§ 3: On the Identity of Spirit and Soul

In the New Testament, the words denoting the spiritual nature of man—soul and spirit—are placed side by side as synonymous and equivalent, just as the words flesh and body, which denote his material substance, are placed in parallel; and they are used indifferently for adequate expression of each of the constituent parts of man; many such passages from the New Testament appear, containing one word in place of the other, always signifying the same notion; sometimes a correspondence is observed between the words denoting the spiritual nature and the words signifying the material aspect; whenever the word spirit appears, there follows correspondingly the word flesh; whenever the word soul appears, there follows the word body; as, “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” “The flesh desires against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.” “A spirit has no flesh and bones, as you see me having.” “Let us cleanse ourselves, brothers, from every defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” “He who sows to his flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; but he who sows to the spirit will from the spirit reap eternal life,” and so on. And in other passages: “Do not worry about your soul what you will eat, or what you will drink; nor about your body what you will wear. Is not the soul more than food and the body more than clothing?” “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear the one who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.” But elsewhere this correspondence is not maintained; as, “Glorify God in your body and in your spirit”; and in another place he says: “One body and one spirit, as you were called in one hope of your calling”; and when, addressing the church in Ephesus, he speaks of one body and one spirit, in addressing the church in Jerusalem, he expresses the same thing with the words, “And the multitude of those who believed had one heart and one soul.”

From the foregoing and from many other passages of the New Testament it is evident that the words soul and spirit are taken indifferently and interchangeably, just as the words flesh and body are taken; and just as there is no difference

Between the latter, so there ought to be no distinction between the former.

The word soul, whenever it is referenced in the New Testament except for certain exceptions, in which the soul is taken for the individual person, as in “there were about three thousand souls,” and for salvation from danger; “there shall be no loss of any soul,” everywhere is taken as denoting the spiritual nature of man.

The word spirit in the New Testament is many-significanced, but whenever through it is designated the spiritual substance of man, it is taken for the soul.

The identity of meaning between the word spirit and soul is demonstrated from many passages of the Sacred Scripture; in them the word spirit is placed for the soul and vice versa. For example: in the resurrection of the daughter of Jairus, the evangelist Luke reports that “her spirit returned, and she rose at once”; whereas the same evangelist Luke, in the Acts of the Apostles, recounting the story of the young man who fell from the third story and was taken up dead, says: “And Paul went down and fell upon him and embraced him and said, “Do not be troubled; for his soul is in him”; it is evident that the same evangelist in the first resurrection uses the word spirit, and in the second uses the word soul. In the resurrection of the Sidonian boy, the prophet Elijah prays to God saying, “O Lord my God, let the soul of this boy return into him. And it came to pass thus… and the soul of the boy returned to within him and he lived.”

The identity of the meanings of the words spirit and soul is further confirmed by the verbs used indifferently and interchangeably—to breathe out and to expire; concerning the Lord Jesus, the evangelists use either the verb “to breathe out” or the periphrasis “he gave up his spirit”; whereas concerning Ananias, Sapphira, and Herod they use “to expire.” A strong witness to the identity of meaning of these words is also the following.

While the Lord was teaching, He said that the good shepherd lays down his soul for the sheep; but in the accomplishment of the divine teaching He said: “Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit”; similarly the first martyr Stephen, having sacrificed his soul for Christ and the Gospel, while delivering his soul into the hands of the Creator, said: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” The apostle Peter calls the souls in Hades spirits, saying: “Being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which also, having gone to the spirits in prison, he preached,” etc. Yet in the same epistle he uses the word souls, saying: “And those who suffer according to the will of God should commit their souls to a faithful Creator in well-doing.” Those preached to by the apostles, commanding to abstain from fleshly desires, Peter says: “Abstain from fleshly desires, which wage war against the soul”; and Paul, giving the reason, says: “For the flesh desires against the spirit.”

From the parallelism of the various passages of the Sacred Scripture it is evident and demonstrated that spirit and soul—these two words—are synonymous and equivalent, and that both, when spoken with reference to man, signify the spiritual nature of man created according to the image of God through the divine breathing; that is, the soul created according to the image of God, as is clearly shown by the following examples, as the Church expresses it.

“A blessed soul, a simple braid.” (Of Solomon.)

“The destruction of the wicked is evil; by their impiety they deprive themselves of their soul.” (Of the same.)

“Child, receive your soul with gentleness and give it honor according to its worth.” (Sirach 2.)

“A treasure of soul, a poverty of body; when this is rich, that is impoverished; the body receives life from the soul, but the soul shares suffering from the body.” (Of Basil.)

“The soul is sustained by blood and breath; when these fail, the soul too departs.” (Of the same.)

“Not only do the angels see what concerns us, but also the souls of all the saints.” (Of the same.)

“What do you wish to become of me? I beg for my soul: what is great to you, O what is small?” (Gregory the Theologian.)

“The body flourishes when the soul rejoices; the soul thrives and looks upward when pleasures wane and grow weak with the body.”

“The body is nourished through the soul, but the soul partakes of suffering through the body.”

“When the soul withdraws from the body, it becomes aware of the good or evil that is to befall it; and it also senses what is accomplished on its behalf here; the souls of the righteous are able to intercede for us.” (Of the same.)

“I am persuaded by the words of the wise, that every soul, being beautiful and beloved by God, as soon as it is freed from the body bound to it and departs hence, immediately becoming aware of and beholding the good that lies before it—for that which was obscuring it has been removed or laid aside or, I scarcely know what to say—it enjoys a wonderful pleasure and delights, and comes graciously to its own Master, as if having escaped from a harsh prison in this life, shaken off the bonds surrounding it, by which the wing of the mind was being dragged down, and now already through the imagination enjoys the blessedness laid up for it.” (Of the same.)

“God has given us all things in pairs according to nature: two eyes, two ears, two hands, two feet; if either of these is injured, we remedy the need through the other; but He has given us one soul; if we were to lose it, by what means should we live?” (Chrysostom.)

He himself says: “The soul is an incorporeal and immortal substance.” And again.

“The soul is a created substance, a living and intellectual essence.”

“An undisciplined soul is condemned to death.”

Eusebius says: “The soul preserves the image and likeness, as rational, as immortal, and as an impassible intellect in human nature.”

Sirach says: “Do not follow the desires of your soul, and restrain yourself from its cravings.”

“A soul is undone, rolling about in transgression, and does not live in hope when looked upon as a soul.”

“A soul despairingly descends into Hades.”

David says: “You have worn away my soul like a spider.” And again: “Rescue my soul from an impious sword, for my soul is filled with evils and my life with distress; I have drawn near to Hades, etc.”

“Just as a pig, wallowing in mire, delights in it, so too a soul buried in sins from evil habit does not even perceive the stench of the transgressions.” (Chrysostom.)

“The soul that sins shall surely die.” (Ezekiel.)

“One should consider by nature the good of the soul to be good.” (Basil.)

“An adulterer sends his soul to eternal judgment.” (John Climacus.)

“The sins of the soul are the sickness of the soul; when the body is mortified, the soul is renewed.”

“Without incorporeal virtues, neither can the virtues of the soul come into being.” (Damascene.)

“It is hard to paint the soul; but to portray the form is easy as a proof of the soul.” (Chrysostom.)

“Our soul is the image and likeness of God; therefore, according to human capacity, we become similar to God, according to ourselves, I say, and we ought to be made similar to Him with gentleness.” (Chrysostom.)

“Crooked thoughts of a crooked soul separate from God.” (Solomon.)

“The drunkard despised God and destroyed his own soul.” (Basil.)

“I consider these examples to be sufficiently demonstrative of the truth of my words.”

The word spirit sometimes appears in conjunction with the word soul, as for example: in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, “May God Himself sanctify you wholly; and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”; as also in Hebrews 4:12. “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart; and there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to His eyes, to whom we give account.” But in both passages it is evident that the apostle Paul is not speaking of a third constituent part, but of the spirit of grace, which he received in baptism; concerning which it is said in the preceding verse 19: “Do not quench the spirit”; that is, the spirit of grace or the spiritual charism which you received; therefore he places in the word the whole or undiminished, which, when spoken of a particular constituent part, indicates a division—which would be absurd. The statement that it “pierces as far as the division of soul and spirit” etc. shows from the passage itself that he does not intend to prove that spirit is another constituent part, but the power and holiness of the word of God, which like a two-edged sword penetrates everywhere and knows all things, nor does anything escape Him; but all things are naked and exposed to His eyes; it penetrates as far as the division of soul and spirit (of grace, that is, of the spiritual anointing) or reaches into the deepest thoughts and intentions and reflections of the soul and heart; and in order to enhance the power of the omniscience of the word of God, he says “there is no creation hidden from His sight”; that is, He knows all things, and as omniscient He knows those who walk in the spirit, which corresponds to the verse immediately above (verse 11). “Let us therefore strive to enter into that rest, lest anyone fall in the same example of disobedience.”

The word spirit also appears in the Old Testament, where it is placed plainly either redundantly or instead of the word life. In Hebrew poetry, such redundancies are customary; in it, often the second verse or the second part of a verse unfolds the same idea either through synonymous words or through other equivalent words. From the whole of the Sacred Scripture, both Old and New Testaments, it is evident that man has a rational and intellectual soul, that this soul has its origin from the divine breathing, and that it was fashioned according to the image and likeness of God. That the spirit is not a different constituent part, but either the word of the soul or the soul itself, the Old Testament and the New Testament teach us, the mouth of Truth Himself, our Lord Jesus Christ, teaches us, who commanded us to love God “with all your soul and with all your heart and with all your strength and with all your mind”; if the spirit were a distinct constituent part, He would not have omitted it; since He mentioned others like it, therefore the spirit spoken of in the Holy Scriptures is the spirit of God’s grace, which dwells in us, as the apostle Paul says: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and the spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16.) And again: “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” (Ephesians 4:30) and in Acts: “Then they laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit” (8:17) and in many other passages of the Holy Scriptures.

According to the meaning of the spirit drawn from the Holy Scriptures, the Church has composed all her hymns and chants. In the funeral services the Church chants: “With the spirits of the righteous made perfect, O Savior, grant rest to the souls of Your servants, preserving them in the blessed life that comes from You, O merciful One”; it is evident that the Church does not distinguish between spirit and soul as different from one another, but regards them as one and the same. That the intellectual and God-formed soul fashioned according to the image of God is immortal, we shall prove in the following section.