Deliverance from the Cross — Page 72
the Ghost', and that the Greek word for Ghost was pneuma. He proceeded: In the old world the term pneuma embraced everything that represented the physical life of the human body. Blood circulation and its function, for instance, were entirely unknown. Thus, activity of the heart was not recognised as the decisive factor of life. It was breathing that represented life. In the ancient world, death was a fact when the body was without pneuma. If breathing stopped, pneuma had left the body and the man was dead. As a result of this generally accepted view, hanging, strangling and drowning were regarded as the most shameful kind of death, because it was assumed that it forced pneuma to perish in the body and prevented it from entering into another world. This was the position at the time. Revival in our sense of the word was unknown; the first to suspect that the giving up of the pneuma might not be the end of everything was the Roman doctor, Galen, who lived in the second century. Pneuma was an all-embracing term. A soldier in battle in olden days aimed at the chest of his opponent. The whole chest was regarded as the target because it was known that a stab in the chest would result in the pneuma leaving the body, resulting in death. The modern medical term is Pneumothorac, which stops the function of the lung because air penetrates into the chest. This condition is dangerous but does not always 72