Hmm.

Well I looked up the Nicene creed on the web, and http://latincatholic.tripod.com/id15.html says it's Spiritum Sanctum (translated to Holy Ghost)

Oh this one shows two different writings of it. I see where your problem is.
http://www.creeds.net/ancient/nicenel.htm It was written in 381 as Spritum Sanctam but the Council of Trent official Catholic Form from 1546 has it as Spiritum Sanctum as above.

And then I got distracted all in the translation of "proceeds from the father and the son" here http://www.catholic.com/library/Filioque.asp [/religion geekery]

Does that help? Y/N?

Yeah, those are all the different cases. Below it looks like they narrowed it down to what I need. Thanks though!

We-ell - Latin is inflected ie has varied endings to express case, which probably explains all the differing renditions you've seen. In a sentence on its own, I'd imagine it would be Nominative, the Holy Spirit, ie Spiritus Sanctus.

Edit: In the above example, spiritum sanctum is the Accusative case, as the subject of the verb 'believe'.

Edited at 2008-02-27 09:32 pm (UTC)

Yes! Cats has it. If you don't want it in any Latin case, just use the nominative: Spiritus Sanctus. That's no doubt why you're finding all kinds of variants on the webs: in an actual Latin sentence, it could be any of five or six different cases, depending on function (I can't remember what the vocative is, so I can't remember if you'd see it five or six different ways.)

I'm a flegling at latin. (Dying to rally learn it but my time is limited.) So I knew there were a ton of cases. I just didn't know what I was looking for.

Thanks! You guys rock.

I figured it had to do with case, but I've only just started learning Latin, so I don't know enough to tease out what case is what.

I've also seen a variant of Spirtius as Espritus. What is that, do you know?

I'm not at all familiar with that word - I went to look it up in an online Latin dictionary, and got a nil return as well.

Where did you see it? Because it did cross my mind to wonder if this wasn't a mistranscription of what is heard in the Mass - 'et spiritu sancto'.

When I googled, I cam up with Espiritus as a name of a organization spondered by some Christian church or pastor. Plus, in my area we have a Portugese church called Espirito Santo. So, I didn't know if Espiritus was a Latin variant, from another language, or a misstake (as that happens often.)

I think in French it's Espirit something too. Man, my French is bad now.

::nods:: I think it has to be from another language. And yes, esprit in French, which lends weight to that idea :-)

Definitely in Church Latin, the Spirit in the context of the Trinity is referred to as 'spiritus' - equally definitely, not 'animus', as someone suggested below: animus is more the soul, the spirit that moves *us* - a sense that's reflected in the English use of the word :-)

Technically vocative - it's not the subject, it's just an exclamation. But it makes no difference because spiritus is 4th dec.

Sorry! I just took the NLE today, I'm still a little Latin-ed up.

Doh! Thank you!

Today, huh? You've got oh, 30-odd years on me then LOL

Well. The word for "holy" is "sanctus" or "divinus" (I'd go with divinus) and the word for spirit is "animus" and if it's just alone then it would have to be in the nominative case (that's the -us or -a ending) so it would be Divinus Animus.

That's classical Latin. The Church might have another word for "spirit" (I think I've heard Sam Winchester say "spiritus," LOL) but that's not what they teach in school.

In prayers I'm pretty sure it's Espirtu Sanctus.

...Sanctu? @_@

According to my mother, her Catholic School Latin from the 50s, and the Entrance Rite of the Ordinary of the Mass in Latin, it's "Et Spíritus Sancti".

To add context to it, since you didn't want it in a sentence, it's the opening of Entrance Prayer, and it comes from the phrase, "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit."