[Editor’s Note: This article was previously published and is now available for a free download in S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies in Volume 1 Number 1. Do not cite this article in its present form. Citation must come from the published version in S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies (https://sheijgs.space/).”]
Holy Spirit as female and Mother
In Hebrew, the Spirit of God was feminine gendered, just like women were feminine gendered, and this was not mere grammatical serendipity. A study of the Hebrew language in the Dead Sea Scrolls demonstrates that in Hebrew, the grammatical gendering of “spirit”—ruah—and the gender of any associated adjective and verb, depended upon context. Thus, when “spirit”referred to the spirit of Belial, a demon, it was usually masculine gendered. When it meant, literally, “breath,” it was sometimes masculine and sometimes feminine. When it referred to the Spirit of God or to the Spirit of the people, however, itwas almost always feminine gendered.[1]
The feminine gender of the Spirit of God may have been related to an understanding of the femaleness of the Spirit of God within Hebrew culture, perhaps an understanding related to the creation story, which describes elohim creating adam in the divine image, both male and female (Gen 1:27). The Hebrew word elohim itself suggests a male-female creator, because while el means god in Hebrew, the feminine oh makes eloh, which means goddess, and the im plural ending means two, as in a yoked pair of oxen. Thus the Spirit of God, seen hovering above the waters at the beginning of creation, may have been specifically feminine gendered in Hebrew because originally, she was remembered as eloh, the divine female, she of many names, the ancient Hebrew goddess of Israel and Judah about whom much has been written.[2]
In any case, Holy Spirit as Mother, not just feminine gendered, but also female like a mother, is consistent with the Hebrew gendering of the Spirit of God. It is therefore not surprising that a Hebrew gospel used around Jerusalem provides some of the very oldest evidence of Holy Spirit described as Mother. The theologian Origen (c. 184–253), working in Caesarea, twice wrote that this Hebrew gospel had a saying in which Jesus spoke of “My Mother, the Holy Spirit.”[3] According to Papias of Hierapolis (c. 60–135) this gospel, usually called the Gospel according to the Hebrews, had been written by Matthew in his native tongue.[4] Whether actually penned by Matthew or not, one of its sayings referenced Jesus’s baptism, when the Holy Spirit descended like a dove and lighted upon Jesus emerging from the water.[5] This saying read, “The Savior says: ‘My Mother, the Holy Spirit, carried me away.’”[6]
The early Christian image of Holy Spirit as Mother, however, is not found solely in semitic languages, such as Hebrew, Aramaic, or Syriac, where “Holy Spirit” was feminine gendered. It is also found in Greek, Latin, and Coptic around the Mediterranean. For example, Irenaeus of Lyon (c. 155–205), who was from Smyrna in Ancient Greece, wrote in Greek that some congregations of Jesus followers—not his church, but churches in competition with his—called their Mother “Holy Spirit,” as well as by other names, including Sophia and Jerusalem.[7]
An early narrative that preserves the tradition of Holy Spirit as Mother in Greek was the Greek Acts of Thomas, which had been translated from Syriac. The Acts of Thomas was condemned to the fires in the so-called Gelasian Decree,[8] but despite being “corrected” by Archbishop Nicetas of Thessaloniki, who did “a complete orthodox rewriting,”[9] the literary tradition of Holy Spirit as Mother survived in a few medieval Greek manuscripts. According to its text, after baptizing people, Thomas twice uttered prayers in which he identified Holy Spirit as Mother, such as:[10]
Come, compassionate Mother,
Come, fellowship of the male;
Com, thou (fem.) that dost reveal the hidden mysteries;
Come Mother . . .
Come, Holy Spirit, and purify their reins and their heart.[11]
The Acts of Philip also was condemned in the Gelasian Decree, but a handful of medieval Greek manuscripts preserve some of its chapters, which describe Mariamne, herself twice called an “apostle,” evangelizing with the apostle Philip.[12] According to the martyrdom attached to the end of these Acts, when Mariamne preached, she paired Mother and Father:
You are guilty of having forgotten your origins,
your Father in heaven, and your spiritual Mother.
If you wake up, however, you will receive illumination.[13]
The femaleness of Holy Spirit was apparently so important to some pre-Constantinian Latin speaking Christians that they changed the normal masculine gender of “spirit” in Latin—spiritus—to the feminine gendered spirita.[14] Instead of the grammatically correct spiritus sanctus on their stone epitaphs, we find plaques carved with SPIRITA SANCTA from the Christian catacombs of Rome.[15] See two in Figure 1, although note that the fragment on the right is missing the beginning “S.”
Vatican Museum, Rome.
Photo: Marrucci, Monumenti (1910), plate 52, nos. 32 and 33.
Some Coptic codices of the Nag Hammadi Library also preserve descriptions of Holy Spirit as mother. Key passages are Gospel of Thomas 101, Gospel of Philip 55.24-26, and Apocryphon of John 10.17-19. In addition, several passages in the Gospel of the Egyptians (III 41.7-9, 42.4, 56.24, 58.3-4, 59.13-14) describe a heavenly triad of Father, Mother, and Son/Child.[16] The thirteen Nag Hammadi codices witness how deeply some early Christians appear to have valued a divine feminine principle, because almost all contain one or more texts that speak of a Mother or other divine female by various names, such as Sophia.[17]
The Nag Hammadi Coptic passage Gospel of Philip 55.24-26 is of particular interest because it may preserve a link that helps explain why some Jesus followers understood Jesus as intersex. They appear to have believed that Jesus had two mothers. While some Christians (including the scribe of the Gospel of Philip) disagreed that Holy Spirit was female, this passage nonetheless records that other Christians argued that she was. Matthew 1:18 states that Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit, but this scribe disagreed, and wrote:
Some say Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit.
They are in error.
They do not know what they are saying.
When did a woman ever conceive by a woman?[18]
(Read the whole article here.)
[1] Arthur Everett Sekki, The Meaning of Ruah at Qumran (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989), for the spirit of God see page 71, for a spirit of the people see 99, for a spirit of Belial see 146, 148, 149 and 156, and for breath, see 179.
[2] For more on the Hebrew goddess, see Saul M. Olyan, Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh in Israel, SBL Monograph Series 34 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988); Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess (3rd enlarged ed.; Detroit: Wayne State University, 1990; William G. Dever, Did God Have a Wife? Archeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005); and Judith M. Hadley, The Cult of Asherah in Ancient Israel and Judah: Evidence for a Hebrew Goddess (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
[3] Origen, Com. on Jn 2.87 (Ronald E. Heine, trans., Origen Commentary on the Gospel according to John, Books 1-10, Fathers of the Church 80 [Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1989], 116); and Origen, Hom. on Jer. 15.4 (John Clark Smith, trans., Origen Homilies on Jeremiah and 1 Kings 28, Fathers of the Church 97[Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1998], 161).
[4] What Papias wrote was recorded by Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. 3.39.16-17.
[5] Following the canonical gospel of Matthew, this would be after 3:17.
[6] Origin, Com. on Jn 2.87.
[7] Irenaeus, adv. haer. 1.5.3. (A. Cleveland Coxe, trans., “Irenaeus Against Heresies,” in Ante-Nicene Fathers 1, edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004], 309–567, 323).
[8] Wilhelm Schneemelcher, ed., New Testament Apocrypha, vols. 1 and 2, trans. R. McL. Wilson (rev. ed.; Cambridge: James Clark, 1990, 1992), 1:38.
[9] François Bovon, “Byzantine Witnesses for the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles,” in The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, edited by François Bovon, Ann Graham Brock, and Christopher R. Matthews, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999), 87–98, 89.
[10] Greek Acts of Thomas 2.27 and 5.50 (Han J. W. Drijvers, trans., “The Acts of Thomas,” in New Testament Apocrypha, 2:322–411, two prayers at 349–50 and 359–60. For discussion about Holy Spirit as Mother in these Acts, see 333–34.
[11] Greek Acts of Thomas 2.27 (Drijvers, trans., “Acts of Thomas,” 349–50). Capitalization of Mother mine.
[12] Acts Phil. 8.21 and 9.1 (François Bovon and Christopher R. Matthews, trans., The Acts of Philip: A New Translation [Waco: Baylor University Press, 2012], 74).
[13] Acts Phil. Mart. 10 (François Bovon, trans., “Mary Magdalene in the Acts of Philip,” in Which Mary? The Marys of Early Christian Tradition, Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series 19, edited by F. Stanley Jones [Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002], 82).
[14] All of the epitaphs with dates pre-date Constantin, per J. Spencer Northcote, Epitaphs of the Catacombs or Christian Inscriptions in Rome during the First Four Centuries (London: Longmans, Green, 1879), 41 n. 2. Note that Northcote apparently followed de Rossi, who argued that spirita sancta was some kind of peculiar plural Latin found only in the pre-Constantinian catacombs, and thereby rejected the conclusions of several previous writers—Fabretti, Mabillon, Corsini, and Mazochi—that spirita sancta was due to the femininity of spirit in Hebrew; see Giovanni Battista de Rossi, “Insigni scoperte nel cimitero di Domitilla,” Bullettino di archeologia cristiana del commendatore, 2nd series, sixth year (Rome: Coi Tipi del Salviucci, 1875), 5–67, 19, 55, 55 n. 5.
[15] For examples see Graydon F. Snyder, Ante Pacem: Archaeological Evidence of Church Life before Constantine (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2018), 222; Fernand Cabrol and Henri LeClerq, eds., Dictionnaire d’ Archéologie Chrétienne et de Liturgie (Paris: Letouzey et Ane, 1907-1953), vol. 3 part 1, 1335 (for this one, see no. 32 in Fig. 1), and vol. 7, part 1, 1006; de Rossi, “Insigni,” 54–56; and Orazio Marucci, I Monumenti del Museo Cristiano Pio-Lateranense riprodotti in atlante di XCVI. tavole con testo illustrativo di Orazio Marucchi … Contributo allo studio degli antichi Cimiteri cristiani di Roma (Rome: Cathedral Church of St. John Lateran, 1910), plate 52, nos. 32 and 33.
[16] Numbering from NHL.
[17] Following is a partial listing of the contents of the codices which include a divine female as well as a divine male. Codex I: The Gospel of Truth 24.10. Codex II: The Apocryphon of John has a triad of “the Father, the Mother, and the Child,” in 9.5-10; Gospel of Thomas 101; Gospel of Philip 53:24. Codex III: The Apocryphon of John (again) 9.5-10, 10.15, 13:10; The Gospel of the Egyptians 42-43 (more triads of Father, Mother and Son); The Sophia of Jesus Christ 114.10-19, 120.15. Codex IV: The Apocryphon of John (again) 9.5-10, 10.15, 13:10; The Gospel of the Egyptians 42-43 (again). Codex V: The (First) Apocalypse of James 35.10-36.5. Codex VI: The Thunder: Perfect Mind; Prayer of Thanksgiving 25. Codex VII: The Teachings of Sylvanus 91.5-20. Codex VIII: The Letter of Peter to Philip 135.10. Codex IX: Melchizedek 5.25. Codex X: questionable. Codex XI: The Interpretation of Knowledge 7.26-8.15. A Valentinian Exposition 33-34. Codex XII: Questionable. Codex XIII: Trimorphic Protennoia 37.20, 38.5-15, 42.10, 44.30, 45.1-10, 46.10-20, 48.30.
[18] Gospel of Philip 53.24 (Wesley W. Isenberg, trans., “The Gospel According to Philip,” in The Coptic Gnostic Library: A Complete Edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices, vol. II, general editor James M. Robinson [Leiden: Brill, 2000], 139–60, esp. 143).
Ally Kateusz
Dr. Kateusz is a cultural historian specializing in the intersection of women and religion in early Christian art and texts. Her recent books are the illustrated Mary and Early Christian Women: Hidden Leadership (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) and Maria, Mariamne, and Miriam: Rediscovering the Marys (Bloomsbury, 2020), which she co-edited with Mary Ann Beavis. She has published peer reviewed articles in the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, the Journal of Early Christian Studies, ΘΕΟΛΟΓΙΑ, The Priscilla Papers, and other venues. She is Research Associate at the Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research.