Is Sophia/Wisdom a feminine Spirit? If so, what is its relationship to Christ? (Solved)

[Hazelelponi]

I was referring to myself. I hadn't looked at what forum this was in before I posted. When I realized my error I deleted my post.

 

[Hiep]

As I understand it, in Orthodox theology, Christ is the Word, the Logos, Begotten of the Father "before all ages". Also in Biblical thought is the concept of Holy Wisdom, Sophia. Hence in Exodus and in the Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom has or is called a "spirit". In Hebrew and Greek, Wisdom is a feminine term ("Sophia" being the Greek word).
Here is Exodus 28:3: "And thou shalt speak unto all that are wise hearted, whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom".

In Proverbs 8, Solomon describes wisdom as speaking and as saying that the Lord possessed her before the creation of the earth.:

In comparison, Gnostic writings taught that Sophia was a feminine Spirit united with Christ, thus forming an androgynous being. Philip Harland explained that according to the 1st-mid 2nd century Gnostic "Epistle of Eugnostos" and "Sophia of Jesus Christ", in the super-celestial realm,
SOURCE: Sophia’s mistake: The Sophia of Jesus Christ and Eugnostos (NT Apocrypha 16) | Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean

Here is how the Epistle of Eugnostos talks about the relationship between the Begotten Perfect Mind who is full of light and Sophia, which reminds me of the question of the relationship between The Word - Logos and Wisdom - Sophia:

You can read The Epistle of Eugnostos in The Nag Hammadi Library in English:
The Nag Hammadi Library in English

Maybe one can say that Proverbs was just using allegorical language when it talked about Wisdom as a Spirit. However, I think that some early mainstream Christian writings also identified Christ/the Logos with "Sophia"/"Wisdom". And so if it's true that Sophia or Wisdom is feminine and a "Spirit", then what becomes the relationship to Christ the Logos, which is masculine? Are they consorts that are united into one being, or is the whole "feminine" aspect really purely an issue of Hebrew and Greek grammar that the Epistle of Eugnostos and other Gnostic writings took too far?

Well From the way I understand it is that God is symbolic of a family and of speech. He is the father, holy spirit is the mother, Jesus is the son.

God is the speaker, Holy spirit is the breath, Jesus is the word.

 

[ArmyMatt]

your latter point is absolutely correct.

however, the Spirit is NOT the mother.

 

[rakovsky]

the Spirit is NOT the mother.

It's kind of an arcane point, and tangential to the thread, but one of the Christians' views in the early and patristic period was that the Spirit was the mother. Jerome took this view and gave two or three arguments: 1. The Gospel according to the Hebrews narrated Jesus referring to the Holy Spirit as His mother, 2. Spirit in Hebrew is feminine (I would have to double check if he relied on this one), and 3. in Luke's Gospel Christ was born by the power of the Holy Spirit in the Virgin.

Over time, this view that the Spirit was the mother became Sidelined. The Holy Spirit in the EO view proceeds FROM the Father and THROUGH the Son.

 

[ArmyMatt]

It's kind of an arcane point, and tangential to the thread, but one of the Christians' views in the early and patristic period was that the Spirit was the mother. Jerome took this view and gave two or three arguments: 1. The Gospel according to the Hebrews narrated Jesus referring to the Holy Spirit as His mother, 2. Spirit in Hebrew is feminine (I would have to double check if he relied on this one), and 3. in Luke's Gospel Christ was born by the power of the Holy Spirit in the Virgin.

Over time, this view that the Spirit was the mother became Sidelined. The Holy Spirit in the EO view proceeds FROM the Father and THROUGH the Son.

what Gospel according to the Hebrews? and the Mother of the Son is Mary. since the Spirit empowered the conception in her, to say the Spirit is Mother also is some weird, lesbian relationship.

and out of curiosity where does St Jerome say this?

 

[rakovsky]

what Gospel according to the Hebrews? and the Mother of the Son is Mary. since the Spirit empowered the conception in her, to say the Spirit is Mother also is some weird, lesbian relationship.

and out of curiosity where does St Jerome say this?

The Gospel according to the Hebrews was written in the 1st century to the mid-second century. It was a non-canonical text that seems to me to have been both non-gnostic and written after the synoptic gospels. It was respected by various Church fathers, and was comparable in status to other early non-canonical gospel texts like the Infancy Gospel of James and the Apocalypse of Peter. Only quotations of it survive in the Church Fathers and Church writers, the last being from the Leabhar Breac (written in 1408-1411, An Leabhar Breac - Wikipedia). It was preserved apparently by Jewish Christians or by the Nazarene sect (Torah Observant Jewish Christians).
Ben Smith collected all the quotations from it and put them on his website here:
The Jewish-Christian gospels.

For the sake of arguing the topic, the Gospel According to the Hebrews is certainly not very strong evidence that Orthodoxy considers the Spirit to be Christ's mother. It was just a factor in Jerome's own viewpoint on that question.

Origen in his Commentary on John 2:6 basically said that IF YOU DO ACCEPT THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE HEBREWS, and are confused about why it says that the Holy Spirit is Christ's mother, then here is how it can say that She is her... And Origen's argument was rather semantic or allegorical, ie. Christ says in the Biblical gospel that whoever does His father's will is His mother or sibling, hence, Origen explains, the Holy Spirit is Christ's "mother".

Regarding your statement "since the Spirit empowered the conception in her, to say the Spirit is Mother also is some weird, lesbian relationship", in his Commentary on Isaiah 11, together with his Commentary on Micah 7:6, Jerome seems to imply that the Holy Spirit is not Jesus' mother in a literal feminine sense, because "in divinity there is no gender", but rather he seems to apply this in the sense that the Holy Spirit caused Christ's incarnation, which produced or caused His human form. There, in his Commentary on Isaiah 11, Jerome writes:

In the Gospel of the Hebrews that the Nazarenes read it says, "Just now my mother, the holy spirit, took me." Now no one should be offended by this, because "spirit" in Hebrew is feminine, while in our language (Latin) it is masculine and in Greek it is neuter. In divinity, however, there is no gender.

He explains further his views in his Commentary on Micah 7:6. Micah 7:6 goes:
"For the son dishonoureth the father, the daughter riseth up against her mother, the daughter in law against her mother in law; a man's enemies are the men of his own house." In his commentary, Jerome considers what this means about dishonoring the mother-in-law:

And the daughter-in-law will rise against her mother-in-law

It is very difficult to understand this, it seems, in a figurative sense. But he who reads the Song of Songs and understands the spouse of the soul to be the speech of God, and believes the gospel which we recently translated, that published as according to the Hebrews, in which from the person of the savior it is said: "Just now my mother, the holy spirit, bore me by one of my hairs", [such a reader] will not doubt to say that the speech of God springs from the spirit, and that the soul, which is the spouse of the speech, has the holy spirit as a mother-in-law, which among the Hebrews is said by the female gender, rua (רנה).

So, although the heretics [Jerome mentions Marcion, Arius, and Eunomius as "main heretics" earlier in his Commentary on Micah] used to believe the Holy Scripture, they were given over to the side of new teachings, of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the commandments of men, and therefore they insult their mother-in-law when they despise the Word of God. But lest you accidentally doubt that the Word and Son of God is born from the Holy Spirit, turn your attention to the words of Gabriel to Mary: "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35).

SOURCE: Две книги толкований на пророка Михея, Книга 2 - читать, скачать - блаженный Иероним Стридонский

 

[ArmyMatt]

The Gospel according to the Hebrews was written in the 1st century to the mid-second century. It was a non-canonical text that seems to me to have been both non-gnostic and written after the synoptic gospels. It was respected by various Church fathers, and was comparable in status to other early non-canonical gospel texts like the Infancy Gospel of James and the Apocalypse of Peter. Only quotations of it survive in the Church Fathers and Church writers, the last being from the Leabhar Breac (written in 1408-1411, An Leabhar Breac - Wikipedia). It was preserved apparently by Jewish Christians or by the Nazarene sect (Torah Observant Jewish Christians).
Ben Smith collected all the quotations from it and put them on his website here:
The Jewish-Christian gospels.

For the sake of arguing the topic, the Gospel According to the Hebrews is certainly not very strong evidence that Orthodoxy considers the Spirit to be Christ's mother. It was just a factor in Jerome's own viewpoint on that question.

Origen in his Commentary on John 2:6 basically said that IF YOU DO ACCEPT THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE HEBREWS, and are confused about why it says that the Holy Spirit is Christ's mother, then here is how it can say that She is her... And Origen's argument was rather semantic or allegorical, ie. Christ says in the Biblical gospel that whoever does His father's will is His mother or sibling, hence, Origen explains, the Holy Spirit is Christ's "mother".

Regarding your statement "since the Spirit empowered the conception in her, to say the Spirit is Mother also is some weird, lesbian relationship", in his Commentary on Isaiah 11, together with his Commentary on Micah 7:6, Jerome seems to imply that the Holy Spirit is not Jesus' mother in a literal feminine sense, because "in divinity there is no gender", but rather he seems to apply this in the sense that the Holy Spirit caused Christ's incarnation, which produced or caused His human form. There, in his Commentary on Isaiah 11, Jerome writes:

He explains further his views in his Commentary on Micah 7:6. Micah 7:6 goes:
"For the son dishonoureth the father, the daughter riseth up against her mother, the daughter in law against her mother in law; a man's enemies are the men of his own house." In his commentary, Jerome considers what this means about dishonoring the mother-in-law:

thanks.

 

[rakovsky]

Sophia, like kindness, peace etc. it an expression of the uncreated divine energy. That's why we have Christ as „Sophia” as well as Holy Spirit as „Sophia” etc. because They express themselves towards us as „wise”.

This is one of the most helpful answers that I found. Sophia/Wisdom is a divine attribute. It's feminine grammatically as a term. But it's not always absolutely, purely equal to Christ. That is, Christ can express Himself to us as divine Wisdom, as you are saying, and in addition, the Holy Spirit can also express itself as Wisdom.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Feminine? Technically, but not very lady-like.

 

[rakovsky]

For instance, the Arabic word for Caliph (خليفة: ḵalīfe) is a word in the feminine gender although it always refers to a male.[16]

Grandfather (дедушка) in Russian inherently must refer always to a male, and it's considered masculine, requiring masculine adjectives. Nonetheless, the word form matches a generally feminine one due to its ending - ушка. The ending in "a" denotes a feminine term, as is the case in Spanish, and I suppose in some other languages.

In contrast, I suppose that a Caliph is not inherently male as a matter of logic. A woman could theoretically be appointed Caliph, even if it would violate Islamic gender rules. But is Caliph a word like Grandfather in Russian, or is it always grammatically treated as feminine? I suppose the latter.

 

[TheLostCoin]

Ever read Sergei Bulgakov?

He's a very influential Russian theologian and he wrote a treatise on "Holy Wisdom," a form of speculative theology in which he speculates that it is through "God's Wisdom" in which the eternal relationship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is made actual. He goes forward to say that this "Wisdom" is feminine - at least, insofar as we are able to define in cataphatic terms.

He then speculates that this Wisdom is made manifest in the world to its fullest extent through His creation, the Virgin Mary, who was the perfect woman, "Full of Grace." He seems to suggest, if memory serves, that it's the reason why Wisdom and the Virgin Mary seem to be associated with each other in the liturgical texts of the Church and in iconography. For example, the Kievan icon "Sophia the Wisdom of God."

The Wisdom of God:

Or the Theotokos, giver of Wisdom:

Be careful. Before reading him, make sure you read the Orthodox criticisms. His work was condemned by the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow as heresy, one jurisdiction said it was erroneous but not heresy, and his own jurisdiction said it was acceptable. The Moscow Jurisdiction said that his theology made the Theotokos a 4th hypostasis.

 

[ArmyMatt]

yeah, tread lightly when reading Bulgakov

 

[rakovsky]

Maybe the icon painter considered the Theotokos to be God's Sophia, but it seems misleading and is not a strong authority for doctrine.