The Feminine Gender of the Holy Ghost

[Guest guest]

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

Steve Santini)

 

 

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 every-thing; She will remind

you of that which I have told you.

(Translation by 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.

In the East the esteem of women was quite different from that

rendered by this Roman discipline of virtus. The Hindu culture, which

was built upon Eastern thought, yet was spared Roman influence, today

retains many original ingredients of the East. Bishop K.C. Pallia, a

converted Hindu, when teaching from Solomon's proverbs about the

instruction of the father and the law of the mother writes, " The

children have been taught that the mother comes first, the father

second, the teacher third and God fourth. So in India, if you don't

love and obey your mother, father, and teacher, there is a saying God

will not sing. "

In the Greek, there is a feminine letter eta that gives light on

feminine divinity. It is used in combination with the Greek word men

in one verse of the Biblical texts. These two words are used in the

accepted Greek text in Hebrews chapter six, verse fourteen and are

translated as surely as they are in secular Greek literature. In

Greek these two words are combined as an idiomatic expression that if

translated literally would be meaningless in English and most other

current languages. The first word, eta, is most times rendered as the

dative pronoun, she. The second Greek word, men, has at its root a

relation to the moon. During the Bronze Age men was the name of an

Anatolian moon goddess. At other places, where it is used without the

eta, it is translated month, which in ancient eastern culture

corresponded to the lunar cycle. When this verse is read literally,

it could read that she-lunar was the one who blessed Abraham. From

this we can say that feminine divinity blessed Abraham.

If the Holy Spirit is feminine, which is most probable, then, it had

a presence in the Old Testament. Stephen, a follower of Peter, told

the religious leaders of Israel that they and their fathers had

always resisted the Holy Ghost. What then would be the name of

feminine divinity in the Old Testament? From this verse in Hebrews,

it would reasonably have a relation to Abraham. When God came to

Moses with his charge to lead these fathers from bondage, he said

that he had formerly been know to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by the

name of El Shaddai. (Exodus 6:3) Shaddai, in the Aramaic, is in the

feminine gender. In the Hebrew it has closely associated words that

have feminine meanings. In both the Hebrew and Aramaic, it means full

breasted. Reasonably, in all this, although intentionally closeted

away from the mind's understanding in the second century, feminine

divinity has had an ongoing principle role in the affairs of men.

What it being dealt with is the Gnostic belief that the Holy Spirit

is the feminine spouse of God the Father, the witness of an early

Syrian Hebrew manuscript that the Holy Spirit is feminine and, as

such, is the mother in law of the soul and marginalized etas. (In

this context it is also revealing that the Greek word for soul is

rendered in the feminine gender.) We also have the testimony of John

14:26 in a copy of the Old Syriac. We are now looking beyond the

minute detail of the texts to the light of the scope of scripture to

see if these supposed heretical beliefs have additional

substantiation and an application to further faith.

The eminent nineteenth century British Biblical scholar, E.W.

Bullinger, in his book, A Great Cloud of Witnesses has said that the

Greek word in Hebrews chapter eleven for the heavenly country that

Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac and Jacob sought is used six

times in scripture. He says in all of the five other places " it is

rendered his own country, referring to the earthly parental home of

Mary and Joseph. " These patriarchs sought a homeland with both

spiritual mother and father without fulfillment. They looked for what

Paul found when the mystery was revealed to him.

Paul also uses this word, country, though from its feminine root

when he speaks of the whole family in heaven and on earth in

Ephesians chapter three verse fifteen. Natural observation and the

definition of words require that we define a family as mother and

father with their progeny. There is a section of Pauline scripture

that adds much light when considered in its entirety. It is Romans

chapter one. Romans and both Corinthian letters were written at a

time when Paul was taking the churches onward to a more mature level

of understanding of the family of God, as later revealed in

Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians. This was the time for him to

bring the church through the transition from those things seen on

this earth to those things unseen in heaven. He understood that the

original natural order of things was a pattern for those things

unseen in the heavenlies and that the interrelationship of God's

creation on earth was a schoolhouse for learning the heavenly plan of

salvation. In Romans chapter one verse twenty he says according to

the King James Version:

 

For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are

clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his

eternal power and Godhead;

 

The book of Genesis is the fundamental Biblical record of those

things that are made from the creation of the world. Paul writes that

the unseen can be seen by the things that are made. In Genesis, the

book of things made, we see divinity's desire to make man in their

image.

 

And God said, Let us make man in our own image after our likeness….

Gen1:26

 

The Hebrew word for God in this verse is elohiym. It is in the plural

so the pronouns us, and our are properly supplied. Any thing more

than one is plural. In the next verse the Hebrew word for God is also

elohiym. In this next verse, the pronoun translated as his is also

plural and should be translated their. The image of their own, in

which elohiym created man, was male and female. These Gods or elohiym

were and are two; male and female- the Father and the Holy Spirit.

They made mankind in the likeness of themselves.

In Genesis, before man is formed out of the dust of the ground and is

given the breath of life to become a living soul, he is created first

as male and female in the image of God. It is only after man is

formed out of the ground and after being made a unified living soul

that man is separated into two distinct parts to fulfill God's desire

for a new family through procreation. The later context of Romans

chapter one deals ultimately with the behavior of the two seen parts.

It contains Paul's strong admonition against homosexual and lesbian

behavior. Paul's concern about this behavior was not based on a

desire to reveal the self-incriminating judgment just upon those who

engaged in the practice but was based on a desire to bring all men up

to understand the mystery that had been hidden in God from before the

foundations of this world. Here, in Romans chapter one, Paul uses

this obvious example of human corruption for a warning to all

humankind. All have endeavored, in some form or fashion, outside of

faith, in sincere ways, to intemperately and impatiently attain the

divine through preconditioned self-satisfying means.

In all of Paul's writings there are, it seems, only two things about

which he was most concerned in the church – faithfulness in the

marriage relationship and faithfulness to his gospel. He knew that

the one flesh of the marriage relationship was a shadow of things

unseen in the realm of the soul and the realm of the Spirit. In

Ephesians when he speaks about the one flesh relationship between

husband and wife he concludes by saying, " This is a great mystery:

but I speak concerning Christ and the church. " Without a respect for

the power brought forth by the union of male and female and an

appreciation for the corresponding sanctity of the sexual

relationship of husband and wife in this earthly realm, Paul knew

that one would limit one's self from having one's eyes opened to

understand the mystery of Godliness emanating from the heavenly

realm. He was dedicated to the revelation given him from Jesus Christ

and his commission to first bring forth the fulfillment of

salvation's plan attained through the knowledge of the masculine wed

with the wisdom of the feminine to bring forth the union in Christ.

Now we speak more specifically to the Holy Spirit being the mother in

law of the soul according to the Hebrew Syrians in light of the scope

of scripture and from the light that the Greek word for soul is also

in the feminine gender. They, being from a Jewish background, had

always believed that they collectively as a bride would become

married to the Messiah at which time all their sin would be forever

cleansed. As ones betrothed to be married to the Messiah they knew

from the scripture and their culture that they were the property of

their mother in law to be prepared for entrance into a new family

upon the culmination of the marriage ceremony. In Genesis, the book

of things made, when Abraham's oldest servant brought Rebecca, the

betrothed of Isaac, back from his far off relatives she first went to

dwell in Sarah's tent until the actual wedding feast. Ruth stayed

with her mother in law Naomi even after her husband and the husband

of Naomi died rather than return to her original family for support.

She knew when she entered her husband's family that in the event of

his death that she would revert to being the property of her mother

in law until she married another son or male blood line relative

within the family or even waited for her mother in law to bear

another son as a future husband for her. From the Old Testament

record of things that were made and from their Hebrew gospel they

could see that the Holy Spirit was the mother of the one to whom they

were betrothed and as such the mother in law of their souls. Still

there was a completing portion of truth that was later revealed to

Paul that they did not yet know.

The gospel of Matthew, which, as some scholars say, was taken from

the earlier gospel of the Hebrews, attributes the conception of Jesus

singularly to the Holy Ghost. Luke, who wrote later and who had spent

considerable time with Paul, writes of the birth of Jesus Christ as a

result of the combination of two distinct entities when he says of

the angel's words to Mary concerning the coming conception of

Jesus, " the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the

Highest shall overshadow thee. " It was this encompassing knowledge of

the Highest, or Father, that the twelve apostles and their followers

were not given to know during the early church. Philip, near the end

of his time spent with Jesus, was still asking Jesus to reveal the

Father unto them. It is in Paul's later transitional epistle of

Romans that the term Abba Father was first given as a term to be used

by those who had separated themselves from this world's methods and

had entered the spirit of sonship. The Aramaic word abba lends itself

to the meaning of " the way unto the hidden source. "

So far we have seen that the original belief of the early church was

that the Holy Spirit was feminine according Gnostic writings and an

early Hebrew gospel. We have seen the substantial declaration from

Paul that the things unseen of the power of the eternal Godhead are

clearly understood by the things that are seen, referring primarily

to things made in Genesis and written within the context of male-

female sexual relations. Now let's touch on several practical

ramifications for growing faith.

As written in the previous chapter entitled " That Day " , according

to Jewish culture the mother had sole responsibility and authority

for the care of the children in the family until they were five years

old and then primary responsibility until a daughter married into a

new family or a son passed the age of thirteen. Recently in a

national news magazine it was written, as if it were a new discovery,

that around five years old children matured to understand their

independence and uniqueness as either male or female. It was at this

time that the children began their formal education within the local

synagogue or through accomplished household servants to be presented

for maturation upon completion by the hand of both mother and father.

Child psychologists also understand that the most formative years for

a child's character are those in the earliest years following birth

and that the mother of a child has the strongest influence on the

development of the child during this time. Sociologists have rightly

said that the future character of a society rests in the hearts of

mothers. Researchers at Princeton University have found that moral

decisions are made predominately within the emotional or feminine

center of the brain. (On the other hand, although wives whose

husbands perpetually lose car keys may not agree, men, or masculine

portions of the brain, are much more adept in the abstract ability of

spatial orientation and logic.) Yes, as Jesus said, the kingdom of

God is within you.

Why then have we so easily succumbed to the pressure to disassociate

children from the nurturing care and instruction of their mothers? In

the middle of the twentieth century breast-feeding was discouraged

among mothers. Now financial burdens, competitive pressures to

achieve, and some issues of gender equality have sent mothers of

young children into the work place. It is not surprising that in a

recent survey a large majority of working mothers said that they

would rather be at home with their young children. Have we allowed

the separation of and the ambiguities in members of a family because

the true nature and function of the Godhead has been hidden since the

first century? Could all this be another divisive corruption of the

family on this earth subtly designed to obscure the family in heaven?

In the late nineteen sixties gender equality came to the forefront of

social issues. Understandably and reasonably so, since the model for

marriage was based on the hierarchical relationship of male

domination which was imposed upon mankind through the knowledge of

good and evil. In its essence this knowledge demands a hierarchical

structure among humankind in all things. In it, self becomes the

center from which all things are judged and in the final analysis it

demands that one be better than another or one be less than another.

After the entrance of good and evil Adam judged himself better than

Eve because he did not take the first bite and less than God because

he saw himself now as naked flesh. There is a new model for marriage

and the family that is based upon what was before the acceptance of

this reasoning process that contrasts all on the linear scale between

good at one terminal and evil at the opposite. The model commences

before the beginning when there were two harmonized in one and then

out of one and then back into one through reunion within and among

progeny.

This concept of the feminine gender of the Holy Spirit is not new or

original. The early church had this belief and within the last

several decades it has been considered at large with acceptance by

individuals of faith in all areas. It may be that this writing is a

unique synergism in understandings and that there are some new

considerations within what is written here to add to the accumulating

evidence. Whatever the case may be there is much more that is written

and to be written that patterns the feminine gender of the Holy

Spirit through the breadth of scripture. There is much more to be

understood about the male-female harmony in the entire realm of those

things seen. There is much more to be understood about how the

spiritual masculine and the feminine bring forth the brilliance of

Paul's revelation of the mystery and there is much more to be

understood about the wholeness that this belief will bring to an

individual and a society.

For now I close with these thoughts. When one becomes persuaded of

the union of the feminine and masculine, Paul's revelation opens

dramatically as the consummate epic work of the eternal union that

brings together sons and daughters as the one new man in Christ of

Ephesians. Scriptures can now open to a new light through Paul's

revelation of consummation within the cross of Christ and through its

implantation into the very core of man's being to bring forth that

one new man to dwell in the eternal light of the coming new heaven

and earth. Accordingly, I offer this presentation so that the

revelatory script of the knowing playwright and the intuitions of the

wise director may be more fully understood and, in the end, be joined

harmoniously together within our souls and within our family to bring

to pass the eternal plan of salvation for all humankind through the

cross of Christ.

 

 

 

 

 

Related Articles by Steve Santini

 

The Power of the Cross

The Godhead's Divine Union

Women in the Pauline Churches

Scriptural and Historical Evidence

The Apostle Paul's Great Mystery of Christ Revealed

Expanded Understandings of the Family Of God

 

 

Contents Page For the Manuscript, " A Journey Unto Revelation's End "