Cosmic Spiritualism among the Pythagoreans, Stoics, Jews and Early Christians

In the paper

“It is agreed that πνεῦμα, which normally translates as 'breath' but eventually comes to mean 'spirit' in a marked sense, plays a fundamental role in the latter tradition, marking the filial inheritance of early Christianity from Judaism and setting out a new path of spiritual cosmologya return of Man to the paternal source that had originally bestowed upon him life.8”

What the sources say

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  cites [8]

In the paper

“For the early Pythagoreans, the universe is understood to function, to live, as an animalonce it has been constituted and its parts set into motion, it inhales and exhales 'breath' from the infinity that surrounds it (perhaps explaining, by analogy, the expansion and contraction of the ordered universe), and from which it differentiates itself and its individual natures.12”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites [12] source

In the paper

“Hence, we see that the Homeric gods breathe: in particular, they 'breathe into' humans certain insightstheir breathing is a kind of divine gift or guidance, not at all indicative of their mortality, but rather the mark of their immortality.15”

What the sources say

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  cites [15]

In the paper

“The Pythagoreans, too, held that void exists and that it enters the heaven from the infinite breath, the kosmos inhaling also the void which distinguishes the natures of things as if it were what separates and distinguishes the terms of a series.”

• Also stated in: § 13.2 Origins of Cosmic Breathing: The Pythagoreans · plain

  “They [the Pythagoreans] used to say that the void penetrates the kosmos, as if the latter inhaled it or exhaled it like a breath of what is diffused around it from the outside.”

What the sources say

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  cites Aristotle, Physics 4.6.213b22-6
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  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics p. 651.39-41Diels

In the paper

“Hence, the major contribution to the history of cosmogonic and anthropogonic breath made by Philo is the adaptation of the Stoic metaphysics into a unique epistemological and ethical system: in his exegesis of the anthropogony in Genesis, Philo finds the grounds for differentiation of human and other animal intellective capacities, rooted in a notion of the divine gift of breath.”

In the paper

“Of more relevance to our study of the Stoics, in the case of biology, Aristotle uses 'tension' (συντονία) to describe the quality of the sinews that connect the parts of animal bodies.In animals at their prime, the joints and sinews are more tense, whereas both prior and posterior to that age, they are more slack.36”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites [36] source

In the paper

“It is implied that since Moses does not mention God 'in-breathing' into other animals, they in fact lack higher intellectual capacities and cannot know God.57”

In the paper

“Outside this [sc.the kosmos] is diffused the unlimited void, which is incorporeal.By 'incorporeal' they mean that which, although it is capable of being occupied by corporeal things, is not occupied by them.”

What the sources say

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  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Posidonius of Apamea Fr. 8 Kidd = Diogenes Laertius 7.140

In the paper

“For 'breath', as we saw, is the rarified matter or stuff that, when qualified as 'hot', 31 actively constitutes soul, which itself makes sure that bodies remain unified as such (and identifiable as what-they-are).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites [31] source

In the paper

“This makes some sense, at least in accordance with the Stoics' unique conceptualisation of internal breathing as 'tenor', i.e. the breathing that guarantees an individual corporeal object's existence as such.”

In the paper

“Importantly, for Posidonius, as for earlier Stoics, the soul is defined as a 'hot breath' (πνεῦμα ἔνθερμον) and is matter, and it is soul that is said to 'hold together' bodies, 'just as glue controls both itself and what is outside' (ὥσπερ καὶ ἡ κόλλα καὶ ἑαυτὴν καὶ τὰ ἐκτὸς κρατεῖ).25”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites [25] source

In the paper

“Hence, so Aristotle argues, animals in their prime, when their sinews and joints are most 'tense', are strongest, and he gives as evidence for this mature bulls, who, according to him, have particularly sinewy hearts, which, thanks to the high tension in their flesh, produce the tense breathing that one observes when a bull breathes.”

What the sources say

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  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Arist.GA 5.7.787b6-19

In the paper

“As we saw earlier, this 'zetetic' genre tended to produce, for analysis, a single lemma of a wisdom-text and attempt to 'explain' it by appeal to lexical, philosophical, or ethical principles:”

In the paper

“The pneumatic cosmogony of Genesis is remarkable for its divergence from the Pythagorean tradition discussed earlier: for the Pythagoreans, it is the kosmos itself that first breathes in, whereas Genesis has God acting as a sort of prime breather in the process of differentiating the parts of the kosmos.52”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites [52] source

In the paper

“The metaphor employed by the Stoics for this aspect of 'breath' is both musical and biological: in Aristotle, it refers to the kinds of harmonic concords that are high-pitched, 34 but it is not a simple metaphor for psychic or political 'harmony'.35”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites [34] source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites [35] source

In the paper

“There are two kinds of innate breath, the physical kind [τὸ φυσικόν] and the animate kind [τὸ ψυχικόν].Some people [sc. the Stoics] also posit a third, the tenor kind [τὸ ἑκτικόν].The breath which sustains stones is of the tenor kind, the one which nurtures animals and plants the physical, and the animate breath is that which, in animate beings, makes animals capable of 39”

In the paper

“the repetition of the phrase 'from the Holy Spirit' (ἐκ πνεύματος ἁγίου) with regard to Mary's pregnancy and Jesus' conception indicates its importance, and we are invited to wonder about the precise inflection of 'out of' or 'from' (ἐκ).”

In the paper

“As we saw earlier, 'tension' occurs between bodies within a complex 'system', whereas 'tenor' is within an individual body as such.”

In the paper

“It was adopted by the remarkable secondcentury bce philosopher Posidonius of Apamea, whose investigations into nature reflected a particular declension of Stoicism: 23”

What the sources say

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  cites [23]

In the paper

“There is no void in the kosmos, but it is wholly unified.For this [sc.unification] necessarily results from reciprocal breathing and tension of the heavenly things towards the terrestrial things [τοῦτο γὰρ ἀναγκάζειν τὴν τῶν οὐρανίων πρὸς τὰ ἐπίγεια σύμπνοιαν καὶ συντονίαν].”

What the sources say

• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Posidonius of Apamea Fr. 8 Kidd = Diogenes Laertius 7.140

In the paper

“'Tension' could be understood as the means by which diverse objects are able to interact successfully.”

In the paper

“Contrariwise, the inwards breathing of an animal is what guarantees its unity, its identifiability as an individual substantial bodythis animal; 40 in the absence of breath, the individual substance no longer exists, and this is the animal's 'death'.41”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites [40] source
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  cites [41]

In the paper

“'Tension' thus understood appears to be a force that marks the optimal physical conditions for systemwide performance, and hence it is no surprise that Posidonius, as a committed teleologist, adapted Aristotle's biological usage to his pneumatic cosmology.”

In the paper

“This genre presupposes a surplus of meaning in the wisdom-text that goes beyond mere literal interpretation, and it exhibits a deeply embedded commitment to teleology and epistemological positivism: because God's word, transmitted through his medium Moses, is perfect, it is the exegete's responsibility to employ his capacities to unpack what it was that God meant, i.e. why he said it.50”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites [50] source

In the paper

“For it implies of necessity three things: that which in-breathes, that which receives, that which is inbreathed: that which in-breathes is God [τὸ ἐμπνέον ἐστὶν ὁ θεός], that which receives is the intellect [τὸ δεχόμενον ὁ νοῦς], that which is inbreathed is breath [τὸ ἐμπνεόμενον τὸ πνεῦμα].”

In the paper

“Void as such does not exist in the kosmos, but rather the persistent 'reciprocal breathing' (σύμπνοια) and 'tension' (συντονία) of the heavenly towards the earthly things indicates that all space within the ordered universe is, at all times, occupied by corporeal matter.”

In the paper

“With the writings of the New Testament, we see emerge a somewhat haphazard, but nevertheless deeply informed, cosmic theology of 'breath/ spirit' (πνεῦμα): it shares much in common with Philo's exegesis of divine 'breath' across the works we have surveyed in brief, including, as we will see, a similar ideation of what I am calling 'consubstantiation', and it also demonstrates a kind of parallelism”

In the paper

“Hence, God's capacityfoot_26 imparts breath to both the human's intellect and to the irrational part of his soul, but his agencyhis direct engagement as efficient cause, so to sayonly happens with the intellect.”

In the paper

“'Tensile movement' goes both outwards and inwards: the outwards breathing of, say, an animal is the power that producesor more literally 'brings to completion' (ἀποτελεστική)qualities and quantities, which we can perceive in one another: hence, we might say that Aristotle's bull is 'swollen with anger' when we perceive the bull's exhalation.39”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites [39] source

In the paper

“Posidonius's strict commitment to materialism within the ordered universe reveals itself in the claim that soul, as hot breath, is qualified matter, unlike the breath of the Pythagorean cosmogony, which was immaterial and described even as the void.29”

What the sources say

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  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites [29]

In the paper

“At a higher level, the species of 'breath' that provides nutrition for growth is reserved from wise animals, unwise animals and plants, is 'physical' or 'natural'; stones and metals do not possess it.”

In the paper

“Posidonius adapts the Pythagorean cosmogony to a Stoic framework, elaborating a more complex theory of corporeals (i.e.bodies, or threedimensional material objects) and incorporeals (i.e.empty space) according to the principle of potentiality: void is incorporeal, i.e. a space that could be occupied by corporeals, but currently is not.”

In the paper

“This represents an expansion of a genre of scientific literature that is often considered to have originated with the writings of Aristotle on Homer, and one might refer to this sort of scientific literature as 'zetetic', after the title of a lost work that comes down to us (the Homeric Zetemata, or, more colloquially, the Homeric Questions).47”

What the sources say

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  cites [47]

In the paper

“The same could be said, we would imagine, of all individual compound animate substances, whether they are animals of lower epistemic and aretaic capacities such as Aristotle's bull, or sages who possess full rational capacities, like Socrates.”

In the paper

“The imprimatur for approaching the formation of the macrocosm (i.e. the universe) and the microcosm (i.e. the human being) for Jewish and Christian authors was the first chapter of Genesis, which expressly presented a pneumatic cosmogony:”

In the paper

“Posidonius' account of breath as 'tension' taps firmly into Stoic orthodoxy.”

In the paper

“Prior to the dissolution of the philosophical schools in Athens in the 80s bce, we have little direct evidence of dedicated exegetical practice with regard to what we might consider 'wisdom-texts', ranging from Homer and the Hebrew Bible to Plato's dialogues.”

In the paper

“Perhaps at this point it is worth pointing out that, for Posidonius, the kosmos was defined as the 'systematic compound composed out of heaven, earth, and the natural constituents in them' (σύστημα ἐξ οὐρανοῦ καὶ γῆς καὶ τῶν ἐν τούτοις φύσεων).28”

What the sources say

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  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites [28]

In the paper

“Within the Platonist and Stoic schools, however, works that seek to explain what meanings, concepts, themes, and systems of ethics underlie wisdom-texts become codified into recognisable genres, and thus is born what is often generally understood to be the 'commentary tradition'.”

In the paper

“Interestingly, Philo follows the other Stoics in seeing breath as what constitutes a 'unity' (ἕνωσις) or synthesis of corporeal objects relative to one another, and that this unity signifies the conferral of the divine power that 'extends' (τείναντος) from God to Adam, the 'earthly man'.55”

In the paper

“One step up is the kind of breath that animate objects, wise or unwise, possess: Galen calls it 'animate', or related to 'soul' traditionally understood as lifeforce that is manifest through sense perception.”

In the paper

“The language used suggests that he is referring to the breath as 'tension' (συντονία) between objects in the kosmos.56”

In the paper

“The Pythagoreans' pneumatic cosmogony was generally ignored by fourth-century bce philosophers, perhaps due to the authoritative cosmogonic visions that were presented by Plato and Aristotle.21”

What the sources say

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  cites [21]

In the paper

“Philo sets up a strict hierarchy of 'in-breathing', related to the animation of the many parts that make up the first human being: God breathes into the intellective part of the soul the activity of reasoning, whereas the intellective part of the soul passes on what it has of the divine pneumatic power to the lower, irrational part of the soul.”

In the paper

“All this is an expression of the heaven and earth that are revealed after the final Judgement, New Heaven and New Earth (Revelation 21:1), where there will be no more darkness of night, banished by the light that is God diffused throughout New Jerusalem (Revelation 22:5)a second banishment of the darkness of the void from Genesis.”

In the paper

“Speaking to the apostle Philip in the Gospel of John, Jesus promises to intercede on behalf of his followers and request from His Father an intercessor, to act on their behalf:”

In the paper

“The Holy Spirit becomes the vehicle for the transmission of God's power from generation to generation, thus constituting and sustaining the Christian community over time.”

In the paper

“While conceptualisations of the kosmos have remained static, for the most part, the notion of 'breath' has expanded and become more comprehensive as we have proceeded through the Hellenistic to the Post-Hellenistic world.”

In the paper

“Hence, in the Gospel of John, we witness the ultimate rejection of the pagan spiritual cosmologieswith all their metaphysical and physical entailmentsof the Pythagoreans, Stoics, and Hellenic Jews, and their replacement with the eternal community of Christian believers, unified through the Holy Spirit, and not limited by this kosmos.”

In the paper

“I would suggest this colloquial, non-philosophical usage is the best for this passage.”

In the paper

“Despite these important connections, no revolution in spiritual cosmology in the Greco-Roman world can be said to be greater than what occurred among the Early Christians.”

In the paper

“It is true, as Engberg-Pederson has argued impressively by reference to this passage, that Paul is employing Stoic terms and concepts, reflecting his intellectual environs and reacting to Philonic exegesis.72”

What the sources say

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  cites Engberg-Pederson 2010: 26-31

In the paper

“As far as Paul's ethics of belief go, we should note that, for Engberg-Pederson, πνεῦμα 'is stated to be responsible for certain states of mind, namely mental attitudes, in fact for nothing other than the virtues in the Greek philosophical tradition'.76”

What the sources say

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  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Engberg-Pederson 2000: 160

In the paper

“Cosmic and human pneumatic analogies have been rejected and replaced with a new sense of the Spirit of Truth (τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας), which the kosmos is unable to admit due to its insufficiency.”

In the paper

“Importantly, there is the idea that the Holy Spirit, like Philo's divine breath, possesses its own inherent power but transmits its information through intermediary vessels, in this case the Apostles.”

In the paper

“In the end, it is the Christian kosmopolis, heralded by the Holy Spirit, that manifests a new vision of the kosmos of Greek philosophy.”

In the paper

“One suspects that 'breath' (πνοή) in this circumstance is not the same thing as the Holy Spirit, but simply the breath of life.”

In the paper

“In tracing a particular genealogy of spiritual cosmologies from the early Pythagoreans of the fifth century bce to the writers of the New Testament in the mid to late first century ce, we have examined how various notions of 'breath' (πνεῦμα) have informed the description of the ordered world (κόσμος).”

In the paper

“There is a relatively consistent pattern here: a chain of disciples is established, and the passing of divine breath on from disciple to disciple, in the form of the Holy Spirit, reveals itself as the perpetual re-enactment of the original divine activities of in-breathing of both Adam and Jesus.”

In the paper

“The semantics here make it sound like the impregnation is a kind of physical invasion, a sort of 'climbing upon' Mary, perhaps recalling God's breath being borne upon the water (πνεῦμα θεοῦ ἐπεφέρετο ἐπάνω τοῦ ὕδατος) in the primal cosmogonic act of Genesis.63”

In the paper

“This is neither the biomorphic kosmos of the Pythagoreans, nor the intelligent kosmos of the Stoics: this kosmos is wholly bereft of the Spirit of Truth, which functions here as the eternal guarantor of co-presence with Jesus.”

In the paper

“for Paul, the 'last' or heavenly Adam is Christ, the 'life-giving Spirit' (πνεῦμα ζῳοποιοῦν) that constitutes the spiritual body of the community of Christians, whereas the terrestrial Adam is the figure whom God created on the sixth day, the 'man of dust'.”

In the paper

“Hence, for Paul, the Holy Spirit not only unites all the parts of the 'body of Christ'; it also differentiates what sorts of activities each person is best suited to do, according to the will of the Holy Spirit.”

In the paper

“Speaking in Acts (17:24-25) of the 'kosmos and everything in it' (ὁ κόσμος καὶ πάντα τὰ ἐν αὐτῷ) that God created, Paul asserts that God has no need of human works because it is He himself who has given to humans 'life, and breath, and all things' (ἀυτὸς διδοὺς πᾶσι ζωὴν καὶ πνοὴν καὶ τὰ πάντα).”

In the paper

“The transition from Jesus to Stephen as 'recipient' serves to highlight the transitional power of the divine breath: just as Jesus receives the Holy Spirit from God the Father, so too Stephen receives it from Jesus the Son.”

In the paper

“It is initially unclear whether the author of the Gospel of Matthew is ascribing any agency to the Holy Spirit: it may seem that the Holy Spirit is the stuff or material out of which the impregnation and conception occurs, or that the Holy Spirit is the instrument that makes it possible for impregnation and conception.”

In the paper

“Consubstantiation within the Christian community now goes beyond Philo's Stoic trinity of 'God, Adam, Breath', or the Gospels' 'Father, Son, Holy Spirit': it reaches across the entire body of Christ's followers, from the death and rebirth of the 'last Adam' until the final return after the Judgement.”

In the paper

“This place is what John of Patmos calls the 'holy city' (ἡ πόλις ἁγίη): it is constituted through the binding of the Holy Spirit to the bride and presented as a place of unity for those who have heeded the words of prophesy.”

In the paper

“As Engberg-Pederson has argued in speaking about Paul's spiritualism, 'pneuma . . . is an entity that is primarily connected with being in the group.It highlights a certain stable state of the believer.'75”

What the sources say

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  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Engberg-Pederson 2000: 158

In the paper

“In doing so, he establishes the theological foundations of Christianity with characteristic aplomb, reconstructing it out of the scattered and even perhaps eclectic material that constituted Hellenic Jews' unique blend of Platonist metaphysics, Stoic physics and Jewish biblical exegesis.”

In the paper

“It also motivates prophesy and inspires teaching (Luke 1:67; Luke 4:14).”

In the paper

“Whereas the Pythagorean kosmos obtained its birth from an act of breathing in the external void, and the Stoic kosmos persisted uniquely through the reciprocal activities of respiration, the kosmos as described by John is blind and deaf to the Spirit of Truth, neither recognising it nor contemplating it.”

In the paper

“For example, in 1 Corinthians 12, a short digression entitled 'On the Spiritual [Gifts]' (Περὶ τῶν πνευματικῶν), 70 Paul develops an elaborate description of how the Holy Spirit unifies the community under Christ:”

In the paper

“As Troels Engberg-Pederson has noted extensively, the work of Paul that most effectively situates his thought in a broader philosophical present is 1 Corinthians.69”

What the sources say

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  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Engberg-Pederson

In the paper

“Elsewhere in Acts, the Holy Spirit becomes the primary medium for the transmission of Jesus' teachings, and even the catalyst for speaking prophesy among the disciples themselves.”

In the paper

“It itself acts as a teacher and, even, an advocate for Jesus after his death, transmitting his words posthumously (John 14:15-26 and 16:13-15).65”

In the paper

“Moreover, the Holy Spirit also appears to be responsible for impregnating Elisabeth with John the Baptist, if this is what is meant by referring to her as 'filled up' (ἐπλήσθη πνεύματος ἁγίου) with it (Luke 1:41-43).”

In the paper

“We are meant to understand that the Holy Spirit, wed to its 'bride', the city of New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:2, 21:9), calls those who have heeded the words of John's book.”