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Paraclete (; ) is a Christian biblical term occurring five times in the Johannine texts of the New Testament. In Christian theology, the word commonly refers to the Holy Spirit and is translated as 'advocate', 'counsellor', or 'helper'.
The word parakletos is a verbal adjective, often used of one called to help in a lawcourt. In the Jewish tradition the word was transcribed with Hebrew letters and used for angels, prophets, and the just as advocates before God's court. The word also acquired the meaning of 'one who consoles' (cf. Job 16:2, Theodotion's and Aquila's translations; the LXX has the correct word parakletores). It is probably wrong to explain the Johannine parakletos on the basis of only one religious background. The word is filled with a complex meaning: the Spirit replaces Jesus, is an advocate and a witness, but also consoles the disciples.
"παράκλητος does any independent meaning of its own, it is in fact a calque for the Latin term italic=no meaning a person of high social standing who speaks on behalf of a defendant in a court of law before a judge. When Greeks came into contact with the Roman Empire ... the word παράκλητος was developed as a precise equivalent to the Latin legal term italic=no. Thus, its significance must be found not only in its very few extant appearances, but also in the specific use of the Latin legal term."
This legalistic interpretation of the etymology contradicts the word found in the Septuagint translation of the Book of Job (Chapter 16, Verse 2), the meaning of which is specifically "comforter".
A Greek–English Lexicon cites the example of a court of justice.
The word later went from Hellenistic Jewish writing into rabbinic literature.For a summary of rabbinical usage see Jewish Encyclopedia 1914 "Paraclete"
Other words are used to translate the Hebrew language word מְנַחֵם mənaḥḥēm 'comforter' and מליץ יושר mliṣ yosher.The Orthodox Jewish Brit Chadasha Bible Translation
In John 14:16-17, 'paraclete' is Παράκλητον and 'spirit' is Πνεῦμα (pneuma), meaning 'breath'. Pneuma appears over 250 times in the Christian New Testament, and is the word used to refer to the Holy Spirit, i.e., the Spirit of God. As a result of the immediate explanation in John 14:17, the Paraclete in John 14:16 is considered to be the Holy Spirit.
M. E. Boring, writing in the Cambridge journal New Testament Studies, describes a "striking similarity" between the defined attributes of what the Paraclete is, and is to do, and what the outcome of Christian prophecy has spoken to, explaining the Paraclete as the post-Passover gift of the Holy Spirit. "The Paraclete represents the Spirit as manifested in a particular way, as a pneumatic Christian speech charisma. Every verb describing the ministry of the Paraclete is directly related to his speech function."
The early church identified the Paraclete as the Holy Spirit. In first-century Jewish and Christian understanding, the presence of the Holy Spirit is to claim the rebirth of prophecy.
During his period as a hermit in the mid-12th century, Peter Abelard dedicated his chapel to the Paraclete because "I had come there as a fugitive and, in the depths of my despair, was granted some comfort by the grace of God.""The Letters of Abelard and Heloise", Betty Radice, Trans. London: Penguin, 1973. P. 30
Today, the Holy Spirit continues to be referred to as the Paraclete in a prayer known as the Divine Praises, recited during Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.
quotes Jesus as saying "another Paraclete" will come to help his disciples, implying, according to Lawrence Lutkemeyer, that Jesus is the first and primary Paraclete. In Jesus himself is called "paraclete".
Raymond Brown (1970),Brown, Raymond Edward, ed. The gospel according to John. Vol. 29. Cambridge University Press, 1970, 1141. Brown writes; "Thus, the one whom John calls "another Paraclete" is another Jesus. Since the Paraclete can come only when Jesus departs, the Paraclete is the presence of Jesus when Jesus is absent. Jesus' promises to dwell within his disciples are"Kinn, James W. The Spirit of Jesus in Scripture and prayer. Rowman & Littlefield, 2004, 60. Winn writes; "Second, the whole complex of parallels above leads Raymond Brown to a more profound conclusion: the Holy Spirit continues the presence of Jesus. Thus the one whom Jesus calls "another Paraclete" is in many ways another Jesus, ." supported by George Johnston (2005),Johnston, George. The spirit-paraclete in the gospel of John. Vol. 12. Cambridge University Press, 2005, 94. Johnston writes; "Brown cannot regard such parallelism as coincidental, and he is perfectly correct. His conclusion is that 'as "another Paraclete" the Paraclete is, as it were, another Jesus ... and the Paraclete is the presence of Jesus when Jesus is " also says that the "another Paraclete" of John 14:16 is in many ways another Jesus, the presence of Jesus after Jesus ascends to his Father.Marthaler, Berard L. The creed: The apostolic faith in contemporary theology. Twenty-Third Publications, 1993, 275. Marthaler writes; "Thus," writes Brown, "the one whom John calls 'another Paraclete' is another Jesus."17 The Paraclete is the presence of God in the world when Jesus ascends to the Father."
The Gospel of Matthew twice uses the passive form of the corresponding verb παρακαλῶ, in 2:18 and 5:4. In both instances, the context is of mourning, and the meaning of the verb is 'to be comforted'. Greek Word Study Tool (publisher=Perseus.tufts.edu): παρακαλέω, A, III, 2
A few Muslim commentators, such as David Benjamin Keldani (1928), have argued the theory that the original Koine Greek used was periklytos, meaning 'famed, illustrious, or praiseworthy', rendered in Arabic as Aḥmad (another name of Muhammad), and that this was substituted by Christians with parakletos.Donzel, E. Van and B. Lewis, Ch. Pellat. "Isa" in Encyclopedia of Islam Volume 4, 1997, 83.Watt (1991) pp. 33–34 There are currently no known Greek manuscripts with this reading (all extant Greek manuscripts read παράκλητος parakletos), although the earliest manuscript evidence available is from the 3rd century.Reuben J. Swanson, ed., New Testament Greek Manuscripts: John. William Carey International University Press, 1998. Variant Readings Arranged in Horizontal Lines Against Codex Vaticanus – see John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7. Also see Nestle-Aland, eds., Novum Testamentum Graece, 28th ed. Stuttgart: Deutsche Biblegesellschaft, 2012. Early manuscripts, Papyrus 66 and Papyrus 75, are generally placed in the 3rd century; Papyrus 66 is even dated to around 200 CE. & See also
Regarding what the original Greek term was, according to A. Guthrie and E. F. F. Bishop:
Sean Anthony agrees that the connection of Ahmad to the Paraclete in the Gospel of John may have been a later tradition that is not found in the work of Ibn Ishaq and that the earliest extant attempts by Muslims to connect these two figures that inspire later discussion on the subject goes back to Ibn Hisham and Ibn Qutaybah.
A later interpolation of this passage to the Quran has been rejected in modern Islamic studies. This has been supported by the fact that the earliest as well as the later manuscripts of the Quran contain the same passage and wording in chapter 61.
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