to obstruct their view beyond. Thus in ordinary speech, air and aerial substances are not usually taken for bodies, but (whenever people sense their effects) are called wind or breath, or, because these are called spiritus in Latin, spirits; as when people call the aerial substance that gives a living creature's body life and motion its vital and animal spirits. As for those idols of the brain that present bodies to us where they are not, as in a mirror, in a dream, or to a disordered brain while awake, they are (as the Apostle says of all idols generally) nothing: nothing at all, I say, where they seem to be; and in the brain itself nothing but tumult, arising either from the action of objects or from the disorderly agitation of our sense organs. People occupied with other matters than investigating their causes do not know for themselves what to call them. They can therefore easily be persuaded by those whose knowledge they greatly respect: some to call them bodies, imagining them made of air compacted by a supernatural power, because sight judges them corporeal; others to call them spirits, because touch finds nothing where they appear that resists the fingers. Thus in ordinary speech spirit properly means either a subtle, fluid, invisible body, or a ghost or other idol or phantom of the imagination. But it has many metaphorical meanings. Sometimes it means a disposition or inclination of mind: an inclination to contradict what others say is called a spirit of contradiction; an inclination to impurity, an unclean spirit; perversity, a stubborn spirit; sullenness, a dumb spirit; and an inclination toward godliness and God's service, the Spirit of God. Sometimes it means an outstanding ability or an extraordinary passion or disease of mind, as when great wisdom is called the spirit of wisdom, and madmen are said to be possessed by a spirit.
I find no other meaning of spirit anywhere. Where none of these meanings can make sense of that word in Scripture, the passage lies beyond human understanding, and our faith in it consists not in our opinion but in our submission. This is so wherever God is said to be a spirit, or the Spirit of God means God himself. For God's nature is incomprehensible: we understand nothing of what he is, only that he is. The attributes we give him, therefore, are not intended to tell one another what he is, nor to express our opinion of his nature, but to express our desire to honor him with names that we consider most honorable among ourselves.
Gen. 1. 2. “The Spirit of God moved over the face of the waters.” If Spirit of God here means God himself, then motion, and consequently place, are attributed to God, though these are intelligible only of bodies, not of incorporeal substances. The passage would thus be beyond our understanding: we cannot conceive of something moving without changing place, or without having dimensions; and whatever has dimensions is a body. But the words are best understood through a similar passage, Gen. 8. 1. When the earth was covered with waters, as in the beginning, and God intended to reduce them and expose dry land again, he used similar words: “I will bring my Spirit over the earth, and the waters shall diminish.” Here spirit means a wind (that is, air or spirit in motion), which could be called the Spirit of God, as in the former passage, because it was God's work.
Gen. 41. 38. Pharaoh calls Joseph's wisdom the Spirit of God. Joseph had advised him to seek out a wise and discreet man and set him over the land of Egypt, and Pharaoh says, “Can we find a man such as this, in whom is the Spirit of God?” And Exod. 28.3. “You shall speak,” says God, “to all who are wise-hearted, whom I have filled with the Spirit of Wisdom, to make Aaron garments, to consecrate him.” Here exceptional understanding, even if only in making garments, is called the Spirit of God because it is God's gift. The same occurs again in Exod. 31.3,4,5,6. and 35.31. And in Isaiah 11.2,3. the Prophet, speaking of the Messiah, says, “The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and fortitude; and the Spirit of the fear of the Lord.” Plainly this means not so many ghosts, but so many outstanding gifts of grace that God would give him.
In the Book of Judges, exceptional zeal and courage in defense of God's people are called the Spirit of God, as when it stirred Othoniel, Gideon, Jeptha, and Samson to deliver them from servitude, Judg. 3.10. 6.34. 11.29. 13.25. 14.6,19. And of Saul, on hearing news of the Ammonites' insolence toward the men of Jabeth Gilead, it is said (1 Sam.11.6.) that “The Spirit of God came upon Saul, and his anger (or, as it is in Latin, his fury) was greatly kindled.” This probably means not a ghost, but exceptional zeal to punish the Ammonites' cruelty. Likewise, the Spirit of God that came upon Saul while he was among the Prophets praising God in song and music (1 Sam.19.20.) is to be understood not as a ghost, but as an unexpected, sudden zeal to join their devotions.
The false Prophet Zedekiah says to Micaiah (1 Kings 22.24.), “Which way did the Spirit of the Lord go from me to speak to you?” This cannot mean a ghost, for Micaiah had declared the outcome of the battle before the Kings of Israel and Judah as something shown to him in a vision, not by a spirit speaking within him.
In the same way it appears in the Books of the Prophets that, although they spoke by the Spirit of God—that is, by a special gift of predicting the future—their knowledge of what was to come came not from a ghost inside them, but from some supernatural dream or vision.
Gen. 2.7. says, “God made man from the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils (spiraculum vitae) the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” Here the breath of life inspired by God means no more than that God gave him life. And (Job 27.3.) “as long as the Spirit of God is in my nostrils” means no more than “as long as I live.” So too, in Ezek. 1.20. “the spirit of life was in the wheels” is equivalent to “the wheels were alive.” And (Ezek. 2.30.) “the spirit entered into me, and set me on my feet” means “I recovered my vital strength,” not that any ghost or incorporeal substance entered and possessed his body.
In the 11 chap. of Numbers, verse 17, God says, “I will take of the Spirit which is upon you and put it upon them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with you”—that is, upon the seventy Elders. Thereafter two of the seventy are said to prophesy in the camp; some complained of them, and Joshua asked Moses to forbid them, which Moses refused to do. This shows that Joshua did not know they had been given authority to do so and that they prophesied according to Moses' mind: that is, by a spirit, or authority, subordinate to his own.
In the same sense we read (Deut. 34.9.) that “Joshua was full of the Spirit of wisdom,” because Moses had laid his hands on him: that is, because Moses had ordained him to carry on the work he himself had begun—bringing God's people into the promised land—but could not finish because death intervened.
In the same sense it is said (Rom. 8.9.), “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his”; this means not the ghost of Christ, but submission to his doctrine. Likewise (1 John 4.2.), “By this you shall know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God.” This means the spirit of sincere Christianity, or submission to that central article of Christian faith, that Jesus is the Christ; it cannot be interpreted as a ghost.
Likewise these words (Luke 4.1.), “And Jesus, full of the Holy Ghost” (that is, as it is expressed in Mat. 4.1. and Mar. 1.12., “of the Holy Spirit”), may mean zeal to do the work for which God the Father sent him. But to interpret them as referring to a ghost would be to say that God himself (for so our Savior was) was filled with God, which is most improper and meaningless. How we came to translate spirits with the word ghosts, which denotes nothing in heaven or earth but imaginary inhabitants of the human brain, I do not investigate. But I say this: spirit in the text means no such thing, but either, literally, a real substance, or, metaphorically, some extraordinary ability or affection of mind or body.
The Disciples of Christ, seeing him walking on the sea (Mat. 14.26. and Marke 6.49.), supposed he was a spirit: by this they meant an aerial body, not a phantom. For it is said that they all saw him. This cannot be said of delusions of the brain, which are not shared by many at once, as visible bodies are, but are individual because imaginations differ. It can be said only of bodies. The same applies when those Apostles took him for a spirit (Luke 24.3,7.). So too (Acts 12.15), when St. Peter was released from prison, they would not believe it; but when the maid said he was at the door, they said it was his angel. This must mean a corporeal substance, unless we say that the Disciples themselves held the common opinion of both Jews and Gentiles that some such apparitions were not imaginary but real, and did not need human fancy in order to exist. The Jews called these spirits and angels, good or bad, as the Greeks called them daemons. Some such apparitions may indeed be real and substantial: subtle bodies which God can form by the same power with which he formed all things, and use as ministers and messengers (that is, angels) to declare and execute his will whenever he pleases, in an extraordinary and supernatural manner. But once he has formed them, they are substances endowed with dimensions, occupying space and capable of moving from place to place, which are properties peculiar to bodies. Thus they are not incorporeal ghosts: ghosts in no place, that is, nowhere, and therefore things which seem to be something but are nothing. But if corporeal is taken in the most ordinary sense, meaning substances perceptible by our external senses, then an incorporeal substance is something not imaginary but real: a thin, invisible substance having the same dimensions as grosser bodies.
The name ANGEL generally means a messenger, most often a messenger of God. A messenger of God means anything that makes known his extraordinary presence: that is, the extraordinary manifestation of his power, especially by a dream or vision.
Plain English translation
Mouseia’s complete Plain English edition, made independently and directly from the complete 1651 English text (introduction, forty-seven chapters, review and conclusion). Hobbes’s marginal summaries are omitted.
What Spirit, Angel, and Inspiration Mean in the Books of Holy Scripture
All sound reasoning depends on words having consistent meanings. In what follows, those meanings depend neither on what I intend, as they do in natural science, nor on everyday usage, as they do in ordinary conversation. They depend on what the words mean in Scripture. So before going further, I must use the Bible to establish the meanings of words whose ambiguity could make my conclusions unclear or debatable. I will begin with “body” and “spirit.” The schools call these corporeal and incorporeal substances.
In its broadest sense, a body is something that fills or occupies a definite area or imagined place. It does not depend on our imagination; it is a real part of the universe. The universe is the collection of all bodies. So every real part of it is a body, and everything properly called a body belongs to the universe. A body is also called a substance because bodies can change: living creatures can perceive them in different ways. Substance means something subject to different properties. A body may be moving or still, and may seem hot or cold to us, or have one color, smell, taste, or sound and then another. We attribute these different appearances, produced when bodies act differently on our sense organs, to changes in the bodies acting on us. We call them the bodies' accidents. In this sense, substance and body mean the same thing. So “incorporeal substance” is self-contradictory, just like “incorporeal body.”
In everyday usage, though, people do not call every part of the universe a body. They use the word for things they can feel resisting their touch or see blocking their view. Thus people do not usually count air and things made of air as bodies. When they notice their effects, they call them wind, breath, or spirits, because the Latin word for them is spiritus. For example, they call the airy substance thought to give living creatures life and movement their vital and animal spirits. Then there are images formed by the brain that show us bodies where there are none: in a mirror, in a dream, or to a disturbed mind while awake. As the apostle says of all idols, these images are nothing. I mean that there is nothing at the place where they seem to be. In the brain itself they are just a disturbance caused either by objects acting on our senses or by disorderly agitation of our sense organs. People who are occupied with things other than finding the causes of such images do not know what to call them. So people whose knowledge they respect can easily persuade some that these are bodies formed from air condensed by supernatural power, since they look bodily. Others call them spirits because they cannot feel anything resisting their fingers where the images appear. Thus in ordinary speech, “spirit” properly means either a thin, fluid, invisible body or a ghost or other imagined apparition. It also has many figurative meanings. It can mean an attitude or tendency of mind: a spirit of contradiction is a tendency to challenge what other people say; an unclean spirit is a tendency toward impurity; a stubborn spirit is a tendency toward perversity; a dumb spirit is sullenness; and the Spirit of God can mean a tendency toward godliness and service to God. The word can also mean outstanding ability or an unusual mental passion or illness. Thus great wisdom is called a spirit of wisdom, and mad people are said to be possessed by a spirit.
I find no other meanings of “spirit.” When none of these meanings makes a passage of Scripture intelligible, the passage lies beyond human understanding. In such cases, our faith consists not in an opinion about it but in submission. This applies wherever God is called a spirit or “the Spirit of God” means God himself. God's nature is beyond comprehension. We understand that he exists, but not what he is. So the attributes we give him do not tell each other what he is or state what we think his nature is. They express our desire to honor him with names we consider most honorable among ourselves.
Genesis 1.2 says, “The Spirit of God moved over the surface of the waters.” If “Spirit of God” means God himself, this attributes motion and therefore location to God. These ideas are intelligible for bodies but not incorporeal substances. The passage would then be beyond our understanding: we cannot conceive of something that moves without changing place, or that changes place without having dimensions. Anything with dimensions is a body. But another passage helps explain the words. In Genesis 8.1, when the earth was covered in water as it was at the beginning, God intended to lower the water and reveal dry land again. He uses similar words: “I will bring my spirit over the earth, and the waters will diminish.” Here “spirit” means a wind, or air set in motion. As in the first passage, this wind can be called the Spirit of God because God made it happen.
In Genesis 41.38, Pharaoh calls Joseph's wisdom the Spirit of God. Joseph had advised him to find a wise, discerning man and put him in charge of Egypt. Pharaoh says, “Can we find anyone like this man, who has the Spirit of God in him?” And in Exodus 28.3, God says, “Speak to all who are wise in heart, whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom, to make Aaron's garments for his consecration.” Unusual skill, even at making garments, is called the Spirit of God because it is God's gift. The same usage occurs in Exodus 31.3,4,5,6 and 35.31. In Isaiah 11.2,3 the prophet says of the Messiah, “The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, and the spirit of fear of the Lord.” Plainly, these are not numerous ghosts. They are numerous outstanding gifts God would give him.
In Judges, unusual zeal and courage in defending God's people are called the Spirit of God. That spirit moved Othoniel, Gideon, Jeptha, and Samson to free them from slavery (Judges 3.10; 6.34; 11.29; 13.25; 14.6,19). When Saul heard how arrogantly the Ammonites had treated the men of Jabeth Gilead, it is said (1 Samuel 11.6) that “The Spirit of God came upon Saul, and his anger”—or, in the Latin, his fury—“burned fiercely.” This probably means not a ghost but extraordinary zeal to punish the Ammonites' cruelty. Likewise, when the Spirit of God came upon Saul among the prophets singing and making music in praise of God (1 Samuel 19.20), it means a sudden and unexpected zeal to join their worship, not a ghost.
The false prophet Zedekiah asks Micaiah (1 Kings 22.24), “Which way did the Spirit of the Lord go from me to speak to you?” This cannot mean a ghost. Micaiah had predicted the outcome of the battle before the kings of Israel and Judah on the basis of a vision, not of a spirit speaking inside him.
The books of the prophets show the same thing. Though the prophets spoke by the Spirit of God, meaning by a special gift for prediction, their knowledge of the future came not from a ghost inside them but from a supernatural dream or vision.
Genesis 2.7 says, “God made man from the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils (spiraculum vitae) the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” The breath of life that God breathed in means simply that God gave him life. Likewise, “as long as the Spirit of God is in my nostrils” (Job 27.3) means “as long as I live.” “The spirit of life was in the wheels” (Ezekiel 1.20) means “the wheels were alive.” And “the spirit entered me and set me on my feet” (Ezekiel 2.30) means “I recovered my physical strength.” It does not mean a ghost or incorporeal substance entered and possessed his body.
In Numbers, chapter 11, verse 17, God says, “I will take some of the spirit that is upon you and put it upon them, and they will bear the people's burden with you.” He means the seventy elders. Two of the seventy then prophesied in the camp. Some people complained, and Joshua wanted Moses to stop them, but Moses refused. This shows that Joshua did not know they had been given authority to do so. They prophesied in keeping with Moses's wishes, under a spirit or authority subordinate to his.
In the same sense, Deuteronomy 34.9 says that “Joshua was full of the spirit of wisdom” because Moses had laid his hands on him. Moses appointed Joshua to continue his work of bringing God's people into the promised land, a work Moses could not finish because he died.
In the same way, Romans 8.9 says, “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him.” It means submission to Christ's teaching, not the ghost of Christ. And 1 John 4.2 says, “This is how you will know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.” This means the spirit of sincere Christianity: accepting the central article of Christian faith that Jesus is the Christ. It cannot mean a ghost.
Likewise, the words “And Jesus, full of the Holy Ghost” (Luke 4.1), expressed as “the Holy Spirit” in Matthew 4.1 and Mark 1.12, can mean zeal to do the work God the Father sent him to do. To interpret the words as a ghost would be to say that God himself, which our Savior was, was filled with God. That makes little sense. I will not examine how we came to translate “spirits” as “ghosts,” a word that denotes nothing in heaven or on earth except imagined inhabitants of the human brain. But I will say that “spirit” in the text means no such thing. It means either a real substance literally or, figuratively, some unusual ability or condition of the mind or body.
When the disciples saw Christ walking on the sea (Matthew 14.26; Mark 6.49), they thought he was a spirit. They meant a body made of air, not a mere image in the mind. It says they all saw him. An illusion of the brain cannot be shared by several people at once as a visible body can. Such illusions differ with each person's imagination. Similarly, the apostles took him for a spirit in Luke 24.3,7. And when St. Peter was freed from prison (Acts 12.15), the others did not believe it. When the maid said he was at the door, they said it was his angel. They must have meant a bodily substance. Otherwise, we must conclude that the disciples shared the common opinion of Jews and Gentiles that some such appearances were real, not imagined, and existed independently of human imagination. The Jews called these spirits and angels, good or bad. The Greeks called them daemons. Some such appearances may indeed be real substances: thin bodies God can form by the same power with which he formed everything else. He can use them as servants and messengers—that is, angels—to announce and carry out his will in extraordinary, supernatural ways whenever he chooses. Once formed, they are substances with dimensions. They take up space and can move between places, which is characteristic of bodies. So they are not incorporeal ghosts, which exist in no place: nowhere, and thus not at all, despite seeming to be something. But if “corporeal” is used in the most common sense to mean perceptible to our outer senses, then “incorporeal substance” can refer to something real rather than imaginary: a thin, invisible substance that has dimensions just like denser bodies.
“Angel” generally means a messenger, and most often a messenger of God. God's messenger is anything that makes his extraordinary presence known: an extraordinary display of his power, especially through a dream or vision.