CHAPTER V.
Predecessor of the Holy Ghost—The Language in which the Old Testament was Written—The Maserites—Adoption of Chaldean Alphabet—Indefinite Character of the Hebrew Text—Different Readings.
The Holy Ghost, according to the Filioque Nicene Creed, is descended from the Father and the Son; and yet the said Holy Ghost "overshadowed" Mary and begot the very Son from whom he proceeded! Reader, you are required only to believe this; you are not expected to understand it. A serious attempt to understand it would drive you mad; but, of course, madness—or, at least, mental imbecility and distortion—is the necessary preliminary to becoming a Christian. The first time we hear of the mysterious "person" who inspired the Scriptures in the New Testament is in the assurance that Mary "was found with child of the Holy Ghost." This, of course, determines the sex of the Ghost; and, up to date, that is all in regard to him that has been determined.
Instead of proceeding from the Father and the Son, the Holy Ghost would seem to be descended from בת קול Daughter of a Voice. It was this Bath-Kol or oracular voice, that did duty in inspiring the whole of the Old Testament—prompting Moses, Elijah, Daniel, and other holy men of God. It is in the New Testament that this Bath-Kol first steps upon the scene as the Holy Ghost, and he has the honour, as we have seen, of being introduced as the father of the child of an unmarried woman.
The Holy Ghost has not even all the New Testament to himself; for, in the Syriac version, the "voice from
