Courtesy of William Albrecht.
All emphasis is mine.
Testament of Joseph, Chapter II
72 And hear ye, my children, also the vision which I saw.
73 There were twelve harts feeding: and the nine were first dispersed over all the earth, and likewise also the three.
74 And I saw that from Judah was born a virgin wearing a linen garment, and from her, was born a lamb, without spot; and on his left hand there was as it were a lion; and all the beasts rushed against him, and the lamb overcame them, and destroyed them and trod them under foot.
75 And because of him the angels and men rejoiced, and all the land.
76 And these things shall come to pass in their season, in the last days.
77 Do ye therefore, my children, observe the commandments of the Lord, and honour Levi and Judah; for from them shall arise unto you the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world, one who saveth all the Gentiles and Israel.
78 For His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, which shall not pass away; but my kingdom among you shall come to an end as a watcher’s hammock, which after the summer disappeareth.
Here we have an allusion to Joseph’s dreams in Genesis 37:5-11 combined with imagery and language taken from Genesis 3:14-15, Isaiah 7:14, 9:7, Daniel 7:13-14, John 1:29, Revelation 5:5-6, 12:1-6, 13:1-18, and 17:12-17, just to name a few references.
St. Epiphanius of Salamis (300s), Panarion
“But elsewhere, in the Apocalypse of John, we read that the dragon hurled himself at the woman who had given birth to a male child; but the wings of an eagle were given to the woman, and she flew into the desert, where the dragon could not reach her” (Rev. 12:13-14). This could have happened in Mary’s case.”
Quodvultdeus, De Symbolo (430 A.D.)
“None of you is ignorant of the fact that the dragon was the devil. The woman signified the Virgin Mary.”
“The Woman signifies Mary, who, being spotless, brought forth our spotless Head. Who herself also showed forth in herself a figure of holy Church, so that as she in bringing forth a Son remained a Virgin, so the Church also should during the whole time be bringing forth His members, and yet not lose her virgin state.”
Andrew of Caesarea, Commentary on Revelation (500s)
12:1. And a great sign was seen in heaven, a woman who had been wrapped in the sun, and [the] moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.
Some, on the one hand, had understood this woman entirely to be the Theotokos before her divine birth-giving was made known to her, <before she> experienced the things to happen. But the great Methodios took <her> to be the holy Church,
Oecumenius, Commentary on Revelation (500s)
“… The incarnation of the Lord, by which the world was subjected and made his own, became the occasion for the raising [of the Antichrist] and the endeavors of Satan. For this is why the Antichrist will be raised up: so that he may again cause the world to revolt against Christ, and persuade it to turn around and desert to Satan. Since again the Lord’s physical conception and birth marked the beginning of his incarnation, the vision has brought into some order and sequence the events which it is going to explain, by starting its explanation from the physical conception of Christ, and by depicting for us the Mother of God. For why does he say, And a portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet? He is speaking of the mother of our Savior, as I have said. Naturally the vision describes her as being in heaven and not on earth, as pure in soul and body, as equal to an angel, as a citizen of heaven, as one who came to effect the incarnation of God who dwells in heaven (“for,” he says, “heaven is my throne” [Isa 66:1]), and as one who has nothing in common with the world and the evils in it, but wholly sublime, wholly worthy of heaven, even through she sprang from our mortal nature and being. For the Virgin is of the same substance as we are. The unholy doctrine of Eutyches, that the Virgin is of a miraculously different substance from us, together with his other docetic doctrines, must be banished from the divine courts.
What is the meaning of the saying that she is clothed with the sun, and has the moon under her feet?… [I]n order to show in the vision that even when the Lord was conceived, he was the protector of his own mother and of all creation, the vision said that he clothed the woman. In the same way the divine angel said to the holy Virgin, “The Spirit of the Lord will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” (Luke 1:35). Overshadowing, protecting, and clothing all have the same meaning.
He says, And on her head, a crown of twelve stars. For the Virgin is crowned with the twelve apostles who proclaim the Christ while she is proclaimed together with him. He says, She was with child, and she cried out in her birth-pangs, in anguish for delivery. Yet Isaiah says about her, “before the woman in labor gives birth, and before the toil of labor begins, she fled and brought forth a male child” (Isa 66:7). Gregory [of Nyssa], also, in the thirteenth chapter of his Interpretation of the Song of Songs talks of the Lord, “whose conception is without intercourse, and whose birth is undefiled.” So the birth was free from pain. Therefore, if, according to such a great prophet and the teacher of the church, the Virgin has escaped the pain of childbirth, how does she here cry out in her birth-pangs, in anguish for delivery? Does this not contradict what was said? Certainly not. For nothing could be contradictory in the mouth of the one and the same Spirit, who spoke through both. But in the present passage you should understand the crying out and being in anguish in this way: until the divine angel told Joseph about her, that the conception was from the Holy Spirit, the Virgin was naturally despondent, blushing before her betrothed, and thinking that he might somehow suspect that she was in labor from a furtive marriage. Her despondency and grief he called, according to the principles of metaphor, crying and anguish; and this is not surprising. For even when blessed Moses spiritually met God and was losing heart–for he saw Israel in the desert being encircled by the sea and by enemies–God said to him, “Why do you cry to me?” (Ex 14:15). So also now the vision calls the sorrowful disposition of the Virgin’s mind and heart, “crying out.” But you, who took away the despondency of the undefiled handmaid and your human mother, my lady mistress, the holy Mother of God, by your ineffable birth, do away with my sins, too, for to you is due glory for ever. Amen.” Oecumenius, Commentary on the Apocalypse, trans. John H. Suggit (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2006), pp. 107-109)
Cassiodorus; Commentary on Revelation (500s)
“And so the devil falls, the one who always envied the good who were faithful, but the earth and the sea are greatly pitied, when they received the malice of such a great weight. There is also the commemoration of the mother and of the Lord Christ; that the devil, desiring to injure his Mother, brought from his mouth a very deep river, which was supposed to swallow her up, but she was taken to a very safe place and escaped the diabolical poison.”
6th or 7th Century Syriac Document
“That great woman represents the Virgin Mary who, intact, begot our Head intact, becoming model for Holy Church.”
Ildefonsus of Toledo, Second Sermon on the Apocalypse (600 A.D.)
“The temple of God was open and the Ark of the Covenant was seen. This certainly was not the Ark made by Moses, but is the Blessed Virgin who had been transferred from here, as blessed John the evangelist, a witness of the truth to whom it was entrusted, may perhaps recognize it reverently. It was seen in heaven. The blessed Mary was seen in the temple of God, that is, in the church of God.”
On the Mysteries of the Apocalypse of John (700s Ancient Commentary on Scripture)
And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, and so that when she had given birth to a son he might devour him who will rule with an iron rod. This was fulfilled in Herod, who wanted to kill Christ, after he had been born from Mary. And the son was caught up into heaven. And the woman fled into the wilderness where they nourish her for one thousand two hundred and sixty days. That is, the son [was] caught up, Christ ascended into heaven. The woman who was Mary fled into Egypt. Or the church will flee into the desert of Arabia in the time of Antichrist.
Ambrosius Autpertus (700s), Commentary on the Apocalypse
“Whether we say that it was the Mother and Virgin Mary who gave birth to Christ, or bears Christ, or say the same about the Mother and Virgin Church, in neither case do we stray from the truth of the matter. The former gave birth to the Head; the latter gave birth to the members of the Head…”
Alcuin (735-804), Commentary on Revelation 12
“The woman clothed with the sun is the Virgin Mary, overshadowed by the power of the Most High; and this is to be understood more generally as also applying also to the Church, which is not called a woman because it would have the quality of effeminacy, softness, but rather, because she (the Church) gives birth, day after day, to new multitudes, from whom the body of Christ is fashioned.”
FURTHER READING
THE WOMAN OF REVELATION 12: MARY OR ANOTHER?
ANCIENT WITNESSES TO MARY’S ASSUMPTION
2 thoughts on “ANCIENT COMMENTARIES ON REVELATION 12”