it is required that the words be spoken all in one breath.
Guess: more influence of Semitic language. The Hebrew, "ruach" means wind, breath, or spirit. This is another word from the first (second?) verse of Genesis: "v'ruach elokim m'rachepet al p'ne hatachom" "and the spirit of God hovered on the face of the abyss." This could also be translated as the breath of God. And when God breaths the breath of life into Adam (Hebrew for earth*), it is the spirit of life with which He imbues him. "Ruach HaKodesh" is "holy spirit," from which "Holy Ghost" no doubt originates. (This is particularly apt in German, in which both "ghost" and "spirit" are "Geist." I imagine there is a connection between that German and the English "ghost.") To interrupt the breath in the midst of the incantation delivering "breath" to the wafer would be to profane the incantation: to render it unholy (not in an especially perjorative meaning) and incapable of it's agency in the, how do you call it(?) transmutation(?).
*This has bearing on the apparition of the Golem in the anthromorph thread a little while ago.
What do you think?
Disclaimer: I know theological topics raise the hackles of certain posters. Dig not too very deeply here, and will find not the whisp of a hidden evangelist. I find theology interesting and consider it to be completely entwined with the study of language.
IP
