A brief history of the Holy Spirit as feminine
These last few weeks we’ve been referring to the Holy Spirit with feminine pronouns—She—in our liturgy. This is new to some, though in fact it dates back to the first 400 years of Christianity. Most languages assign “gender" to nouns. In French, for example, the word livre, means "book," and is “masculine” taking the pronoun "he." But a competent translator wouldn’t render a French sentence into English as: "I'm looking for my book so I can read him.” That would confuse English speakers. Normally the “he” would be changed to “it” to match English expectations: “I’m look for my book so I can read it.”
The languages which formed our understanding of God (Hebrew, Greek and Latin) are “gendered” the same way French is. The word for “spirit” in Hebrew: רוּחַ (ruacḥ), is a “feminine” word. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the Holy Spirit is feminine per se, but it does point us in that direction. Certainly Rabbis and prophets referred to the Holy Spirit as She, and Israelites would have been accustomed to thinking of God’s Spirit as a feminine expression of God. In fact there are a number of passages which refer to God with Maternal imagery. Primary among these is the “feminine” gendered word “shekhinah.” It always represents the presence of God in Glory—it was seen on Sinai, in the Pillar of fire and smoke in the wilderness, and especially on the Tabernacle and Temple when She rested on it. Additionally, Jewish tradition generally regarded the Wisdom of God (gendered female) in Proverbs as synonymous with the Spirit/Breath of God present at Creation. Lady Wisdom and the Breath of God became the “Holy Spirit” to many New Testament era pastors. So referring to Her as female was totally natural.
In a strange twist, the word for “spirit" in Greek: πνεῦμα (pneûma) is a “neuter" word, and twisting things up more, in Latin it's a “masculine” word (spiritus). This fact is important to understanding why the Holy Spirit underwent gender reassignment in the 5th century. As early Christian literature is being written, including books that are in the Bible, the “Holy Spirit” is expressed in a “neuter” form, because the word πνεῦμα is neuter. This meant that the Holy Spirit is referred to as “it” when writing in Greek. However, many early pastors/bishops continued to use the feminine pronoun—She—to refer to the Holy Spirit, despite the linguistic conventions. The Gospel of Thomas (ca. 60), speaks openly of the Holy Spirit as “Mother.” The Acta Thomae (200’s) describes a Communion service in which the pastor consecrates the Bread and Wine in the Name of the Father of Truth and Mother Wisdom. A Syriac Version of the Gospels from the 100’s frequently uses “She” in reference to the Holy Spirit. In it John 14:26 reads, [Jesus said] “But the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete whom the Father will send in my name, She shall teach you everything, She shall remind you of all I say.” That’s in a popular Syriac translation of the Bible.
The Didascalia Apostolorum (230’s), Apostolic Constitutions (300’s) and Demonstrations of Aphrahat (340) all pastor’s handbooks like our “Hymnals,” frequently refer to the Holy Spirit as Mother and use “She” to refer to the Holy Spirit: eg—before a baptism: the pastor is to say over the font: “She opens the heavens and descends, and hovers over the waters, and those who are baptized put Her on.”
Besides these books, several pastors and bishops did the same in other writings; it was exceedingly common in the first 400 years of Christianity—this list in NOT exhaustive:
Pastor of Hermes (c. 90-150); Irenaeus (130-200); Hippolytus (170-236); Theophilus of Antioch (d. 185); Melito of Sardis (d. 190); Origen (185-254); Aphrahat (270-345); Didymus (300’s); Symeon of Mesopotamia (300’s); Ephrem Syrus (306-373); Makarios (300-390); Epiphanius (315-403); and Jerome (342-420) who penned the Vulgate, the Latin translation of the Bible. These prominent guys all used “She” in reference to the Holy Spirit in sermons and commentaries regularly.
I mention Jerome translating the Bible into Latin, because that’s a key piece of how the Holy Spirit lost her femininity. One of the major players in the 5th century Church was Augustine of Hippo (354-430). Augustine was important mostly because he was a great debater and orator—not because he was particularly well informed. In my opinion, he was a loud bully, & church politician, not a true theologian.
Augustine didn’t know Hebrew or Greek. His theological opinions were formed via the Latin Vulgate. This fact, taken with his famous opposition to all things female, led him to insist that the spiritus Sanctus was male (as gendered in Latin). Among clergy who didn’t know Hebrew or Greek, this was an easy sale. Voilà! The Holy Spirit became a “Him” virtually overnight. That was 1600 years ago…at a time when the Church was becoming the official religion of the Roman Empire, and needed to “standardize” beliefs. It’s worth note that Jerome who completed the Vulgate, didn't agree…
There’s very little discussion of this after Augustine (except in Celtic lands, which were beyond the reach of Rome)…until Bishop Nikolaus von Zinzendorf a Lutheran pastor who founded the Moravian Church reintroduced the idea in the 18th century. He was influenced by Makarios and Symeon of Mesopotamia, mentioned earlier. John Wesley shared this conviction but said less about it openly. In the last 30 years or so several prominent theologians have returned to addressing the Holy Spirit as She, including: Cardinal Yves Congar; Dr. Thomas N. Finger (Mennonite); Donald L. Gelpi, SJ; Dr. Jürgen Moltmann (Reformed), Prof. R.P. Nettlehorst, John J. O’Donnell, SJ; and Dr. Clark H. Pinnock (Evangelical). It's not an uncommon belief among modern Lutheran pastors and theologians, currently. I suspect as time goes on more and more church bodies and congregations will return to this belief. I, for one, believe it is a correct understanding of the nature of God.
Derek
