Is the Holy Spirit Feminine? Scott Hahn Opening Up A Controversial Topic Again.

The Way of the Fathers blog has a very interesting post up on some of the writings of Scott Hahn. Check out the post Syriac Spirit.
In our Tradition & Traditions section, we retrieve an important theological motif from the early Christian tradition. Emmanuel Kaniyamparampil looks at feminine-maternal images of the Holy Spirit in Syriac Christianity, a tradition with close linguistic and historic roots to the first Jewish Christians. This is a careful study that shows the biblical roots of this metaphor and its possibilities for fruitful reflection on the role of the Spirit in the life of the believer.

Now Scott Hahn does not think the Holy Spirit is female. Lets be clear about that.

Scott Hahn is very Orthodox to say the least. However I found it interesting that Hahn and several others are bringing up this topic again. If I recall correctly Hahn was really blasted by the New Oxford Review over what he was saying. Sadly New Oxford Review is pretty big on not having people copying and pasting their stuff as we just saw in the Jindal race. There are some interesting links on the entry that go into what the Syriac Church fathers had to say about the Holy Spirit. Syrian Church Fathers such as St Ephrem the Syrian are quickly being rediscovered by the west.

This is a taste of what The New Oxford Review was saying can be found here. Now let me say I think New Oxford at times goes overboard. It seem they often have a scorched earth view when they think there is a hint that Orthodoxy is threaten. I thought on the whole they really did a disservice to Dr Hahn. I strongly urge people to read this exchange between Dr Hahn and his critics at For the record: an exchange between Scott Hahn & Dale Vree .