Pneuma

Pneuma (πνεῦμα) is an ancient Greek word for "breath", and in a religious context for "spirit" or "soul". It has various technical meanings for medical writers and philosophers of classical antiquity, particularly in regard to physiology, and is also used in Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible and in the Greek New Testament. In classical philosophy, it is distinguishable from psyche (ψυχή), which originally meant "breath of life", but is regularly translated as "spirit" or most often "soul".

Classical antiquity

Presocratics

Pneuma, "air in motion, breath, wind," is equivalent in the material monism of Anaximenes to aer (ἀήρ, "air") as the element from which all else originated. This usage is the earliest extant occurrence of the term in philosophy. A quotation from Anaximenes observes that "just as our soul (psyche), being air (aer), holds us together, so do breath (pneuma) and air (aer) encompass the whole world." In this early usage, aer and pneuma are synonymous.

Ancient Greek medical theory

Eduardo Paniagua

Eduardo Paniagua (born 1952 in Madrid, Spain) is a Spanish architect and musician, specializing in medieval Spanish music.

Between 1966 and 1983, he was a member of the group Atrium Musicae de Madrid, led by his older brother Gregorio, playing wind instruments and percussion. More recently he has been a founding member of the groups Cálamus and Hoquetus which specialize in the music of Al-Andalus (Arabic Andalusia).

In 1994, he created the group Música Antigua to perform and record the Cantigas de Santa Maria. In the same year he also founded the group Ibn Báya Ensemble together with the oud player Omar Metioui, for the performance and recording of Andalusian music. Other regular collaborators include Moroccan singers Said Belcadi, Mohammed El-Arabi Serghini, and the Algerian oud player Salim Fergani.

Paniagua also founded and currently manages the record label Pneuma through which he has published a number of his own recordings. Some of the recordings are reissues of earlier Sony Hispánica recordings, or compilations from other Pneuma recordings.

Pneuma (Stoic)

In Stoic philosophy, pneuma (Greek: πνεῦμα) is the concept of the "breath of life," a mixture of the elements air (in motion) and fire (as warmth). Originating among Greek medical writers who locate human vitality in the breath, pneuma for the Stoics is the active, generative principle that organizes both the individual and the cosmos. In its highest form, the pneuma constitutes the human soul (psychê), which is a fragment of the pneuma that is the soul of God (Zeus). As a force that structures matter, it exists even in inanimate objects.

Levels of pneuma

In the Stoic universe, everything is constituted of matter and pneuma. There are three grades or kinds of pneuma, depending on their proportion of fire and air.