Soul as Breath or Atoms
Pneuma — 'breath' as the stuff of the soul: for the Stoics a warm, living fire-breath; for the atomists, soul made of the finest particles.
Pneuma ('breath, spirit') is the materialist idea of the soul as a physical substance. The Stoics (3rd c. BCE) made pneuma a fiery, tensile breath that pervades and animates both the body and the whole cosmos, its tension (tonos) explaining cohesion, life, and mind. Medical writers — the Hippocratics, and later Galen — tied pneuma to vital function, while the Epicureans instead held the soul to be ultra-fine atoms. From this root, the word for soul-as-breath went on to carry enormous weight in Hellenistic medicine and in religious thought.
How it traveled
- ProblemataChalcis · -322explains
- De spirituChalcis · -322explains
- De Rerum NaturaRome · -55explains
- Quaestiones ConvivalesChaeronea · 120explains
- De Defectu OraculorumChaeronea · 120explains
- Ad Se IpsumVindobona (Vienna) · 170explains
- Pyrrhoniae HypotyposesAlexandria · 210explains
- Vitae philosophorum— · 240explains
- ZoharGuadalajara · 1280
- Avodat HaKodesh (Ibn Gabbai)Cairo · 1523
- Pardes RimmonimTzfat · 1548
- Ketem Paz on ZoharTzfat · 1561
- Reshit ChokhmahTzfat · 1575
- Ohr HaChammah on ZoharTzfat · 1620
- Mikdash Melekh on ZoharTzfat · 1750
- Likutei MoharanBreslov (Ukraine) · 1802
- Maor VaShemeshKrakow (Cracow) · 1817
- Likutei HalakhotBreslov (Ukraine) · 1840
- BePardes HaChasidut VeHakabbalahWarsaw · 1910
- Sulam on ZoharJerusalem · 1945
- Fragmenta Logica et PhysicaAthensexplains
- Catena In Epistulam Ad Romanos (Typus Monacensis) (E Cod. Monac. gr. 412)—explains
- Placita Philosophorum—explains
- Refutatio Omnium Haeresium (= Philosophumena)—explains
- Praeparatio Evangelica—explains
- Fragmenta—explains
- Commentarii In Evangelium Joannis—explains
- De placitis Hippocratis et PlatonisRomeexplains
- Ancoratus—explains
- De Anima—explains
- The Shepherd of Hermas—explains
- De spiritu—explains
- Stromata—explains
- Legum Allegoriarum Libri I-III—explains
- Oratio ad Graecos—explains
- De Somniis (lib. i-ii)—explains
- PneumaticaAlexandriaexplains
- Fragmenta In Evangelium Joannis (In Catenis)—explains
- Contra Celsum—explains
- De febribus [Sp.]—explains
Key passages(20)
De mixtione · Alexander of Aphrodisias
Catena In Acta (Catena Andreae) (e cod. Oxon. coll. nov. 58) · Catenae (Novum Testamentum)
Catena In Epistulam Ad Romanos (Typus Monacensis) (E Cod. Monac. gr. 412) · Catenae (Novum Testamentum)
Fragmenta Logica et Physica · Chrysippus
Fragmenta Logica et Physica · Chrysippus
Fragmenta Logica et Physica · Chrysippus
Fragmenta Logica et Physica · Chrysippus
Fragmenta Logica et Physica · Chrysippus
Fragmenta Logica et Physica · Chrysippus
Fragmenta Logica et Physica · Chrysippus
Fragmenta Logica et Physica · Chrysippus