The word Pneuma, of the Greek New Testament, is sometimes translated Ghost and sometimes Wind, as suited the fancy of the translators. In John 3:5 the word is Spirit, in verse eight both Wind and Spirit, and in Luke 1:35 the term is Holy Ghost—all translated from the same word. In the Greek Testament the word Pneuma is used for Spirit, Holy Ghost, breath and Wind so that in the Christian Scriptures they are synonymous. An unwarranted license has been assumed by translators in rendering the same word different ways. The Holy Ghost appears also as a tongue of fire, which sat upon each of the apostles in Acts 2:3. Buddha, an incarnate God of the Hindus over two thousand years ago, is often seen with a glory or tongue of fire upon his head. The visible form of the Holy Ghost as fire was accepted among the Buddhists, Druids and Etrurians. The Holy Ghost, or Holy Spirit when visible, was in the form of fire or a bird and was always accompanied with wisdom and power. The Hindus, Persians and Chaldeans made offerings to fire, emblem of the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit as the solar fire. The Gospel of the Hebrews is known only through quotations from it given in the writing of early church fathers. In one such, a feminine Holy Spirit, descending upon Jesus at his baptism, says: "My Son, in all the prophets was I waiting for you that you should come and I might rest in you." Another quote, this time from Jesus: "Even so did my mother, the Holy Spirit, take me by one of my hairs and carry me away to the great mountain Tabor." The Acts of Thomas, a legendary account of the apostle Thomas’s travels to India, contains prayers invoking the Holy Spirit as, among other titles, "the Mother of all creation" and "compassionate mother." In the Secret Book of James,Another Nag Hammadi discovery; Jesus refers to himself as "the son of the Holy Spirit." The Gospel of Thomas was composed at about the same time as the biblical Gospels. Ron Cameron of Wesleyan University agrees. In The Other Gospels, a collection of 16 apocryphal Gospels,the Gospel of the Hebrews dates as circa 100 AD. or earlier, and the Secret Book of James in the first half of the second century. However, all three could have been written as early as the middle of the first century (about the time of Paul). Congregations founded by Paul used a baptism ritual which reunified the male and female in each new believer. The key verses are in Galatians, the much-quoted 3:27-28: "For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." The early Christian groups thought of themselves as a new genus of mankind, or as the restored original mankind. The Christian baptismal initiation reversed the division of male and female, returning to the gender unity found in Adam before Eve and in God. Paul also uses reunification language in I Corinthians and Colossians, but without specific reference to male and female. The androgynous concept received expanded treatment from Gnostic Christians, some of whom developed the sacrament of the bridegroom chamber to reunite the two halves in the believer. (In the Second Epistle of Clement, a second century sermon, appears a saying not inconsistent with Galatians 3:28: "When the Lord himself was asked by someone when his kingdom would come, he said, ‘When the two become one, and the outside as the inside and the male with the female neither male nor female.’") That rite’s imagery can be linked with the imagery of Jesus as the reappearing Primal Man, the androgynous Anthropos, or, as Paul expressed it, the "Last Adam" (I Cor. 15:45). Also, Jesus urged his followers to become his equal -- Luke 6:40, the Gospel of Thomas 13, 108, and in the Secret Book of James. "Make yourselves like the son of the Holy Spirit," Jesus says in the latter text; and again, "If you . . . do his [the Father’s] will, I [say] that he will love you, and make you equal with me."

Teaching attributed to Jesus might challenge any thoughts that God the Father is much more important than the Holy Spirit. The synoptic Gospels all have a version of the saying, admittedly mysterious, that no blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is ever forgiven, unlike sins or blasphemies against sons of men (Mark) or the Son of Man (Matthew and Luke). Thomas 44 says it more strongly: blasphemies against Father and Son will be pardoned, but those against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven on earth or in heaven.

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