Tag Archives: Methodius of Olympus

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.

Every Eye Shall See

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Eve is born from the side of Adam.
Left: Cathedral of Monreale, Sicily (built AD 1172-1267)
Right: Basilica of St. Mark, Venice (mosaic approx. 13th century)

“Every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all peoples on earth will mourn because of him.” (Apoc. 1:7)

The first chapter of the Apocalypse is the “cover letter” that was sent to accompany each of the seven letters to the seven churches, whose contents we read in chapters 2-3. This sentence quotes Zechariah 12:10, which is also quoted in the Gospel of St. John (19:37) in connection with Christ’s side being pierced by a spear as he hung on the Cross. The prophet in the Old Testament describes how God will share the suffering of His people in exile and that those who inflict this suffering will realize–too late?–who it is that they have been really tormenting. The gospel cites this allusion to illustrate how Christ is the fulfillment of all that Israel has been hoping for. In the Apocalypse, the true identity of the letter-writer–the true author who ‘dictates’ the letter to John, to be written down–is the same Christ who hung on the Cross and was pierced.

When Christ’s side was pierced on the Cross, blood and water poured forth. (Scientists report that the “water” was most likely hydropericardium, a clear fluid that collects around the heart during intense physical trauma.) Early Christians saw the piercing of Christ’s side as the birth of the Church. Just as Eve was born from Adam’s side as he slept in Paradise, many preachers and teachers said that the Church was born from the side of Christ as he “slept” on the Cross. Methodius of Olympus, a famous second century preacher and Biblical interpreter, said that “Christ slept in the ecstasy of his Passion and the Church–his bride–was brought forth from the wound in his side just as Eve was brought forth from the wound in the side of Adam.” The Church, the Bride of Christ, is often identified as the “new Eve” just as Christ is the New Adam. (In other contexts, the Mother of God is also identified as the New Eve. Both can be the New Eve, just as the Church and the Eucharist are both the Body of Christ–just in different manner and context.)

The blood and water that poured from Christ’s side are also considered signs of baptism and the Eucharist. Read selections from a sermon by St. John Chrysostom here about those images.

St. Francis Takes Refuge in the Cleft

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St. Francis, with the wounds of the stigmata visible on his hands and foot, kisses the foot of Christ on the Cross in this detail from a 13th century image in the Arezzo basilica of St. Francis.

St. Francis of Assisi is known for many things. Several episodes in his life have become part of popular culture, some still associated with his name while his connection to others has been forgotten: how many remember that the Christmas manger scene–the creche–was “invented” by St. Francis in 1223?

“For in the day of trouble he [the Lord] shall keep me safe in his shelter; he shall hide me in the secrecy of his dwelling, and set me high upon a rock.” (Psalm 27:7)

As I was reading the psalms last week, I was reminded of another incident in St. Francis’ life. In the autumn of 1224 (the year after he organized the first creche), St. Francis received the stigmata (meaning “brand” or “mark”)–the five wounds of Christ–although this was not generally known until after his death in 1226. The stigmata is commonly referred to as “the wounds of love” described by the bride in the Song of Songs 2:5. The groom then tells the bride, “Come, my dove, in the cleft of the rock…” (Song of Songs 2:13-14).

We are told by St. Gregory of Nyssa that this cleft “is the sublime message of the Gospel” and the person who loves God is not coerced to take refuge in the Gospel but must freely choose to love God and the Good News; St. Gregory points out that King David “realized that of all the things he had done, only those were pleasing to God that were done freely, and so he vows that he will freely offer sacrifice. And this is the spirit of every holy man of God, not to be led by necessity.” What is coerced is not love. Love must be freely given and freely received. Taking refuge in the rock is to freely give oneself to God and to be freely received by God.

The psalm refers to this same idea: the Lord will protect his friend, his beloved from danger by sheltering the beloved in the “secrecy of his dwelling,” the cleft “high upon the rock.” Readers–such as Augustine of Hippo–understood this psalm to promise freedom from sin to the beloved of God; the one who loves God would be kept safe from the danger of damnation even if slain by enemies.

Medieval poets often identified the “cleft in the rock” mentioned by the Song and the psalms with the wounds of Christ, especially the wound in Christ’s side made by the spear. Early Christian authors, such as St. Methodius of Olympus, preached that “Christ slept in the ecstasy of his Passion and the Church–his bride–was brought forth from the wound in his side just as Eve was brought forth from the wound in the side of Adam.”

The stigmata was the seal of St. Francis’ love for God and God’s love for Francis. It was in the refuge of this love that Francis found the safety to love the world which was in such need.