English translations usually translate the feminine "Sophia" into the abstract "Wisdom". Although the Greek and Hebrew words were fully feminine, the English is not.

The fullest development of her is in the so-called "Wisdom Books" of the apocryphia in the Greek Pentateuch that were canonized into Christian Scripture and are still used by the Roman Catholic and English Orthodox churches.
Sophia dominates the first nine chapters of Proverbs and is found in both the Old and New Testaments.

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 of the Hebrews used by the Syrian Christians which, as some now say, 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. In Judaism, the medieval writers of the Kaballah concentrated on the masculine aspects of the sefiroth (the 13 aspects of God) and relegated Sophia to an inferior sphere than that she had heretofore occupied. Roman Catholicism explicitly associated Old Testament Sophia texts with Mary or the Mother Church. In the Eastern Church, Sophia survives and is often associated liturgically with the Holy Spirit and sometimes with Christ, himself. Further, the church fathers of the Patristic Age preferred the male "Logos" when describing Christ in order to avoid gender confusion. Philo, who at first equated Sophia with Logos, "substituted Logos for Sophia, until the masculine person of the Logos has taken over most of Sophia's divine roles including the firstborn image of God, the principle of order and the intermediary between God and humanity. Sophia's powers are restricted and she is limited to Heaven.

In both Greek and English, "Spirit" is a neuter noun. And we think of a neuter noun as an "it" rather than a he or she. Thus we think of the Holy Trinity of orthodox theology in a peculiar way. God the Father we visualize in warm, personal terms. God the Word (i.e., Logos) we more often speak of as God the Son and think of personal images ranging from Bethlehem to Nazareth to Jerusalem. Not so, however, with the Holy Spirit. Both the neuter noun and the biblical images of fire and anointing tend us away from personal to impersonal imagery, from Spirit as divine personality to Spirit as divine emanation. How unfortunate. In the Gospel of John, Jesus invites us to know about, expect, and experience the Holy Spirit. And he speaks of the third member of the divine family in terms that are personal. In fact, he challenged his original followers to think of the Holy Spirit in the same personal ways they had experienced him.

John’s concept of the Logos, the Word that was God and became flesh (John 1:1-14) was derived from the Old Testament understanding of Wisdom as much, probably more, than from the Greek idea of Logos. And yet Wisdom, the one before whom are riches and honor and righteousness (Proverbs 8:18) and who shared with God in the creation of all things (Proverbs 8:27-31) is consistently given a female gender in Proverbs and by Jesus (Proverbs 1:20; 4:6; 8:1,11; 9:1; 14:33; Matthew 11:19; Luke 7:35). "Jesus and Sophia came to be associated through a process that took place during the first two centuries of our era. The apostle Paul said it clearly: 'We are preaching a crucified Christ . . . who is the Wisdom of God' (1 Corinthians 1:23; see also 1 Corinthians 2:6-8). Others, the author of John 1:1-18, for example, describe Sophia clearly but only imply that the person they are describing is Jesus. Elsewhere, such as in the Gospels of Matthew, Luke and Thomas, Jesus speaks the words of Sophia as if he were Sophia. Yet others, among them the authors of Ephesians, Colossians, and James depend heavily on their readers' knowledge of Sophia in communicating who they thought Jesus really was. Finally, the literature that came to be called gnostic includes a wide range of stories in which Jesus and Sophia exchange roles in a variety of earthly settings.

Sophia is found throughout the wisdom books of the Bible. She is Wisdom Incarnate, the Goddess of all those who are wise. There are references to Her in the book of Proverbs, and in the apocryphal books of Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon (accepted by Catholics and Orthodox, found in the Greek Septuagint of the early Church). Paul explicitly identifies Jesus with Sophia in 1st Corinthians 1:23-25,30 "By God's action, Jesus Christ has become our Sophia." Then following, in 2:6-8, "But still we have a Sophia to offer those who have reached maturity: not a philosophy of our age, it is true....The hidden Sophia of God which we teach in our mysteries is the Sophia that God predestined to be for our glory before the ages began...." John more directly incorporates Sophia scriptures into his description of Jesus. Sophia's statement (Ecc. 24:8) "Then the creator of all things instructed me...'Pitch your tent in Jacob, and make Israel your inheritance'" ... becomes John 1:14, "The Word was made flesh, and pitched his tent among us." Extensive references in Paul, John and the Synoptic Gospels are given.

Is it any wonder that She is constantly associated with wise King Solomon? 1 Kings 4:29-31 tells us that God gave wisdom to Solomon, and that he became wiser than all the kings of the East and all the wise people of Egypt. Wisdom 8:2, 16, 18 tells us that Solomon was seen as married to Sophia. One of the many layers of symbolism attributed to the Song of Songs (also known as Song of Solomon or Canticle of Canticles) is that it speaks of Solomon's marriage to Holy Sophia. Wisdom 9:8-11 even tells us that Sophia instructed Solomon in building the Temple!

not often remembered image of God is one in which Yahweh is described by an analogy to the action of a female bird protecting her young (Ps. 17:8; 36:7; 57:l; 91: 1,4; Isa. 31:5; etc.). The sustaining care of Yahweh for Israel is represented in Dent. 32:11-12 by the words: "Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions, the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no foreign god with him." In a similar reference in Matt. 23:37 (Luke 13:34) Jesus says: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem ... ! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!" Other passages compare the love of God with the love of a mother for her child, or the loyalty and affection of a wife for her husband (Dent. 32:18; Isa. 46:3; 51:1; 49:14-15; Ps. 131: 2).70 We need to remind ourselves of the importance of three words used in the femine gender in Hebrew tradition which stress feminine attributes of God: Shekinah or the glory of the presence of God on earth; Torah or the guidance of God; Chokmah or the pre-cosmic divine wisdom . In the New Testament, Jesus is associated with all three of these attributes, Thus in Matt. 18:20 we read: "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." With this we may compare the saying in PirkeAbo ' th: "When they sit together and are occupied with the Torah, the Shekinah is among them. " In I Cor. 1:24, 30, Paul calls Christ the Wisdom of God . From this we can conclude that both feminine and masculine characteristics play a part in the description of Yahweh and Christ. In the Bible when God has to be described metaphorically, both male and female imagery is used. "Now will I scream like a woman in labor", says God in Isaiah. "Gather her brood under her wings", says Jesus to the people. "Having ten pieces of silver and losing one", is the Woman who seeks diligently for the lost soul. "As a nurse cherisheth her children", says the evangelist in the epistles. In Proverbs and elsewhere the female figure, 'Wisdom' personifies the Divine.

" How beautiful Sarah is!
Her long soft hair her bright eyes and her radiant face,
her full breasts and her delicate hands,
her round hips and her thighs!
There is no woman more beautiful than Sarah,
no woman who ever stood under the canopy to be wed to a good man.
Excellent is her beauty,
fair is she under the wide sky. Yet this is not why she attracts our love: it is her wisdom,
her prudence, and the graceful way she moves her hands."
~Genesis Apocryphon and Jubilees


The Hebrew matriarch Sarah is one of the most renowned of the heroines of the Jewish nation. She is the inspiration for the wise and virtuous woman of the proverbs. She was nearly a century old when she bore her child, who transformed that nation into Israel. But it was not her motherhood that made her great and beloved. It was her wisdom, based on inner strength and knowledge.

Wisdom is a quality that is not, today, often acknowledged. Yet in ancient times a woman's wisdom - gained through years of watchful awareness and inner searching - was important for the health and happiness of all her family and, beyond that, of her entire people. Sophia retains this place which she holds in the Old Testament Apocrypha with the Gnostics, and as we know from a fragment of the Gospel According to the Hebrews, the Holy Ghost is regarded as the wife of God the Father, for there Jesus uses the expression "My Mother the Holy Ghost," as quoted by Epiphanius (Haeres LXII, 2).

In India, a dove was uniformly the emblem of the Holy Spirit or Spirit of God. A dove stood for a third member of the Trinity, and was the regenerator or regeneratory power. Compare this with Titus (3:5): regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. A person being baptized under the Brahminical theocracy was said to be regenerated and born again, or, they were born into the spirit, or the spirit into them—the dove into or upon them. In Rome a dove or pigeon was a legendary spirit, the accompaniment of Venus, the emblem of female procreative energy. It is therefore appropriately shown as descending at baptism in the character of the third member of the Trinity. The dove also fills the Grecian oracles with their spirit and power. A dove was, in several ancient religions, the Spirit of God (Holy Ghost) moving on the face of the waters at creation (Gen. 1:2), a pigeon was often substituted. The dove and the pigeon were used interchangeably. In the ancient Syrian temple of Hierapolis, Semiramis is shown with a dove on her head, the prototype of the dove on the head of the Christian messiah at baptism.

the Eastern Orthodox Church has women deaconesses, married priests, and the Feminine Principle is recognized in Sophia, the Wisdom of Christ.

The Holy Ghost was the third member of the Trinity in several Eastern religions as well as the Gothic and Celtic nations. This notion of a third person in the the godhead was diffused among all the nations of the earth. Father, Son and Holy Ghost, or Father, Word and Holy Ghost (1 John 5:7) express the divine triad of which the Holy Ghost was the third member. The Holy Ghost was the Holy Breath which, in the Hindu traditions, moved on the face of the waters at creation, and imparted vitality into everything created. A similar conception appears in the scriptures. In Psalms 33:6 the Word of the Lord made the heavens, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. The Brahminical conception of creation by the Divine Breath, the Holy Ghost, which was breathed into Adam to make him a living soul. The Prana or principle of life of the Hindus is the breath of life by which the Brahma, the Creator, animates the clay to make man a living soul. Holy Ghost, Holy Breath and Holy Wind were equivalent terms for the sigh from the mouth of the Supreme God, as laid down in pagan traditions. The Holy Wind is suggested by the mighty rushing wind from heaven which filled the house on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:2). The Holy Wind is an accepted term for the Holy Ghost in ancient religions. The doxology, reported by a missionary, in the religious service of the Syrian church runs thus:

Praise to the Holy Spiritual Wind, which is the Holy Ghost; Praise to the three persons which are one true God. The Hebrew Ruh Elohim, translated Spirit of God (Gen. 1:2) in our version, is literally, Wind of the Gods. The word Pneuma, of the Greek New Testament, is sometimes translated Ghost and sometimes Wind, as suited the fancy of the translators. In John 3:5 the word is Spirit, in verse eight both Wind and Spirit, and in Luke 1:35 the term is Holy Ghost—all translated from the same word. In the Greek Testament the word Pneuma is used for Spirit, Holy Ghost, breath and Wind so that in the Christian Scriptures they are synonymous. An unwarranted license has been assumed by translators in rendering the same word different ways. The Holy Ghost appears also as a tongue of fire, which sat upon each of the apostles in Acts 2:3. Buddha, an incarnate God of the Hindus over two thousand years ago, is often seen with a glory or tongue of fire upon his head. The visible form of the Holy Ghost as fire was accepted among the Buddhists, Druids and Etrurians. The Holy Ghost, or Holy Spirit when visible, was in the form of fire or a bird and was always accompanied with wisdom and power. The Hindus, Persians and Chaldeans made offerings to fire, emblem of the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit as the solar fire. The Gospel of the Hebrews is known only through quotations from it given in the writing of early church fathers. In one such, a feminine Holy Spirit, descending upon Jesus at his baptism, says: "My Son, in all the prophets was I waiting for you that you should come and I might rest in you." Another quote, this time from Jesus: "Even so did my mother, the Holy Spirit, take me by one of my hairs and carry me away to the great mountain Tabor." The Acts of Thomas, a legendary account of the apostle Thomas’s travels to India, contains prayers invoking the Holy Spirit as, among other titles, "the Mother of all creation" and "compassionate mother." In the Secret Book of James,Another Nag Hammadi discovery; Jesus refers to himself as "the son of the Holy Spirit." The Gospel of Thomas was composed at about the same time as the biblical Gospels. Ron Cameron of Wesleyan University agrees. In The Other Gospels, a collection of 16 apocryphal Gospels,the Gospel of the Hebrews dates as circa 100 AD. or earlier, and the Secret Book of James in the first half of the second century. However, all three could have been written as early as the middle of the first century (about the time of Paul). Congregations founded by Paul used a baptism ritual which reunified the male and female in each new believer. The key verses are in Galatians, the much-quoted 3:27-28: "For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." The early Christian groups thought of themselves as a new genus of mankind, or as the restored original mankind. The Christian baptismal initiation reversed the division of male and female, returning to the gender unity found in Adam before Eve and in God. Paul also uses reunification language in I Corinthians and Colossians, but without specific reference to male and female. The androgynous concept received expanded treatment from Gnostic Christians, some of whom developed the sacrament of the bridegroom chamber to reunite the two halves in the believer. (In the Second Epistle of Clement, a second century sermon, appears a saying not inconsistent with Galatians 3:28: "When the Lord himself was asked by someone when his kingdom would come, he said, ‘When the two become one, and the outside as the inside and the male with the female neither male nor female.’") That rite’s imagery can be linked with the imagery of Jesus as the reappearing Primal Man, the androgynous Anthropos, or, as Paul expressed it, the "Last Adam" (I Cor. 15:45). Also, Jesus urged his followers to become his equal -- Luke 6:40, the Gospel of Thomas 13, 108, and in the Secret Book of James. "Make yourselves like the son of the Holy Spirit," Jesus says in the latter text; and again, "If you . . . do his [the Father’s] will, I [say] that he will love you, and make you equal with me."

Teaching attributed to Jesus might challenge any thoughts that God the Father is much more important than the Holy Spirit. The synoptic Gospels all have a version of the saying, admittedly mysterious, that no blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is ever forgiven, unlike sins or blasphemies against sons of men (Mark) or the Son of Man (Matthew and Luke). Thomas 44 says it more strongly: blasphemies against Father and Son will be pardoned, but those against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven on earth or in heaven.