"shekhinah" in rabbinic literature, to indicate the presence of God, sakina, a word mentioned six times in the Quran). In the Syriac language too, the grammatically feminine word rucha means "spirit", and writers in that language, both orthodox and Gnostic, used maternal images when speaking of the Holy Spirit. This imagery is found in the fourth-century theologians Aphrahat and Ephrem the Syrian. It is found in earlier writings of Syriac Christianity such as the Odes of Solomon and in the Gnostic early-third-century Acts of Thomas. Historian of religion Susan Ashbrook Harvey considers the grammatical gender to have been significant for early Syriac Christianity: "It seems clear that for the Syrians, the cue from grammar—ruah as a feminine noun—was not entirely gratuitous. There was real meaning in calling the Spirit 'She'." In the Catholic Church, the Holy Spirit is referred to in English as "He" in liturgical texts, however the Holy See directs that "the established gender usage of each respective language [is] to be maintained." Discussion in mainstream Christianity Ancient church For Semitic languages, such as ancient Syriac, the earliest liturgical tradition and established gender usage for referring to the Holy Spirit is feminine. The Syriac language, which was in common use around AD 300, is derived from Aramaic. In documents produced in Syriac by the early Miaphysite church (which later became the Syriac Orthodox Church) the feminine gender of the word for spirit gave rise to a theology in which the Holy Spirit was considered feminine. Recent discussions Some recent authors (1980s to present), while retaining masculine reference to Father and Son, have used feminine language for the Holy Spirit. These authors include Clark H. Pinnock, Thomas N. Finger, Jürgen Moltmann, Yves M.J. Congar, John J. O'Donnell, Donald L. Gelpi, and R.P. Nettlehorst. Discovering Biblical Equality maintains that viewing God in masculine terms is merely a way in which we speak of God in figurative language. The author reiterates that God is spirit and that the Bible presents God through personification and anthropomorphism which reflects only a likeness to God. There are some churches (see below) who teach that the Holy Spirit is feminine based on the fact that both feminine nouns and verbs, as well as feminine analogies, are thought to be used by the Bible to describe the Spirit of God in passages such as Genesis 1:1-2, Genesis 2:7, Deut. 32:11-12, Proverbs 1:20, Matthew 11:19, Luke 3:22,