Tag Archives: Apocalypse

Aroma of Christ

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Charcoal, incense, and thuribles in the worship of God, who descends as the smoke rises.


But thanks be to God, who in Christ always celebrates his victory over us by a triumphal procession, and through us manifests the fragrance of the knowledge of him in every place. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to the latter a fragrance from death to death, to the former a fragrance from life to life. (2 Cor. 2:14-18)

St. Paul says that the Christians are the fragrance, the aroma of Christ in every place. For those who will be saved at the Last Day, the Christians are like the fragrance of incense; for those who will be damned at the Last Day, the Christians are like the stench of a decomposing corpse.

To unbelievers the preaching of the Cross is the smell of death. On hearing the Word of God they receive it as if it were a plague from which death knocks on the door. But to others it is the fragrance of life. To believers the Word of God is a messenger of eternal life.

… Some things are recognized by their smell, even though they are invisible. God, who is invisible, wishes to be understood through Christ. The preaching of Christ reaches our ears just as an aroma reaches our nostrils, bringing God and his only begotten Son right into the midst of his creation. A person who speaks the truth about Christ is … a good aroma from God, worthy of praise from the one who believes. But one who makes erroneous assertions about Christ has a bad smell to believers and unbelievers alike.

(Ambrosiaster, Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistles; written AD 366-384)

Incense, especially frankincense, is commonly found in the Old Testament. Anytime a prophet sees God or the heavenly court, there is a LOT of smoke (i.e. incense) billowing up around the Throne of God. There is a lot of incense filling the air of the Temple–twice a day several shovelfuls of incense are burnt on the altar that stands in front of the Holy of Holies. And on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the Holy of Holies is itself supposed to be so full of fragrant incense smoke that the High Priest should not be able to see his hand in front of his face.

Put an altar of incense in your innermost heart. Be a sweet aroma of Christ.

… so also the prophetic word is “a sweet fragrance” to those who believe, but to the doubting and unbelieving and those who say they belong to Pharoah, it becomes a detestable odor.

Origen, Homilies on Exodus)

In the New Testament, St. John describes in the Book of Revelation (the Apocalypse) how the angels stand swinging thuribles before the Throne of God and that the heavenly throne room is full of billowing clouds of fragrant smoke as the angels and saints offer the incense and prayers to God. Fragrant incense is everywhere God is, according to the Old and New Testaments.

Then another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, along with the prayers of all the saints, on the golden altar before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, rose up before God from the hand of the angel. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar ….

Book of Revelation 8:3-5

Christians are both the fragrance of Christ in the world and the fragrance of prayer offered to Christ. The Holy Spirit descends as the smoke/prayer rises. Who would not want to experience that scriptural scent as they bow down to God?

Top Blog Posts of 2021

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What were the top posts here during the last year? Which posts did the most people read? Here’s the Top 10 list of 2021… do some sound familiar? It’s because so many people read them–maybe even you! Click the links to read the ones you might have missed.

Doubting Midwife on November 29–read it again

Was Christ Born at Midnight? on December 20–read it here

Nativity of Christ in Early Christian Literature on November 29–read it again

Presentation of the Virgin on December 6–read it here

Angels and Deacons on March 22–read it again

Woman Clothed with the Sun on June 7–read it here if you missed it

666 is the Number of the Beast on June 22–read it again

Whore of Babylon on August 2–read it here

Satan Bound for 1,000 Years on August 30–read it here if you missed it before

Religion Pure and Undefiled on October 19–read it again

Keep your eyes peeled for the new posts coming in 2022! (Some readers might be asking, “If these were the most popular posts of this past year, what was the most popular post ever in the history of the blog?” This was the all-time most read post ever.

Woman Clothed With the Sun

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The woman clothed with the sun attacked by the seven-headed red dragon depicted in a 17th-century fresco in a Mt. Athos monastery.

A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman robed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth …. Then a second sign appeared in heaven: a great red dragon with seven heads …. (Apocalypse 12:1-6)

The woman clothed with the sun is one of my favorite characters or episodes in the New Testament. In the earliest commentaries, she is understood to be the Church, the New Israel, and the baby she gives birth to is the new Christian–at this period, typically an adult–who emerges newborn from the baptismal font. The red dragon with seven heads is the Roman imperial system who attacks the Church and slays the martyrs. The woman and her baby–the Church and the newly baptized–escape to safety in the wilderness, which is where the early ascetics and first monastics fled to pray and fast.

One of my favorite patristic texts–one of the first I ever read in its totality, as a freshman in the Sterling Library at Yale–is The Banquet by St. Methodius of Olympus. The Banquet is the one of the first and is the most extensive of the early Christian discussions of the woman clothed with the sun.

In the third century, commentators begin to see the woman clothed with the sun as the ever-virgin Mother of God who gives birth to Christ. They are attacked by Herod and flee to safety in Egypt. The importance of this interpretation of the Mother of God grows in importance as she becomes a model for the ascetics and monastics in the desert-wilderness, usually in Egypt but also near the Jordan River.

The image of the woman clothed with the sun becomes associated with the “falling asleep” (the Dormition or Assumption) of the Mother of God. She is taken into eternal glory in the Kingdom of God because she is the Mother of God who gives her flesh to the Word. Everything human about the Word-made-flesh came from her; his DNA is her DNA. She is the first believer to be taken into glory as a pledge of what all members of the Body of Christ will experience.

The woman clothed with the sun is one of the most frequently depicted figures in the New Testament. If the Apocalypse is a multi-valent and many layered text, the woman clothed with the sun is one of the most multi-valent and many layered figures in the New Testament.

The woman clothed with the sun in an illumination from the Beatus manuscript of the Apocalypse.
Another medieval manuscript illumination depicting the woman clothed with the sun escaping from the great dragon.