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

CATHOLIC SOURCES ON REV. 12 & THE ASSUMPTION

REFORMERS ON REVELATION 12

REFORMERS ON THE ASSUMPTION

Francois Lambert (A.D. 1528), Commentary on Revelation 12

“If Christ is her son, it is true that Mary is a portion of this woman, that is, of the most noble Church.

“For to devour the son means to remove the true faith in his name. And indeed, Satan literally did all he could so that Christ born of Mary would be killed by Herod. When he noticed that that plan did not work, he did not rest until Jesus was killed by the Jews. After Christ rose from the dead, he [Satan] stopped at nothing to suppress the faith in his Resurrection and so render Christ useless to us. When the holy apostles and other fathers taught this faith with total sincerity, thus giving birth to Christ in others, he and his own tried to take it away from the elect and are still trying to this day by every kind of subterfuge. Every time the church gave birth, the dragon tried to eat the offspring . . . what was it she gave birth to? A male son. Why add male? Is it not every son a male? Male is the symbol of courage and strength. … So when he adds male it is as if he were saying: This son will not be weak like the others. . . . His strength is shown by the following sentence: who will govern, etc. Christ’s iron rod is his unconquered Word. With this rod he was going to govern, together with his ministers, all his nations, as he had been told by the Father in Psalm 2: you shall break them with a rod of iron.”

Here is what Reformation studies scholar Dr. Irena Backus states in regards to Francois Lambert’s commentary:

“Francois Lambert (1528) Before the appearance of Luther’s 1530 preface, in the climate of general suspicion about the Apocalypse generated by Erasmus, there appeared what is nowadays considered the first major Protestant commentary on the Apocalypse.” (Backus, Reformation Readings of the Apocalypse: Geneva, Zurich, and Wittenberg (Oxford Studies in Historical Theology) (Oxford University Press; 1st edition 2000), p. 11)  

Heinrich Bullinger (Famous Swiss Reformer and successor of Zwingli), Commentary on Revelation 12, Cent sermons, 1565

“The Church therefore desired with great zeal and most ardent affection, that Christ should be engendered by the Blessed Virgin, who is a most excellent member of the Church. More Christ is begotten in his followers when they are regenerated by his virtue. For St. Paul says: My little children, which bear them again until Christ be formed in you.”

Leo Jud (Famous Swiss Reformer from the early 1500s), Commentary on Apocalypse XII

“Then the child was born; God’s word became man, truth was victorious, falsehood was laid low, the devil’s trick was found out by God in his wisdom and made known to the world. This child, Christ, the eternal word of God become man in the sacred bosom of the virgin Mary, was accepted by God the Father in his mercy for all the sins of the world.”

Cf. Carl Pestalozzi, Leojiida: Nach handschriftlichen undgleichzeitigen Quellen (Elberfeld: Friderichs, 1860); Karl-Heinz Wyss, Leo Jud, Seine Entwicklung zum Reformator, 1510-1523 (Bern: Peter Lang, 1976)

David Chyträus (Famous German Lutheran Reformer from the Mid to late 1500s), Explicatio Apoc. XII, 1564, 234-235

“She is tormented and tormented in order to give birth, this is with ardent longing since then and since the first promise issued he (the Serpent) has waited and wished, to crush the seed of the woman to be born of a Virgin.

Jean Gagny (Mid 1500s Prominent Reformer), Expositio Apocalypsis XII

“I will also explain how this is the story of the virgin & mother Mary.

A sign appeared in heaven. I say this sign is the Virgin Mary, of whom Isaiah the Prophet of the Lord once said, a Virgin will conceive and bear a son.

Therefore, the Lord will give you a sign: A virgin will conceive and bear a son. This is said to be both in mind and in body.

The woman was in labor and cried, being tormented to give birth. She was impregnated by the Spirit, it is a Hebraism that she was anxious and perplexed as to how she should give birth since she was afraid.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Here are some more protestant expositors who admit that the Woman in Revelation does refer to Mary in some sense, since she stands as a symbol for the church and/or Israel.

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible – Unabridged (Robert Jamieson; A.R. Fausset; David Brown)

Woman fled. Mary’s flight with Jesus into Egypt is a type…

Wilderness – the land of the Gentiles; in contrast to Canaan, the pleasant and glorious land. God dwells there; demons (the rulers of the pagan world, 1 Corinthians 10:20; Revelation 9:20), in the wilderness. Hence, Babylon is called the desert of the sea, Isaiah 21:1-10 (referred to in Revelation 14:8; Revelation 18:2). Heathendom, being without God, is essentially a desolate wilderness (Jeremiah 17:6). Thus, the woman’s flight into the wilderness is the passing of the kingdom of God from the Jews to the Gentiles (typified by Mary’s flight with her child from Judea into Egypt). The eagle-flight is from Egypt into the wilderness. Egypt here is virtually (Revelation 11:8) Jerusalem become spiritually so by crucifying our Lord (Hebrews 13:13-14). Out of her the New Testament Church flees, as the Old out of the literal Egypt; and as the true Church subsequently is to flee out of Babylon (the woman become an harlot, the Church apostate) (Auberlen). (Chapter 12)

Philip Schaff’s Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Revelation 12:2. And she was with child. These words form the second particular of the vision; while the third represents her as at that moment suffering the pangs of childbirth, and the crieth out, travailing in birth, and in pain to he delivered. To the question, Who is this woman? different answers have been given. We need not dwell upon them. In one sense or another she must be the Church of God, yet not the mere Jewish Church, but the Church in the largest conception that we can form of it, as first indeed planted in Israel but afterwards extended to all nations. More will have to be said upon this point immediately. In the meantime, if it be objected that Christ bears the Church, not the Church Christ, it may be sufficient to reply that there is a sense in which Christ may truly be called the Son of the Church. He is the flower of the Chosen Family, as concerning the flesh He comes of Israel. So much is He one with His people that even His conception by the power of the Spirit and His birth of a virgin (who had no power of her own to produce Him) have their counterpart in them. They are born of the Spirit: they are the many children of a mother who was barren (Galatians 4:27). The Church, therefore, may properly be described by images taken from the history of Christ’s own mother and of His own nativity.

… Strictly speaking, the woman in Revelation 12:1-6 is neither the Jewish nor the Christian Church. She is light from Him ‘who is light, and with whom there is no darkness at all,’ light which had been always shining before it was partially embodied either in the Church of the old or the new covenant. Her actual conflict with the darkness has not begun. We behold her in her own glorious existence, and it is enough to dwell upon the potencies that are in her as ‘a light of man.’ In like manner the dragon is not yet to be identified with the devil or Satan. That identification does not take place till we reach Revelation 12:9. The former differs from the latter as the abstract and ideal power of evil differs from evil in the concrete. As the woman is ideal light, light before it appears in the Church upon earth, so the dragon is ideal darkness, the power of sin before it begins its deadly warfare against the children of God. Thus also we learn what is intended by the son who is born to the woman. He is not the Son actually incarnate but the ideally incarnate Son, ‘the true light, which lighteth every man, coming into the world’ (John 1:9). More difficulty may be felt in answering the question, whether, along with the Son Himself, we are to see in this ‘son, of man’s sex,’ the true members of Christ’s Body. Ideally, it would seem that we are to do so. All commentators allow that in the son’s being ‘caught up unto God and unto His throne’ there is a reference to the ascension and glorification of our Lord. But, if so, it appears to be impossible to separate between the risen, ascended, and glorified Lord and those who are in Him thus risen, ascended, and glorified. In a note on John 16:21 we have called attention to the use of the word ‘man’ instead of child in that verse, as showing that we are there invited to behold the new birth of regenerated humanity, that new life in a risen Saviour with which the Church springs into being. The thought thus presented in the words of Jesus meets us again in this vision of the Seer. Christ’s true people as well as Himself are made to sit down with Him in His throne, even as He sat down with His Father in His throne (Revelation 3:21). They not less than their Lord tend as a shepherd the nations with a sceptre of iron, even as He received of His Father (chap. Revelation 2:26-27). We cannot separate Him from them or them from Him. Everything then in these verses is anticipatory or ideal. The forces are on the field. We see light and darkness, their natural antagonism to each other, the fierce enmity of the darkness against the light, the apparent success but real defeat of the darkness, the apparent quenching but real triumph of the light God’s eternal plan is before us. We have a ‘pattern’ like that ‘showed to Moses in the mount’ (comp. chap. Revelation 4:11). (Chapter 12)

Hengstenberg on John, Revelation, Ecclesiastes, Ezekiel & Psalms

The woman, between whom and that described in ch. 17, as Bengel remarks, there is a mighty difference, is not the community of Israel in contradistinction to the Christian church; for what is said in Revelation 12:6 and Revelation 12:14-17, of the woman, can only be referred to the Christian church. Nor, on the other hand, does it denote the Christian church in contradistinction to the community of Israel; for the Christian church had not Christ born in it—an argument which the defenders of this view (Vitringa, Bengel, and others) escape from only by the violent supposition that it is not the first birth of Christ in Bethlehem that is here spoken of, but a mystical birth of Christ as the ruler of the heathen. But the woman, or Zion, which often appears in the Old Testament under the image of a woman, is properly the one indivisible community of the Old and New Covenant, the Israel perpetuated in the Christian church, out of which the false seed has been cast by its unbelief in the now manifested angel of the covenant, while the believing heathen have been received into it—comp. ch. Revelation 7:4, ss. That the church here was seen in the type of the virgin Mary, or that the Seer perceived in the virgin Mary an image of the church, is rendered probable by Revelation 12:4. (Chapter 12)

Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary for Schools and Colleges

1. a great wonder] Should be sign, as in the margin, both here and in v. 3.

a woman] Who is this? The two answers most commonly given are (1) the Virgin Mary, (2) the Church. Neither seems quite satisfactory. There can indeed be LITTLE DOUBT that the Son born of this woman is the Son of Mary: NOR OUGHT theological or ecclesiastical considerations to EXCLUDE the view that Mary is herself intended by the mother; the glory ascribed to her is no greater than that of a glorified saint (Daniel 12:3; St Matthew 13:43), and St John was not bound to suppress a truth for fear of the false inference Pius V. or Pius IX. might seek to draw from it. But it is not in harmony with the usage of this book for a human being, even a glorified saint, to be introduced in his personal character: if St John saw (see on 4:4, 5:5) himself, who was not yet glorified, sitting among the elders, it is plain that it is typical, not personal, glory or blessedness that this description indicates.

Who then, or what, is the typical or mystical Mother of Christ? Not the Christian Church, which in this book as elsewhere is represented as His wife: but the Jewish Church , the ideal Israel, “the daughter of Zion.” See especially Micah 4:10, Micah 5:3: where it is her travail from which He is to be born Who is born in Bethlehem. This accounts for the only features that support the other view, the appearance in her glory of the Sun, Moon, and stars of Song of Solomon 6:10, and the mention of “the remnant of her seed” in v. 17.

It may, however, perhaps be true that the ideal mother of the Lord is half identified in St John’s mind, and intended to be so in his reader’s, with His human mother: she embodies the ideal conception, just as the ideal of the false enemy of goodness in Psalms 109:0 received embodiment in Judas, or as the king of Israel who was to come is called “David,” by Hosea and Ezekiel. (Chapter 12)

Whedon’s Commentary on the Bible

1. And In the opening of this chapter three representative beings appear on the scene. The man child, Christ; the mother; and the dragon, ready to devour the child. The grouping at once suggests the source whence the symbolism is drawn. We at once think of the virgin mother, the infant Jesus, and the murderous Herod. Yet the subsequent wilderness history of the woman shows that the virgin is here introduced as a symbol of the Church; that as Herod is not actually named, the dragon is truly the literal Satan, and that the man child is truly Christ. Yet the habiliments of the dragon show that he is Satan as representative of pagan Roman antichrist, and the man child is Christ as representative leader in the battle against antichrist. As the woman is symbol, and the Herod is symbol, so the man child is here symbol. Alford is right in insisting that “the man child is the Lord Jesus Christ and none other,” (not Constantine, nor any other Roman emperor;) but he is wrong in ignoring the plain fact, that both Christ and the dragon are here representatives of Christianity and paganism in the Roman world; that the battle here is truly between the two great causes, and that the overthrow of the dragon is the downfall of paganism…

Sun In the gorgeous imagery investing the woman is TRULY to be seen a recognition of the unparalleled honour of the blessed virgin in becoming the mother of the Incarnate. Sad as is the error of the Romanistic adoration of her person, no reaction of thought should prevent our recognising the due honour which Scripture pays her. And one honour is, that she is clearly here the basis of the symbol of the Church in its struggle with paganism. Note on Matthew 1:18.

There is an apparent incongruity in the Church’s being here the mother of Christ and also, hereafter, the bride of Christ. But the two are to be separated in thought as different symbols. The maternal symbol of the Church is a specialty, terminating at a particular historic point. The bridal symbol comes from another region of thought, and extends into the final glorification…

14. Two wings of a great eagle… wilderness There seems to be a double allusion here: to Israel’s sojourn in the wilderness, and to the flight of the blessed mother of Jesus through the same wilderness to Egypt, as driven by Herod. Of the former, Jehovah said to Moses, approaching Sinai, Exodus 19:4, “Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself.” The woman came down from her high place in heaven, but it was on Jehovah’s wings, in order to be borne to a place of security as well as humiliation. Not that she is carried by the eagle; but the eagle’s wings are put on her, and she flies with them of herself, eagle-winged. (Chapter 12)

FURTHER READING

THE WOMAN OF REVELATION 12: MARY OR ANOTHER?

ANCIENT WITNESSES TO MARY’S ASSUMPTION

REFORMERS ON THE ASSUMPTION

Jan Huss on the Feast of the Assumption of Mary

“… and in all these I sought rest, and I shall abide in the inheritance of the Lord.” (Quoting  Sirach 24)

“Although the words of this epistle primarily relate to the uncreated Wisdom, they also secondarily relate to the glorious Virgin Mary.” (In die Assumptionis B. Virginis, early 1400s)

Martin Luther

Today the festival of our dear lady, the mother of God, is observed to celebrate her death and departure above. There can be no doubt that the Virgin Mary is in heaven. How it happened we do not know. And since the Holy Spirit has told us nothing about it, we can make of it no article of faith. It is enough to know that she lives in Christ. (Martin Luther, Weimar edition of 1522 Sermon on the Feast of the Assumption)

Heinrich Bullinger

Elijah was transported body and soul in a chariot of fire; he was not buried in any Church bearing his name, but mounted up to heaven, so that . . . we might know what immortality and recompense God prepares for his faithful prophets and for his most outstanding and incomparable creatures. . . . It is for this reason, we believe, that the pure and immaculate embodiment of the Mother of God, the Virgin Mary, the Temple of the Holy Spirit, that is to say her saintly body, was carried up to heaven by the angels. (De Origine Erroris 1568)

Ulrich Zwingli

“I firmly trust that Mary is exalted by God above all creatures of blessed men or angels in eternal bliss.”

27 Qu. in Gottfried Wilhelm Locher, Zwingli’s Thought: New Perspectives (Leiden: Brill, 1981), 88. (Preached on Feast of the Assumption)

Martin Bucer

“No Christian doubts that the most worthy Mother of the Lord lives with her beloved Son in heavenly joy.”

29 M. Bucer, qu. in R. Bäumer and L. Scheffczyk (eds.), Marienlexikon, vol III (St Ottilien: EOS Verlag, 1991), 200.

John Wycliffe

“Even fellow pilgrims upon earth, moved by brotherly love, help one another in the time of need, but the blessed Virgin in heaven beholds our necessities, and is still fuller of love, still richer in compassion: and all the more faithfully does she care for our needs, as she knows that she has attained to so high honor in order that she might become the refuge of sinners.” (Sermon on the Assumption)

Jean Gagny (Mid 1500s Prominent Reformer)

“I will also explain how this is the story of the virgin & mother Mary.

A sign appeared in heaven. I say this sign is the Virgin Mary, of whom Isaiah the Prophet of the Lord once said, a Virgin will conceive and bear a son.”

The Feast of the Assumption of Mary continues to be observed in Lutheran/Heavily Protestant Churches in the official Feast Days of these locations and years.

Weissenburg 1528

Dessau 1532

Nordlingen 1538

Brandenburg 1540

Palatinate-Neuberg 1543

Scwabisch Hall 1543

Brandenburg-Ansbach-Kulmbach 1548

Hohenlohe 1553

Nuremberg 1543

FURTHER READING

THE WOMAN OF REVELATION 12: MARY OR ANOTHER?

ANCIENT WITNESSES TO MARY’S ASSUMPTION

REFORMERS ON REVELATION 12

Courtesy of William Albrecht.

All emphasis is mine.

Ephrem the Syrian

“I am about to enter into His living Paradise, and in the place in which Eve succumbed, I shall glorify Him. For of all created women, He was most pleased with me, and He willed that I should be mother to Him, and it pleased Him that He should be a child to me.” Bethlehem thanks You that she was found worthy to give birth to You.

“To a great height He lifted me with my saints so that I might glorify Him in the broad and vast heaven full of His glory but unable to contain within itself the greatness of the One who bent down and became small in the manger.

“Heavenly voices bent down and became small in the manger. Heavenly voices announced to those below; the ears of earthly beings drank You in with the tidings–” (Nativitate II A.D. 350)

“Since my Son Thou art, with my nursery rhymes will I soothe Thee. And, for all that I am Thy Mother, I shall honor Thee. My Son, to whom I have given birth, older than me Thou art. My Lord, though I carried Thee, it is Thou that holds me up. Let heaven hold me in its embraces; for above it I am honored. For heaven, in truth, was not Thy Mother, but Thou madest it Thy throne. How much more honorable and venerable is the King’s Mother than His throne. I will give Thee thanks, O Lord, because Thou hast willed me to be Thy Mother. In gentle hymns will I celebrate Thy praise.” (Hymn 19 on Blessed Mary)

“Majestic and Heavenly Maid, Lady, Queen, protect and keep me under your wing lest Satan the sower of destruction glory over me, lest my wicked foe be victorious against me.” (Oration on the Mother of the Lord III)

Epiphanius

Like the bodies of the saints, however, she has been held in honor for her character and understanding. And if I should say anything more in her praise, she is like Elijah, who was virgin from his mother’s womb, always remained so, and was taken up, but has not seen death. (Section 79 of Panarion, A.D. 370)

Timothy of Jerusalem

Therefore the Virgin is immortal to this day, seeing that he who had dwelt in her transported her to the regions of her assumption. (Homily on Simeon and Anna)

Pseudo John the Theologian

The Lord said to his Mother, “Let your heart rejoice and be glad. For every favor and every gift has been given to you from my Father in heaven and from me and from the Holy Spirit. Every soul that calls upon your name shall not be ashamed, but shall find mercy and comfort and support and confidence, both in the world that now is and in that which is to come, in the presence of my Father in the heavens”. . . And from that time forth all knew that the spotless and precious body had been transferred to paradise. (The Dormition of Mary [A.D. 400])

COUNCIL OF NISIBIS 480 DECREE from SAINT JACOB (Early Church Council affirming the Assumption)

Death came that she might taste his cup. The Lord commanded the exalted hosts above and the flaming legions, the seraphim of light.

On this day Adam rejoices and Eve his wife, because their daughter rests in the place where they are gathered. On this day the righteous Noah and Abraham rejoice that their daughter has visited them in their dwelling-place.

On this day let also Judah rejoice greatly, for behold the daughter who has given life, went forth from his loins. On this day let Joseph rejoice and the great Moses, for one young maiden has called all mankind to life.

Come Ezekiel, trained in prophetic revelation, if the thing that has occurred is described in your prophecy! On this day let also Isaiah the prophet rejoice, because she whom he prophesied, behold she visits him in the place of the dead. On this day all the prophets lifted their heads from their graves, because they saw the light which shone forth on them. They saw that death is disquieted and flees from within them; and the gates of heaven are opened again and the depths of the earth.

She wove a beautiful crown and set it on her sublime head on which valuable pearls were laid.

Gregory of Tours, Eight Books of Miracles, 1:4 (A.D. 575)

[T]he Apostles took up her body on a bier and placed it in a tomb; and they guarded it, expecting the Lord to come. And behold, again the Lord stood by them; and the holy body having been received, He commanded that it be taken in a cloud into paradise: where now, rejoined to the soul, [Mary] rejoices with the Lord’s chosen ones. . .

Theoteknos of Livias, Homily on the Assumption (ca. A.D. 600)

It was fitting … that the most holy-body of Mary, God-bearing body, receptacle of God, divinised, incorruptible, illuminated by divine grace and full glory … should be entrusted to the earth for a little while and raised up to heaven in glory, with her soul pleasing to God.

Modestus of Jerusalem

As the most glorious Mother of Christ, our Savior and God and the giver of life and immortality, has been endowed with life by him, she has received an eternal incorruptibility of the body together with him who has raised her up from the tomb and has taken her up to himself in a way known only to him. (Encomium in dormitionnem Sanctissimae Dominae nostrae Deiparae semperque Virginis Mariae [ante A.D. 634])

Germanus of Constantinople, Sermon I (A.D. 683)

You are she who, as it is written, appears in beauty, and your virginal body is all holy, all chaste, entirely the dwelling place of God, so that it is henceforth completely exempt from dissolution into dust. Though still human, it is changed into the heavenly life of incorruptibility, truly living and glorious, undamaged and sharing in perfect life.

John Damascene, Dormition of Mary (A.D. 680)

It was fitting that she, who had kept her virginity intact in childbirth, should keep her own body free from all corruption even after death. It was fitting that she, who had carried the Creator as a child at her breast, should dwell in the divine tabernacles. It was fitting that the spouse, whom the Father had taken to himself, should live in the divine mansions. It was fitting that she, who had seen her Son upon the cross and who had thereby received into her heart the sword of sorrow which she had escaped when giving birth to him, should look upon him as he sits with the Father. It was fitting that God’s Mother should possess what belongs to her Son, and that she should be honored by every creature as the Mother and as the handmaid of God.

Gregorian Sacramentary, Veneranda (ante A.D. 795)

Venerable to us, O Lord, is the festivity of this day on which the holy Mother of God suffered temporal death, but still could not be kept down by the bonds of death, who has begotten Thy Son our Lord incarnate from herself.

CAVE OF TREASURES (500-600 A.D.)

SUPPLEMENTARY TRANSLATIONS FROM THE “BOOK OF THE BEE.”

THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN. OUR LORD’S APPEARANCES AFTER THE RESURRECTION. THE LAST SUPPER. THE NAMES OF THE APOSTLES AND DISCIPLES. CHRONOLOGY. GOG AND MAGOG. ANTI-CHRIST. THE GREEK TRANSLATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE.

The extracts quoted in the preceding pages show how largely Solomon, Bishop of Al-Basrah, borrowed from the “Cave of Treasures” when compiling his work, “The Book of the Bee,” especially when he was dealing with the history of the early Patriarchs. But he did not bring his book to a close with the narrative of the Crucifixion, for his aim was to describe briefly the progress of Christianity after the death of Christ; and in doing this he collected and set down in writing a considerable amount of information regarding the Apostles and disciples, and their lives and deaths, and a number of facts and legends which he accepted and wished the Nestorians in his diocese especially to believe. In fact, the “Book of the Bee,” though written by a Nestorian bishop, may be regarded as a supplement or continuation of the “Cave of Treasures,” which, according to ancient tradition, was written by a Jacobite bishop. Both works are included in the collection of texts which the learned priest Hômô copied in the British Museum MS. Add. 25875, and both were so highly esteemed that copies of them were made for the library of the church of the Virgin Mary in `Amedîa. The following summary is based on my translation of the Syriac text published at Oxford in 1886…

[THE DEATH AND ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN MARY.]

Mary lived twelve years after our Lord’s Ascension; the sum of the years which she lived in the world was fifty-eight years, but others say sixty-one years. She was not buried on earth, but the angels carried her to Paradise, and angels bore her bier. On the other hand, we read in the History of the Virgin, “And the blessed Mary departed this life in the year of Alexander, 394 (i.e. A.D. 82-83). At the Annunciation she was thirty years old, and she lived also the thirty-three years of the Dispensation; and after the Crucifixion she lived fifty-eight years. The years which she lived were one hundred and twenty-one.” In the same book we have: “And Mary remained in Jerusalem, and grieved because of her separation from our Lord Jesus Christ, and the absence of the apostles from her. And she prayed and cast frankincense into the fire, and lifted up her eyes and spread out her hands to heaven, and said, ‘O Christ, the Son of the living God, hearken unto the voice of Thy handmaiden, and send unto me Thy friend John the Young with his fellow-apostles, that I may see them and be comforted by the sight of them before the day of my death; and I will praise and adore Thy goodness.'” And straightway it was revealed by the Holy Spirit to each one of the apostles, in whatever country he was in, that the blessed Mary was about to depart from this world into the never-ending life. And the Spirit summoned them, along with those of them who were dead, to be gathered together at daybreak to the blessed Mary for her to see them: and each one of them came to her from his own land at dawn by the agency of the Holy Spirit, and they saluted Mary and each other, and adored her. Thomas was in India, and an angel took him up and brought him. And he found the angels carrying her bier through the air; and they brought it nigh to Thomas, and he also prayed and was blessed by her. (https://sacred-texts.com/chr/bct/bct11.htm)

FURTHER READING

THE WOMAN OF REVELATION 12: MARY OR ANOTHER?

ANCIENT COMMENTARIES ON REVELATION 12

CATHOLIC SOURCES ON REV. 12 & THE ASSUMPTION

REFORMERS ON REVELATION 12

REFORMERS ON THE ASSUMPTION