Who are Christ's "Poor in Spirit"?

The first long sermon Christ gives in the Gospels is called "The Beatitudes." The Beatitudes start with Matthew 5:3, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

The word "blessed" in Greek is makarios which is from the base makar, meaning "happy" or "fortunate" but with the sense of favored by God. It can also mean "wealthy" with andros makaros (fortunate men) meaning specifically "the wealthy" (men with a fortune). This sets up an interesting contrast or pun in this first line that only works in Greek, saying "wealthy are the poor." This is very consistent with a lot of Christ's message in the Beatitudes.

However, the line doesn't quite say "the poor," which would be easier to understand. It says "the poor of spirit," which comes from the Greek, ptochos pneuma. Ptochos means "poor" but when combined with another word like pneuma the term can also means "lacking." Pneuma in Greek means literally "breeze" or "breath" and in other Greek literature doesn't normally mean "spirit." (Another Greek term used more commonly for spirit, thumos, also means breath, and life force, but it has a sense of maleness and aggressiveness.) In the Bible, pneuma is equated with the Hebrew ruah (ruwach) which also means "breeze" or "breath" and is used (for example, in Isaiah 61:1) to mean the breath of God, the movement of the invisible divine spirit. Ruah is the term used to indicate difference between physical and spiritual. The Old Testament says God is ruah, that is, spirit, not a physical being. In the New Testament, pneuma is used in place of ruah. It is the specific term used for the Holy Spirit, but it is also used to mean the human spirit. It is also the term used in the Gospels to described the evil spirits that Christ casts out.

This phrase ptochos pneuma could mean anything from those lacking the spirit of God to those lacking evil spirits or even those short of breath. In other words, this is a very difficult line. How do we decide what it means? As the first line of his first sermon, I am not comfortable with my inability to pinpoint Christ's exact meaning. However, I think this uncertainty is exactly what makes Christ's teaching so interesting compared to the teaching in most holy books.

If ptochos pneuma indicates those people who feel that they are lacking God's spirit, in other words, those who lack certainty about God, (which is the feeling I have about this phrase itself) this idea relates to the second test of Christ where we are told that we cannot test for proof of God. If ptochos pneuma indicates those who feel that they lack their own animating spirit, it could mean those who rely on the spirit of God rather than their own egos. If ptochos pneuma means those who are not controlled by evil spirits, it means people whose mind is not troubled. More simply, if ptochos pneuma means those who lack breath in the physical sense, the statement describes those whose time is short here on this earth.

Personally, I think that Christ means all of these things, including other ideas that are not as obvious. All of these people are moving toward that great mystery of the kingdom of heaven, the rule of the universal, the realm of God. The fact that the phrase itself has a lot of different dimensions is what separates Christs words from everything else ever taught.