Donald L. Gelpi

In Christian theology, the gender of the Holy Spirit has been the subject of some debate in recent times. The grammatical gender of the word for "spirit" is feminine in Hebrew (רוּחַ, rūaḥ), neuter in Greek (πνεῦμα, pneûma) and masculine in Latin (spiritus). The neutral Greek πνεῦμα is used in the Septuagint to translate the Hebrew רוּחַ. The Holy Spirit also was equated with the (grammatically feminine) Wisdom of God by two early Church fathers, Theophilus of Antioch (d. 180) and by Irenaeus (d…