The Woman Clothed With the Sun: A Multifaceted Reading of Revelation 12

The Apocalypse of John, whom Tradition names the “Liturgist,”[1] is inherently a book of worship, outlining for the believers the expectations and outcomes of the life of Faith. Through the various revelations recorded by John in this divinely-inspired book, the Lord Jesus Christ conveys, both to John himself and to the readers of the book more generally, a central message of exhortation to faithfulness. He, the Just Judge, is shown throughout the Apocalypse to be working patiently for the salvation of all souls, so that none would be lost except the son of perdition.[2] Indeed, divine violence in the Apocalypse is best understood as the patient enactment of God’s justice: “The One seated on the throne is the God of justice; but the justice of our God is spelt mercy.”[3]

The Apocalypse begins with a message to each of the churches from the Lord who exhorts them to complete perfection: “Repent” and “be faithful unto death.”[4] The believers are encouraged to remain faithful to God and not forsake the Faith which they have accepted and received, being steadfast despite the threat of persecution and hardship[5] so as not to become conformed to the world which will soon reap the fitting results of her deeds and stance against God. By virtue of their acceptance of the Faith and abidance according to it, the believers are prepared for the impending judgment.[6] As for those who are not members of the Church — who belong to the world and submit to its influences — God is found in the Revelation providing these every opportunity for repentance and seeking their salvation through a variety of means. By exhorting the believers to remain steadfast, He intends for them to become His witnesses in the world, as the Lord often taught in His sermons.[7]

Another method seen in the Apocalypse by which God seeks the repentance of those who are of the world is through unleashing plagues upon the earth. Evidently, these plagues, being permitted by God,[8] are intended for the repentance of the people — meant to cause them to realize the fleeting nature of the world as well as the power and authority of God as its Creator, and thereby compel them to seek refuge in Him. Thus:

“when people cry out in terror, the movement toward judgment is interrupted and readers are shown the scale of divine redemption (6:16-17; 7:1-17). The trumpet visions continue depicting divine wrath against the ungodly, but when the plagues fail to bring repentance, judgment is again interrupted so that the faithful can bear witness (9:20-21; 10:1-11:12). Only when many have been brought to glorify God does the final trumpet sound (11:13-15).”[9]

As the wrath of God unfolds through violence on the earth, this enactment of divine violence results in the peaceful scene of heavenly worship, the beautiful liturgy in which humanity is invited to participate.[10]

While the strength of the victorious God is displayed throughout the Apocalypse, another power is also found exerting its strength over the world — that of the dragon, identified as “that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world.”[11] The antithesis of the patient and long-suffering mercy of God in seeking the repentance of all people is the cruelty, deceit, impurity, and violence of the beast and dragon. They, unlike God, utilize violence to inflict fear so as to impose their authority upon humanity. While the violence of God does not directly harm humanity,[12] the beast and dragon find their satisfaction in the persecution and torment of mankind.

This dragon, representative of Satan and his evil powers, is found pursuing a woman “clothed with the sun” in Revelation 12:

“And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth; she brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God…And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had borne the male child. But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished…The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with the flood. But the earth came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river which the dragon had poured from his mouth. Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea.”[13]

Much speculation is found regarding the symbolism of the woman. Since John amalgamates a variety of Scriptural features and contexts into the Apocalypse, thereby creating new imagery out of the old, a multifaceted consideration of the various revelations uncovers a deeper understanding that may be gleaned from the text. In presenting this imagery through a diversity of lenses, such as the Old Testament Scriptures, the New Testament Church, and Greco-Roman culture, the Apocalypse succeeds to convey an especially rich message — of the victorious Christ and the victory enjoyed by those who faithfully endure in the Faith in Him — to a wide array of diverse readers. 

Utilizing Old Testament language, John presents the woman clothed with the sun as representative of the people of God, who is Himself the “Sun of righteousness.”[14] The twelve tribes of Israel, encompassing the entirety of God’s people in the Old Testament, are represented on the crown adorning the head of the woman, reminiscent of the twelve stones adorning the clothing of the Levitical priests.[15] The pursuit of the woman likewise recalls Israel’s most formative experience — the Exodus, in which, having been led out of Egypt, they crossed the sea and emerged from it into the wilderness, with the waters gathering together behind them to drown their pursuers: “Pharaoh’s chariots and his host He cast into the sea.”[16] Having reached Mount Sinai, the Israelites were reminded by God through Moses: “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself. Now therefore, if you will obey My voice and keep My covenant, you shall be My own possession among all peoples.”[17] The Apocalypse hearkens to this covenant with God, as the woman clothed with the sun is given “two wings of the great eagle that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness.”[18]

The synthesis of Israelite imagery in the Apocalypse is not divorced from the experience of the New Testament, but rather reveals the profound christological and ecclesiological understanding of the Christian Church: the followers of Christ, constituting the Church, are the true Israel[19] — the perpetuation of the covenant established by God with His people[20] most perfectly realized in light of His economy of salvation. Thus, for early Christian commentators on the Apocalypse, the woman clothed with the sun is not understood as being representative of the Israelites exclusively, but through them, also the Church.[21]

The understanding of the woman clothed with the sun as representative of the Christian Church further finds its foundation in the Virgin Mary: being the Mother of God, she becomes also the mother of all who put on Christ in baptism.[22] Thus, Augustine writes: “His Mother [Mary] is the [mother of the] whole Church, because she herself assuredly gives birth to His members, that is His faithful ones.”[23] Likewise, Origen identifies that if Christ is to be formed in the believers, they must not only become His beloved disciples, but also take His mother as their own.[24] In light of this Mariological understanding, the woman clothed with the sun emerges as an icon of the Virgin Mary, and through her, the Church. This imagery and interpretation is presented in the weekday Psalmody of the Coptic Orthodox Church, which contemplates:

“I saw a sign shown in the sky: a woman clothed with the sun, she also had the moon abiding under her feet and twelve stars forming a crown on her head; being pregnant in labor, crying out to give birth — she is Mary, the new heaven on earth, from whom shines on us the Sun of Righteousness. For the Sun with which she is clothed is our Lord Jesus Christ, the moon below her feet is John the Baptist, and the twelve stars forming a crown on her head are the twelve apostles surrounding her, bestowing honor!”[25]

In a similar manner, the pursuit of the woman by the dragon was interpreted by Oecumenius in the sixth century in relation to the Virgin Mary and the flight of the Holy Family to Egypt.[26] The situation of the woman in the wilderness can also be understood within the context of the Church’s vocation: to be in the world but not of the world.[27] The Christians — the offspring of the Virgin Mary by virtue of their putting on Christ, her Son, through baptism — are “those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus.”[28] As a result, they continually face the spiritual warfare waged by the evil powers. The fluidity of the imagery presented in the Apocalypse enables such a diversity of interpretation.

Being concerned with the conversion of the world to the Faith in Christ, the Apocalypse has for its audience all people, and not exclusively those deeply acquainted with the Holy Scriptures. As such, the Apocalypse also appropriates certain elements of Greco-Roman literature, embedding them within the same discourse in relation to the Faith in Christ.[29] Wilfred Harrington pertinently notes:

“The closest parallel, however, to the narrative of the woman and the dragon is a Graeco-Roman version of the legend of Apollo’s birth. Leto had become pregnant by Zeus. The dragon Python foresaw that this child, a son, would replace him as ruler over the oracle at Delphi. He sought to kill the child at birth. Zeus commissioned the North wind and the sea-god Poseidon to aid Leto. She gave birth to Apollo and Artemis; Apollo slew the dragon Python. John adapted the story to describe the birth of the Messiah. But it is not his only source.”[30]

In the Apocalypse narrative, the victor is Christ, rather than Apollo, who defeats the dragon by His own death. Craig Koester explains: “…the imagery would have engaged the interest of a wide spectrum of readers…The characters and plotline in John’s vision take on a distinctive form that is designed to shape his readers’ perspectives on the situation of Jesus’ followers in the world.”[31] In an innovative manner, the Apocalypse “baptizes” the mythological story, painting it in a Christian light in connection to the Scriptural narrative, thereby granting Gentile readers an effective means to understanding the reality and significance of Christ’s salvific act.

The scenes of violence in the Apocalypse serve as catalysts for humanity’s return to God and pursuit of Him and powerfully depict the results of one’s allegiances. The dragon slays “those who would not worship the image of the beast,”[32] and despite this, humanity continues to submit to the authority of the dragon and the beast although they are actively killing them. The Lord, on the other hand, is “He who offers Himself as an acceptable sacrifice upon the Cross for the salvation of our race.”[33] Whereas God ultimately sheds His blood for the sake of humanity, the woman seated on the beast — becoming herself a distorted parody of the Incarnate Son of God seated on the throne with His Father[34] — rather feasts on the blood of the people.[35] For this reason, while God patiently endures the evil of the world and seeks to inspire repentance among mankind — being Himself merciful — the time comes when the final judgment is to be carried out — for He is also just. Those who experience all of the plagues and wrath of God and do not repent,[36] but rather flee to seek refuge within the earth,[37] submitting themselves to the beast and dragon who seek their destruction, have ultimately rejected God. He has conquered, and while the evil one is “loosed for a little while,”[38] deceiving humanity for a time with his cunningly attractive façade, the final and eternal triumph belongs to God. Sin deserves its consequence.[39] Thus, those who have aligned themselves with the earth and its ruler will be met with torment at the time of the final judgment: “if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”[40]

The theme of repentance echoes consistently throughout John’s Apocalypse, wherein the people of God — namely, all who adhere to the Faith in Christ — reap the benefits of their allegiance to the victorious slain Lamb. In conformity to Christ,[41] the believers are to expect rejection and aggressive opposition from the world and its powers. Despite this immediate state of persecution, even being cast outside the city and chased into the wilderness, the people of God are reminded of the victory of Christ which is enjoyed by those who endure the tribulation and remain faithful until the end. The endurance of such hardship becomes for them the opportunity to grow in conformity to Him who conquered, conquers, and will conquer, so that they too may emerge victorious over the powers of the evil one. For this reason, the people of the One whose voice “was like the sound of many waters”[42] are themselves heard crying with a voice “like the sound of many waters”[43] by the end of the Apocalypse.

Utilizing a diverse array of imagery, drawing from both the Old Testament and New Testament Scriptures, the ritual expressions of the Church’s worship,[44] as well as contemporary Greco-Roman literary features, John presents this message of a reality that transcends sociocultural boundaries — that of the heavenly worship and eternal citizenship in the new heaven and earth with God to which all are called, both Jews and Gentiles alike. A nuanced reading of the Apocalypse as a whole, and especially as exemplified in the account of Revelation 12, therefore reveals the vocation of Christianity in the world, and through it the call of Christ to all of humanity — the same exhortation by which He began His earthly ministry: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”[45]

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[1] See e.g., José Granados, Introduction to Sacramental Theology: Signs of Christ in the Flesh, 64

[2] See John 17:12; 2 Thessalonians 2:3; “Son of perdition is a Hebraism in which the genitive is ambiguous. It can denote the person’s character, as in Ps 57:4, where ‘children of unrighteousness’ is rendered in the LXX τέκνα άπωλείας; or the person’s destiny, as in Isa 34:5, where ‘the people I have doomed’ appears in the LXX as τόν λαόν τής άπωλείας. The same expression, ‘the son of perdition,’ ό νίός τής άπωλείας, is applied to the Antichrist in 2 Thess 2:3 in parallelism with ‘the man of lawlessness,’ presumably to denote his evil nature, but it may also include the thought of his sure destruction, which is mentioned in 2 Thess 2:8” (George R. Beasley-Murray, Word Biblical Commentary, Vol. 36: John, 299).

[3] Wilfrid J. Harrington, Sacra Pagina: Revelation, 32

[4] See Revelation 2:5, 10, 16, 22; 3:3, 10-11, 19

[5] “The goal of each message [to the Churches, in chapters 2 and 3] is to evoke enduring faithfulness, and the interplay between encouragement and rebuke is designed to achieve this end. … Christ, the Lion of Judah, conquered as a Lamb whose self-sacrifice brings people into God’s kingdom. Christ’s followers are to conquer in a similar way through faithful self-sacrifice” (Craig R. Koester, The Anchor Yale Bible: Revelation: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, 237).

[6] Notably, this expectation of the eschaton was incorporated into many early Christian creeds of Faith. In the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, as one example, the believers chant: “We look for the Resurrection of the dead and the life of the coming age. Amen.”

[7] For instance, in the Sermon on the Mount: “You are the salt of the earth…You are the light of the world…Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:13-16).

[8] “…the Lamb, by breaking the first seal, unleashes the plagues…The second horseman has been given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slaughter one another: the complementary sides of warfare. Given power — even destructive war serves a divine purpose! It is a forceful way of stressing that nothing, not even the most awful things that humans can do to one another, and to our world, can ever frustrate God’s saving purpose” (Harrington, 91).

[9] Koester, 307

[10] See Revelation 8:1-5; 10:15-19

[11] Revelation 12:9

[12] In the plagues which God permits, the only harm that comes to humanity is inflicted by humanity against itself: when the horsemen of Revelation 6 act, it is men who slay one another; likewise the death which results after the fourth trumpet is blown in Revelation 8 comes from the actions of men who drink of the water which had become wormwood (see Revelation 8:10-11); the locusts which emerge from the earth, moreover, are specifically instructed not to kill those who are not sealed (Revelation 9:4-5). God directly gives the initiative, in Revelation 7, that the creation should not be harmed until the servants of God are sealed (Revelation 7:3).

[13] See Revelation 12

[14] Malachi 4:2

[15] Exodus 28:21

[16] Exodus 15:4

[17] Exodus 19:4-5

[18] Revelation 12:14

[19] Robert Mounce finds the woman clothed with the sun as representative of “the messianic community, the ideal Israel,” although he excludes the possibility of understanding this imagery through the Virgin Mary, a stance that this paper seeks to assert as being insufficient (See Robert H. Mounce, The New International Commentary on the New Testament: The Book of Revelation, 230).

[20] See Genesis 12:1-3

[21] “For Victorinus, the woman encompassed both ancient Israel and the followers of Jesus. She groans as the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles groaned for the coming of the Messiah. Her twelve stars relate to Israel’s early history, since they symbolize the sons of Jacob. The dragon’s threat against the child corresponds to the time of Jesus, when the devil tempted him in the wilderness. Finally, the dragon’s horns are ten kings who will reign at the end of the age” (Koester, 525-526); Harrington likewise understands the woman to be “the people of God of the Old Testament who, having given Christ to the world, thereby became the Christian Church” (Harrington, 130).

[22] Galatians 3:27

[23] Augustine, On Holy Virginity, 5

[24] See Origen of Alexandria, Commentary on John 1.23

[25] The Thursday θεοτοκια, 9

[26] Koester summarizes Oecumenius’ view, writing: “The devil’s attempt to devour the child occurred when Herod the Great ordered all the children in Bethlehem to be slain, and the woman’s escape to the wilderness was the holy family’s escape to Egypt, as reported in Matt 2:1-18” (Koester, 526).

[27] See e.g., John 17:11-19; 1 John 2:15-17; Commenting on the condition of the Church in the wilderness, John Chrysostom profoundly writes: “And now, should you come unto the desert of Egypt, you will see this desert become better than any paradise, and ten thousand choirs of angels in human forms, and nations of martyrs, and companies of virgins, and all the devil’s tyranny put down, while Christ’s kingdom shines forth in its brightness.” (John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel According to St. Matthew 8.5-6).

[28] Revelation 12:17

[29] “Recent studies have noted, however, that Rev 12 has affinities with both Jewish and Greco-Roman traditions and does not follow any one tradition exactly…writers point out that myths are characterized by variety rather than uniformity. Mythic patters share certain typical elements while exhibiting variations in detail. Sometimes, ancient plotlines were combined” (Koester, 528).

[30] Harrington, 129

[31] Koester, 530

[32] Revelation 13:15

[33] See the Hymn Ⲫⲁⲓ ⲉⲧⲁϥ ⲉⲛϥ.

[34] See Revelation 3:21

[35] Revelation 17:6

[36] See e.g., Revelation 6:15-17; 9:20-21; 16:9, 11, 21

[37] See Revelation 6:15-17

[38] Revelation 20:3

[39] See Revelation 16:4-7

[40] See Revelation 20

[41] Conformity to Christ is a prominent theme found in the writings of John the Evangelist. The characters represented in the Gospel, as also its reader, grow step by step into deeper belief and relation with God and conformity to Him as the Gospel’s narrative progresses. The first-called disciples, for instance, are found echoing the call of the Lord Jesus Christ: as He says to them “Come and see,” Philip implores Nathaniel with the same words (See John 1:39, 46). Similarly, in his Epistles, John exhorts the believers towards conformity to Christ: “he who says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which He walked” (1 John 2:6).

[42] Revelation 1:15

[43] Revelation 19:6

[44] For instance, the use of incense and the chanting of hymns to God appear often in the Apocalypse (See e.g., Revelation 8:3-4; 4:8).

[45] Matthew 4:17

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