autos

This is what the word is doing four times out of five. A Greek verb already carries its own subject inside it, so a separate pronoun is needed mainly when the person is on the receiving end of the action or is the one something belongs to. That is where this word lives: "they brought him," "his disciples," "with them." Nothing is being pressed; it is simply the smoothest way to keep referring to someone already named.

Because it is so ordinary it is the third most common word in the New Testament, behind only "the" and "and." Mark leans on it hardest, in the fast, chained storytelling that keeps a run of "he ... him ... his" moving without repeating names.

One wrinkle sits underneath the English. Older Greek had a separate word for "his own" (ἑαυτοῦ), and in the everyday Greek of the New Testament period this word was steadily taking that job over as well. In two places our printed texts mark it as the contracted form that means "his own," which is why some English Bibles read "his own" there rather than "his." The mark that makes the difference was not written in the earliest manuscripts, so it is a modern editor's call.

Greek puts the same word to a second job. Set beside a name or a noun, it stops merely referring and starts spotlighting: "the Lord himself" (1 Thessalonians 4:16), "God himself" (Revelation 21:3), "heaven itself" (Hebrews 9:24), "the Spirit himself" (Romans 8:16). The point is that this one, and no stand-in or messenger, is the one in view. The same trick works on things and on reasons, which is how Greek says "at that very hour" (Luke 13:1) and "for this very purpose" (Ephesians 6:22).

Standing alone as the subject it does the same work in less space: "he it is who will save his people" (Matthew 1:21), "he himself is our peace" (Ephesians 2:14). The Beatitudes run on this: "they shall be comforted," "they shall inherit the earth," where the Greek presses "they, and no others."

A third habit belongs to storytelling. A writer opens a clause with "and he" or "but he" as the scene turns to one person. Luke does this far more than anyone else, and scholars have argued for more than a century about whether it stresses anything at all, imitates the style of the Greek Old Testament, or simply marks the story moving to a new stage.

When the Greek word for "the" stands directly in front of it, the word flips from "he" or "himself" to "the same": "the same words" (Matthew 26:44), "the same Lord" (1 Corinthians 12:5), "the same lump of clay" (Romans 9:21). The word itself does not change at all; only its place in the sentence does, and English has no way to show that, so a translation has already made the choice for you.

Paul builds a favorite appeal on it. "Think the same thing" runs through Romans 15:5, 2 Corinthians 13:11, and Philippians 2:2 and 4:2, and the drumbeat of 1 Corinthians 12, "the same Spirit ... the same Lord ... the same God," holds together a whole chapter about differing gifts.

Two uses stand apart from the rest:

• Said of a person with nothing added, it means always the same, unchanging. Hebrews 1:12 applies to the Son a psalm addressed to God, "but you are the same," and Hebrews 13:8 says Jesus Christ is "the same yesterday and today and forever."
• In a fixed little phrase, literally "at the same," it simply means "in one place, together": the believers gathered in Acts 1:15, 2:1, and 2:44, the two women grinding in Luke 17:35, and the church coming together in 1 Corinthians 11:20 and 14:23.