Concept
Pneuma
Overview
Pneuma (Ancient Greek: πνεῦμα, romanized: pneûma) is an ancient Greek word for "breath", and in a religious context for "spirit". 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 ruach רוח in the Hebrew Bible, and in the Greek New Testament.
In classical philosophy, it is distinguishable from psyche (Ancient Greek: ψυχή, romanized: psūkhḗ), which originally meant "breath of life", but is regularly translated as "spirit" or most often "soul".
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
By reason of these affections the soul is at first without intelligence, but as time goes on the stream of nutriment abates, and the courses of the soul regain their proper motion, and apprehend the same and the other rightly, and become rational. The soul of him who has education is whole and perfect and escapes the worst disease, but, if a man’s education be neglected, he walks lamely through life and returns good…
Plato, Timaeus
States what Pneuma is; the author is tied to Pneuma in the knowledge graph.
Good (agathon) is the name which is given to the admirable (agasto) in nature; for, although all things move, still there are degrees of motion; some are swifter, some slower; but there are some things which are admirable for their swiftness, and this admirable part of nature is called agathon. Dikaiosune (justice) is clearly dikaiou sunesis (understanding of the just); but the actual word dikaion is more difficult…
Plato, Cratylus
States what Pneuma is; the author is tied to Pneuma in the knowledge graph.
We may here therefore sacredly inquire first, why it is that Moses is here led to speak thus. And secondly, why it is recorded in this place concerning man only, that God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul," when all animals throughout the whole Scripture are called "living creatures." The divine expressions recorded by Moses above are, "Let the earth bring forth every…
Martin Luther, Commentary on Genesis, Vol. 1
States what Pneuma is.
Philosophers who discussed Pneuma
Related ideas
- Hellenistic Judaism
- Quality (philosophy)
- Galen
- Hippocrates
- Meditations
- Ancient Greek
- Cleanthes
- Anaximenes of Miletus
- Cosmology
- Metaphysics
- Medicine
- Stoicism
- Mind
- Heat
- Matter
- Philo
- New Testament
- Diogenes of Apollonia
- Plato
- Physiology
- Classical antiquity
- Rome
- Soul
- Hebrew Bible
Place in the tradition
Part of Panpsychism.