sophiaserpentia (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophiaserpentia) wrote2003-05-01 08:54 am
sophiaserpentia) wrote2003-05-01 08:54 am
What is the "spiritual body"?
I Corinthians 15:44 Speiretai swma psuxikon, egeiretai swma pneumatikon. Estin swma psuxikon kai estin swma pneumatikon.
Translation: [It] is sown/planted an animal body, it is raised/awakened a spiritual body. There is an animal body and there is a spiritual body.
The common translation makes this a contrast between a natural (or animal) body and a spiritual one. But this begs the question, what is a "spiritual body"?
In Gnostic exegesis, though, the distinction between psychic and pneumatic relates to highly stylized and complex notions. Psychic is that which is related to the world of "error;" pneumatic relates to the world seen through awakened eyes. Commentary on Paul from the Valentinian school relates the term psychic to those who follow teachings literally or rationally, and the term pneumatic who have attuned themselves to spirit and draw from spirit moreso than teaching.
I hesitate to draw too strongly from Valentinian exegesis on this passage, though, because when I read through comments in the Gospel of Philip and elsewhere related to this passage, I am drawn to somewhat different conclusions than they reach.
"Psychic" in its original meaning was more akin to "animate;" psyche refers to the animated part of the person, the life force, the intellect and emotions. I want to overlook the common Gnostic association of this with the demiurgos, and focus on this as a word pointing towards the bodily form of the human individual -- the piece that dies, that is "sown in corruption."
"Pneuma," on the other hand, originally referred to wind, air, and breath. The image this brings to mind is of that which interpentrates life, the air we all breathe in and out. In Lives of a Cell Lewis Thomas argued convincingly that thinking of life in terms of "individual beings" is a perspective that does not tell the whole story. When examined very closely it is impossible to tell where one individual being begins and another ends. Even a "human being" is a complex of many "individual beings" working in concert.
Edit to add: one distinction that can be drawn here is that the individual being dies, while the miasma/melange of life as a whole merely transforms and transitions. The death of an individual means life to other beings who feed on the substance it leaves behind. So from the perspective of interbeing, identifying with the pneuma means, in a sense, acquiring or inheriting eternal life.
So I began to think that perhaps when Paul refered to the pneumatic soma as the risen form of Christ that what he really meant was a kind of collective body, a state of being that interpenetrates every citizen of the Cosmic Tribe.
Paul's language use elsewhere tends to corroborate this:
[Romans 14:4] Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function,
[5] so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
[1 Corinthians 12:27] Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
[2 Corinthians 2:15] For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.
[Ephesians 5:23] For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.
Translation: [It] is sown/planted an animal body, it is raised/awakened a spiritual body. There is an animal body and there is a spiritual body.
The common translation makes this a contrast between a natural (or animal) body and a spiritual one. But this begs the question, what is a "spiritual body"?
In Gnostic exegesis, though, the distinction between psychic and pneumatic relates to highly stylized and complex notions. Psychic is that which is related to the world of "error;" pneumatic relates to the world seen through awakened eyes. Commentary on Paul from the Valentinian school relates the term psychic to those who follow teachings literally or rationally, and the term pneumatic who have attuned themselves to spirit and draw from spirit moreso than teaching.
I hesitate to draw too strongly from Valentinian exegesis on this passage, though, because when I read through comments in the Gospel of Philip and elsewhere related to this passage, I am drawn to somewhat different conclusions than they reach.
"Psychic" in its original meaning was more akin to "animate;" psyche refers to the animated part of the person, the life force, the intellect and emotions. I want to overlook the common Gnostic association of this with the demiurgos, and focus on this as a word pointing towards the bodily form of the human individual -- the piece that dies, that is "sown in corruption."
"Pneuma," on the other hand, originally referred to wind, air, and breath. The image this brings to mind is of that which interpentrates life, the air we all breathe in and out. In Lives of a Cell Lewis Thomas argued convincingly that thinking of life in terms of "individual beings" is a perspective that does not tell the whole story. When examined very closely it is impossible to tell where one individual being begins and another ends. Even a "human being" is a complex of many "individual beings" working in concert.
Edit to add: one distinction that can be drawn here is that the individual being dies, while the miasma/melange of life as a whole merely transforms and transitions. The death of an individual means life to other beings who feed on the substance it leaves behind. So from the perspective of interbeing, identifying with the pneuma means, in a sense, acquiring or inheriting eternal life.
So I began to think that perhaps when Paul refered to the pneumatic soma as the risen form of Christ that what he really meant was a kind of collective body, a state of being that interpenetrates every citizen of the Cosmic Tribe.
Paul's language use elsewhere tends to corroborate this:
[Romans 14:4] Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function,
[5] so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
[1 Corinthians 12:27] Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
[2 Corinthians 2:15] For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.
[Ephesians 5:23] For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.