Symbolism of God the Mother

By Kim Fromkin Faculty Mentor: Dr. Lavonna Lovern, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies

Article Abstract

In the canonical texts of Judaism and Christianity, the term “God” is primarily interpreted as a male deity, specifically associated with the term “Father.” While this interpretation is often considered standard for the canonical texts, the noncanonical texts offer different imagery that includes both masculine and feminine deities. Using the non-canonical texts as reference and understanding the nature of symbols and metaphors as a medium for gaining transcendent reality, it is possible to reinterpret the canonical texts in a way that reveals God as both Divine Father and Divine Mother. This article analyzes the significance of God the Father and God the Mother in both Christian and Jewish traditions. The article focuses on both canonical and non-canonical texts including works from the Nag Hammadi Library and multiple translations of the Bible. Finally, the article analyzes the relationship between the traditional Jewish/Christian concept of a human “mother” and the Divine Mother as a means of understanding early Christian concepts of the complete and integrated God, including the androgynous and hermaphrodite God.

The religious language of Jewish and Christian literature uses symbols and metaphors throughout its texts. For some, these symbols can be vehicles by which a person can experience and understand the concept of a sacred reality or transcendent reality beyond the writings. According to Pamela Dickey Young, one primary symbol for the sacred in Christianity is “God.”1 In the Jewish and Christian literature, there are many metaphors used to describe both the nature and attributes of God.2 Two of these metaphors are “Mother” and “Father.” This article will examine the importance of symbolism in the Jewish and Christian traditions as a means for transcendent reality through the symbolism of “God the Father” and “God the Mother.”3 The article will analyze both canonical and non-canonical texts, including the Nag Hammadi Library and multiple translations of the Bible.4 The article will also examine how the human characteristics often associated with the word “mother” are related to the symbolism of the “Divine Mother.” Finally, the article will conclude that the inclusion of the Divine Mother, specifically in the non-canonicals, creates a more balanced symbol associated with the term “God.”5

1 Leona M. Anderson, and Pamela Dickey Young, Women and Religious Traditions (Oxford University Press, 2015), 186. 2 In looking at both the nature and attributes of God, this article will also discuss Jesus as one of these attributes to provide further imagery of God. Traditionally in the Christian tradition, Jesus is connected to God as the Son of God, God incarnate, and is identified as one of the Trinity. 3 Lawrence S. Cunningham, and John Kelsay, The Sacred Quest: An Invitation to the Study of Religion (Pearson, 2018), 29. The authors of The Sacred Quest characterize the religions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam as one of transcendence, “meaning that they present notions of sacred reality as ‘going beyond’ or ‘standing over’ ordinary existence.” 4 Multiple translations of the Bible are used as part of the exegesis since we do not have the “original” text and since translated texts and interpretations are debated among scholars. Because this article examines language it is important to identify interpretations in different translations as Christian and Jewish language has evolved which has impacted theology. The translations I chose to use in this article are the King James, New King James, and New Living Translations in which the verses used from these translations support the thesis throughout the article. 5 The non-canonical texts use the inclusion of the “Divine Mother” but the canonicals do not.

Symbols and Metaphors

Religious language, according to Lawrence Cunningham and John Kelsay, is like poetry, as it uses ordinary words to convey a larger and more profound sense of something beyond the ordinary that they define as a “sacred reality.”6 These scholars suggest that such language attempts to convey a person’s experience with the sacred.7 Canonical Jewish and Christian literature is often referred to as scripture, and Cunningham and Kelsay state that “scriptures reveal the sacred.”8 They claim that Judaism and Christianity use myths, stories, and parables to explain this “larger phenomenon.”9 They also argue that while humans use language to describe their experience with the sacred, the “sacred defies language.”10 On the one hand, they present the sacred as independent of human control, human desires and wills, and human philosophies, ideologies, theories, notions, and religions.11 On the other hand, they present the sacred as something that can “manifest through objects that are integrally connected with ordinary existence” such as humans: men, women, mothers, fathers, children, etc.12 Pamela Dickey Young defines a symbol as, “a picture, word, thing, act, or concept that bears particular meanings for a particular group.”13 She claims that symbolism in the religious language and traditions of Christianity can assist the reader in understanding the concepts of the religion by creating mental images that aid in conceptualizing distinct meanings surrounding its religious ideas.14 Through these mental images, individuals and

6 Cunningham and Kelsay, 29, 62. 7 Cunningham and Kelsay, 62. 8 Cunningham and Kelsay, 70. 9 See note 6 above, 70. 10 Cunningham and Kelsay, 61. 11 Cunningham and Kelsay, 33. 12 Cunningham and Kelsay, 29. 13 Leona M. Anderson, and Pamela Dickey Young, Women and Religious Traditions (Oxford University Press, 2015), 186. While symbolism is used throughout Christian, Jewish, and Islamic literature, Young identifies the symbols used specifically in the Christian literature in this chapter. 14 Anderson and Young, 186.

groups can establish religious practices associated with rules, boundaries, rituals, and ceremonies to be observed in order to participate in the religion, or it can lead the individual or group beyond the text to a transcendent reality. Young conjectures that “religious symbols function both as symbols of reality and as symbols for reality.”15 She states that one of these primary symbols in Jewish and Christian literature is the term “God,” and that this symbol points to a transcendent reality. She also argues that many of the canonical texts in Jewish and Christian literature refer to God as male but that neither “male nor female language for God is superior to the other.”16 She suggests that when male language and imagery is used to refer to God, it creates a notion that God is male, reinforcing a social system connecting godliness to masculinity.17 Sallie McFague agrees that much of the language and imagery of canonical texts in Jewish and Christian literature is predominantly masculine and is understood in a “patriarchal framework” with the specific use of the term “God” as Father.18 This is not the case with non-canonical texts, as the term “God” is referred to as both Mother and Father. McFague claims that when God the Father is the more frequent title, it becomes a “model which serves as a grid or screen through which to see not only the nature of God but also our relations to the divine and with one another.”19 According to McFague,

feminist theologians are saying that religious language is not only religious but also human, not only about God but also about us. The tradition says we were created in the image of God, but the obverse is also the case, for we imagine God in our image. And the human images we choose

15 See note 12 above, 186. 16 Anderson and Young, 186-187. 17 Anderson and Young, 186. 18 Sallie McFague, Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in Religious Language (Fortress Press, 2010), 9. 19 See note 16 above.

for the divine influence the way we feel about ourselves, for these images are “divinized” and hence raised in status.20

Often in Western culture, canonical texts are more widely accepted than the non-canonical texts. Based on the importance of the use of the term “God” as the previous scholars mentioned, one must look at the symbolic notions of the word “Mother” just as much as the word “Father” in order to have a clearer understanding of a transcendent reality.21 Both the metaphors and terms “Mother” and “Father” are equally vital in understanding a sacred reality beyond the Christian religion. Because of the absence of the exact word “Mother” to describe God in the canonical texts, the primary focus of this article will be on the feminine characteristics of God hidden within the canonical texts and openly visible in the non-canonical texts to reveal another side of God: the Mother side. This analysis will attempt to provide a balanced concept of a sacred or transcendent reality through the God symbol.

The Mother Metaphor

It is useful to examine the term “mother” in both canonical and non-canonical texts. When defining the term “mother” this article will focus on attributes associated with the human characteristics of the term “mother” in relation to the symbolism of God the Mother. As of 2019, the term “mother” was defined as “a woman having the status, function, or authority of a female parent, a woman exercising control influence or authority like that of a mother, a mother-in-law, stepmother, or adoptive

20 McFague, 10. 21 The terms “transcendent reality” and “sacred reality” are used throughout this article. Both designate different aspects of reality. The sacred distinguishes between the sacred and profane, and transcendent reality is that which is beyond the “ordinary” or observable reality equally real but other. The terms are often related at times especially in the synonyms, but they are distinct from one another. Much scholarship has been done on both terms and would require another article to examine the distinction.

mother,” and is also a “term of familiar address for an old or elderly woman.” Webster’s 1828 dictionary defines the word “mother” from the Latin term mater meaning: “the womb” and “materials of which anything is made.” Other definitions from this source are: “a female parent,” “one who has borne a child,” “hysterical passion,” “a familiar term of address or appellation of an old woman or matron,” and “an appellation given to a woman who exercises care and tenderness towards another . . .”22 Interestingly, several of the definitions in Webster’s 1828 dictionary appear to be closely associated to the religious ideology of the term “mother” and seem to be characteristics of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, though the canonical texts do not spell them out as female or use the term “mother.”23 According to Phyllis Trible, “feminine imagery for God is more prevalent” than the reader realizes but to see it one must reread the scriptures.24 In Trible’s rereading of the text, specifically the Old Testament, one will see God portraying the role of a traditional female parent as Yahweh is seen laboring in childbirth, nursing from his breasts, and comforting his children.25 God’s creative power, demonstrated in a laboring woman and a nursing mother, suggests an attribute of God that is not traditionally possible within the characteristics of a human father. According to Sarah J. Dille, this kind of imagery through metaphors and symbolism evokes a “culture’s understanding of labor itself,” and sheds light on the “literary conventions of one facing a situation of siege reacting ‘like a woman in labor,’” “. . . who is intensely engaged, who struggles to overcome the

22 The language has changed from 1828 to 2019 in defining the term “mother.” Webster’s 1828 dictionary paralleled with Webster’s Dictionary 2019. 23 Choosing the 1828 version and the contemporary version of Webster’s dictionary illustrates how interpretation, translation, and hence theology is impacted by changing times. It is important to understand the context of the transitions of translation and definition. I chose these specific examples to emphasize how vastly different definitions can be, how that can impact biblical interpretation, and how that can establish different understandings of the Christian language as it pertains to God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. 24 Phyllis Trible, “Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation,” in Journal of the American Academy of Religion, vol. 41, no. 1, (1973): 32. JSTOR (1461386). 25 See note 24 above, Trible supports these ideas throughout the article.

constriction of the womb to free the child, to bring the child forth into the light.”26 These images of a mother appear to be an example of a transcendent reality by using traditional feminine characteristics to demonstrate the provision and comfort provided by such an invisible force through human experience. In the Old Testament, God is presented as a female parent through the characteristics of a good mother that is loving, kind, and does not forget her children. “Yet Jerusalem says, ‘The Lord has deserted us; the Lord has forgotten us.’ Never! Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for the child she has borne? But even if that were possible, I would not forget you!”27 God comparing himself to a mother demonstrates that sacredness can manifest to provide hope during a time of despair, which is inevitable in human life. In the New Testament, the female parent is used as a symbol of God. This can be seen when God’s word is compared to milk as Christ feeds the young believers the mother’s milk from his own breasts.28 Paul uses the mother metaphor to describe his anguish in dealing with young believers when he describes himself as a woman travailing in birth in Galatians 4:19 and again as a nursing mother feeding and caring for her children in 1 Thessalonians 2:7.29 Jesus is also identified with characteristics of a traditional mother as one who protects her children, gathering them “under her wings” in Luke 13:34.30 Other motherly attributes of God can be seen through the fruits of the Holy Spirit found in Galatians 5:22-23.31 Some of these fruits are love, gentleness, and goodness. While these features can be seen in a father, they better describe the characteristics of a traditional mother based on the definition of Webster’s 1828 dictionary, as one who loves, nurtures, and brings

26 Sarah J. Dille, Mixing Metaphors: God as Mother and Father in Deutero-Isaiah (Continuum 2004), 176. eBook Collection, EBSCOhost. (244670). 27 Is. 49:14, 15 NLT. 28 Rosemary Radford Ruether, “Sexism and Misogyny in the Christian Tradition: Liberating Alternatives,” in Buddhist-Christian Studies, vol. 34, (2014): 87. JSTOR (24801355). 29 E.g., Gal. 4:19 KJV; 1 Thess. 2:7 NKJV. 30 E.g., Lk. 13:34 KJV. 31 E.g., Gal. 5:22-23 KJV.

comfort to others. In John 14:26 the Holy Spirit is identified as the “Comforter.”32 This word in Greek is παρακλητος and is defined as a “helper” or “assistant” who leads believers to a “deeper knowledge of the gospel truth, giving them divine strength, and enables them to undergo trials and persecution.”33 This definition seems to mirror the female deity Sophia, the Mother of Wisdom, inherited from Judaism, who provides this “deeper knowledge of truth” and wisdom. According to Larry Gates, using the work of Carl Jung, “medieval alchemists often equated the Holy Spirit with the Gnostic Sophia” and that the term Mother is a more “common sense” understanding of the Trinity than that of the Holy Ghost.34 Gates states that Jung not only “explores the Holy Spirit as Mother” but also that Jung suggests that “the Trinity of Father, Mother, and Holy Child seems a richer and more basic idea than Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (Spiritus), all masculine.”35 Continuing to use Jung’s theory, Gates concludes that it seemed more reasonable to Jung to think of Mary as the Holy Spirit in which according to Gates, it would lead to “a number of ramifications” because “if the Holy Ghost is a biological mother, for example, then there is a sense in which all humans participate in the Trinity.”36 However, the idea that the Holy Spirit is a Mother was considered heresy by orthodox Christians, though there is evidence of female imagery for God and the Holy Spirit throughout the Christian literature.37 In the early Church, prior to the formation of orthodox Christianity, certain people who upheld Jewish traditions as they sought after knowledge and a deeper understanding of truth were labeled as “Gnostics.” Some of the non-canonical texts are believed to have been written by this group of knowledge

32 E.g., Jn. 14:26. KJV. 33 “Blue Letter Bible.” Blue Letter Bible. https://www.blueletterbible.org/index. cfm?doy=354. The definition of Holy Spirit is taken from this online concordance. 34 Larry Gates, “Jung’s Conception of the Holy Ghost,” in Journal of Religion and Health, vol. 33, no. 4, (1994): 316. JSTOR (27510846). 35 Gates, 316. 36 Gates, 316. 37 Scholars argue that the term “mother” was removed from the language by orthodox scribes and early church fathers that sought to establish a more patriarchal community of Christians.

seekers. While one may find traces of feminine and motherly characteristics of the God symbol in the religious language of orthodox Christianity as seen in the canonical texts, these traces are still quite limited. The term “mother” as a metaphor of the symbol of God in those writings is absent. In order to see the term “mother” symbolized as God, one must turn to the noncanonical texts, including those of the Nag Hammadi Library. The non-canonical texts seem to present the symbolism of God the Mother as equal to if not more than God the Father. According to Elaine Pagels, the Divine Mother is seen in some of the non-canonical texts, specifically Gnostic texts, as a womb, the creator, wisdom, Christ’s mother, and one of the triads in the Holy Trinity.38 These textual images seem to echo some of the definitions from the Webster’s 1828 dictionary. Pagels conjectures that “. . . such symbolism in gnostic texts clearly bears implications for the understanding of human nature.”39 She provides an example of this symbolism by using material from The Great Announcement surrounding the myth of the Garden of Eden. Pagels states that the author of the text explains that much of the symbolism in the Garden of Eden includes the symbol of a womb as seen in Isaiah 44 where God formed mankind in the womb. She claims the rivers in Eden are symbolic to the birth canal with the naval providing nourishment to the fetus, and the crossing of the Red Sea from Exodus as symbolic to the blood coming from the birth of the newborn child.40 These symbols provide images of traditional characteristics of a mother and provide an existential understanding of creation. For the Gnostics, it seems that the symbol of the Holy Spirit and God the Mother are one and the same. In the Secret Book of John, this idea can be seen when the disciple John has an encounter with a presence that unveils itself through a great light that audibly speaks to him asking him why he is fearful and doubting. Then it seems to provide him with comfort as this presence says to him:

38 Elaine H. Pagels, “What Became of God the Mother? Conflicting Images of God in Early Christianity,” in Signs, vol. 2, no. 2, (1976): 296-297. JSTOR (3173448). 39 Pagels, 297. 40 Pagels, 297.

I am with you always. I am the father; I am the mother; I am the child. I am the incorruptible and the undefiled one. Now I have come to teach you what is, what was, and what is going to come, that you may understand what is invisible and what is visible . . . 41

John seems to interpret this presence as the Holy Spirit. Pagels continues that in the Gospel of the Hebrews and in the Gospel of Thomas, the symbol of the Divine Mother again is presented as the Holy Spirit, paralleling her to Jesus’ mother.42 Pagels states that in these texts Jesus compares Mary and Joseph, his earthly parents, with his Divine Father, calling him the Father of Truth, and his Divine Mother, calling her the Holy Spirit.43 Pagels also claims that in the Gospel of Philip, God the Mother is symbolized as the Virgin Mother that gave birth to Christ.44 However, in looking at the texts of Phillip’s Gospel, it does not appear that this presence is the same as his earthly mother and does not seem to be associated with his earthly mother. First the text states, “Some said Mary became pregnant by the holy spirit. They are wrong and do not know what they are saying. When did a woman ever get pregnant by a woman?”45 The text further seeks to explain the mystery of Jesus’ birth: “It is necessary to utter a mystery. The father of all united with the virgin who came down, and fire shone on him. On that great day, that one revealed the great bridal chamber, and in this way his body came into being.”46 This series of events seems to mirror the Holy Spirit manifesting as a dove that descended upon Jesus in the baptismal story in the canonical Gospels. According to April DeConick, The Gospel of the Hebrews presents a different version of the baptism story. She claims that the baptism story of this gospel displays more of a story concerning transfiguration. The dove,

41 Marvin Meyer, The Gnostic Gospels of Jesus, (Harper, 2005), 150. 42 Pagels, “What Became of God the Mother,” 296. 43 See note 39 above. 44 Pagels, 296-297. 45 Meyer, The Gnostic Gospels of Jesus, 53. 46 Meyer, 71.

symbolizing Jesus’ “true mother” as the Holy Spirit, descends upon him, then causes him to ascend to the heights where he is “glorified” and where a “bodily transformation” occurs, changing him into a “being of light.”47 DeConick concludes that the baptism story for the Gnostics is about birth with the waters symbolizing a mother’s womb from which believers are reborn.48 The “mother” metaphor weighs heavily in the baptism story of some of the non-canonical texts and seems to signify human existence and redemption with the mother’s womb playing an integral part. Just as the orthodox Christian Bible speaks of feminine characteristics to symbolize attributes of God the Father as a nursing mother giving milk to his children, so do the noncanonicals but with a different perspective. Rosemary Ruether uses texts from the Odes of Solomon to illustrate this perspective as the book depicts the son as the cup, the father as having breasts full of milk, and the Holy Spirit as the one who milks the father.49 She states that this text presents a different idea of the Virgin and Mary than that of the Gospel of Philip when Mary partakes of this divine milk of the father (similar to communion) and therefore conceives, giving birth to the divine human, Jesus.50 Ruether claims that these Odes also speak of the dove just as the other texts but fails to include how the dove flutters over its nest.51 She suggests that this image of the nest changes into a mother’s womb which symbolizes a young believer who is carried and then leaps for joy in the womb as in the illustration of Jesus leaping in his mother’s womb in Luke 1:41.52 Throughout the non-canonicals, especially those considered Gnostic, the “mother” metaphor is

47 April D. DeConick, Holy Misogyny: Why the Sex and Gender Conflicts in the Early Church Still Matter Bloomsbury, 2013), 20. 48 DeConick, 25. 49 Rosemary Radford Ruether, Goddesses and the Divine Feminine: A Western Religious History (University of California Press, 2005), 133. eBook Collection, EBSCOhost. (132036). 50 Ruether, 133. 51 Ruether, 134. 52 See note 48 above.

used as a symbol of God. This symbolization seems to illustrate human characteristics associated with the term “mother” and seems to be related to the Divine Mother. It appears that some of the early Christians used the “mother” metaphor profoundly in their writings to teach others the meaning and importance of redemption, human existence, human nature, and to understand a sacred reality from which humanity originates. Karen King alleges this in her research on the gnostic text The Secret Revelation of John. The writer of this text defines the Divine Mother as Pronoia “the womb of All,” stating that she is “prior to them all” and is responsible for human existence.53 While the writer seems to blame this Divine Mother for human existence as a form of rebellion from another realm within the texts, King argues that she [the Divine Mother] is the “hero of the story.”54 For King, this Divine Mother not only freed herself from hierarchy, but she gave life to human beings by giving birth to the earth realm.55 The Divine Mother is “the transcendent Deity” that reproduced itself upon perceiving “its own image” in the “pure-light water” surrounding itself.56 King claims that this Divine Mother is the Spirit also known as Wisdom and Sophia that dwells innately within all humanity.57 It is she that is the life in humans that gives life and reproduces itself. It is that Divine feminine that is calling the Spirit back to the Spirit and is seen as a mother calling her children home.58 This Spirit is calling her Spirit within her children to awaken, to bring them out of a place of darkness and forgetfulness, reminding them from whence they came which was from a perfect state.59 This perfect state seems to be from another realm and time outside of the earth realm.

53 Karen L. King, The Secret Revelation of John (Harvard University Press, 2006), 125. 54 King, 125. 55 King, 125-126. 56 King, 126. 57 King, 126, 135. 58 King, 135. 59 See note 55 above.

The Paradox

In some of the early Christian literature it seems God was both Mother (female) and Father (male), and neither. According to April DeConick, the apostle Paul references this androgynous and hermaphrodite being in his letter to the Galatians during the time social issues surrounding the ministry of women were rising within the early Church. He said, “. . . there is neither male nor female: for you all are one in Christ Jesus.”60 DeConick states that Paul, with his followers, believed that through baptism they had been “. . . recreated in the androgynous image of God” by the Spirit.61 She continues that this androgynous image of God originated in the Garden of Eden. She claims that the “original” man in Genesis 1:27 is an “androgynous (neither male nor female) or a hermaphrodite (both male and female) creature” created in the image of God.62 According to Elaine Pagels, The Great Announcement describes this paradox as a “Source” that is both masculine and feminine, calling it a “bisexual Power” that came into being in the form of a human having both genders within itself named “Adam.”63 Pagels conjectures that Eve on the other hand is a manifestation of what was in Adam that comes out of the androgynous being that is now split, with the female counterpart and the male counterpart serving as equals.64 She continues by using the “let us make mankind” reference from Genesis 1:26-27 to argue that mankind was formed in the image and likeness of God, the Divine Father and the Divine Mother, and was therefore “masculo-feminine.”65 Pagels states, “We can see, then, that the gnostic sources which describe God in both masculine and feminine terms often give a similar description of human nature as a dyadic entity, consisting of two equal male and female components.”66

60 DeConick, “Holy Misogyny,” 62. 61 DeConick, 62. 62 DeConick, 62. 63 Pagels, “What Became of God the Mother,” 298. 64 Pagels, 298. 65 Pagels, 298. 66 See notes 60-62 above.

For some Gnostics, the Mother side of God seems to be just as important as the Father side and they seem to have the idea that one does not exist without the other. Pagels looks to Valentinus who sought to make sense of such an idea, describing the father side as one who is “the Ineffable, the Depth, the Primal Father” and the mother side as “Grace, Silence, the Womb, and Mother of the All,” both elements complementing the other.67 Pagels uses Valentinus’ description of this dyad in how “Silence receives, as in a womb, the seed of the Ineffable Source,” stating that this is how “she brings forth all the emanations of divine being”—both masculine and feminine energies.68 This metaphoric imagery seems to demonstrate the mystery of the creation of life in human nature as the father is the source of the seed and the mother the receptor of the seed into her womb. She then carries and nourishes the fruit until it is ripe enough to give birth to it. Then the mother nurses it from her breasts. Both metaphors of the Divine parents seem to be symbolic concerning procreation. They seem to play an important role in the overall welfare of humanity which seems to symbolize a notion of the sacred in such a divine being. Other gnostic Christians disagree with the masculofeminine unity of God as they see these symbols as metaphors only to instill a reality of the divine. Rosemary Ruether conjectures that Gregory Nyssa was one of these early church fathers who saw God as neither male nor female.69 She claims that he argued humanity’s true nature is the spiritual nature by which we imagine God.70 Reuther suggests that for Nyssa that image of God is equally present within every male and female and is not gendered.71 The Gospel of Thomas continues this puzzling notion of a divine entity, sharing both and neither male nor female elements. In this text, Jesus seems to illustrate a metamorphosis that one must go through to return to the primordial image of God where male and female separateness is no longer present.

67 Elaine H. Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (Vintage, 1981), 50. 68 Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels, 50. 69 Ruether, Goddesses and the Divine Feminine, 135. 70 Ruether, 135. 71 Ruether, 135.

Jesus saw some babies nursing. He said to his disciples, “These nursing babies are like those who enter the kingdom.” They said to him, “Then shall we enter the kingdom as babies?” Jesus said to them, “When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter the kingdom.”72

According to April DeConick, during the Samaritan Gnostic movement this androgynous image continued to be a theme with the teacher Simon.73 DeConick claims that Simon taught that God existed as both Father and Mother with the Mother springing out from him, who is his “Mind” and “Thought.”74 She states that in Simon’s work this androgynous figure is also called the Holy Spirit.75 Though symbols and metaphors seem to make up the religious language used throughout canonical and noncanonical Jewish and Christian literature, they must not be read literally. However, they can be powerful vehicles by which a transcendent reality can manifest, making its unknown-self known for the sake of human understanding. According to Larry Shinn using the work of Paul Ricoeur, “symbols are ‘the language of the Sacred’ because they both tell us something we can conceptualize and yet point to an experienced reality that can be only partially known.”76 If the symbol of God is viewed only

72 Meyer, The Gnostic Gospels, 12. 73 DeConick, Holy Misogyny, 102. 74 DeConick, 102. 75 See note 71 above. 76 Larry D Shinn, “The Goddess: Theological Sign or Religious Symbol?” in Numen, vol. 31, no. 2, Dec. (1984): 176. EBSCOhost (943399). In this text Shinn quotes “the language of the Sacred” from Paul Ricoeur in his work The Symbol Gives Rise to Thought.

as masculine through the term “father,” it supplies the reader with an unbalanced understanding. The inclusion of the Divine Mother, provided more so in the non-canonical texts, creates a more balanced understanding of a sacred or transcendent reality through the symbol associated with God. Motherhood in the human family is related to the symbol of God the Mother when she is seen nursing her babies and nurturing them. Traditionally, without her womb, a child cannot be born, and human creation cannot exist. She is the symbol of life for all humanity. Creation is a birthing process that taps into the sacred dimension as a physical manifestation. Without the symbolism of the mother, creation cannot exist. The qualities of a traditional human mother are written as symbols and metaphors in the religious language so that one may understand and experience a sacred reality. It paints the picture in the human mind that an element of the sacred is loving, nurturing, and caring to humankind. Through the image of the mother the sacred is given form for the benefit of humanity. If one eliminates the Mother side of God, then an aspect of the sacred is rejected and would be like removing all females from the entire human population. Without God the Mother, there cannot be a God the Father.

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