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corpus-paul - Pushing my luck: (was re: Zoe and Bios - now PNEUMA and PSYCHE)

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  • From: "Chris Cutler" <Chrisc AT powercall.co.uk>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Pushing my luck: (was re: Zoe and Bios - now PNEUMA and PSYCHE)
  • Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 22:25:52 +0100


Thanks to Jim for so patiently answering my question on the above.

Can I try another one which is (I hope) more relevant to Corpus Paul?

Some time ago I read the following:

"In the New Testament, especially in St Paul, this transcendent principle
in the human soul is called the "spirit" (pneuma), "the spirit in us," "the
inner man," eschatologically also called "the new man." It is remarkable
that Paul, writing in Greek and certainly not ignorant of Greek
terminological traditions, never uses in this connection the term "psyche,"
which since the Orphics and Plato had denoted the divine principle in us.
On the contrary, he opposes, as did the Greek-writing Gnostics afterhim,
"soul" and "spirit," and "psychic man" and "pneumatic man." Obviously the
Greek meaning of psyche with all its dignity, did not suffice to express
the new conception of a principle transcending all natural and cosmic
associations that adhered to the Greek concept."
(Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion, London, Routledge 1992 p 124)

This set me thinking about PNEUMA and PSYCHE. Would friends care to comment
on the above. I am particularly interested in opinions as to why Paul felt
PSYCHE would not do. Did he coin the use of Breath as the eschatalogical
equivalent, or was he drawing on an earlier tradition?

Many thanks again for indulging a beginner.

Chris.
-------------------------
Chris Cutler
"Auditeur Libre"

What liberates is the knowledge of who we were, what we became; where we
were, whereinto we have been thrown; whereto we speed, wherefrom we are
redeemmed; what birth is, and what rebirth." (Exc. Theod. 78.2)





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