B. Early Christian Interpretations of the Woman Clothed with the Sun

For the sake of perspective, let us now review briefly how the earliest Christian interpreters of Revelation 12 saw the figure of the woman.^[366]

1. The Greek Fathers

Hippolytus (d.

Origen (d. 253 or 254) wrote a commentary on Revelation. This was found and published in 1911.^{[368] [369] Unfortunately, this commen­tary is incomplete. From Revelation 12, only verses 9 and 13 are briefly mentioned, then again in verse 17. After this the com­mentary of Origen abruptly ends and what follows is the long section from Irenaeus’ Adversus Haereses.}

The martyr bishop of Tyre in Phoenicia, Methodius (d. 312), dealt with this problem in his book Symposium.^⁵ The woman is the church, he wrote, and the child born of her means the Chris­tians who are being brought forth in baptism. The moon refers to baptism, and thus, the woman standing on the moon represents the church which stands upon the faith of the Christians.

Methodius rejected the interpretation of the “male child” as Christ, because S.

Epiphanius of Salamis (d. 403) referred to Revelation 12.4 in his discussion of the sect of the Antidikomarionites.^[370] He wrote that this passage may have been fulfilled in Mary, but he was not certain that his interpretation was correct. Nevertheless, Epipha­nius was probably the first author to identify the “woman clothed with the sun” with Mary.

The first real commentary on the book of Revelation written in the Eastern Church comes from an otherwise unknown author, Oecumenius.^[371] Writing in the first half of the sixth century, he was also the first Greek father to propose a definitely Mariological exegesis of this chapter. For him it was not a future-apocalyptical but a retrospective-historical vision. The woman is Mary, and she is pregnant with Christ, the sun. That is the reason why the Greek text says γυνή περιβεβλημένη τον ήλιον and not τω ήλίω περι- βεβλήσθαι την γυναίκα. In reference to verse 2 he cited Isaiah 66:7 (“Before she was in labor she gave birth, before her pain came upon her she was delivered of a son”) and asserted that Mary escaped the pains of labor. Why, then, does verse 2 say that she was in pain and cried? By this we must understand the sorrow and grief which must have overwhelmed Mary, thinking that Joseph suspected her of adultery.

The archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, Andreas (563-613) wrote his Commentary ^[372] in the second half of the sixth century. It is based on Hippolytus, but in the exegesis of Chapter 12 he fol­lowed Methodius. He knew that some interpreted the woman as the Virgin Mary, but he referred to Methodius and quoted his work: the woman is the church, the moon refers to baptism, the church is in travail until Christ be born in the believers. The persecution is upon the church through which Christ Himself is persecuted; he asked Saul on the road to Damascus, “Why do you persecute me?” when Saul actually was persecuting the church.

2. The Latin Fathers

The first to be mentioned here is Victorinus (d. 304), bishop of Poetovio, which today is in Yugoslavia (formerly Pettau, Steier­mark in Austria). Victorinus died as a martyr during the great persecution of emperor Diocletian, and among others, he is re­membered as the first Christian exegete to write in Latin. The ori­ginal text of his commentary on the book of Revelation was found in 1916; until then it was known only in the form of an edition by

S. Jerome.^[373] For Victorinus also, the woman represented the church which is clothed with the sun, i.e., the hope of resur­rection. The moon refers to the death of the saints. “Caught up” to heaven is reference to the Ascension of Jesus; the male child is apparently thought of as Jesus. The eagle’s wings were given to the church; these are the prophet Elijah and the “prophet who will be with him.” The flight of the church did not yet take place.

The next to advocate an allegorical interpretation of Revelation 12 was Tyconius, a Donatist Christian. His book, written around 380, is lost, but it can be reconstructed from works of others who used his book and wrote their commentaries on the basis of his ideas. Such authors are Primasius; Cassidorus, whose works we will discuss later; and during the Middle Ages, Beda and Beatus. According to a manuscript of his Commentary ^[374] published in 1897, he also interpreted the woman as the church. S. Jerome (d. 419) edited the Commentary of Victorinus,^[375] in which, as we have discussed, the woman is understood as a figure of the church. S. Augustine (d. 430) gave an exposition of Revelation 20 and 21 in De Civitate Dei 20, 7-17, but not of Chapter 12. This question is touched on by him very briefly in Enar. in Ps. 142 where he identifies the woman as the “Civitas Dei.” ^[376]

Among the works of S. Augustine were published the sermons De Symbolo ad Calechumenos II-FV. These are now generally attribu­ted to Quodvultdeus (d. 455), Augustine's disciple.^[377] He identified the woman as Mary, but in the sense that she represented “the figure of the holy church.”^{[378] [379]}

Caesarius of Arles (d. 542) wrote in the spirit of authors before Tyconius: the woman is the church, the twelve stars in her crown the twelve apostles. The woman bore a male child, i. e., Christ, and therefore the body of Christ, the church, always bears the members of Christ. The child is called a male because it conquers the devil. The wilderness is the world where the church suffers omnen virtutem Satanae.^

The commentary of Apringius, bishop of Beja in Portugal, writ­ten around 551, is incomplete; it consists of Chapters 1-5.7 and 18.6 to the end. Between these sections is S. Jerome's edition of Victo­rinus. Otherwise Apringius follows Tyconius in his exegesis.^[380]

Primasius (d. after 554), bishop of Hadrumetum in North Africa, was also greatly influenced by Tyconius, and in the exe­gesis of Chapter 12 he followed the earlier way:^[381] the woman is the church, the twelve stars the twelve apostles.

Cassiodorus (d. 538), “the savior of ancient literature,”^[382] com­ments only on verse 7 in Chapter 12, stating that in this text the mother of Christ is remembered: Fit iterum commemoratio matris et Domino Christi... ^[383] (It is fitting to remember the mother and Christ the Lord.)

We stop here because our investigation of the “Queen of Heaven” does not extend into the Middle Ages. We have seen, however, that the Mariological interpretation of Revelation 12 is not very old in the Christian Church. Although Epiphanius of Salamis (d. 403) made a vague reference to Mary in connection with Chapter 12, the first author who definitely identified the woman as Mary was Oecumenius in the sixth century. The next to do so will be medieval scholars, Ambrose Autpert (eighth century) and Alcuin (d. 804). Most others see in the figure of the woman the church. But since the early church also saw Mary as the figure of the church, indirectly there appears to be a certain connection between Mary and the “woman.” This idea surfaced, for example, in the exegesis of Quodvultdeus (d. 455). Neverthe­less, the fact remains that almost four hundred years passed before the “woman clothed with the sun” was identified with Mary. In view of the fathers’ otherwise high opinions of Mary, this is hard to understand. But there is an explanation: up to about 400 A.D. paganism and Christianity were still competitors and in this struggle Christianity could not afford to adopt pagan termino­logy. No matter how different the Christian interpretations of the “Queen of Heaven” may have been, the pagan connotations of the title were too strong and the woman of Revelation 12 could not be called Mary; she was called the church, and the church was associated with Mary. With the victory of Christianity over paganism all restraint on this aspect of doctrinal development was overcome, and in 431 the Council of Ephesus officially formulated and approved the use of the word theotokos (“God bearer”) as an appellative of the mother of Jesus Christ. Marian interpretations of the “woman” will not lag much behind and will fully flourish in the Middle Ages and in our own day.