Pneumatics

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Pneumatics (from ancient Greek πνευμα pneuma "breath, wind, breath") was a term used mainly in the 1st to 3rd centuries for followers of certain groups of Gnosis , who were ascribed to have access to the highest knowledge, as well as for followers a certain medical school and partly also for Christians in general - as in some Pauline texts.

Ancient medical school

The members of a medical school founded by Athenaios of Attaleia in the first century AD (or earlier) were called pneumatics . They viewed the air you breathe ( Pneuma , also called spiritus ) as a life-giving and life-sustaining material principle that is absorbed by the lungs to cool the heat generated by the heart. The pneuma, standing between “fire” and “air” from the point of view of humoral pathology , then flow with the blood produced by the liver through the body and maintain the vital functions everywhere. In their physiology and pathology, the pneumatics closely followed the natural philosophy of the Stoa . In therapy, they mainly rely on a diet that qualitatively counteracts the disease. The representatives of the Pneumatic School included, for example, Aretaios of Cappadocia and the surgeons Antyllos , Archigenes of Apamea and Heliodorus, who were based on Leonidas of Alexandria (1st century) .

Gnosis

A certain group within the ancient Gnosis , the so-called Valentinians , distinguished three classes of people: hylics , psychics and pneumatics. The Valentinians claimed a superiority of the pneumatics and thus of their own group. The classification is mostly interpreted as a natural predestination: Pneumatics are by nature already destined for acceptance into the pleroma , psychics possibly, the hylics remain attached to matter. This could also have favored libertine views: the flesh cannot affect the pneumatics. The Montanists also seem to have known such a classification and a. to have related to the fact that only prophets or pneumatics have power to forgive .

New Testament

In 1 Cor 1.17  EU and 1 Cor 2.4  EU, Paul deals with opponents who are rhetorically competent, claim a special fellowship with Christ ( 1 Cor 12.13  EU ) and deny a resurrection of the dead. You describe yourself as a "pneumatics". Paul, on the other hand, claims the name for all Christians and in a special way for himself. According to some interpreters, he takes up the gnostic pair of opposites: The psychic is blind to God's saving actions or the gifts of the Spirit (pneumatika) , the pneumatics not ( 1 Cor 2, 13-15  EU ).

literature

  • Matthias Gatzemeier : Pneuma; Pneumatics. In: Jürgen Mittelstraß , Martin Carrier , Gereon Wolters (Hrsg.): Encyclopedia Philosophy and Philosophy of Science. 4 volumes, Mannheim, from volume 3 (1995) Stuttgart / Weimar (1980–) 1984–1996; corrected reprint for volumes 1 and 2, Stuttgart / Weimar: Metzler, 1995; Reprint Volumes 1–4, ibid 2004; Volume 3, p. 277 f.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hans Georg von Manz: Athenaios von Attaleia. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 115.
  2. ↑ Jutta Kollesch , Diethard Nickel : Ancient healing art. Selected texts from the medical writings of the Greeks and Romans. Philipp Reclam jun., Leipzig 1979 (= Reclams Universal Library. Volume 771); 6th edition ibid 1989, ISBN 3-379-00411-1 , p. 10.
  3. ↑ Wolfgang U. Eckart: History of Medicine. 2nd Edition. 1994, p. 54 f.
  4. ↑ Meyer's Large Pocket Lexicon, 1987
  5. ^ Wolfgang Wegner: Leonidas of Alexandria. In: Werner E. Gerabek u. a. (Ed.): Encyclopedia of medical history. 2005, p. 840 f.
  6. ↑ See. For example, Irenaeus , Against Heresies 1,7,5
  7. ↑ To this in more detail: Hans G. Kippenberg : Gnostic second rank. On the institutionalization of Gnostic ideas as anthropolatry. In: Jacob Taubes (Ed.): Gnosis and Politics. Paderborn u. a. 1984
  8. ↑ Tertullian , Dep. 21, 17