By Sophia Compton (all rights reserved)
(excerpt form upcoming book "More Glorious than the Seraphim" to be available soon from Light and Life Orthodox Publications)
When Mary’s role in salvation history became the subject of doctrinal controversy, it became imperative that her place in theology be secured on scriptural foundations. The Fathers did this by searching for prototypes in the Old Testament. Although many of the early Church Fathers frequently described Mary as “type” or “archetype”, this should not be understood in the same (Jungian) sense that we interpret it today. Typological exegesis, in the early Church, was in search of linkages between events, persons, or things within the historical framework of revelation. This historical typology came into existence with Christendom, and it’s character, as a method of writing, was determined by the character of prophecy. Furthermore, the study of the fulfillment of prophecy forms the background of Christian typology. (1) Although the term ‘archetype’ also referred to the Platonic understanding of the world of perfected Ideas, for the early Fathers the main object of Christian allegory was to elucidate the hidden meanings of the Old Law.
Proclus was one of the first, since he was battling Nestorius on the topic of whether Mary should be called Theotokos, or Mother of God. Nestorius was primarily concerned with the technical understanding of the union of the divine and human natures in Christ. However, beyond the theology of the natures there lurked the theology of the language. The theological language most distressing to Nestorius was precisely how the faithful addressed Mary in Church. Nestorius insisted that it remain, ‘Mother of Christ’, not ‘Mother of God’. ‘Motherhood’ remains closely linked to ‘womb-ness’, which the defenders of Mary spoke about incessantly. Mary’s womb was virginal ‘ante-partu’, ‘post-partu’, and even more illogical, ‘in-partu.’ Theologian Eugene Rogers (himself raised a Presbyterian) identifies the intense resistance that emerged during this period of polarization prior to the 3rd Ecumenical council, as a type of womb-phobia. (2) Rogers explains how difficult this thinking was for some of the Fathers, prior to the full development of early Marian doctrines and, he notes, it poses the same difficulty for some Christians today:
“Indeed, the excessiveness of the virgin birth is what some Protestants don’t like about it. The virgin birth seems not only excessive but exorbitant…especially when… one speaks of virginity in partu. Why this excess?” (3)
The question of Mary’s virginal conception was not the thorny problem that beset Nestorius however; he willingly accepted that Mary’s conception was miraculous. But to use language like ‘God in his full divinity dwelt within Mary’s womb’ was more than exorbitant; it was (for Nestorius) anathema. If “Nestorius…and many low-church Protestants today are against the language of Mother of God…[it is] because they find it unseemly, indecent. They find it so because they cannot imagine that God would inhabit such a place.” (4)
In other words, these things must belong to the human nature of Christ, not the divine. Indeed, for Aristotle, and the Greek thought which followed him and which produced the very misogynist culture within which the early Church found itself, the vagina was imagined to be, not only unseemly, but even disgusting. Nevertheless, as so many of the Eastern Fathers went on to valiantly demonstrate before and after the Council of Ephesus, “if God did not avoid the womb, neither may Christian thought and liturgy.” (5) It was a marvel in their eyes. Indeed, Proclus exclaimed, “How in the web of thy womb didst thou weave the pure and sinless cloak?” (6)
The problem of virginity in-partu was troubling to some of the early Fathers, and is a topic we will return to in the section on St. Ambrose. In his defense of her title, Mother of God, Proclus called Mary the New Eve, and went on describe her as the image of the New Ark; the ladder of Jacob by which God descended to earth; the fleece of Gideon drenched with the dew of heaven; the rod of Aaron that miraculously blossomed; the throne of the cherubim; and the living Tabernacle containing, not simply the law, but the Originator of the law. (7) Although we will explore some of these motifs in greater detail in later sections, an overview of some important types, especially as they relate to Mary and the Holy Spirit, is in order here.
One of the most prevalent themes in the ancient Christian liturgical typologies symbolically portrayed Mary as the Old Testament ark of the covenant, tabernacle, or Jerusalem temple. These were sites of divine manifestation where the Spirit of Yahweh became present to the Israelites. Just as the temple of Solomon or the tent of meeting for Moses had been ablaze with the glory of God, (1 Kings:8; Ex. 40:1-3) so Mary became the temple filled with divinity, and hallowed by its glory. She was often referred to as the sanctuary, which was the small building in the middle of the temple of Jerusalem. Because of this, Epiphanius (d 403) called her both priest and altar and exclaimed:
“How shall we not proclaim her great, who held within her the uncontainable One, whom neither heaven nor earth can contain?” (8)
She was often compared to the altar of incense, referring to the altar which stood in front of the sanctuary in the Holy of Holies. She was called the Ark of the Covenant, which originally contained the two tablets with the 10 commandments, but which also was said to house the Presence (Shekinah) of God enthroned between the wings of the cherubim. The cover of the ark was known as the propitiation, or the throne of mercy, because on the day of atonement, the High Priest sprinkled sacrificial blood over it in atonement for the sins of the Israelites.
The concept of the Shekinah probably developed as a circumlocution to protect the transcendence of Yahweh. The non-legal parts of rabinnic literature called Haggadah (9) identifies Shekinah with the burning bush, the temple at Jerusalem, and the people of Israel. The Shekinah, in the later Jewish tradition, especially in the Talmud, was seen by the rabbis as an intermediary which was somehow distinct from God. The Presence of God in the Ark (e.g., Num. 10: 33-36) or the pillar of cloud (Ex. 13: 24-25) became, in the Talmud and Midrash (10) both a personal divine being (in some cases, angelic) and a reverent way of referring to God. Like the Sophia of God, the Shekinah became a quasi-personification. Fred Burnet, a scholar of the redaction-critical method of exegesis, explains that:
“It is difficult to say exactly when Sophia and Shekinah first became related concepts. In the Wisdom literature the concept of the Shekinah clearly appears in Sirach. The relation of Sophia and Shekinah can be seen in the notion of Sophia’s dwelling in the midst of God’s people as a pillar (Eccles. 24:4); as Torah (Eccles.24:22-23); and as God’s Presence in the temple. (24:10-11)” (11)
Theologian Ralph del Colle has noted that the most “accessible biblical precedents…in connection with explicit pneumatological language are the Wisdom traditions. Spirit and Wisdom manifest similar divine agencies and characteristics relative to presence and human responsiveness.” (12) For example, Sophia, like Shekinah, will desert the foolish and the wicked (Wisdom 10:19; Baruch 3: 20-23).
Or, as the psalmist says:
“If you hide your face, they are dismayed; if you take away their breath, they perish and return to the dust. When you send forth your Spirit (ruah) they are created…” (Ps. 104:29-30 (NAB)
In both the apocalyptic and Wisdom traditions in the Old Testament, the destruction of Jerusalem implied that God would forsake the city and, by implication, God’s Presence (Shekinah) would leave the temple (13). There are numerous invocations to the Shekinah in exile, in the Jewish Midrash and Kabbalah, invoking her to return to Jerusalem. (14) This sense of sacred space, so important to the sages and prophets of the Old Testament became, for Proclus, a category for understanding the Virgin Mary. She is a “shelter, a dwelling, a chamber, a temple, a royal hall rendered sacred by the presence of the King.” (15)
The theme of Yahweh dwelling in the bosom of Israel takes on eschatological import in Zeph. 3—one of the last of the Old Testament prophetic books—which describes the reproach and promise for Jerusalem:
“Fear not, O Zion, be not discouraged! The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a mighty savior…he will renew you in his love.” (Zeph. 3: 17)
Luke will see the fulfillment of this prophecy in Mary’s conception; it accomplishes the promise that God will dwell in the womb of the ‘Daughter of Zion’, another metaphysical type which the Fathers used to describe Mary. (16)
Mary becomes the Temple of God, the Living Ark, the New Jerusalem, and the perfected Israel. Although the Fathers will offer many poetic metaphors for Mary, which will eventually cluster around numerous themes—many of which will evolve into doctrines—the Divine Maternity is the ground for everything else. The fact that she is recognized very early as the type of both Temple and Mother of the Church implies that her fruitfulness extends to us, the New Covenant, the saved People of God. Since Mary is the Theotokos, the rest of the universe, in some measure, has the capacity to be the dwelling-place of the Deity. “It is because of the solidarity which exists between [Mary] and all other things that her conception and gestating of God Incarnate can redeem the whole world.” (17)
In the inwardness of her being, the Virgin Mother models a path for us, so that in time, all Christians will be called “temples of God.” (John 2:21; 1 Cor. 3:16) As the vehicle of the Word of God, who takes flesh in her, Mary functions as a doorway linking heaven and earth, creating for us the meeting place where humans can communicate with a God who is no longer distant but who has taken our human nature. She has become our Spiritual Vessel, our Vessel of Honor, our Singular Vessel of Devotion, as the Litany of Loretto praises her, joyfully teaching Marian theology through the allegories which have been passed down to us through time.
The Presence (Shekinah) of the Spirit or its Wisdom is a gift, similar to how we think of the gifts related to the Holy Spirit today. In del Colle’s theology of the Holy Spirit, a “pneumatological ontology of gift and giftedness should then underlie the more metaphysical affirmation that God is Spirit.” (18)
Spirit is efficacious and life-giving, the womb by which the Logos incarnates and through which we move and have our being (Acts 17:2) The metaphor of the temple in the Old Covenant yields to the enfleshed Word who will send the Spirit of truth in the New Covenant. The Spirit, as Mother of the faithful, will become, like Mary, Mother of the Church. She is the womb, Jesus implies, from which man must be born again. (John 3: 3-6) The Mother of God, who is an icon of life in and by the Spirit, is the spiritual temple where the Holy Spirit is pneumatized or spiritualized to the extent that the Virgin is “fully diaphanous to the joint mission of the Son and the Spirit.” (19)
There can be no life without water and therefore humans have always associated water, symbolically, with life. Mary’s fruitful virginity is similar to the Spirit’s movement over the waters in Genesis. She shares an identity, in a sense, with the origins of the material creation. As the earth was without form and void at the dawn of creation, Mary, likewise, in her virginity, waits for the Spirit to come and overshadow her: a most unusual form of conceiving. When the Breath of God hovered over the waters, the depths were imaged as a mysterious chaos, out of which life emerged. Sarah Boss sees a similar motif in Mary’s conception: “As God accomplishes his first act…of creation by means of speech, so it is by the angel’s message that Mary conceives Christ: ‘Let it be to me according to your word.’” (20) Thus, the waters of this world prefigure the cleansing and purification which, through Mary’s gestation of the God-Man and later, through Christ’s baptism, are now the means by which he incorporates or grafts us onto his life.
The metaphor of Mary’s virginity most fascinating to Proclus, and perhaps somewhat startling to us, is the image of her womb as a loom. Her internal loom was the place where “the pure sinless cloak was woven… for the Master of creation” (21) For nine months Mary’s womb was a workshop containing the loom on which the flesh of God was knit. At completion, it “wrapped around the bodiless divinity in form and texture.” (22) This imagery, fairly common in the patristic tradition, was based on a method of biblical exegesis which interpreted the body as clothing. Adam and Eve, who were said to be clothed in robes of light before the Fall, were stripped of their glory and clothed in garments of skin when they left Eden. In the Philippians text, Christ took ‘the form of a slave’ emptying himself of his garments of glory. (Phil. 2:7)
“To remedy the nudity of Adam, the Savior clothed himself with Adam” when he descended into the womb of the virgin. (23) Vespers for the Nativity now hymns, “He who is equal in honor with the Father and the Spirit, out of compassion, has clothed himself in our substance.” (24) In one of his numerous apologetics, Proclus interprets this mystery in rich poetic terms:
“On the day of the Incarnation, the Virgin imitated heaven, and beams of light flashed forth from her womb. A sun made flesh rose from her body and the light took shape in human form, mystically dawning on the world.” (25)
In another one of his homilies, Proclus said the loom worker was the Holy Spirit and “the wool was the ancient fleece of Adam.” (26). Using imagery from the Wisdom Literature, Proclus goes on to explain that “in order to mend the primal robe, Sophia (Wisdom) herself took to the loom that was set up in the virginal workshop.” (27)
It is probable that using metaphors like the “womb-loom” helped to clarify doctrinal issues during the controversy with Nestorius in language understandable to the public.
This metaphor of the loom is a theme in the Protevangelium of James (see section five on the Annunciation). Many of the early icons of Mary show her weaving, indicating it was a prevalent activity of her era. The polemic of whether Mary would receive the title Mother of God, or “Theotokos,” moved decidedly in the favor of Proclus and Cryil of Alexander at the 3rd Ecumenical Council, and the mystery of Mary as God-bearer has remained a beacon of hope for all Christians for centuries.
The Light-cloud which covered the tent of meeting and the glory of the Shekinah which filled the sanctuary (Ex.40:35; Num 9:15) has a parallel with Mary as dwelling place of God. The word for ‘overshadow’ or ‘cover with shadow’ is the same word used in the Exodus text to describe the Presence (Shekinah) of the glory of God in the tabernacle (Ex 40: 35). Therefore, when Luke says ‘overshadow’ ( Luke 1:35) he is recalling for us the Shekinah, the real and mysterious presence of God in his temple. As we have seen in the previous analogy, in the New Dispensation, Mary’s womb has become the abode of the Spirit, who prepares the sacred tabernacle to weave the body of Christ.
As the luminous cloud which covered the tent of meeting with the Spirit’s shadow was considered a supernatural event, the consequence of the Presence of God which enveloped the Virgin was considered to be a great mystery among the early Fathers. Later, the account of the Transfiguration would produce these same elements of the Presence through the image of the Light-cloud. (Luke 9:28-36) The author of Luke again uses the same word for the activity of the Holy Spirit overshadowing Christ on the mountain (episkiasei), as he converses with Moses and Elijah. (28)
Mount Sinai was also the mountain overshadowed, or covered with a cloud, when Moses received the ten commandments. The author of the Matins feast of Mary’s Presentation in the Temple (see the apocryphal story in section five) sings: “O Christ, thou has sprung from the Virgin. From the mountain overshadowed by the forest Thou hast come, made flesh from her that knew not wedlock, O God who art not formed from matter, Glory to Thy power, O Lord! (29)
In the Mariology of the famous Russian theologian, Sergei Bulgakov, the significance of the Light-cloud is twofold. In the Old Testament theophanies, the cloud signifies a device which for weak eyes simultaneously covers and uncovers the Presence of God, for no one can see the face of God and live (Ex. 33:20). As a prototype for the Mother of God, the tent-temple, overhung with the cloud of God’s glory, signifies not only that she is the dwelling-place of the Glory of God, but also that “she is herself glorified…she is the dwelling place of the God who cannot be contained, but is herself divinized.” (30) Bulgakov observes that the cloud appears at the consecration of places of divine worship, i.e., at the tent of meeting and at the consecration of Solomon’s temple (1 Kings 8: 10-11). Thus, in viewing Mary as the most perfectly consecrated temple, the symbol of the Light-cloud indicates that “the revelation of the Glory of God in a form accessible for a human being is linked with the principle of divine motherhood.” (31) Bulgakov quotes St. Methodius, who exclaimed:
“Does not Moses delay a long time on the mountain because he had to learn the unknown mysteries of the Theotokos?” (32)
During this theophany (Ex. 24:16-18) Moses was able to step into the middle of the cloud, which was also like a devouring pillar of fire in the sight of the children of Israel, and when he returned, he needed to wear a veil because his face shone so brightly. In Bulgakov’s understanding:
“Here are united two revelations of the Glory of God; through a divine incarnation: a principle of divine motherhood, a cloud; and through a theophany, a devouring fire; … both are inseparably united to each other, for without the cloud cover the sight of the devouring fire would be unbearable for human eyes.” (33)
This leads to another prominent image which the early Church saw as a prototype for the Mother of God: the burning bush. This topic will be covered in the section in the section on St. Gregory Nyssa, who, in his Life of Moses, was the first Father to see in this image the mystery of the Mother of God.
Clearly by the time the first akathist (a Byzantine litany) was created in her honor, the early Fathers were well acquainted with these metaphors as Marian types, for it hymns:
“Rejoice, pillar of fire that guides those in darkness!
Rejoice, shelter of the world broader than a cloud!”
Rejoice, Thou from whom shines the Archetype of the resurrection!
Rejoice, radiance of the unsetting Light!” (34)
The rod from which blossoms a flower was a favorite metaphor of St. Ambrose, and it is also a theme that appears in the Protevangelium of James, in the Presentation story. The original Old Testament text is from Isaiah 11:1-2, where it says, “there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse and a blossom shall come up from his root. The Spirit of God shall rest upon him, the Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding…” St. Romanos would later sing:
“Bethlehem has opened Eden: come let us behold…there the unwatered Root has appeared and flowers forth forgiveness.” (35)
There is also a reference to the rod in Numbers 17:20; “Whomsoever of these I shall choose, his rod shall blossom.” In the Old Testament text, the names of the leaders of the 12 tribes were written on rods, which were laid in the tabernacle, including the rod of Aaron. Only the rod of the High Priest Aaron blossomed. Applied to Mary, the inference is that she blossomed in a way utterly different than any other human being because she gave birth to the High Priest, Christ. The antiphon from Isa. 11:1-2 would later become part of the Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Advent:
“And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him.” (36)
Although in the apocryphal legend (the Protevangelium) the rod of Jesse implies the lineage of Joseph (in the story it is his rod that blossoms), the more common patristic interpretation is that Mary is the flowering rod from the root of Jesse, and Christ is the flower. For Irenaeus, one of the first Fathers to use this metaphor, the Mother of God is the “shoot” and the Incarnate Word of her flesh is the flower produced by the shoot. The prophetic image in both the Isaiah and the Numbers texts is, of course, that the rod symbolizes the coming of the Messiah. Nonetheless, the hymns which acknowledge this prophecy are sung at the feasts of both the Nativity of the Virgin and the Nativity of Christ. In the aposticha at Vespers for the Virgin, we read:
“She is the treasure of virginity, the rod of Aaron, springing from the root of Jesse, the preaching of the prophets, offshoot of the righteous Joachim and Anna.” (37)
The Blessed Mother has often been called in the liturgical tradition the gate or ladder to heaven. Jacob’s ladder prefigures this type of the Mother of God, for it is through her that God ‘descended’ to earth. Moreover, she is a ladder that goes both ways: for we, the faithful may climb back to God via her intercession and the gift of her son.
The feast of Matins for the Annunciation chants: “Jacob saw in days of old the ladder that prefigured you, and said, ‘This is the stair on which God shall tread.’” (38) The story of Jacob’s ladder is in Gen. 28: 10-17 and tells the story of the biblical patriarch’s journey from Beersheba to Mesopotamia, at the directive of his parents, Rebecca and Isaac, to find a wife. In the evening, he arrived at Mt Moriah, which in tradition, was later called the Beit haMikdash or the Holy Temple. (39) He took a stone for his pillow, and after falling asleep, Jacob had a prophetic dream. In his dream he saw “a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.” (Gen 28:12) Then God appeared to him in a vision (within his dream) and renewed the promises made to Abraham, including not only prosperity for his descendants, but to “all the families of the earth.” (Gen 28:14). When he awoke from his dream, he announced “Yahweh is surely in this place. This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” (28: 16-17) and he named the place Bethel (“gate of God.”) (Gen 28: 17) The stone which Jacob used for a pillow became the first stone for the Temple Mount. Jacob’s response to the dream was to awaken in awe before a new potential for his generations to be blessed with eternal life.
Because we are examining types, we need not concern ourselves with the Copernician problem of the location of heaven: for the patriarchs, the biblical notion of heaven was out beyond the starry cosmos, and it appeared to be ‘up.’ More importantly, Mary embodies the typology of the ‘gate’ because what she bridges is actually time. What the God of Israel creates is a history with God’s people and in this sense, Mary links the Old Covenant with the New.
Jacob’s ladder which uniteds heaven and earth indicates the union of God with humankind which is realized most fully and most perfectly in the Theotokos. This Old Testament text is read, in the Byzantine churches in the feast of her Nativity. Both spiritually and physically, Mary embodies the most exalted virtue, and she models this path of ascent for us.
The story of Jacob’s ladder was dear to the heart of St. Gregory Nyssa, who compared the symbol of Jacob’s ladder to the Beatitudes (40) for by practicing the most perfect virtues, embodied in the Beatitudes, we are elevated “to ascend…to ever higher perceptions.” (41) For Gregory, Jacob’s vision indicates that we are on a path heavenwords which is a never-ending ascent to God:
“I suppose that what was represented to the Patriarch [Jacob] under the form of a ladder was the life of virtue. So that he might learn himself and teach his posterity that one cannot be raised to God except by always tending to the things above.” (42) And St. John Chrysostom exclaims:
“Let us then set out on this journey and ascend in order that we may reach heaven and enjoy all the good things there.” (43)
In one of the hymns in the Byzantine Church, Mary is called the “table, the golden lampstand, the ladder, the palace, the holy mountain…the bridge leading from earth to heaven”, (44) all images that we have been reflecting on. The hymn continues: “We see
these images perfectly fulfilled in you, O Spotless Virgin, and we proclaim your Divine Maternity.” (45)
Since the Theotokos is the first human to attain to the state of deification, the ladder of ascension is a most suitable metaphor for her. From it, one naturally associates Mary’s role as Meaditrix, a title which emerges early in the Eastern Church and which will remain unchallenged through-out the centuries:
“We praise thee, the Meaditress, for the salvation of our race, O Virgin Theotokos; for thy Son and our God hath deigned to endure the passion in the flesh taken from thee, and hath redeemed us from corruption.” (46)
1. I am here following the definition of type in Woollcombe, “The Biblical Origins and Patristic Development of Typology” K. J. Woollcombe, in Essays on Typology, Naperville, Ill: Alec Allenson, 1957.
2. Rogers, Eugene. After the Spirit; A Constructive Pneumatology from Resources Outside the Modern West. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans Publishing Co. 2005.
3. ibid., p. 103.
4. ibid., p.113
11. Burnett, Fred. The Testament of Jesus-Sophia: A Redaction-Critical Study of the Eschatological Discourse in Matthew. Washington, DC: University Press of America. 1981. p. 70
12. del Colle, Ralph. “The Holy Spirit: Presence, Power, Person,” in Theological Studies, Vol. 62, 2001. (online source: Questia Library, no page numbers given.).
13. Burnett, Testament, p. 71.
14. See # 10, above.
15. In Constas, Weaving, p. 180.
16. In O’Carroll, Michael, ed. Theotokos: A Theological Encyclopedia of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press. 1982. pp. 49-50.
17. Sarah Jane Boss, Mary: New Century Theology. NY: Continuum. 2004, p. 36.