Chapter
Twelve
[1-4] But he touches upon a
few things concerning the Lord, Jesus Christ, and his mother and concerning the
opposition of the devil. [5] Joining past things with the future things, he
says that God ascended to heaven and [6] that his mother was to be preserved at
a certain time in secret places, that he might nourish there for three-and-a-half
years. This passage, as Tyconius relates, contains great mystery. (Cassiodorus,
“Brief Explanations on the Apocalypse,” in Cassiodorus, St. Gregory the
Great, and Anonymous Greek Scholia: Writings on the Apocalypse [trans. Francis
X. Gumerlock; The Fathers of the Church 144; Washington, D. C.: The Catholic
University of America Press, 2022], 27)
In the
footnote to the following, Gumerlock notes that:
Tyconius (Exposition of the
Apocalypse, on Rv 12.6. CCSL 107A: 178. FC 134:127) wrote that the woman
nourished for one thousand two hundred sixty days symbolizes the Church
nourished on heavenly teaching from the birth of Christ up to the end of the
world. (Ibid., 27 n. 42)
In other words, despite associating Mary with the “Woman”
of Revelation 12, it is not because of her being bodily assumed into heaven—quite
the opposite, as Mary remains on the earth (i.e., it is a “non-assumptionist”
reading of Mary as the “Woman” of Rev 12). This shows that one can identify the
“Woman” with the person of Mary and not necessarily accept her being assumed
into heaven.
Tyconius (d. 390), who Cassiodorus follows, in Book 4 of
his Exposition of the Apocalypse, wrote:
[5] And the woman
gave birth to a male child; that is, the church [gave birth] to Christ, then to
his body. Moreover, he calls the victor against the devil, who had conquered
the woman, a “male.”
. . .
And her son was
caught up to God and to his throne. [6] And the woman fled into the wilderness,
where she has a place prepared by God, so that they may nourish her there for a
thousand two hundred and sixty days. Whoever will have arisen in Christ will sit
together [with him] on the throne of God at the right hand of the Father. But
if he [John] saw these things in the heaven above, to which throne of God was
he [the child] caught up?
And so he says into
the wilderness among scorpions and serpents and all of the power of Satan,
which the church received for treading upon [them]. To her it was spoken by the
Lord: “Behold, I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions and over
all the power of the enemy.” For also in a similitude of the entire church, the
people of Israel were shepherded and guided in the wilderness among the
serpents of this world. “All these things were done in a figure for us, upon
whom,” according to the Apostle, “the ends of the ages have come.”
Then David connected
to himself a figure that had occurred earlier in the wilderness; which [figure]
is carried out in the whole world. For he says this: “Let those who have been
redeemed by the Lord say [so], whom he redeemed from the hand of the enemies.
He gathered them from the regions, from the east and the west and the north and
the south. They wandered in the wilderness in drought.” And he describes Israel
in the wilderness, since he himself was not gathered from the aforementioned
places but was descended from the stem of Abraham, who had come from
Mesopotamia.
But Jeremiah says the
wilderness is wicked people. He says: “Cursed is the man who puts his hope in
man and strengthens the flesh of his arm, and whose heart will turn away from
the Lord. And he will be like a bush in the wilderness. And he will not see when
good things come. And he will live among the wicked in a desert land and in a
salted land that will not be inhabited.” In this land lives a woman, that is,
the church, and there she is nourished with heavenly teaching until the one
thousand two hundred and sixty days are completed, that is, from the birth of
Christ up to the end of the world, when she is freed from wicked people.
(Tyconius, Exposition of the Apocalypse [trans. Francis X. Gumerlock;
The Fathers of the Church 134; Washington, D. C.: The Catholic University of
America Press, 2017], 125, 126-27)
To Support this Blog:
Email for Amazon Gift card: ScripturalMormonism@gmail.com
Email for Logos.com Gift Card: IrishLDS87@gmail.com
