Feminine Gender of the Holy Spirit

Aramaic Made EZ, Danny Mahar "Where then do we go for direct textual evidence that the Holy Spirit was, in the origins of Christianity, considered feminine? We go to the existing Greek minuscules copied in the early part of the last millennium to find only circumstantial evidence. Likewise, as we go to the earlier copied Greek uncials, the Byzantine copies, the eastern Syriac Peshitta, and the Old Latin we find some peripheral corroboration. Then when we go to the earlier copied Old Syriac that predates the Peshitta we find a pearl of great price. In the most ancient of the rare Old Syriac copies, the Siniatic Palimpsest, from the 4th or 5th century, found in the Covenant of St. Catherine in the Sinia by Mrs. Anes Lewis and transcribed by Syriac Professor R.L. Bensly of Cambridge University in 1892, the words of Jesus in John 14:26 read: But She—the Spirit-the Paraclete whom He will send to you-my Father-in my name—She will teach you everything; She will remind you of that which I have told you."

The Feminine Gender of the Holy Spirit
On the Orthodox Revision of the Gender of the Holy Spirit

Jaroslav Siefert, one of the Nobel Prize winning poets, has said that if you want to know truth look to the heretics. Jesus Christ said that his words are truth. Jesus, himself, by most at the time was considered the worst of heretics and even today in secrets of some hearts he is considered the same and worthy of his humiliating death. Paul, in his time, was, and to this day, is considered by many as a chief heretic. He, too, was personally silenced by execution. Marcion, a labeled second century heretic whose actions insured that the Pauline letters would be preserved, was also silenced in a differing and more enduring way.

When we look for truth along the bloody trail of the heretics what they said needs to be harmonized with the words about and from the chief heretic, Jesus Christ. In of itself, being labeled a heretic does not guarantee the truth of the entire message or even any part of it. If the message of the heretic does harmonize with scripture then we have truth. Martin Luther was considered a heretic by the then established church because he proclaimed that justification came by faith rather than works. It became evident from scripture that his words on the subject, in the end, were true. It was fortunate that he was given the time to develop his message and the means to make it known to a large number of hearers; otherwise, he and his message, as others were, could have been swept under the rug of personal destruction so that we all could still be paying the church to justify our dead family members.

When we look to the heretics we have two problems. First, we have the tactics used to destroy what is considered heretical. The initial response to a heretic is silence so that a response does not draw the attention of others. If the apparent heresy persists the heretic is punished by character assassination or public humiliation so that others tremble at the thought of adopting the heresy. Finally, if possible the means of the state are used to silence the heresy as it was with the Arian controversy of the fourth century. The heretic's words are adulterated to obscure the so-called heresy and to convict him. Tertullian, who was an educated Roman attorney, used his skill to convict someone by selectively using Marcion's words to counter his so-called heresy. Like Tertullian's writings against Marcion, many times what we have existent today of the heretics words were written by those who detested them. It has been said that whether a leader is determined to be good or bad is based on who writes the history books. In the case of Marcion, since all of his own writings and writings in support of him were destroyed, we have only had one side of the story. The second problem we have is that in places the words of the original scripture have been altered purposefully to eliminate what the Orthodox Church considered as heresy and its possible resurgence. This chapter concerns what I believe is one of the most detrimental alterations of this kind from the texts.

To expose this alteration we ask from our understandings of the nature of man what could have been the scenario that precipitated this probable internment of truth. We search among the accumulated historical debris of some considered church fathers for their silence or fragmented relics of truth amongst their criticisms. We also search the words of some who were people of conscience who left us a record of the possible alternatives to what they were to record for acceptance within the Orthodox Church. Next we look to the minute detail of the text itself and then to the scope of all scripture to synthesize our understandings of truth. Finally, we consider, that if this is true, what are the implications for faith today.

For this study we have begun by focusing on the heretic, Marcion, who was noted disparagingly as a facilitator of the so-called Gnostic heresy. What gem or gems of truth can we sift from the historical remnants of the Gnostics' beliefs through the detail of the texts and the scope of scripture to find this pertinent heresy? According to Elaine Pagels' enlightening book, The Gnostic Gospels, one of the established church's primary fears of and primary accusations of the Gnostics was that they were attracting large numbers of women and having women minister in contrast to the Orthodox Church. Was there a basis in ancient scripture for the fundamental belief in the value of women in their churches or was this a "throw back" to the more proximate pagan prophetesses and goddesses in Greek religion? From a variety of sources in their writings it is apparent that they believed that the Holy Spirit was the feminine spouse of God the Father. As one moves on, I believe that one will see that they had justification from a basis in scripture for this belief.

G. Zuntz, the noted higher critic, from his lifetime of examining the oldest Greek texts and textual fragments from the third century forward, writes that there was no attempt in the West to maintain the integrity of the original texts until Jerome produced the Latin Vulgate at the request of the papacy in the fourth century. Zuntz, by using the standard practice of textual comparison, in his detailed analysis of the oldest Pauline manuscript, notes, in his book, The Text of the Epistles, numerous places where the text has been altered. Jerome, himself, in letters to his colleagues, bewails the fact that he has so many variant texts to select from for the compilation of a standardized version. At one point before him he has the old Hieronymian text and its revision. He says, "The differences throughout are clear and striking." In his writings he does leave us a clue to the subject at hand. At one point he has before him the Gospel to the Hebrews written in Aramaic used by the Syrian Christians which, as some now say, was the forerunner to the gospel of Matthew and predated the four canonical gospels. In it, Jerome says that the Holy Spirit is expressed in the feminine gender and is considered the mother in law of the soul. (Library 11, commentary in Isaiah, chapter 11: Library 2, commentary. In Micah 7.6) So here is some additional external evidence from an unrelated source that the Holy Spirit was originally considered feminine.

Where then do we go for direct textual evidence that the Holy Spirit was, in the origins of Christianity, considered feminine? We go to the existing Greek minuscules copied in the early part of the last millennium to find only circumstantial evidence. Likewise, as we go to the earlier copied Greek uncials, the Byzantine copies, the eastern Syriac Peshitta, and the Old Latin we find some peripheral corroboration. Then when we go to the earlier copied Old Syriac that predates the Peshitta we find a pearl of great price. In the most ancient of the rare Old Syriac copies, the Siniatic Palimpsest, from the 4th or 5th century, found in the Covenant of St. Catherine in the Sinia by Mrs. Anes Lewis and transcribed by Syriac Professor R.L. Bensly of Cambridge University in 1892, the words of Jesus in John 14:26 read:

But She—the Spirit-the Paraclete whom He will send to you-my Father-in my name—She will teach you everything; She will remind you of that which I have told you.

(Translation courtesy of Danny Mahar, author of Aramaic Made EZ)

In both the Hebrew and Aramaic language the word spirit is in the feminine gender but in the Greek language it is neuter. It is the Greek neuter word, pnuema, that was employed by the ancient Septuagint translators of the Hebrew Old Testament when they translated the feminine ruach into Greek. The authors who wrote in Greek were limited in expressing the Holy Spirit in the feminine by the constraints of the language. In addition, signposts directing one to the feminine nature of the Holy Spirit may have been removed or altered. Bart Ehrman, writes in his book, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, that from his comparative analysis, the Orthodox Church altered the texts to counter various beliefs considered heresies, especially during the time of Marcion, when they were compiling their own canon of the four gospels. It was the early gospel of John that was a favorite of the Gnostics and considered heretical by the Orthodox Church according to textual critic Walter Bauer. What if to sustain their developing male hierarchy and to contain the growth of the Marcionite and Gnostic churches and their attractiveness to women, the orthodox revisionists altered additional signposts to this feminine aspect of the Holy Spirit and emphasized their modified canon to counter Marcion's canon of Luke and the Pauline letters and the Gnostics beliefs? When we add the evidence in the scope of scripture and the historical evidence of conflict between the Orthodox Church and the Gnostics, I believe one can consider this likely.

(It is also interesting to note in the context of early church history that the Gnostics' writings rarely refer to the orthodox canon of the four gospels and over time refer less and less to it. Could it have been that they were aware of the revisions concerning the feminine gender of the Holy Spirit and had no desire to give credence to the altered canon used by the Orthodox Church to stifle them? This, I believe, eventually worked to their detriment, because it seems that groups of Gnostics diverged widely from the scripture as a whole. Could it be that they, in their portion of separation, were eventually reversed and, in a different manner, twisted in disarray?)

When we move forward and consider the witness of the stars where no man's hand can make alterations, the feminine gender of the Holy Spirit becomes more likely. Moses, in writing the book of Genesis, proclaims that the luminous celestial bodies in the darkness of night's heaven and the sun's brilliant light are for signs. Signs are symbols that point to something beyond themselves. Half of the major constellations are named with Semitic words that are feminine. In fact, within and in proximity to many of these major constellations are signs that point to a male-female interrelation. Joseph Seiss' book The Gospel of the Stars, states that the two figures in Gemini, according to the most ancient Zodiac of Dendra, are not identical twins but those of a man and woman walking hand in hand. He goes on to say, that the word Gemini in the original Hebrew, Arabic and Syriac does not carry so much the idea of two brought forth at the same birth as it does the idea of a long betrothal brought to its consummation in perfect marriage. The old Coptic name of this sign signifies "the completely joined." The constellation of Virgo, which represents the woman about to bring forth, has above it in the sky the constellation Bootes that is named with a masculine noun. Peter, in his second epistle, calls light in darkness and the dawning sun a "more sure word of prophecy" than even the voice from heaven heard on the Mount of Transfiguration. (II Peter 1:19)

Why could it be then that the second century theologians and translators were blinded to the importance of the femininity of the Holy Spirit? The power of Rome, in which Western culture is deeply rooted, was built on the three disciplines of virtus, pietas, and fides. Virtus conveys the idea of an individual's harmonious integration. According to Pierre Grimal, a professor of Latin literature at the Sorbonne, this harmonious integration may not be what we first think. He writes, "When a Roman spoke of virtus he was less likely to mean conformity to abstract values than spontaneous assertion by action of the essential virile qualities of self mastery – granting to the feminine weakness, with a certain contempt, the characteristic of impotentia sui, an inability to control its nature." In the second century, in the West, the educated Roman male who was trained in this discipline of male self-mastery became the bishop or the theologian. Because of the prestige and power of Rome these exerted pressure on the Eastern churches to conform to their doctrines. In the third century the Roman bishop actually excommunicated all the Eastern churches that would not change the date of Easter from the Hebrew calendar's date that corresponded to a day determined by each year's particular lunar cycles to a consistently prescribed Sunday based on the Julian calendar. In time even the power and influence of the Roman Emperor began to be used by the West to settle doctrinal disputes with the Eastern churches.

The Feminine Gender of the Holy Spirit
On the Orthodox Revision of the Gender of the Holy Spirit

(Excerpted from the manuscript, A Journey Unto Revelation's End, by Steve Santini)

NOTE: If this page was accessed during a web search you may wish to browse the sites listed below where this topic or related issues are discussed in detail to promote global peace, religious harmony, and spiritual development of humanity:

www.adishakti.org/
www.al-qiyamah.org/
www.adi-shakti.org/  — Divine Feminine (Hinduism)
www.holyspirit-shekinah.org/  — Divine Feminine (Christianity)
www.ruach-elohim.org/  — Divine Feminine (Judaism)
www.ruh-allah.org/  — Divine Feminine (Islam)
www.tao-mother.org/  — Divine Feminine (Taoism)
www.prajnaaparamita.org/  — Divine Feminine (Buddhism)
www.aykaa-mayee.org/  — Divine Feminine (Sikhism)
www.great-spirit-mother.org/  — Divine Feminine (Native Traditions)

"Now, the principle of Mother is in every, every scripture - has to be there." Shri Mataji, Radio Interview 1983 Oct 01, Santa Cruz, USA