Pneuma
Encyclopedia
Pneuma is an ancient Greek
word for "breath
," and in a religious context for "spirit
" or "soul
." It has various technical meanings for medical writers and philosophers of classical antiquity
, particularly in regard to physiology, and is also used in Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible
and in the Greek New Testament
. In classical philosophy, it is distinguishable from psyche , which originally meant "breath of life", but is regularly translated as "spirit
" or most often "soul".
of Anaximenes
to aer (ἀήρ, "air") as the element from which all else originated. This usage is the earliest extant occurrence of the term in philosophy. A quotation from Anaximenes observes that "just as our soul (psyche), being air (aer), holds us together, so do breath (pneuma) and air (aer) encompass the whole world." In this early usage, aer and pneuma are synonymous.
necessary for the systemic functioning of vital organs. It is the material that sustains consciousness
in a body. According to Diocles
and Praxagoras
, the psychic pneuma mediates between the heart
, regarded as the seat of Mind
in some physiological
theories of ancient medicine, and the brain
.
The disciples of Hippocrates
explained the maintenance of vital heat
to be the function of the breath within the organism. Around 300 BC, Praxagoras
discovered the distinction between the arteries and the veins. In the corpse arteries are empty; hence, in the light of these preconceptions they were declared to be vessels for conveying pneuma to the different parts of the body. A generation afterwards, Erasistratus
made this the basis of a new theory of disease
s and their treatment. The pneuma, inhaled from the outside air, rushes through the arteries till it reaches the various centres, especially the brain
and the heart
, and there causes thought and organic movement.
is the warm mobile "air" that in the sperm transmits the capacity for locomotion and certain sensations to the offspring. These movements derive from the soul of the parent and are embodied by the pneuma as a material substance in semen. Pneuma is necessary for life, and as in medical theory is involved with the "vital heat," but the Aristotelian pneuma is less precisely and thoroughly defined than that of the Stoics.
, pneuma is the concept of the "breath of life," a mixture of the elements air (in motion) and fire (as warmth). For the Stoics, pneuma is the active, generative principle that organizes both the individual and the cosmos
. In its highest form, pneuma constitutes the human soul (psychê), which is a fragment of the pneuma that is the soul of God (Zeus
). As a force that structures matter
, it exists even in inanimate objects.
and Christian
usage, pneuma is a common word for "spirit" in the Septuagint and the Greek New Testament. At John 3:5, for example, pneuma is the Greek word translated into English as "spirit": "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit (pneuma), he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
word for "breath
Breathing
Breathing is the process that moves air in and out of the lungs. Aerobic organisms require oxygen to release energy via respiration, in the form of the metabolism of energy-rich molecules such as glucose. Breathing is only one process that delivers oxygen to where it is needed in the body and...
," and in a religious context for "spirit
Spirit
The English word spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body.The spirit of a living thing usually refers to or explains its consciousness.The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap,...
" or "soul
Soul
A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...
." It has various technical meanings for medical writers and philosophers of classical antiquity
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
, particularly in regard to physiology, and is also used in Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...
and in the Greek New Testament
Novum Testamentum Graece
Novum Testamentum Graece is the Latin name editions of the original Greek-language version of the New Testament.The first printed edition was the Complutensian Polyglot Bible by Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, printed in 1514, but not published until 1520...
. In classical philosophy, it is distinguishable from psyche , which originally meant "breath of life", but is regularly translated as "spirit
Spirit
The English word spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body.The spirit of a living thing usually refers to or explains its consciousness.The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap,...
" or most often "soul".
Presocratics
Pneuma, "air in motion, breath, wind," is equivalent in the material monismMaterial monism
Material monism is a Presocratic belief which provides an explanation of the physical world by saying that all of the world's objects are composed of a single element...
of Anaximenes
Anaximenes of Miletus
Anaximenes of Miletus was an Archaic Greek Pre-Socratic philosopher active in the latter half of the 6th century BC. One of the three Milesian philosophers, he is identified as a younger friend or student of Anaximander. Anaximenes, like others in his school of thought, practiced material monism...
to aer (ἀήρ, "air") as the element from which all else originated. This usage is the earliest extant occurrence of the term in philosophy. A quotation from Anaximenes observes that "just as our soul (psyche), being air (aer), holds us together, so do breath (pneuma) and air (aer) encompass the whole world." In this early usage, aer and pneuma are synonymous.
Ancient Greek medical theory
In ancient Greek medicine, pneuma is the form of circulating airAir (classical element)
Air is often seen as a universal power or pure substance. Its supposed fundamental importance to life can be seen in words such as aspire, inspire, perspire and spirit, all derived from the Latin spirare.-Greek and Roman tradition:...
necessary for the systemic functioning of vital organs. It is the material that sustains consciousness
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
in a body. According to Diocles
Diocles of Carystus
Diocles of Carystus , a very celebrated Greek physician, was born at Carystus in Euboea, lived not long after the time of Hippocrates, to whom Pliny says he was next in age and fame. Not much is known of his life, other that he lived and worked in Athens, where he wrote what may be the first...
and Praxagoras
Praxagoras
Praxagoras was an influential figure of medicine in ancient Greece. He was born on the Greek island of Kos in about 340 BC. Both his father, Nicarchus, and his grandfather were physicians...
, the psychic pneuma mediates between the heart
Heart
The heart is a myogenic muscular organ found in all animals with a circulatory system , that is responsible for pumping blood throughout the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions...
, regarded as the seat of Mind
Mind
The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...
in some physiological
Physiology
Physiology is the science of the function of living systems. This includes how organisms, organ systems, organs, cells, and bio-molecules carry out the chemical or physical functions that exist in a living system. The highest honor awarded in physiology is the Nobel Prize in Physiology or...
theories of ancient medicine, and the brain
Brain
The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...
.
The disciples of Hippocrates
Hippocrates
Hippocrates of Cos or Hippokrates of Kos was an ancient Greek physician of the Age of Pericles , and is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine...
explained the maintenance of vital heat
Vital heat
Vital heat, also called innate or natural heat, or calidum innatum, is a term that has generally referred to the heat produced within the body, usually the heat produced by the heart and the circulatory system....
to be the function of the breath within the organism. Around 300 BC, Praxagoras
Praxagoras
Praxagoras was an influential figure of medicine in ancient Greece. He was born on the Greek island of Kos in about 340 BC. Both his father, Nicarchus, and his grandfather were physicians...
discovered the distinction between the arteries and the veins. In the corpse arteries are empty; hence, in the light of these preconceptions they were declared to be vessels for conveying pneuma to the different parts of the body. A generation afterwards, Erasistratus
Erasistratus
Erasistratus was a Greek anatomist and royal physician under Seleucus I Nicator of Syria. Along with fellow physician Herophilus, he founded a school of anatomy in Alexandria, where they carried out anatomical research...
made this the basis of a new theory of disease
Disease
A disease is an abnormal condition affecting the body of an organism. It is often construed to be a medical condition associated with specific symptoms and signs. It may be caused by external factors, such as infectious disease, or it may be caused by internal dysfunctions, such as autoimmune...
s and their treatment. The pneuma, inhaled from the outside air, rushes through the arteries till it reaches the various centres, especially the brain
Brain
The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...
and the heart
Heart
The heart is a myogenic muscular organ found in all animals with a circulatory system , that is responsible for pumping blood throughout the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions...
, and there causes thought and organic movement.
Aristotle
The "connate pneuma" of AristotleAristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
is the warm mobile "air" that in the sperm transmits the capacity for locomotion and certain sensations to the offspring. These movements derive from the soul of the parent and are embodied by the pneuma as a material substance in semen. Pneuma is necessary for life, and as in medical theory is involved with the "vital heat," but the Aristotelian pneuma is less precisely and thoroughly defined than that of the Stoics.
Stoic pneuma
In Stoic philosophyStoicism
Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early . The Stoics taught that destructive emotions resulted from errors in judgment, and that a sage, or person of "moral and intellectual perfection," would not suffer such emotions.Stoics were concerned...
, pneuma is the concept of the "breath of life," a mixture of the elements air (in motion) and fire (as warmth). For the Stoics, pneuma is the active, generative principle that organizes both the individual and the cosmos
Cosmos
In the general sense, a cosmos is an orderly or harmonious system. It originates from the Greek term κόσμος , meaning "order" or "ornament" and is antithetical to the concept of chaos. Today, the word is generally used as a synonym of the word Universe . The word cosmos originates from the same root...
. In its highest form, pneuma constitutes the human soul (psychê), which is a fragment of the pneuma that is the soul of God (Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
). As a force that structures matter
Matter
Matter is a general term for the substance of which all physical objects consist. Typically, matter includes atoms and other particles which have mass. A common way of defining matter is as anything that has mass and occupies volume...
, it exists even in inanimate objects.
Judaism and Christianity
In JudaicJudaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
and Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
usage, pneuma is a common word for "spirit" in the Septuagint and the Greek New Testament. At John 3:5, for example, pneuma is the Greek word translated into English as "spirit": "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit (pneuma), he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."
See also
- The PneumaticPneumatic (Gnosticism)The pneumatics were, in gnosticism, the highest order of humans, the other two orders being psychics and hylics. The pneumatic saw himself as escaping the doom of the material world via the secret knowledge. Outsiders could only know these secrets by joining a gnostic group...
or "spiritual human" of GnosticismGnosticismGnosticism is a scholarly term for a set of religious beliefs and spiritual practices common to early Christianity, Hellenistic Judaism, Greco-Roman mystery religions, Zoroastrianism , and Neoplatonism.A common characteristic of some of these groups was the teaching that the realisation of Gnosis... - The concept of Christian pneumatologyPneumatologyPneumatology is the study of spiritual beings and phenomena, especially the interactions between humans and God.Pneuma is Greek for "breath", which metaphorically describes a non-material being or influence....
- Pneuma akatharton, unclean spiritUnclean spiritIn English translations of the Bible, unclean spirit is a common rendering of Greek pneuma akatharton , which in its single occurrence in the Septuagint translates Hebrew ....
- Pneuma (journal), subtitled "The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies"