Clement of Alexandria: Christ is both father and mother

"The Word [Christ] is everything to his little ones, both father and mother."

 Clement of Alexandria, Christ the Educator, trans. S. Wood (New York: Fathers of the Church Inc., 1954), p. 40.

Clement of Alexandria on God's feminine character

"God himself is love; and out of love to us became feminine. In his ineffable essence he is father; in his compassion to us he became mother. The father by loving became feminine, and the great proof of this is he whom he begot of himself; the first fruit brought forth by God is love."(Quis Dives 37)