Timothy to Hebrews - The Preterist Archive

402 Hebrews IV. 12.
what in the same way as a knife
separates the bark from the wood.
Or, are we to understand re Kai as connecting two things lying deep,
of which, however, the second lies still deeper than the first, so that
the sword (or the divine word as a sword) first of all, generally
speaking, penetrates to them, and then, moreover, penetrates through
the first to the second ? Thus the spirit would be viewed as beiug
in somewhat the same relation to the soul, as
the innermost kernel
of a fruit is to the core, and the sword as a knife which cuts into the
core, nay, into the innermost kernel itself. The word fiepionog is not
at all decisive in favour of the first interpretation ;
what is spoken
of is a separation as well of the soul as of the
spirit, as ivell of the
joints as of the marrow, but not a separation of the soul from the
spirit, of the joints from the marrow. This very re Kai is rather in
favour of the second interpretation.
But a certain solution of the question must be obtained, first of
all, from a closer consideration of the two pairs of things themselves.
Could the author have had before his mind a separation of the soul
from the spirit in general ? In support of this, reference is made
to the biblical trichotomy of body, soul, and spirit which meets us
in 1 Thess. v. 23. There is undoubtedly a trichotomy in that passage
; but whether by this is to be understood any such mechanical
construction of man out of three parts or substances ;
whether it
involves the possibility that the soul and the spirit can be cut asunder
from each other, so that each may stand by itself, is indeed very
The Holy Scripture certainly distinguishes
much to be questioned.
the soul from the body, and the spirit from the body, and the soul
from the spirit. But nowhere does it represent the body as outwardly
separable from the soul. The present body is a au>na xpvxtKoi
(1 Cor. XV. 44), and the ^pvxiKov dvai belongs to its essence. Separated
from the soul, it is no longer " body," but " corpse ;" every atom
in it is qualitatively difterent as soon as the soul is severed from
it ; the body is throughout a quickened, animated, living, active
material ; the corpse is but a material subject to chemical laws.
Now, as a " body" separated from the soul is a nonentity, much less
can we conceive of a soul separated from the spirit. The same \pvxn
which, by its separation from the body, has changed it into a corpse,
is called as such also nvtviia (Luke xxiv. 37), a sure proof that soul
and spirit are still more identical than soul and body. But how are
we to explain the circumstance, that in 1 Thess. v. 23, and Heb.
iv. 12, soul and spirit are distinguished from each other ? Soul is
the designation of that life-centre of individuality given by nature,
proceeding from natural generation, and bringing with it from nature
(as being a thing not free, but subject to the influence of nature)
certain definite qualities and dispositions. The irrational animal
has also this psychical centre of life. But that of man is, in its