Pleroma ( grc-koi, πλήρωμα, literally "fullness") generally refers to the totality of divine powers. It is used in Christian theological contexts, especially in
Gnosticism
Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people ...
. The term also appears in the
Epistle to the Colossians
The Epistle to the Colossians is the twelfth book of the New Testament. It was written, according to the text, by Paul the Apostle and Timothy, and addressed to the church in Colossae, a small Phrygian city near Laodicea and approximately fr ...
, which is traditionally attributed to
Paul the Apostle
Paul; grc, Παῦλος, translit=Paulos; cop, ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; hbo, פאולוס השליח (previously called Saul of Tarsus;; ar, بولس الطرسوسي; grc, Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, Saũlos Tarseús; tr, Tarsuslu Pavlus; ...
.
The word is used 17 times in the
New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...
.
The word literally means "fullness", from the verb (, "to fill"), from (
πλήρης, "full").
Svenska Akademiens ordbok
A complete set of ''Svenska Akademiens ordbok'', as of late 2014. The majority of the volumes remain unbound in this set.
''Svenska Akademiens ordbok'' (), abbreviated SAOB, is a dictionary published by the Swedish Academy, with the official titl ...
, search on the word ''Pleroma'
/ref>
Christianity
New Testament
The word itself is a relative term, capable of many shades of meaning, according to the subject with which it is joined and the antithesis to which it is contrasted. It denotes the result of the action of the verb ''pleroun;'' but ''pleroun'' is either
*to fill up an empty thing (''e.g.'' ), or
*to complete an incomplete thing (''e.g.'' );
and the verbal substantive in -''ma'' may express either
#the objective accusative after the verb, 'the thing filled or completed,' or
# the cognate accusative, 'the state of fulness or completion, the fulfilment, the full amount,' resulting from the action of the verb (, , , ).
It may emphasize totality in contrast to its constituent parts; or fullness in contrast to emptiness (''kenoma
Valentinius, a mid-2nd century Gnostic thinker and preacher, was among the early Christians who attempted to align Christianity with middle Platonism. Valentinius pooled dual concepts from the Platonic world of ideal forms, or fullness (pleroma), ...
''); or completeness in contrast to incompleteness or deficiency ( , ; ).
A further ambiguity arises when it is joined with a genitive, which may be either subjective or objective, the fulness which one thing gives to another, or that which it receives from another.
In its semi-technical application it is applied primarily to the perfection of God, the fulness of His Being, 'the aggregate of the Divine attributes, virtues, energies': this is used quite absolutely in (), but further defined
# as , 'the whole completeness of the Divine nature,' in ,
#as , 'the whole (moral) perfection which is characteristic of God,' in .
Secondarily, this same ''pleroma'' is transferred to Christ; it was embodied permanently in Him at the Incarnation (); it still dwells permanently in His glorified Body, (); it is (), the complete, moral, and intellectual perfection to which Christians aspire and with which they are filled (, . Cf. , where ''pleroma'' is the state of Him who is , , cf. ). This indwelling emphasizes the completeness with which the Son represents the Father; it is the fulness of life which makes Him the representative, without other intermediary agencies, and ruler of the whole universe; and it is the fulness of moral and intellectual perfection which is communicable through Him to man; it is consistent with a gradual growth of human faculties (), therefore with the phrase of , which is perhaps intended as a deliberate contrast to it. One further application of the phrase is made in (), where it is used of the Church, . Here the genitive is perhaps subjective—the fulness of Christ, His full embodiment, that fulness which He supplies to the Church—emphasizing the thoroughness with which the Church is the receptacle of His powers and represents Him on earth. The analogy of the other uses of the word with the genitive of the person (, ), and the stress throughout these books on Christians being filled by Christ (, , , , , , , ), favours this view. But the genitive may be objective, 'the complement of Christ,' that which completes Him, which fills up by its activities the work which His withdrawal to heaven would have left undone, as the body completes the head. The analogy of the body, the stress laid on the action of the Church (), the language about Paul himself in (), support this, and it is impossible to decide between the two. The former view has been most common since the thorough examination of the word by Fritzsche and Lightfoot (''Col.''), and was taken by von Soden (''Hand-Comm.''). But the latter view, which was that of Origen
Origen of Alexandria, ''Ōrigénēs''; Origen's Greek name ''Ōrigénēs'' () probably means "child of Horus" (from , "Horus", and , "born"). ( 185 – 253), also known as Origen Adamantius, was an Early Christianity, early Christian scholar, ...
and Chrysostom
John Chrysostom (; gr, Ἰωάννης ὁ Χρυσόστομος; 14 September 407) was an important Early Church Father who served as archbishop of Constantinople. He is known for his preaching and public speaking, his denunciation of ab ...
, has been strongly advocated by Pfleiderer, and T. K. Abbott
Reverend Thomas Kingsmill Abbott (26 March 1829 – 18 December 1913) was an Irish scholar and educator.
Abbott was born in Dublin and was educated at Trinity College. He was elected a scholar in 1848, graduated in 1851 as a senior moderator in ma ...
(''International Critical Comm.'').
Outside the NT the word occurs in Ignatius Ignatius is a male given name and a surname. Notable people with the name include:
Given name
Religious
* Ignatius of Antioch (35–108), saint and martyr, Apostolic Father, early Christian bishop
* Ignatius of Constantinople (797–877), Cath ...
in a sense which is clearly influenced by the NT, and apparently in the meaning of the Divine fulness, as going forth and blessing and residing in the Church (''Eph''. Inscr. , and ''Trall''. Inscr. , almost = ''en Christo'').
Gnosticism
In Gnosticism
Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people ...
the use becomes yet more stereotyped and technical, though its applications are still very variable. The Gnostic writers appeal to the use in the NT (e.g. Iren I. iii. 4), and the word retains from it the sense of totality in contrast to the constituent parts; but the chief associations of ''pleroma'' in their systems are with Greek philosophy
Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC, marking the end of the Greek Dark Ages. Greek philosophy continued throughout the Hellenistic period and the period in which Greece and most Greek-inhabited lands were part of the Roman Empir ...
, and the main thought is that of a state of completeness in contrast to deficiency (, Iren. I. xvi. 3; Hippol. vi. 31), or of the fullness of real existence in contrast to the empty void and unreality of mere phenomena (''kenoma'', Iren. I. iv. 1). Thus in Cerinthus
Cerinthus ( el, Κήρινθος; fl. c. 50-100 CE) was an early Gnostic, who was prominent as a heresiarch in the view of the early Church Fathers.See, in particular, Irenaeus, ''Adversus haereses'', Book I, III and relative External links Contr ...
it expressed the fulness of the Divine Life out of which the Divine Christ descended upon the man Jesus at his baptism, and into which He returned ( Iren. I. xxvi. 1, III. xi. 1, xvi. 1). In the Valentinian system it stands in antithesis to the essential incomprehensible Godhead, as 'the circle of the Divine attributes,' the various means by which God reveals Himself: it is the totality of the thirty aeons
The word aeon , also spelled eon (in American and Australian English), originally meant "life", "vital force" or "being", "generation" or "a period of time", though it tended to be translated as "age" in the sense of "ages", "forever", "timel ...
or emanations which proceed from God, but are separated alike from Him and from the material universe. It is at times almost localized, so that a thing is spoken of as 'within,' 'without,' 'above,' 'below' the Pleroma: more often it is the spirit-world, the archetypal ideal existing in the invisible heavens in contrast to the imperfect phenomenal manifestations of that ideal in the universe. Thus 'the whole Pleroma of the aeons' contributes each its own excellence to the historic Jesus, and He appears on earth 'as the perfect beauty and star of the Pleroma' (, Iren. I. xi. 6). Similarly it was used by writers as equivalent to the full completeness of perfect knowledge (''Pistis Sophia
''Pistis Sophia'' ( grc-koi, Πίστις Σοφία) is a Gnostic text discovered in 1773, possibly written between the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. The existing manuscript, which some scholars place in the late 4th century, relates one Gnostic g ...
'', p. 15).
Again, each separate aeon is called a ''pleroma'' in contrast to its earthly imperfect counterpart, so that in this sense the plural can be used, ''pleromata'' ( Iren. I. xiv. 2); and even each individual has his or her Pleroma or spiritual counterpart (''to pleroma autes'' of the Samaritan woman
The Samaritan woman at the well is a figure from the Gospel of John. John 4:4–42 relates her conversation with Jesus in Christianity, Jesus at Jacob's Well near the city of Sychar.
Biblical account
The woman appears in ; here is John 4:4–26 ...
,—Heracleon
Heracleon was a Gnostic who flourished about AD 175, probably in the south of Italy. He is described by Clement of Alexandria ('' Strom.''
iv. 9) as the most esteemed (δοκιμώτατος)
of the school of Valentinus; and, according to Orige ...
, ''ap.'' Origen, xiii. p. 205).
It thus expressed the various thoughts which we should express by the Godhead, the ideal, heaven; and it is probably owing to this ambiguity, as well as to its heretical associations, that the word dropped out of Christian theology. It is still used in its ordinary untechnical meaning, ''e.g.'' Theophylact speaks of the Trinity as ''pleroma tou theou''; but no use so technical as that in Ignatius reappears.
Diagram of the Pleroma
Neoplatonism
In a neoplatonic
Neoplatonism is a strand of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a chain of thinkers. But there are some ide ...
manifestation of the concept, John M. Dillon
John Myles Dillon (; born 15 September 1939) is an Irish classicist and philosopher who was Regius Professor of Greek in Trinity College, Dublin between 1980 and 2006. Prior to that he taught at the University of California, Berkeley. He was ele ...
, in ''Pleroma and Noetic Cosmos: A Comparative Study'', states that Gnosticism imported its concept of the ideal realm, or pleroma, from Plato's concept of the cosmos and Demiurge
In the Platonic, Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy, the demiurge () is an artisan-like figure responsible for fashioning and maintaining the physical universe. The Gnostics adopted the term ''demiurge''. Al ...
in ''Timaeus Timaeus (or Timaios) is a Greek name. It may refer to:
* ''Timaeus'' (dialogue), a Socratic dialogue by Plato
*Timaeus of Locri, 5th-century BC Pythagorean philosopher, appearing in Plato's dialogue
*Timaeus (historian) (c. 345 BC-c. 250 BC), Greek ...
'' and of Philo
Philo of Alexandria (; grc, Φίλων, Phílōn; he, יְדִידְיָה, Yəḏīḏyāh (Jedediah); ), also called Philo Judaeus, was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria, in the Roman province of Egypt.
Philo's deplo ...
's Noetic cosmos in contrast to the aesthetic cosmos. Dillon does this by contrasting the Noetic
Noesis is a philosophical term, referring to the activity of the intellect or nous.
Noesis may also refer to:
Philosophy
* Noesis (phenomenology), technical term in the Brentano–Husserl "philosophy of intentionality" tradition
* Noetics, a bran ...
cosmos to passages from the Nag Hammadi
Nag Hammadi ( ; ar, نجع حمادى ) is a city in Upper Egypt.
It is located on the west bank of the Nile in the Qena Governorate, about north-west of Luxor. It had a population of close to 43,000 .
History
The town of Nag Hammadi is name ...
, where the aeons are expressed as the thoughts of God. Dillon expresses the concept that pleroma is a Gnostic adaptation of Hellenic ideas, since before Philo there is no Jewish tradition that accepts that the material world or cosmos was based on an ideal world that exists as well.
Social sciences
Carl Jung
Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philo ...
used the word in his mystical work, ''Seven Sermons to the Dead
''Seven Sermons to the Dead'' (Latin: ''Septem Sermones ad Mortuos'') is a collection of seven mystical or "Gnostic" texts written and privately published by C. G. Jung in 1916, under the title ''Seven Sermons to the Dead, written by Basilides of ...
'', first published anonymously in 1916, and the only part of ''Liber Novus
''The Red Book: Liber Novus'' is a red leather‐bound folio manuscript crafted by the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung between 1914 and about 1930. It recounts and comments upon the author's psychological experiments between 1913 and 1916, and ...
'' (''The Red Book'') to be published before his death. According to Jung, the pleroma is the totality of all opposites.
Gregory Bateson
In his ''Steps to an Ecology of Mind
''Steps to an Ecology of Mind'' is a collection of Gregory Bateson's short works over his long and varied career. Subject matter includes essays on anthropology, cybernetics, psychiatry, and epistemology. It was originally published by Chandler ...
'', Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson (9 May 1904 – 4 July 1980) was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician, and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. His writings include '' Steps to an ...
adopts and extends Jung's distinction between ''pleroma'' (the non-living world that is undifferentiated by subjectivity) and ''creatura'' (the living world, subject to perceptual difference, distinction, and information). What Bateson calls the "myth of power" is the epistemologically
Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics.
Episte ...
false application to Creatura of an element of Pleroma (non-living, undifferentiated).
See also
*Absolute (philosophy)
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends a ...
*Aeon (Gnosticism)
In many Gnostic systems, various emanations of God are known by such names as One, Monad, ''Aion teleos'' (αἰών τέλεος "The Broadest Aeon"), Bythos (, "depth" or "profundity"), ''Proarkhe'' ("before the beginning", ), ''Arkhe'' ("the ...
*Ein Sof
Ein Sof, or Eyn Sof (, he, '; meaning "infinite", ), in Kabbalah, is understood as God prior to any self-manifestation in the production of any spiritual realm, probably derived from Solomon ibn Gabirol's ( 1021 – 1070) term, "the Endless O ...
*Empyrean
In ancient cosmologies, the Empyrean Heaven, or simply the Empyrean, was the place in the highest heaven, which was supposed to be occupied by the element of fire (or aether in Aristotle's natural philosophy). The word derives from the Mediev ...
*Neoplatonism and Gnosticism
Gnosticism refers to a collection of religious groups originating in Jewish religiosity in Alexandria in the first few centuries CE. Filoramo, Giovanni (1990). ''A History of Gnosticism''. Blackwell. pp. 142-7 Neoplatonism is a school of Helleni ...
*Principle of plenitude The principle of plenitude asserts that the universe contains all possible forms of existence. Arthur Lovejoy, a historian of ideas, was the first to trace the history of this philosophically important principle explicitly. Lovejoy distinguishes ...
*World of Light
In Mandaeism, the World of Light or Lightworld ( myz, ࡀࡋࡌࡀ ࡖࡍࡄࡅࡓࡀ, translit=alma ḏ-nhūra) is the primeval, transcendental world from which Tibil and the World of Darkness emerged.
Description
*The Great Life (''Hayyi Rabbi ...
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
;Attribution
{{Gnosticism topics
New Testament Greek words and phrases
Gnosticism
Carl Jung