Paul differentiates between the “unspiritual, soulish person” (ho psuchikos anthrôpos) and the “spiritual” person (ho pneumatikos anthrôpos).7 The former is what a person is because one has not “received” the Spirit; as such, one does not accept revelation that comes from the Spirit.
Paul uses pneumatikos in three places in 1Cor 2:12, 15 and 3:1. In 1Cor 2:12 and 15 it proba-
bly refers to the spiritual in terms of status as God’s people in antithesis to those of “this
age.”
. This verifies Paul’s expression in Philippians 1:21, ‘For to me, living is Christ …’.
The root of spirituality lies, according to 1 Corinthians 2, in Paul’s use of the Greek adverb πνευματικῶς [
pnevmatikós
when referring to spiritually], the adjective πνευματικοῖς [
pnevmatikoís
masculine, when referring to spiritual people] and the adjective πνευματικά [
pnevmatiká
neuter, when referring to spiritual things]. See also the Greek nouns πνεύμα [Spirit] and πνεύματος [spirit] that occur in 1 Corinthians 2.
The origin of the word ‘spirituality’ lies in the Latin word spiritualitas’ which relates to two other Latin words - spiritus and spiritualis - to translate the above-mentioned Greek words (cf. Kourie 2006:155; Sheldrake 2007:2–3). Scholars (such as Sheldrake, Kourie, Schneiders and McClendon) who referred to the origin of the word ‘spirituality’ and correctly relate it to the apostle Paul’s use of this adverb and adjectives did not discuss the connotative or denotative meanings of these words within their theological and literary contexts........
Paul speaks more often of the “Spirit of God” than of the “Spirit of
Christ” but God is also invariably the subject of the verb when Paul speaks of human reception of the Spirit....The resulting identification of the Spirit and Christ is parallel to 2 Cor
3:17 “the Lord is the Spirit” ὁ δέ κύριος τὸ πνεῦμὰ ἐστιν. The terms “Christ”
and “the Spirit of Christ” are used interchangeably, but, once again, it is not
necessarily an ontological identification of being; here, too, it is in fact a
dynamic identification.
Pneumatikos vs. Psychikos: Distinctions of
Spiritual Status among the Corinthians
Richard A. Horsley
Harvard Theological Review / Volume 69 / Issue 3-4 / October 1976
In these texts the "divine spirit" (dtlov vvevfxa)
or the "spirit of life" {nvtvua £WT7?) is the substance (ovaia) or the
means by which this soul or mind is constituted. In Op. 135 the
terms for the immortal part of a person composed oi divine spirit
are both "soul" and "mind" (Stat-ota),
In Plant. 18-20 the term for the
higher part of a person, the part made according to the Image of
God, the Archetype, the Logos of the First Cause, is "soul" or
"rational soul." "Spirit" in this passage is not the rational part of
the soul, but rather "that Divine and Invisible Spirit."
spirit as the essence of the soul, which is made according to the
Divine Image, the Logos
The distinction, however, is not between a mortal soul and an immortal spirit but between the
soul of "blood'(or flesh) and the soul whose essence is spirit.
As noted above, an anthropological dualism of immortal spirit
and mortal soul expressed in terms of the pneumatikos-psychikos
contrast as an exegesis of Gen 2:7 is not attested in extant texts of
Hellenistic Jewish theology. Such an exegesis would have to
distinguish basically between the two clauses of Gen 2:7b, i.e.,
between the "breath of life" and the "living soul." But the Philonic
interpretations of Gen 2:7 already examined, and the
corresponding allusions in Wisdom, divide basically between 2:7a
and 2:7b, i.e., between the body of earth or dust and the soul of
spirit. The latter distinction, however, points to two things
directly relevant to the Corinthian contrast between the two types
of human being. (1) The conceptual apparatus for these
interpretations of Gen 2:7 is a fundamental duality expressed in
terms of earthly-heavenly, mortal-immortal, body-soul, blood-
spirit, basically the same contrasts which appear in 1 Cor 15:4
Accordingly he [Philo] finds that the heavenly
anthropos and the earthly anthropos refer to two different kinds
of mind: the earth-born and body-loving mind and the mind
existing after the Image, which has no share in corruptible earthly
reality (esp. Leg. all. 1.31-33; 2.4-5; cf. Leg. all. 1.53-55; 88-89;
90-95; Plant. 44-45).
That is, he is
addressing Jewish communities which (like the community Paul
addresses in Corinth) contain an elite of exalted spiritual status,
in distinction from the ordinary believers. The "contemplative
race," or ordinary faithful Jews, has indeed considerable value to
God. Its election is comparable to the ordering of the world and
the creation of the earth-born molded human, to all of which is
assigned the symbolic number "6." Yet the "calling above" of the
prophetic type, symbolized by Moses, is an origin (and destiny)
superior to that of the molded humanity's corruptible mixture
with the body and earth, and is rather ethereal and incorporeal in
accord with the ever-virginal Hebdomad, i.e., Sophia/Logos.
The pneumatikos-psychikos language is part of or
parallel to a fundamental contrast between two types of human
being, heavenly and earthly, immortal and mortal, which Paul
argues against polemically in 1 Cor 15:44-54. This same
fundamental cosmological-soteriological contrast is found in
Philo's writings generally, but particularly in the explanations of
the two types of humanity based on Gen 1:27 and 2:7a,
respectively. Only the specific terminology, pneumatikos-
psychikos, is missing. It would appear, then, that the Corinthians
used pneumatikos-psychikos along with the rest of these terms to
make the same basic contrast between people of different levels of
spiritual ability and attainment, different religious types of
people, for whom the heavenly anthropos and the earthly
anthropos were paradigmatic symbols in Philo.
Similarly, in Philo's writings Sophia,
or her equivalent, the divine Logos, 37 is the mediator of creation
and especially the means and substance of the soul's salvation.
Sophia (Logos), perpetually understood as a divine personal
figure, is either the wife (spouse) or the mother of the wise.
we might put it, they were “absolutely imperceptible” but in
real life they had bodies made of pneuma, which is to say bodies made of
air (or something very like it, only thinner)....his pneumatic “vehicle” (elsewhere called ˆxhma) is usually associated with
the human soul, although in Porphyry and other Neoplatonists it can also serve as
the body of demons (as here).....
Tatian the Syrian, disciple of Justin martyr, said that there are two kinds of
“spirit” (Greek pneuma, Latin spiritus) in the world.30 the first is reserved
for God alone, indeed equated with him in the famous words of the fourth
gospel: pneËma ı yeÒw, “God is spirit.”31 in the second category is something
tatian described as the “pneuma that pervades matter.”32 this “material
pneuma” is the stuff of which both the human soul and demons are made.
Although inferior to the higher pneuma of God it is not evil in itself: it
is the yearning for material things that ruins people and demons alike.
How Thin Is a Demon?
Journal of Early Christian Studies,
2008
the birds must not be
burned, the spell enjoins. instead, “take [them] in hand and strangle them
while holding them out to eros, until each one of the animals is strangled
and their pneuma goes into him.”69 the procedure in the next papyrus
is a bit more complex, involving the offering of both ritually slain and
living animals “so that the god, when he enters, may take the pneuma
of whatever one he wishes.” 70 the spell then describes a tasting ritual,
just before which the user must sacrifice a rooster “so that the god might
receive plenty of pneuma.”
“vital pneuma” flowing along with blood in the veins. 73 initially
inhaled as ordinary air, a complex process of refinement and elaboration
within the body turned it into a substance—“psychic pneuma’’—that was
responsible for (or critical to) thought, emotion, and sensation no less than
the preservation of life itself.7
Wow that is what Gurdjieff taught also - did he get it from Galen?
Gospel of Thomas and Plato - book pdf
This con-
trast manifests in the use of the Greek verbs εἰμί and γίγνομαι: whereas Logos
“was,” creation “came into being.” The opposition of being and becoming is
carefully maintained throughout the Johannine Prologue and becomes appar-
ent already in the first verses of the text: “In the beginning was (ἦν) the Word
(ὁ λόγος), and the Word was (ἦν) with God, and the Word was (ἦν) God. He
was (ἦν) in the beginning with God. All things (πάντα) came into being (ἐγέ-
νετο) through him, and without him not one thing came into being (ἐγένετο)”
(John 1:1–3; NRSV). The only instance where this terminological distinction is
disrupted is John 1:14 with its claim that the Word became flesh (ὁ λόγος σὰρξ
ἐγένετο). According to Gregory E. Sterling, “The uniqueness of this statement
sets it off and makes it a focal point in the Prologue.”73
The distinction between Logos which “was” and creation which “became”
is in full agreement with the terminological tradition of Platonism. Plato him-
self described the sensible realm as “that which always becomes, but never is
(τὸ γιγνόμενον μὲν ἀεί, ὂν δὲ οὐδέποτε),” and the intelligible realm as “that which
always is and has no becoming (τὸ ὂν ἀεί, γένεσιν δὲ οὐκ ἔχον)” (Tim. 27d–28a). An
even closer parallel to John’s Prologue is Tim. 28b, where Plato asks whether the
world always was (ἦν) or came into being (γέγονεν), and immediately answers:
“It came into being (γέγονεν).”
Prologue’s “true light” was discov-
ered. As George H. van Kooten has demonstrated, this expression can be traced
back to the eschatological myth of Plato’s Phaedo, where Socrates speaks about
“the true heaven, the true light (τὸ ἀληθινὸν φῶς), and the true earth” (Phaed.
109e).100
According to van Kooten, “In the entire ensuing Platonic tradition, this true
light, the ἀληθινὸν φῶς, is also known as the intellectual light, the νοερὸν φῶς,
or, alternatively, as the mental light, the νοητὸν φῶς, the light which falls in the
province of νοῦς, as opposed to the visible, aesthetic light.”
