Pneuma

The Pneuma (Greek πνεῦμα, today called pnéwma, "the spirit ", "breath ", " air ", see about Pneumology or pneumatic ) has references to the spirit. So Hagion Pneuma can be translated as the Holy Spirit.

The ancient concept of pneuma but is related not only to the mind, but more broadly. It also means something like vertebrae, a breath of wind or pressure and has references to concepts similar to the Chinese Qi (Chi) or the Indian prana or the Indian Akasha, see also breath-soul.

For the Stoics pneuma is also used as a kind of " fiery breath of air ," the all-pervading cosmic power and thus has (a sort of fate ).

Paul set the positively rated pneuma than antithetical to the nature of the mind gramma, the old way of the written, contrary (eg in Rom 7:6 and 2 Cor 3:6 EU EU).

Schelling developed as part of his philosophy of history, the idea of ​​a Pneumopathologie ( a lesson from the loss of the spirit and the associated decay ). Eric Voegelin takes on this later. For Voegelin thus is the fraction of a history of ideas marked down to an order history of the symbols and myth, as it is first formulated in the New Science of Politics.

Medicine

In the ancient medicine of the Mediterranean (especially Greece, Egypt, Rome) was adjusted to the Pneuma as material life force before, she was responsible for physiological processes. Along with the blood it moved through the veins. According to Hippocratic doctors pneuma had its seat in the brain, sikelische doctors suspected it in the heart. Diseases have been incurred if the pneuma has been hampered by humors. Aristotle distinguished between two types of Pneuma: Pneuma First, to maintain the body temperature, which was inhaled from the outside. Second, innate, evaporated from the blood pneuma in the heart. Strato of Lampsacus assumed that the secretion of Pneuma causing sleep. After Erasistratos there was a Lebenspneuma in the heart and a psychic pneuma in the brain. Erasistratos suspected blood in the veins, arteries and psychic pneuma in the pneuma in the nerves. An important role was played by the pneuma in the ancient medical school of the spiritual man.

Further and additional literature

• Hermann Siebeck: The development of the doctrine of the Spirit ( pneuma ) in the science of antiquity. Journal of International Psychology and Linguistics 1880: 12, 361-407 and 480
• Marlene Putscher: pneuma, spirit, mind. Ideas of life drive in their historical changes. Steiner, Wiesbaden 1974

Translations

• Jutta Kollesch, Diethard Nickel: Ancient healing arts. Selected texts from the medical writings of the Greeks and Romans. Bibliographic enlarged edition. Philipp Reclam jun., Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-15-009305-4 (Universal Library 9305 ).