Friday, August 11, 2023

Victorinus of Pettau on the Ark of Revelation 11 and the Woman of Revelation 12

Victorinus of Pettau (d. 303), Commentary on the Apocalypse, at Revelation 11:19 and 12:1 (consecutive verses):

11:19. And the temple of God was opened which is in heaven. The temple opened is a manifestation of our Lord. For the temple of God is the Son, as He Himself says: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. And when the Jews said, Forty and six years was this temple in building, the evangelist says, He spoke of the temple of His body.

And there was seen in His temple the ark of the Lord's testament. The preaching of the Gospel and the forgiveness of sins, and all the gifts whatever that came with Him, he says, appeared therein.

12:1. And there was seen a great sign in heaven. A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. And being with child, she cried out travailing, and bearing torments that she might bring forth. The woman clothed with the sun, and having the moon under her feet, and wearing a crown of twelve stars upon her head, and travailing in her pains, is the ancient Church of fathers, and prophets, and saints, and apostles, which had the groans and torments of its longing until it saw that Christ, the fruit of its people according to the flesh long promised to it, had taken flesh out of the selfsame people. Moreover, being clothed with the sun intimates the hope of resurrection and the glory of the promise. And the moon intimates the fall of the bodies of the saints under the obligation of death, which never can fail. For even as life is diminished, so also it is increased. Nor is the hope of those that sleep extinguished absolutely, as some think, but they have in their darkness a light such as the moon. And the crown of twelve stars signifies the choir of fathers, according to the fleshly birth, of whom Christ was to take flesh.

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