Re: Anaphorics with a Capital

From: Brian M. Scott
Message: 61914
Date: 2008-12-06

At 11:27:00 AM on Saturday, December 6, 2008, Arnaud Fournet
wrote:

> I have read religious texts in Cyrillic alphabet written
> at the end of the XIXth century.

> I'm intrigued by the anaphorics He, His written with a
> capital letter when they refer to Jesus. I may be wrong
> but it seems this feature does not exist in western Europe
> with texts written in French, English, German, etc.

It is customary to capitalize the pronoun 'he' when it
refers to the Christian god. There are Christians who
capitalize pronouns referring to Jesus; you can see an
example of this usage at
<http://bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Topical.show/RTD/CGG/ID/2875/Abiding-God.htm>.

It isn't just a Christian usage, by the way. Wiccan usage
is as varied as Wiccan practice generally, but it is not
uncommon in Wiccan writing to see 'She' and 'He' when the
pronouns refer to 'the Goddess' and 'the God'.

Brian