A. Feminine Language for Spirit: A Survey of Sources
Writers in the Hebrew tradition were comfortable speaking of feminine aspects of God, whether the divine shekinah (dwelling, presence; found in rabbinic sources[1292]), the co-creator hokhmah (wisdom), or God’s ruah (breath, wind, spirit), present at creation and variously falling upon or removed from prophets and kings.
Because each of these words is grammatically feminine in Semitic languages, it is not surprising that feminine terminology and images accompanied descriptions of divine activity. Syriacspeaking Christianity, at least initially, assumed the feminine character of God’s ruah. In early Syriac writings, including translations of biblical texts, ruha d-qudsha or ruha qaddishta appear regularly to indicate “Spirit of holiness” or “holy Spirit” and are construed as grammatically feminine, in the latter instance by use of a feminine adjective. Interestingly, the phrase “Spirit of holiness,” the preferred terminology of Syriac Christian authors, is not commonly used in the Hebrew Scriptures, although it is not unknown there. It does appear often, however, in the Palestinian Targumim and other Jewish literature. The Hebrew usage of ruah indicates an impersonal force, although Christian writers regularly ignored this reality and conceived of “spirit” in personal terms.[1293]I. Biblical Texts
In the Old Syriac translation of the gospels,[1294] from perhaps the late second or early third centuries, the Spirit is clearly grammatically feminine.[1295] In the early fifth-century Peshitta New Testament, the Spirit continues to appear as feminine, but also sometimes as masculine.[1296] [1297] This trend of rendering the Spirit as masculine continued, so that in the Harklean version from the early seventh century, there is regularly a masculine verb (or adjective) employed with the Syriac noun ruha* The transgendering of the Spirit occurs in non-biblical writers as well, in much the same manner. In the Peshitta translation of the scriptures,[1299] two Syriac verbs used of the activity of the Spirit stand out. Rahheph is used in the first verses of Genesis, and became the verb most commonly used by Syriac writers for the Spirit’s action. Rahheph (and the noun ruhhapha) has a range of meaning, from the hovering of a bird to having mercy or compassion, and was, therefore, especially meaningful to apply to the spirit of God. Indeed, Peshitta Zech 12:10 mentions a “spirit of ruhhapha (compassion or pity) and mercy.”[1300] In the Peshitta New Testament, the most significant verb for the Spirit is ’aggen (to rest on or cover over), used of the Spirit at the annunciation in Luke 1:35 as well as in several places in Acts.[1301] In later Syriac texts, biblical and non-biblical, ruha - and the feminine term melta, used to translate the Greek logos - comes to be understood as masculine, although a feminine verb with ruha is retained longer than the feminine adjective. While some Syriac authors continue to construe the Spirit as feminine - and speak of her as a “mother” - even into the tenth century, it is in the early texts written in or surviving in Syriac, that the language is most commonly used and on which this study concentrates. II. Mother Language for Spirit Although the Spirit can be understood as feminine without use of the mother image, as in the Gospel of Philip discussed below (and even while explicitly rejecting that image; so Ephrem), it is the idea of the Spirit as Mother that most appealed to many of the Syriac-speaking Christians during the early centuries of Christianity. Both Irenaeus[1302] and Epiphanius[1303] claim familiarity with Gnostic groups that know of a primal Mother or a “Mother on high”; Irenaeus claims that she is also called “holy spirit.”[1304] Mother goddesses are, of course, present in many ancient pantheons, but among those who claim to be Christian, including Christian Gnostics, it is in association with the Spirit that the language of mother can be seen. The Apocryphon of John, for example, speaks of the “first thought... the Mother-Father, the first man, the holy Spirit.”[1305] It would be a grave mistake, however, to claim that the concept of Spirit as Mother is limited to Gnostic thought. Jerome quotes a passage from the lost Gospel of the Hebrews in which Jesus declares, “Even so did my mother, the Holy Spirit, carry me away.”[1306] After citing this passage, Jerome discusses the reality that Spirit is gendered differently in the languages with which he was familiar, thus indicating that God has no gender; he states that it should not be surprising to find a reference to the Holy Spirit as Mother, since the term is feminine in Hebrew. Employing allegorical interpretation, Hippolytus sees “trinity” in the patriarchal stories. In particular, Isaac is the Father, while Jacob corresponds with Christ; Rebecca is an image of the Holy Spirit.[1307] Similarly, Methodius sees Adam, in his innocence, as the Father, while Adam’s son (Abel?) represents the “Son and Word of God” and Eve signifies the Holy Spirit.[1308] Although not directly conceiving of the Spirit as feminine, Clement of Alexandria discusses the love of God, saying that “the Father, by loving, became feminine”; indeed, in relating to humans in compassion, God has become mother.[1309] Finally, the early fifth-century Synesios of Cyrene speaks of the Holy Spirit as the mother, the sister, the daughter.[1310] Evidence from the northern Mesopotamian region also reveals a feminine triad worshipped among non-Christians. Several inscriptions from Hatra mention “our Lord and our Lady and the Son of our Lord and Lady.”[1311] It is not entirely clear if or how this concept affected Christian development in the region, but there is no question that mother language, applied to a divine figure, was familiar in northern Mesopotamia. But the richest examples of feminine imagery for the Spirit, and especially images of the Spirit as Mother, can be found in those Christian authors hailing from the east, beginning with the early Odes of Solomon and continuing through the Acts of Thomas, to which particular attention is paid here, to Aphrahat and others.