Demonstrative pronouns

Greek points with two words. οὗτος is "this", for what is near at hand; ἐκεῖνος is "that", for what is further off. Between them they occur 1,627 times, and both decline with endings you already have.

What has to be learnt here is not the forms. It is the three quite different jobs a demonstrative does, and the one place where a breathing mark is the whole difference between two words.

οὗτος: the forms

Two patterns make this far less work than the table looks.

The τ goes where the article's τ goes. Every form begins with τ except the four nominatives where the article also has none — ὁ, ἡ, οἱ, αἱ against οὗτος, αὕτη, οὗτοι, αὗται. If you know the article, you already know this.

The stem vowel echoes the ending. ου before an o-sound, αυ before an a or η: τούτου but ταύτης, τούτῳ but ταύτῃ. Notice that and the paradigm nearly predicts itself.

ἐκεῖνος: the forms

ἐκεῖνος, ἐκείνη, ἐκεῖνο — and after that there is nothing to learn. It declines exactly like αὐτός, which declines like ἀγαθός, including the same exception in the same place: the neuter singular ἐκεῖνο has no final ν.

ἐν ἐκείναις ταῖς ἡμέραις

"In those days" — dative plural feminine, agreeing with ἡμέραις, and a phrase you will meet often in the Gospels.

ἐκεῖνος occurs 242 times against οὗτος's 1,385, much the rarer of the two. But where it turns up it is often doing something deliberate, which is the last part of this chapter.

With a noun: outside the article, still "this"

When a demonstrative modifies a noun, the noun keeps its article and the demonstrative stands outside the article group. That is predicate position — and here, unlike with an adjective, it does not make a predicate. It still means "this".

Either side of the noun will do, and Mark and Luke happen to give us one of each in the same scene:

Ἀληθῶς οὗτος ὁ ἄνθρωπος υἱὸς θεοῦ ἦν

Ὄντως ὁ ἄνθρωπος οὗτος δίκαιος ἦν

Mark reports "truly this man was God's Son", Luke "certainly this man was righteous". The reported words differ; what does not is οὗτος ὁ ἄνθρωπος against ὁ ἄνθρωπος οὗτος — before the article in one, after the noun in the other, both "this man". Matthew, reporting the same centurion, gives a third option:

Ἀληθῶς θεοῦ υἱὸς ἦν οὗτος

"Truly this was God's Son." No ἄνθρωπος at all, so οὗτος is standing on its own — which is the next section.

Compare that with chapter 6. An adjective in predicate position — ἀγαθὸς ὁ ἄνθρωπος — means "the man is good". A demonstrative there does not; it is simply where demonstratives live.

Τοῦτο τὸ ποτήριον ἡ καινὴ διαθήκη ἐστὶν

"This cup is the new covenant." Τοῦτο sits outside the article and modifies ποτήριον; what is predicated is ἡ καινὴ διαθήκη.

Standing on its own

With no article-bearing noun to modify, a demonstrative is simply a pronoun: "this one", "that one", "these things".

Οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ υἱός μου ὁ ἀγαπητός

"This is my beloved Son." Nothing for οὗτος to modify, so it is the subject on its own.

αὕτη ἦν πλήρης ἔργων ἀγαθῶν

"She was full of good works" — of Tabitha. The form is feminine, so English needs "she" rather than "this".

ἐκεῖνος κλέπτης ἐστὶν καὶ λῃστής

"That man is a thief and a robber." κλέπτης has no article, so it is the predicate rather than the thing ἐκεῖνος modifies.

The test is short: an articular noun to go with, and it modifies it; none, and it stands alone. The two commonest forms of οὗτος are both neuter and both usually stand alone — τοῦτο, "this", 317 times, and ταῦτα, "these things", 240, of which μετὰ ταῦτα accounts for 26.

Pointing back at what was just said

The third use is a demonstrative reaching back to someone named a moment earlier, where English would simply say "he".

οὐκ ἦν ἐκεῖνος τὸ φῶς

"He was not the light." ἐκεῖνος is John the Baptist, named two verses earlier, and almost every English translation gives it as "he". Young’s Literal is the exception and says "that one" — which is what the Greek does, and shows you why the others decline to.

This is worth knowing precisely because the translation flattens it. The writer chose a word that points; the English gives you a pronoun. Nothing is hidden — but to see where a writer is directing attention, you have to read the Greek.

Watch the breathing

αὕτη, with a rough breathing, is "this" — the demonstrative in this chapter. αὐτή, with a smooth one, is "she" — the personal pronoun from chapter 9. Nothing else separates them.

The counts are lopsided, and knowing that helps: αὕτη occurs 72 times, αὐτή 10. In the plural, more so — αὗται three times, and αὐταί not once in the New Testament.

So the odds favour the demonstrative. Odds are not reading, and this is where skimming the diacritics finally costs something. Keep one more pair apart while you are here: ταῦτα, "these things", against ταύτας, "these", feminine accusative plural.

ἐκεῖνος in John

John uses ἐκεῖνος more than any other writer — 70 of its 242 occurrences, in a Gospel a good deal shorter than Luke's — and often of a person, with weight rather than distance.

ὀφείλει καθὼς ἐκεῖνος περιεπάτησεν καὶ αὐτὸς περιπατεῖν

"He ought himself to walk as that one walked." ἐκεῖνος is Christ, and John does not name him — the pointing word does it.

ὅταν δὲ ἔλθῃ ἐκεῖνος, τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας

"When that one comes, the Spirit of truth."

A note on that verse, because it gets pressed too hard. ἐκεῖνος is masculine while πνεῦμα is neuter, and this is sometimes offered as grammatical proof of the Spirit's personhood. The grammar will not carry it. ἐκεῖνος agrees with ὁ παράκλητος, the masculine noun John used back in verse 7 — ordinary agreement with the antecedent. The doctrine rests on what John says about the Spirit across the passage, which is a great deal, and it does not need a pronoun's gender.

Which is what noticing a demonstrative is for: to ask who is being pointed at, and then read on for the answer.