It was Roman Christianity that, after many centuries of struggle, succeeded to centre all interest in the Western World in the 'spiritual' side of human nature.
A byproduct of Athenian Greek 'Humanism', or seeing humans as unique towards evolution. Body and soul were pretended to be a dualism with contrasting values.
Zoroastrian Christians (Judah) though in the period of developing Christianity didn't belief in supernatural forces.
They divided man into three classes:
· pneumatici or thinkers, extending intuition
· psychici or men mainly using traditional intuition
· choici (earthly) warriors defending tradional intuition
and of course all kind of mixes
.... Roman Christianity thoroughly annihilated Gnostic Christianity.
Psyche was in Roman Christian view seen as purely natural life (pneuma).
The principle Holy Spirit was seen as principle of supernatural religion. 'Flesh' and 'Spirit' were seen as opposed.
The doctrine of The Trichotomy said that perfect man (teleios) consisted of three parts: body, soul, spirit (soma, psyche, pneuma). Body and psyche come with birth, soul is given by 'God'.
Some 21st century dictionary definitions of 'soul':
1. The animating and vital principle in humans, credited with the faculties of thought, action, and emotion and often conceived as an immaterial entity.
2. The spiritual nature of humans, regarded as immortal, separable from the body at death, and susceptible to happiness or misery in a future state.
3. The disembodied spirit of a dead human.
4. The immaterial part of a person; the actuating cause of an individual life
If these definitions don't make much sense to you, then ask yourself: was 'soul' more than a fantasy...
