Wednesday, June 1, 2022

Andrew of Caesarea (563-637) on Revelation 11:9-12:6

  

[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)

 

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