by Robert Sungenis
REMNANT COLUMNIST,
Pennsylvania

Despite Scott Hahn's appeal to popular Catholics such as Maximilian Kolbe, Edith Stein or Helen Hull Hitchcock, Catholic dogma says nothing in support of Hahn's attempt to identify the Holy Spirit as the feminine side of the Trinity. Likewise, it is not surprising that Hahn finds virtually no support among the Fathers. Of the over two hundred Fathers at his disposal, Hahn can find no Latin Fathers who agree with him. This is quite a lacuna in the evidence, considering the voluminous writings of Augustine, Jerome and Ambrose. Of the scores of Eastern Fathers, Hahn can only find four rather obscure references (Methodius, Ephrem, Aphrahat and Narsai). One can easily see that these are a minuscule class of supporters. The great names we normally associate with eastern theology are missing, such as Athanasius, Basil, Chrysostom, Gregory, and many others.

The general rule in basing doctrine on testimony found in the patristics is: the prominent and authoritative Fathers must offer their support, and there must be a consensus among them. Hahn has neither. That Hahn has not divulged to his neophyte audience these well-known scholastic requirements is an egregious infringement on ecclesiastical protocol. For such a novel idea as the Holy Spirit being the "feminine dimension of God," the burden of proof is certainly on Hahn, but he has utterly failed to reach that benchmark.

Of the few Eastern Fathers he cites, Hahn uses the phrase "divine maternity" to represent the consensus of their writings (FCL, p. 135), but none of them actually use that specific phrase. In a search of his writings, the closest Ephrem comes to applying feminine traits to the Holy Spirit is the remark "The Holy Spirit has brooded in Baptism" (Fifteen Hymns for the Epiphany, VIII, 16).

In his endnotes (FCL, p. 203), Hahn provides a quote each from Aphrahat and Narsai in which the former writes “...he loves and honors God, his Father, and the Holy Spirit, his Mother,” and the latter says, "They suck the Spirit after the birth of Baptism." But these don't help Hahn's case at all, since the secondary source from which he obtained these two quotes apparently does not hold to Hahn's thesis. We know this because the title of the book from which Hahn obtained the quotes is "Feminine IMAGERY for the Divine" (emphasis mine). "Imagery" is quite different than saying there is a "feminine dimension of God" or that the Holy Spirit is "God's Femininity." This is precisely the problem with Hahn's treatment of the issue – he is constantly shifting between his own quasi-ontology and common imagery. When we are speaking purely about "imagery," even the Father and the Son ascribe to themselves images that we normally associate with motherly or feminine characteristics (cf., Isaiah 66:13; Mt 23:37), but unfortunately, Hahn doesn't alert his reader to this vital piece of information.

The same applies to Hahn's appeal to St. Methodius, Anastasius of Sinai (and again, St. Ephrem) who make an analogy between the rib that formed Eve and the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and Son (FCL, pp. 203-204). These citations, interpreted in the light of the rest of patristic and medieval tradition, are mere analogies. They are no more ontologically representative of the Holy Spirit than a hen is of Jesus (Mt 23:37). The Fathers created these analogies in order to help us understand the incomprehensible idea of divine "procession."

The Fathers, especially Ambrose (On the Holy Spirit, Book III) and Athanasius (Against the Arians, Discourse II) concluded that it was as impossible to understand the true nature of "divine procession" of the Holy Spirit or the "begetting" of the Son as it was the Trinity itself, for the mere fact that the Son and the Holy Spirit are from all eternity just as the Father is.

Unfortunately, Hahn cannot tell his reader that these patristic quotes are mere analogies, precisely because Hahn wants to make more of them than analogies. As it turns out, he is bent on creating a new Hahnian-ontology of the Holy Spirit. From Hahn's own remark: "Is there a family relationship we have been missing in this modern age?" (FCL, p. 128) it appears that his new identity comes from the self-created and seminal paradigm controlling all his thought, that is, that the father, mother and child of a human family have a one-to-one correspondence with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit of the Trinity. This is simply not true?either Scripturally, patristically or dogmatically.

Finally, the appeal to Cardinal Ratzinger as supporting the idea of a "feminine dimension of God" and a "primordial type of the feminine...within God Himself" because Ratzinger, as Hahn claims, is a "doctrinal authority" (FCL, pp. 135, 202) is baseless, since Ratzinger's private opinions registered in his book "Daughter Zion" (that Hahn cites) carry no such "doctrinal authority." Only when Ratzinger speaks officially and formally as the head of the CDF, and with the express written approval of the pope, does the Cardinal hold any "doctrinal authority" whatsoever, an issue which, sorry to say, is consistently confused by post-conciliar apologists.