[11:19] And the temple of God in heaven was opened,
and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple; and there were flashes
of lightning, voices, peals of thunder, and earthquake and heavy hail.
By the opening of the heaven and the vision of the ark is shown the
revelation of those blessings that have been prepared for the saints. According
to the apostle, these blessings are hidden in Christ in whom the fullness of
deity dwells bodily. And these things will be revealed when the punishments of
Gehenna rain down on the lawless and impious like terrifying voices and
lightnings and thunder and hail. The earthquake signifies the transposition of
present things.
[12:1] And a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman
clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of
twelve stars.
Some believe that the woman refers generally to the mother of God who
suffered that which was soon to happen before her bearing of God was known.
However, the great Methodius understands her to be the holy church, believing
that what is narrated concerning her is unsuited of the divine birth since the
Lord had been born already a long time previously. It is well to recall these
words of the blessed Methodius who in his Symposium says in the person of the
virgin Procles: “The woman clothed with the sun is the church. Instead of such
clothing as we have, she has light. She uses stars as we do gold and brilliant
stones; however, her stars are better and brighter than those on earth.” And
afterward Methodius continues: “She stands on the moon. I think that the moon
symbolically refers to the faith of those who have been purified from
corruption by the laver, for every moist substance is dependent on the moon.
Laboring and giving birth to natural persons as spiritual persons, the church
forms them according to the likeness and the form of Christ.” And later he
says, “It is not necessary to think that it is Christ who is the one born. For
long before the Apocalypse, the mystery of the incarnation of the Word was
fulfilled. But John speaks concerning things present and things to come.” And a
little later he writes, “So it is necessary to confess that the church is she
who labors and gives birth to those who are baptized. As the Spirit says in
Isaiah: ‘Before she who travails brought forth; she fled and brought forth a
male child.’ From whom did she flee? Surely from the dragon, that the spiritual
Zion might give birth to a masculine people.” And a little later: “So that in
each one Christ is born spiritually. And for this reason the church swells and
labors until Christ who is born be formed in us, so that each one, partaking of
Christ, might become Christ.” Therefore, the church is clothed with the sun of
righteousness. She holds under her feet both the light of the Law, which, as
does the moon, gives light at night and the life of the world which, as the
moon, is changing. On her head she wears the crown of the apostolic teachings and
of the virtues. The author teaches that just as moist substances are dependent
on the moon, so the figure of the moon signifies baptism. Here baptism is
figuratively called the sea, which is salvation to those who have been born
anew but is destruction to the demons.
[12:2] And she was with child, and she cried out in
her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery.
We say that the church is in birth pangs for each one of those who are
being born anew through water and the Spirit, “until Christ is formed in them,”
as the apostle says. Those who have fallen from the true light of Christ are
regarded as miscarriages and experience death at the end of their life because
of unfaithfulness.
[12:3] And another sign appeared in the heaven.
And, behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and seven horns and seven
diadems on his head.
Here we think that heaven signifies the air and that the red dragon is
that creature that was deceived and mocked by the angels of God, as it is
written in Job. He is red either because of his murderous and bloodthirsty
character or because of the fiery nature of his angelic essence, since he did
fall from the angels. The seven heads that he has are seven powers more wicked
than himself and that are opposed to the [seven] powers of the Spirit. Or
perhaps they correspond to the seven spirits of whom Christ spoke in the
Gospels and that established themselves in the man who had a heart swept clean
and emptied of good thoughts and deeds. Or perhaps they are the seven evils
that Solomon says are in the heart of the evil one, who with a great voice
deceitfully seeks followers for himself. The horns either signify those sins
that are in opposition to the Ten Commandments of the Law, or they signify the
divisions of the kingdom that bring renown to him who rejoices in seditions.
And there are “seven diadems on his heads,” since those who conquer the
demonical powers receive again the crowns of victory, since they have gained
victory with toils and sweat. Concerning these matters Methodius speaks as
follows: “The great red dragon with seven heads that drags down the third of
the stars, and lies in wait to devour the child of the woman in labor, is the
devil.” And a little later he continues: “But he misses and loses his prey, for
the reborn are snatched up on high.” And after a few other comments, he
continues: “They are called a third part of the stars who have gone astray with
respect to one of the numbers of the Trinity.” Then: “The desert into which the
church comes and is nourished is a wilderness truly bare of evil and barren of
corruption.” “The thousand, consisting of one hundred times ten, contains the
full and perfect number.” And a little later he writes concerning his crowns:
“She who first overcomes the devil and destroys his seven heads wins seven
diadems of virtue.”
[12:4] And his tail swept down a third of the stars
of heaven and cast them to the earth.
It is our opinion that this passage refers either to the former fall of
the devil from heaven that through a final movement of envy—for elevation was
first—brought down with him the apostate angels, or to that movement of his
tail that, after the crushing of his head, drags down those who have moved from
their heavenly minds. They are figuratively called stars because of the brightness
of their baptism. David prophesied in a similar way concerning Antiochus, since
he was a type of the coming of the antichrist.
[12:4] And the dragon stood before the woman who
was about to bear a child, that he might devour the child when she brought it
forth.
The apostate always arms himself against the church, desiring to make
those food for himself who are being born anew from her. Rather, through the
church he persecutes Christ himself, since he is the church’s head, and he
makes his own what belongs to the faithful. And therefore Christ said to Saul,
“Why are you persecuting me?”
[12:5] She brought forth a male child, one who is
to rule all the nations with a rod of iron.
Through those who are baptized the church is always giving birth to
Christ, since in them he is being formed to the fullness of spiritual maturity,
as the apostle says. The male child is the people of the church who are not
effeminate in their desires, through whom Christ, our God, as though an iron
rod has already ruled the nations by the mighty hands of the powerful Romans.
However, also after the resurrection of the dead he will establish those strong
in the faith as judges and will rule as with iron the nations that are
crumbling and weak vessels. For by their unfaithfulness they did not possess
the mystical new wine.
[12:5] But her child was caught up to God and his
throne.
The saints are caught up in the midst of temptations, lest they be
subdued by difficulties beyond their powers. And “they will be caught up in the
clouds to meet the Lord in the air,” and they will be with God and his throne,
that is, with the most excellent of the angelic powers.
[12:6] And the woman fled into the wilderness,
where she has a place prepared by God, in which to be nourished for one
thousand two hundred and sixty days.
When the devil through the antichrist in whom he works arrays himself
for battle against the church, those in the church who are elect and preeminent
will spit on the tumults of life and the desires of the world and flee into
that desert devoid of every evil, that life that bears every virtue, as
Methodius says, and there escape the assaults of people and demons who war
against them. It is likely that the physical desert will also save those who
flee from the plot of the apostate to the mountains and caves and holes in the
earth, as was recently the case with the martyrs, for in the three and a half
years are reckoned the 1,260 days during which the apostasy will rage. During
this time the great judge will not think to tempt us beyond what we are able to
bear, but freeing us will present to us a strong mind free from any weakness
against the onslaughts on it, so that fighting against the principalities and
power of the darkness, we may be decorated with the crown of
righteousness and receive the rewards of victory. For to him who through those
who are weak puts to flight the mighty principalities of the air, it is proper
to ascribe victory and might, together with the Father and the life-giving
Spirit forever and ever. Amen. (Andrew of
Caesarea, "Commentary on the Apocalypse," chapter 33, in Oecumenius
and Andrew of Caesarea, Greek Commentaries on Revelation [trans. William C.
Weinrich; Ancient Christian Texts; Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2011], 154-57)
