A genetic study of the spirit-phenomena in the New Testament ...

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Introduction

The task which we have set before us is an attempt to interpret the New Testament conceptions of spirits and the Spirit in the light of the ideas currently held by the people outside Christian circles who lived at the time when the New Testament books were written. This subject has not yet received an adequate treatment from this viewpoint in any separate work, though a number of recent scholars have done much in works of a more general nature to give us material out of which a genetic study of the spirit-phenomena in the New Testament can be made. If any genetic study of the subject has been made at all, it has usually confined itself to the establishing of the relations between the Jewish and Christian conceptions of the Spirit, while the influence of the Hellenistic and Oriental systems of religion and philosophy were entirely overlooked. Even such excellent works as Volz's on the Jewish ideas of the Spirit, Gunkel's on the ideas of the New Testament writers, and Weinel's on the conceptions of the Christians of the sub-apostolic period deal very slightly with this aspect of the subject. 1 They confine themselves chiefly to the testimony of the Jewish and Christian writings and trace the development of spirit-conceptions within those prescribed limits. But the work of such scholars as Reitzenstein, Pfleiderer, Dieterich, Rohde, Cumont, Heitmuller, Bousset, et al., altho not dealing with this subject in particular, has been the occasion of bringing into the foreground the close connection of the New Testament writers not only with Jewish thought but with the thought of the Hellenistic world as well. It is highly desirable then that a genetic study of the New Testament conceptions of spirits and the Spirit, such as would include the whole background and thought-world of the New Testament writers, should be made. For unless such a study be made, the meaning of the New Testament idea of the Spirit as it existed in the minds of the writers will never be rightly understood. And it might not be presumptuous to say that unless the New Testament conceptions of the Spirit are grasped a large part of this literature must remain a sadly misinterpreted, if not a closed, book.

The assumption, of course, upon which we base our method of procedure in this investigation is that religion is a matter of social growth and development, not a matter of static quantities of doctrines and practices divine-

1 See bibliography at end of volume for the names of these works.

Z A STUDY OF THE SPIRIT-PHENOMENA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

ly revealed to man once for all. And if man, as we believe, was one, if not the, determining factor in this religious process and growth, then the most natural way to deal with such a subject as the spirit-phenomena of the New Testament — and we might well say the same with regard to the study of any other New Testament conception — is, so far as we can, to deal with the process of the development of spirit-ideas from a sociological and psychological viewpoint and to point out their genetic relations with the ideas of contemporary systems of thought.

Our first endeavor then is to find out how the belief in spirits and demons arose in the primitive ages and how these primitive ideas were modified and developed in the thinking of the Graeco-Roman world. But since Christianity arose on Jewish soil and at first was very little more than a Jewish sect, it is necessary also to investigate the conceptions of the Jews regarding spirits and demons, and particularly those of the Jews of New Testament times. This gives us a background for the Christian notions of the Spirit in the first few decades of the movement. But when by the activity of Paul and other missionaries the movement spread to Gentile soil, there naturally came a fusion of the Jewish ideas heretofore held by the Christians and those which the Gentile Christians brought over with them as a heritage from their past history. This leads us to a discussion of the spirit-conceptions in which there is more or less of a Hellenistic element, particularly the conceptions of the Pauline letters and the fourth Gospel. In this discussion we are to concern ourselves not only with the operations of the Spirit in the believer, but with the ideas of the Spirit's relation to Jesus, for these ideas, based on the identification which the Christians made of Jesus with the heavenly being or Logos of Hellenistic thought, and conditioned largely by the Christians' own experiences of the Spirit, evince the fusion of various elements and can be only properly grasped when these elements have been resolved into their constituent parts.

The author wishes to make grateful acknowledgment of the help received in the preparation of this thesis from the professors of the New Testament Department of the University of Chicago, and particularly from Professor S. J. Case under whose direction and with the aid of whose kind advice and suggestions the dissertation was written.

Chapter I

Ancient Belief in Spirits and Demons The world of antiquity according to the conceptions of the people then living was peopled by all kinds of spiritual beings and powers. The earth upon which they stood and walked, the objects, whether animate or inanimate, which went to make up their environment, the air which they breathed, the heavens with their luminaries and starry hosts, were all believed to be full of spirits. These spirits, ordinarily invisible, yet made their presence and reality manifest through the exercise of some inexplicable power, or through the expression of a unique mode of activity in the objects which they were thought to inhabit. Seed was sown in the soil, and some mysterious power in the earth caused it to sprout and grow and bear fruit. 1 Plants and trees must have some soul or spirit in them for they give signs of life and continue to do so until, injured or cut down, they wither and die. 2 A large massive rock or mountain creates a sense of awe in the breast of the savage on-looker, and this sensation can have no other explanation than that it arises from the influence of the spirit of the rock or mountain upon his soul. In truth, the majestic Olympus was the very abode of the great gods.

The action of water as noticed in the bubbling spring or in the restless waves of the ocean or in the rushing flow of the mountain torrent, also

1 The ancient worship of Gaia (r^ ttcivtoov ixrjTrjp) was no doubt based on the belief that the productive forces of nature were due to the agency of spiritual powers resident in the earth. With the early Thracians Dionysos represented the power of life in vegetation. See Case, Evolution of Early Christianity, ch. 9, but especially p. 298; also Tylor, Primitive Culture, II, pp. 206 ff and 273. In fact, ancient Greek religion consisted very largely of the worship of the forces of nature. In their spring festivals the main idea and object of the worshippers was the placation of the spirits or ghosts of the dead underworld, which they held responsible for the death of vegetable life during winter, and which, they thought, would promote fertility if appeased by sacrifice (Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, p. 53 f.).

2 Notice the mention of tree-nymphs in Homer, Aphrod. 257. And Ovid is doubtless not only reflecting the conceptions of his own age, but those of the ages preceding, when he speaks of dryads, fauns, and satyrs living in the groves and forests (Metam. VIII, 741). See also Cato, De Re Rustica, 139, and Pliny, XVII, 47. The spirit-inspired oak at Dodona (Homer, Odyss. XIV, 327 and XIX, 296) is, of course, an example merely of the belief in the special inspiration of a particular tree, and yet

i t represents the general conception which the ancients held as to spirits dwelling n trees and groves.

demands some mysterious indwelling spirit to account for its activity. Nymphs made their home in the spring; Xanthos or Acheloos ruled in the waters of the river; and Poseidon or some terrible monster of the deep dwelt in the waves of the sea. How else could a shipwreck or loss of life by drowning be explained except by assuming that the angry demon of the deep drew his victim beneath the water? 3

Fire also was regarded as an element possessed of demonic power. In Greece Hestia was the goddess of the hearth; and in Rome Vesta was worshipped in a temple where fire was kept continually burning, the goddess supposedly dwelling in the fire. The gods, Vulcan and Hephaistos, were connected with subterranean volcanic fire.

Again the various activities of the air were supposed to have been caused by the agency of spiritual beings. The Harpies were spirits of the wind, 4 and they somehow were connected with the giving of life not only to men but to animals and plants as well. 5 Rain and snow, thunder and lightning, hail and storm, clouds and rainbow were all ascribed to the activity of demonic powers that ruled and governed the regions of the air.

And so it was with the movements of the heavenly bodies. The sun, moon and stars were alive and animated by their special deities. The worship of the Greek Apollo, the Egyptian Osiris, the Persian Mithras, and the Syrian Elagabalus, all of them Sun-gods, indicates how widespread was the idea of a spirit or god dwelling in the sun and guiding it in its daily course. And the primitive conception of the moon and stars was quite similar. 6

No one who studies the religious conceptions of primitive peoples or of the races of the lower culture can fail to be impressed with the fact

3 Victims were regularly sacrificed to the sea until a late period in order to placate the power or powers supposed to dwell therein. Cicero says, "If Earth is a goddess, so also the Sea, whom thou saidst to be Neptune" (De Nat. Deo., Ill, 20).

4 Homer, H. XXIII, 192; Odyss. XX, 37 and 66. Also Vergil, Aen. I, 56.

6 The Athenians sacrificed to the Tritopatores, i. e. to the ghosts of ancestors or the spirits of the winds, when they were about to marry (Suidas, s. v. Tritopatores). Hippocrates (Geoponica, IX, 3) says the winds give life not only to plants but to all things. And Vergil has a passage where the pregnancy of mares is ascribed to the agency of winds (Georg. Ill, 274). See also on this point Harrison, op cit., pp. 178 ff.

6 Cumont, Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism, pp. 129 ff.; Astrology and Religion among Greeks and Romans, p. 116. Murray (Four Stages of Greek religion p. 126 ff.) discusses the worship of the seven planets in later antiquity as described in the Hermetic, the Gnostic, and other ancient religious writings, a custom that had its origin no doubt in quite early stages in the religious development of man.

that they thought of themselves as being surrounded by a vast cloud of witnesses, spiritual beings that were responsible for all the various activities and forces of nature. 7 It was very much as Thales is reported to have said, "All things are full of gods." 8

The question arises here as to where the primitive races derived their belief in spirits. What was it that led them to give such an interpretation — for in the last analysis the belief in spirits is nothing more than an effort to explain causality in the world — to the natural phenomena of the universe? In answering this question we are thrown back upon another one which deals with primitive man's conception of himself. The law of psychology, which may well be termed universal, that a man always interprets phenomena external to himself from a subjective standpoint and in the light of his own experience, must have played a fundamental part in the forming of primitive conceptions regarding the outer world and the active forces of nature. What man thought of himself, what he experienced in his contact with the forces of his environment, was the element that determined the direction and nature of the explanation which he gave regarding the external conditions, events, and vicissitudes of his life. If he thought of the earth, the air, the stars, as embodiments or possessors of spiritual beings, it was because he first thought of himself as having a spiritual being within him. So a fundamental inquiry to the understanding of the rise of the belief in spirits in external nature is to find out how man came to believe that he had a soul or spirit within himself.

The belief in souls arose no doubt from man's experience with such states as sleep, dreams, death and sickness. He noticed that at certain times his body or that of some other man was active and awake; at other times it lay dormant and in a state of comparative lifelessness. It was but natural that he, a savage, should ascribe the change thus undergone in sleep to the departure of some entity from the body. Again in the depths of night he had dreams in which he saw the form of some distant friend or enemy, or in which he was conscious of himself travelling or wandering in strange and remote places. He knew that

7 An abundant mass of material illustrating not only the ideas of the ancient Greeks and Romans with regard to the belief in spirits dwelling and acting in nature, but ideas quite similar to the above as held also by the people of the lower culture in other lands of both ancient and modern times, may be found in such works as Frazer, The Golden Bough, 1913-5; Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte, 1906; Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, 1896-1909; Tylor, Primitive Culture, 1891; et al. See extended bibliography in Case, Ev. of Ear. Xty, p. 76 f.

8 Arist. De Anima, I, 5, 411 A.

his friend or enemy could not possibly have been present in bodily form. And upon waking suddenly from a dream he no doubt realized that his own body was just where it had been before he had fallen asleep. He concluded therefore that the form which he had seen was the phantom, the Shattenseele, of his friend or enemy, and that he himself was possessed of a sort of second self, or soul, an entity quite distinct from his physical organism and able to leave it at wall.

It was in a similar way that primitive man interpreted the phenomenon of death. When he saw his comrade's or his enemy's dead body, he supposed that the being that had animated it had now deserted it. The departure of the soul, which in sleep was merely temporary, in death was regarded as permanent. Since death in its bodily manifestations functioned in practically the same way as sleep, it was simply conceived of as a prolonged sleep. The analogy of the two phenomena has so impressed itself upon the human mind that even today the two words are often used synonymously, with however this difference in usage that, whereas death is today often taken to mean the absence of life as an abstract element or principle, in the mind of primitive man it always connoted the departure of a being whose presence in the body gave it life and animation. This being was thought of as residing particularly in the blood or in the breath, for death was seen to take place upon the loss of the one or at the cessation of the other.

Sickness was also conceived of as being due to the agency of spirits or demons. The savage saw his body or the bodies of his comrades waste away; 9 he was a witness of the convulsions, the distortions, the ferocity, and the incoherent raving of the insane and epileptic. He himself perhaps knew what it was to suffer from fever or some mental disorder, and had a knowledge of how the delirious and frenzied acted. He recognized that all these phenomena were abnormal and strange ; and hence, just as he ascribed the normal conditions and acts to the soul which ordinarily inhabited the body, he now was led to explain these abnormal conditions on the ground of a strange spirit that had taken possession of the body. 10

This is doubtless the way in which primitive man came to believe in souls or spirits. Other elements and factors may have had a share

9 The vampire was regarded as a spirit, either the soul of a living or dead person, which sucked the blood out of its victims (Tylor, Prim. Cult., II, 189).

10 Homer thinks of sick men as being tormented by demons, Odyss. V, 396; X, 64. And the idea that lay back of the belief in the Keres was that these spiritual beings were the cause for all the ills and diseases of this mortal life, Hesiod., Erg. 90. Even in the process, such as, for example, the hearing of his voice in echo, the sight of his form as reflected in water, the presence of his shadow, the appearance of distant persons and objects when under the influence of a trance or vision, and the mental excitement of some great emotion. But these were perhaps no more than added proofs lending confirmation to his belief that he was possessed of a soul or spirit, and that in addition to this soul or Korperseele, which was the normal cause of his life, he had a double or second self, a phantom, a Hauch- or Schattenseele. Both of these entities were supposed to be able to leave the body, but the latter's sphere of activity seems to have been limited to dreamand vision-appearances only. 11

Now it is a feature common to the psychology of all primitive races that no distinction is made between the subjective and objective, between the imagined and the real. The man of the lower culture believes that the human specters which he sees whether in dreams, delirium and mental excitement, or merely in the exercise of his visual memory or imagination, are objectively real. And hence, since he, arguing from his own experience and from his conception of himself, is convinced that other men and animate objects have souls and phantoms too, he peoples the world about him with spirits and ghosts. Furthermore since he sees the phantoms of his dead friends and enemies in his dreams and visions, he infers that the ghosts or souls of the dead are still alive and are able to wander back to the earth from the abode of the dead. 12 This belief of course added a multitude of spiritual beings to the milieu of the savage, already so full of spirits.

blindness was caused in this way, Eur. Phoen. 950. For further discussion of the Keres see Harrison, Proleg. to Study of Gr. Relig., ch. 5. They were germs or bacilli conceived of as disease-spirits. On this subject consult also Wundt, Elemente der Volkerpsychologie, p. 83, and Thompson, Devils, II, Tablet XI, line 1 ff., and II, Tablet M, line 1 ff.

11 For further material on the subject of the rise of the belief in souls or spirits, see Tylor, Prim. Cult., I, 423 ff.; Wundt, Elemente der Volkerpsychologie, pp. 203 ff.; Toy, Introduction to the History of Religions, sees. 39-44; and Leuba, the Psychological Origin and the Nature of Religion, ch. 3. For passages illustrative of the belief in dream-souls, see Homer, II. XXIII, 59; Odyss. XI, 207, 222; Porphyr. De Antro Nympharum; Vergil, Aen. II, 794; and Ovid, Fasti, V, 475. These references no doubt reflect ideas much older than the time of their writers.

12 This belief in the return of spirits from the dead coupled with the thought that their placation was necessary to ward off their harmful influence, was doubtless the occasion for the rise of the cults of the dead which prevailed so widely in ancient times, and have continued in some lands even to the present day, particularly in Oriental countries. It was quite generally believed that if a ghost became hungry, or

The evidence given by those who have studied primitive religions seems sufficient to establish this as the way in which the belief in the existence of spirits in external nature arose. As men's lives and actions under normal circumstances were regarded as having been caused by souls or spirits, either dwelling within or acting upon the human body, so the cause for the various physical operations of the outer world was traced to the same kind of soullike beings residing in or acting upon the objects of nature. 13

The next step in the development of spirit-ideas was no doubt the classification of spiritual beings into groups according to the analogy of the classes in human society. The hero was one who had distinguished himself in his earthly life because of some deed of prowess or some signal act of service to his family, clan, or state. It was but natural that since he had thus manifested his superiority over his fellow mortals in this life, his ghost should be regarded as existing on a higher plane than the ordinary in the abode of the dead. The same human analogies played a part in the origin of primitive ideas regarding demons and gods. The chief ruled over his tribe or clan; he had sons and daughters of his own; he was surrounded by his counsellors; his messengers made known his will, and his soldiers fought his enemies. These human relations were conceived of as continuing in the world of spirits, and thus the idea of a god ruling over subordinate spirits or demons originated. 14 In this way also were the beings of the invisible world, as it were, classified and graded. 15 But of course there was no fast

if the body in which it had dwelt was not properly buried, or if due rites and sacrifices were not made in its honor, it would return to earth to afflict the living. The Greek festival, Anthesteria, was devoted to this Manesworship, or Manism, as Wundt calls it. And Ovid (Fasti, V, 443) mentions a rite belonging to the Roman Lemuria festival in which the father of a family had to drive away the ancestral ghosts. li Shade of my fathers, depart," he repeated nine times as a part of the ritual. Harrison, op. cit. ch. 2.

13 The idea of spirits acting as personified causes in even inanimate objects is illustrated by a custom described by Herodotus (I, 189; VII, 34) who says that a court of justice was held at Prytaneum to judge any inanimate or irrational object, such as an ox or a piece of stone, which had without any known human agency caused the death of anyone. If found guilty, the object was cast outside the border. This custom is also referred to in Porpyhry, De Abstinentia, II, 30, and Pausan. I. 28.

14 Men have always interpreted the Deity and the relations that exist between the inhabitants of the spiritual world in accordance with the relations existing between the members of the society in which they happen to live. In a monarchy God is a king; in a democracy, a father and fellow-companion.

15 So far as the literary remains of human history inform us, Hesiod was doubtless the first to sketch this classification of spiritual beings. He mentions the four line of demarcation between these various classes of spiritual beings. 16 Nor was it impossible for members of one class to rise or fall to a position higher or lower than his own rank. The ghost of a hero could rise to the rank of a god. 17 The demons were very desirous of being regarded as deities and sought deification; 18 and in case a demon became so well known as to receive a name he was classed as a god. 19 And among the gods themselves there was often a shift of position and rank. 20 On the other hand, evil spirits were sometimes thought of as heavenly beings who had fallen from their high estate. 21

As for the constitution and form of a spiritual being, the primitive conception of a ghost-soul was that it possessed the likeness of human form and was in its constituency of a very fine substance, something like air, wind, or fire. Primitive man also ascribed to many of the demons, and to the gods in general, human shape and passions, as well as the quality of ethereality or vaporous materiality. The Homeric

classes: gods, demons, heroes, and the souls of men. He evidently ranks demons higher than heroes, and identifies them with the souls of those who lived in the Golden Age of the past (Erg. 109, 122 ff., 159, 172, 251 ff.). For a discussion of the points of differentiation made by primitive peoples between gods, demons, and heroes, see Wundt, op. cit. pp. 348-369. He contends for the priority of the belief in magic and spirits to that in gods, and cites instances of tribes living today who have not yet arrived at the stage where gods form a part of their thought-world, though they have a belief in supersensuous beings. He claims that a god was distinguished from a demon or hero in three ways: (a) his place of abode was not the same; (b) his life was perfect and immortal, and wasiiot subject to sickness nor death; and (c) his personality, though anthropomorphically conceived of, was yet superhuman. Demons and heroes might have one or the other of these characteristics, but not all three combined.

16 See Rohde, Psyche, I, 96 ff. and 255 for statements regarding souls that become demons and gods; also in the same work s. v. Damonen and Seelen. Josephus reflects this primitive idea in Wars VI, 1, 5 (47).

17 Such was the case with Hercules and Asklepios, Harrison (Prolegomena, p. 341) to the contrary.

18 Plutarch, though a late writer, is no doubt in accord with primitive conceptions when he says that demons, though not gods, desire to be called gods and to be honored as such (Why the Oracles Cease, 20). Porphyry too tells how the demons who wish to be gods long for the fumes of sacrifice by which their spiritual and bodily substance is nourished, for the odor of blood and flesh is regarded as giving them strength (De Abstinentia, II, 42).

19 See Foucart, Encyc. of Rel. and Eth., art., "Demons and Spirits (Egyptian)."

20 When the mystery-cults became flourishing, Demeter rose from the position of an earth-goddess to that of an Olympian. And the same might be said of Dionysos (Harrison, op. cit., p. 275; Eurip., Bacch., 416).

21 This is the conception particularly of the authors of Job and Ethiopic Enoch. See Barton, Encyc. of Rel. and Eth., art., "Demons and Spirits (Hebrew)."

gods and the Angel of Jehovah are examples of the anthropomorphic ideas of the ancient Greeks and Hebrews. The spirits which were supposed to reside in objects of nature were of course not thought of as having human shape, but nevertheless they were generally regarded as personal beings possessing the powers of intelligence and will. It is not until man reaches the stages of the higher culture and of philosophical speculation that he arrives at the idea of life, causality and spirit as abstractions.

Now becuse the spirits and deities were thus anthropomorphically and personally apprehended, they were also thought of as living in close intercourse with mortal men. The souls of the dead supposedly hovered about the tomb or place of burial, or were wont to return from the underworld to seek embodiment, 22 to wreak vengeance upon some previous enemy, or to appear to some friend or relative. Through the festivals for the dead the association which the living enjoyed with the dead before their departure from the earth was supposedly continued; yet the souls of the dead were in the main regarded with terror by most of the peoples of antiquity, and sacrifices were quite universally offered to placate them. The dead were regarded as revealing the future through dreams and visions, and the conception also prevailed that a man's soul might in a dream or vision penetrate the underworld and thus gain a knowledge of its secrets. 23 The spirits of heroes too were thought of as being in close touch with the living. They were still active in rendering service to those whom they had aided while alive or those who afterwards became their worshippers. They were accustomed to appear to men particularly at springs and wells, which were sacred to them. Asklepios continued to heal by incubation those who came to his temple. 24

The demons also were in constant communication with the living. They flitted about in the air and were continually striving to get possession of some human body, or to inhabit some object of nature. In general, we might say that there were two kinds of demons which were supposed to take up their abode in men, viz., disease-spirits and oracle-

22 This idea formed the basis for the belief in the transmigration of the soul, so prevalent in the religions of India and referred to so often in the works of Plato and other Greek writers. See Diog. Laert., Empedocles, 12, where the claim of Pythagoras is made that he was the soul of Euphorbos, whom Menelaus slew at the seige of Troy, in a new body.

23 Homer (Odyss. XI) describes the visit of Odysseus to the regions of the dead. Later references to visions of the future world are found in Lucian, Philopseudes, 17-28; Plut., De Sera Numinis Vindicta, XXII; and Euseb., Praep. Evang. 11, 36.