Personification is a well recognised figure of speech. Wisdom is personified in Proverbs 8, and there are many examples of personification phrases. In this article, we will lay out a theoretical framework for handling the topic of personification. With this framework we will then be in a position to discuss personification as it pertains to doctrine. Christadelphians have held that the Spirit is personified, and they have argued that the devil is a personification of sin-in-the-flesh. Both of these proposals are sophisticated narrative suggestions, and as an introduction to this topic as it affects Christian doctrine, we will consider what it means to say that the Spirit is personified.
While any theoretical model of personification could be used, and the merits and demerits of various models discussed, we will use here some basic distinctions derived from the work of J. L. Paxson.[1] Paxson distinguishes between personification[2] in phrases[3] and personification that is extended into an actual story. For Paxson, personification is one type of “metaphoric translation” where one kind of entity is put for another kind of entity. He offers the following table of entities in a story:[4]
| Story Element |
|---|
| Human |
| Non-human life form |
| Inanimate object |
| Place |
| Abstract Idea |
| Deity |
Any one of these elements can be referred to in terms of another kind of element: thus an object like the rock in the wilderness, and the striking of that rock, and the flow of water from that rock, could be “translated” into Christ. Paxson offers the following table of types of metaphoric translation:
| Types of Metaphoric Translation | Translation |
|---|---|
| Substantialization | A non-corporeal quantity is referred to in corporeal terms. |
| Materialization | |
| Hypostatization | |
| Anthropomorphism | A non-human quantity is translated into a character with human form. |
| Personification | A non-human quantity is given voice and intelligence. |
| Animification | A human or inanimate entity is given animal form. |
| Reification | A human is given inanimate form. |
| Ideation | A human or inanimate entity is turned into an abstract idea. |
| Topification | An abstraction is made into a geographical place. |
This table is useful in disclosing the complexity that can exist in figurative language, and it also clearly demarcates the use of the term “personification”. Essentially, the kind of detail[5] in a narrative will disclose the kind of metaphoric translation: personification involves “voice and face” or “intelligence and speech”.
Clearly, there is a distinction between what is personified that the personifier.[6] The personification offers a “voice and face” in its presentation of the true entity or essence. Human beings, God himself, the angels, as well as various mythical beings, are persons. Accordingly, a question that always needs to be posed is this: what kind of person is the personifier? Is the personification angelic or human (male, female), or again, is it a mythical character. If the Devil and Satan is a personification of sin-in-flesh, then the personifying figure in the NT is that of a mythical character that appears in Jewish writings of the Second Temple. If the Spirit is personified (as it is in Acts), then our corresponding proposal is that the personifying figure is that of the Angel of the Lord that led Israel out of Egypt.
It is important to recognise that a personified figure such as the Devil or the Spirit exists in the narrative world of the text. The figure has a role and acts with a voice and a face. In standard literary theory, the term “story” is neutral;[7] it does not imply that the narrative has no basis in fact. Within a story, a character will have a structural role, and as such it is often termed an “actant” in the story. There are various classification schemes for these roles in narrative. For our purposes, the role of a “helper” or “guide”, or “director” is important to understand the role of the Spirit.[8]
A personified figure that extends over a narrative story, and which appears in several scenes is significantly different from a localized personification, such as “Poverty walked in, and Love flew out of the window”. If this turn of phrase is extended and Love becomes a character in an allegory, then we have the case of a personified figure. Clearly, the Spirit figures as an agent in the story of Acts, even though this is not an allegory.
Ananias and Sapphira
As a worked example we will look at the episode of Ananias and Sapphira. Luke’s usage of “Spirit of the Lord” is distinctive (Luke 4:18, Acts 5:9, 8:39).[9] Whereas his use of the title in the Nazareth episode (Luke 4) might be attributed to his use of Isaiah 61, his choice of the title in the voice of the reliable character of Peter (Acts 5:9), and in the mouth of the narrator (Acts 8:39), suggests an evocation of “Spirit of the Lord” OT texts. The Ananias and Sapphira episode is the first “personalization” of the Spirit in Acts, and it is likely that the agent quality of “Spirit of the Lord” traditions underpins Luke’s presentation. One way to configure the data in accordance with this suggestion is as follows:
1) The injured party in the Ananias and Sapphira episode is respectively the holy Spirit, God, and the Spirit of the Lord (Acts 5:3, 4, 9). The injury is lying (Acts 5:3, 4) and temptation (Acts 5:9). The man-woman parallelism[10] in Luke’s account implies that “the holy Spirit” (to. pneu/ma to. a[gion, v. 3) and “the Spirit of the Lord” (to. pneu/ma kuri,ou, v. 9) are co-referential.
2) Ananias’ lying to both the Spirit and to God in the same act suggests that Luke equates the Spirit with God, but this does not explain why he changes the terms of reference.[11] The equation need not be one of reference, it could be one of representation—trivially speaking, a person may lie to a representative of a king and the same act is a lie to the king. Furthermore, while a common gloss would be to say that Ananias lied to the Spirit “in” Peter,[12] this does not explain why Peter does not initially accuse Ananias of lying to him rather than the Spirit.[13]
3) There are two levels of description[14] of Ananias and Sapphira’s single act[15] (lying, tempting), and the exegetical challenge is to explain the personalization of the Spirit. The personifying face implicit in the act is not one belonging to Peter or to God because while there is some parallelism[16] between God and the holy Spirit in the act of lying, God and Peter are distinguished from the Spirit of the Lord.
4) Peter accuses Sapphira of “tempting” the Spirit of the Lord, and this resonates with the traditions of the people tempting the Lord in the wilderness (Exod 17:2, 7, Num 14:22, Pss 78:18, 41, 56, 94:9, 106:14), and disobeying the Lord in the land (Josh 7:1).[17] Thus the element of covetousness, the keeping back of the money, collusion, divine discernment, judicial death, and subsequent fear, are elements of the story of Achan. The central position of “the lie” and the use of the titles “the holy Spirit” (to. pneu/ma to. a[gion, v. 3) and “the Spirit of the Lord” (to. pneu/ma kuri,ou, v. 9) evoke the episode of Israel turning back from the land and believing the lie of the ten spies (Num 13:32, Pss 78:41, Isa 63:9-14 (MT). In this episode, the Lord was turned against the people as their enemy (Num 14:45, Isa 63:10), and this resonates with the role of the Angel of the Lord as a destroying angel (e.g. (Josh 5, Exod 12, 1 Chron 21),[18] and forms a precedent for the judicial death of Ananias and Sapphira.
5) With Luke’s conjunction of “the holy Spirit” (to. pneu/ma to. a[gion, v. 3) and “the Spirit of the Lord” (to. pneu/ma kuri,ou, v. 9) only occurring in Isa 63:9-14 (MT), his personification of the Spirit in this episode is most likely “angelomorphic” and derived from this particular Isaianic presentation of the role of the Angel of the Lord. This reading receives support from Luke’s other use of “the Spirit of the Lord” (Acts 8:39), which seems to be contextually linked to the occurrence of “the Spirit” (Acts 8:29), which in turn picks up the earlier reference of “the angel of the Lord” (Acts 8:26).
Luke does not use “the Spirit of the Lord” outside these two episodes, and it could be that he has here a limited reason to evoke “Spirit of the Lord” traditions in these two texts. However, a consideration of Luke’s wider story suggests that these two episodes are just clearer examples of a broader pattern in Acts.
Conclusion
Luke deploys a personification of the Spirit; this is shown by his conjunction of personal language in respect of the Spirit with language that describes the Spirit as something that is possessed, received and poured. Luke presents an angelomorphic personification of the Spirit in Acts 5. This may imply an angelic agency underlies the personification, but such an implication is not required (nor is it excluded) by our findings. The poetics of personification are such that the prosopopoeia makes no such implication; as Paxson notes, the rhetorical practise of personification “requires a separation between the literary pretence of a personality, and the actual state of affairs”.[19] However, the linkage with Isaiah 63 and the Angel of the Lord in the Exodus prevents any use of Luke’s language as an initial step on the way to a doctrine of the Holy Spirit as the Third Person of the Trinity.
[1] J. L. Paxson, The Poetics of Personification (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
[2] Paxson defines personification as “the material translation of one quantity (often ideational or abstract) into another (usually a person)”, Poetics, 39.
[3] Examples of this kind of personification are given in standard treatments such as G. B. Caird, Language and Imagery of the Bible (London: Duckworth, 1980), 136-137, and J. Hawthorn, Studying the Novel (London: Arnold Publishing, 2001), 91-92.
[4] Poetics, 42.
[5] The detail is hierarchical in that substance precedes form, which in turn precedes viability and sentience.
[6] Accordingly, a human person (say an adult) could be personified as a child in a narrative story, or an actual angel could be personified as the Angel of the Lord in the episode of Ananias and Sapphira.
[7] Paxson defines the “story” as the “narrated level of phenomenal events”, Poetics, 41.
[8] J. Hur, A Dynamic Reading of the Holy Spirit in Luke-Acts (London: T & T Clark, 2004), 186-187.
[9] Elsewhere, N.T. usage is confined to 2 Cor 3:17-18, an exodus context.
[10] Ben Witherington III, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 214.
[11] Witherington, Acts, 216, states that Luke equates the Spirit with God, but he does not offer an explanation of what such an equation means for Luke.
[12] For example, E. Haenchen, Acts of the Apostles (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1971), 237.
[13] As C. K. Barrett observes in, The Acts of the Apostles (2 vols; ICC; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2004), 1:263, that the episode does not say that Ananias or Sapphira lied to Peter, and so we cannot explain the personifying language in terms of Peter’s possession of the Spirit.
[14] G. E. M. Anscombe, Intention (Cambridge: Harvard University press, 2000), 11-12.
[15] B. R. Gaventa, Acts, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003), 102.
[16] Angelomorphic traditions present the Angel of the Lord as distinct from the Deity, but they do not conventionally indicate a switch in subject between the Angel of the Lord and the Lord, so that what is ascribed to the Angel of the Lord is also ascribed to the Deity (e.g. Exod 3 (Burning Bush), Gen 16 (Hagar)); here, the holy Spirit is presented in the same way.
[17] Barrett notes the link to the Waters of Meribah, Acts, 1:270; Haenchen notes links with the story of Achan, Acts, 239.
[18] This is noted by William Neil, The Acts of the Apostles, (NCB; London: Oliphants, 1973), 94.
[19] Poetics, 6.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One