Le Frois suggests that another
fourth-century writer, Ephraem, may have seen Mary in the Revelation. He cites
two passages that may allude to Revelation 12 (Le Frois, 1954:43). The first
says this: "Said Mary: The Child whom I bore, took me up and placed me
between his mighty wings, and carried me away high in the air, and said: The
heavens and the deep belong to thy Son" (Hymus de Nativitate Domini 17
[12] 1). The second says this:
The Son of the Most High came
and took up within me His dwelling, and I became his Mother. He who was born of
me granted me a rebirth {The assertion here that Mary was "granted
rebirth" by the son to whom she gave birth indicates that our author could
not have subscribed to the notion of Mary's immaculate conception, since the
latter teaches that Mary was sinless and needed no rebirth.} likewise; and
whereas His body clothed itself in the flesh of His Mother I have clothed
myself in His glory (Hymns de Nativitate Domini 16 [11] 11).
In the first of these, Le
Frois suggests that there are three similarities to Revelation 12: (1) the
divine child; (2) who is Lord of the world; and (3) the mother is carried off
by "the wings of a great eagle" (Le Frois, 1954:43). In response, the
first two can hardly be seen as allusions to Revelation 12, for these are
Christian staples found in so many other places (in Scripture as well as in
popular belief by Ephraem's day) that no allusion to Revelation 12 is
necessary. Le Frois has embellished the third similarity by adding the words
"wings of a great eagle," found in the Revelation, but not found in
the citation by Ephraem. This could just as easily be an allusion to one of any
number of other passages in Scripture (Exod 19:4; Ruth 2:12; Ps 17:8, 36:7,
57:1, 61:4, 63:7, 91:4; Isa 40:31; Matt 23:37; Luke 13:34).
At the end of the day, the
dissimilarities are greater than the similarities. If this is an allusion to
Revelation 12, one might expect some reference to a "desert," or to a
"place prepared by God"-or, indeed, to the child "ruling with an
iron scepter." In Revelation 12, the son is "snatched up"
whereas the woman "flees." In Ephraem, the son carries the mother. In
Revelation 12, the woman herself is the one with wings. In Ephraem, the mother is
carried by the wings of another. Le Frois concludes that if there is an
allusion to Revelation 12 here, "the probability is slight" (Le
Frois, 1954:43). The second passage from Ephraem (above) is even less
convincing as an allusion to Revelation12, as even Le Frois admits: "Here,
the resemblance is less noticeable" (Le Frois, 1954:43). We must conclude,
therefore, that Ephraem does not provide evidence for the Marian interpretation
of Revelation 12. (Eric D. Svendsen, "Who
is My Mother? The Role and Status of the Mother of Jesus in the New Testament
and in Roman Catholicism" [PhD Dissertation; Potchefstroom University
and Greenwich School of Theology, November 2001], 202-3)
