And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. (Revelation 12:13-17).
In recent times, there has been much speculation about the Revelation 12-star sign connected with the Sun Lady. The Sun Lady corresponds with the Zodiacal star-sign of Virgo, which falls in September. Some have even associated the date with the rapture or the “translation of the saints” as per 1 Thessalonians (4:13-17). The Sun Lady also corresponds to several other figures in both the Old and New Testaments. For example, the Book of Genesis connects to Revelation.
“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” (Genesis 3:15).
Generally, Catholics view Genesis 3:15 as containing a prophecy, which speaks of the crucifixion and the final vengeance of God against the devil. We can also see it contains a plethora of fulfillments, detailed in the Apocalypse. In one scene in the Book of Revelation, chapter 12, St. John expounds on this one verse from Genesis.
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And the temple of God was opened in heaven: and the ark of his testament was seen in his temple, and there were lightnings, and voices, and an earthquake, and great hail. And a great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars (Revelation 11:19-12:1).
In this prophecy, she carries out the Lord’s vengeance against the devil for the “bruise” that punctured her Son’s feet. She defeats the devil by stomping the crescent “moon under her feet” reversing the scene where she stood at the foot of the Cross, watching her Son’s hands and feet pierced during the crucifixion. She demonstrates that sacrifice and not pleasure is the key to heaven. The twelves stars, as many others have pointed out, correspond to either the twelve tribes of Israel or the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ, which also correspond to the twelve signs of the Zodiac. We do eventually see the meaning of the twelve stars revealed much later in Revelation (21:9-14) with the descent of the alchemical New Jerusalem cube (representing the “New” Ark of the Covenant or the Holy of Holies) and its divine architecture being inscribed with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel and the Apostles. We will revisit to the Zion Zodiac later in the book.
According to the Eastern Orthodox Bishop Alexander[1], the Book of Revelation can only be understood as a culmination or, in light of the other scriptures.
The Apocalypse can be properly understood only in the context of all of Holy Scripture. The principle of uniting several historical events in one vision shows itself as a special characteristic of many prophetic visions, both of the Old and New Testaments. In other words, spiritually related events, separated one from the other by many centuries and even by millennia, merge into one prophetic picture, uniting within itself the elements of various historical epochs.
The Sun Lady is revealed as the Mother of those children keeping the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus per Revelation 12. The Woman was a Mother in heaven whose firstborn was also a heavenly born king, as stated in Psalm 2. She was a Queen, threatened by the red dragon or the “prince and power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2). She fled to the desert or the “wilderness” (there are manifold meanings associated with this term, to be explored later). Her children were the Christians. Jesus was the firstborn among many children[2]:
“For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8.29).
However, it does not imply that Jesus Christ is simply a created angel, like the Egyptian Arians maintained since the Gospel of John refutes this position. Keeping the commandments can be linked to the “preservers” or the “preserved” (Psalm 31:23). The Methodist scholar Margaret Barker states in the “Mother in Heaven and Her Children”[3] that the Nazarenes were also called the “preservers.”
The dragon attacked the woman’s other children, and John explained who they were. They kept the commandments of God and they had the testimony of Jesus. Keeping the commandments might mean simply not breaking any of the ten commandments, but the word used, tēreō, is quite strong and means ‘guard’, or ‘preserve’. It was used in the Greek Old Testament to translate the word nāṣar. This word too was sometimes used to mean keeping the commandments, e.g. Psalm 78.7: ‘They should guard/preserve his commandments’; but it was also used to describe a particular group of faithful people within Israel were preserved or guarded, e.g. Psalm 31.23: ‘Love the Lord all you his saints! The Lord guards/preserves the faithful! Or Isaiah 27.3: ‘I, the Lord, guard/preserve[the pleasant vineyard]… I guard/preserve it night and day’.
The role of a mysterious figure called the Servant of the Lord was to restore the faithful, these ‘guarded/ preserved ones’. This means that at some stage they were driven out.
The prophet Micah described a woman, the daughter of Zion, as being a woman in “birth pangs.” The Lord will deliver her from the hands of the enemies in Micah (4.8-13). She then reappears in the Book of Revelation. In the prophecies of the Virgin, Mother, and the rulership of her son as in Isaiah 7:14 and Isaiah 9:6-7, also seem to mirror the Sun Lady of Revelation 12 with the birthing of the “male child.” The “woman” is also described as the King’s Daughter in Psalm 45, the “queen in gold from Ophir.” The “virgins follow her” (verse 14) and are the “offspring” of the woman in Revelation 12:17. We see in the wisdom texts of Solomon, namely Proverbs 1:22-23, that the Mother warns her children of their stupidity since they are “simple.”
“How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity?
For scorners delight in their scorning,
And fools hate knowledge.
Turn at my rebuke;
Surely I will pour out my spirit on you;
I will make my words known to you.”
Flight from Evil
In the “Revelation of John and the Spirit of Prophecy,”[4] by Steve Mosher, he tells us more about the background of this chapter.
After John sees the woman in the wilderness, he notes that a war begins in heaven between Michael and his angels versus the dragon and his angels (12:7). In Dan. 12:1, Michael is the great angelic prince over God’s people. This new war, however, is between the new prince in heaven, the risen child, and the dragon.
When the new prince is born/risen, the dragon king wants to devour it. So the new ruler and his heavenly angels/stars start ruling by judging the dragon and its angels/stars as unworthy of this new kingdom. Michael’s/Christ’s stars/angels initially would probably be the twelve stars in the crown of the woman (12:1). If so, they are former earthly prophets, including those whose writing John has often alluded to (Moses, David, Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah, etc.). In Lk. 20:34-38 Jesus says those worthy of the resurrection from the dead become equal to angels, and gives as examples Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, “sons of the resurrection” now living. The dragon’s stars/angels would then be their former counterparts, false prophets who opposed them on earth. Their earthly, and now heavenly, opposition will be settled by the new prince (and his stars/angels). So the dragon that threw a third of its stars/angels to earth in 12:4 to accuse the child is now thrown down itself, along with its angels (12:8-9). The dragon is then identified as the ancient serpent, also called the devil or Satan, the deceiver of the whole world (12:9).
The heavenly role of the devil/dragon (and its stars) was to accuse the heavenly (true) prophets. Now John hears the great voice of the Spirit prophesying praise through the victorious heavenly hosts (12:10). These “twelve” stars praise the coming of God’s salvation, power, and authority, and the authority of God’s Christ, shown in throwing the dragon (and its stars) out of heaven. This devil had been accusing their “brothers,” all the former servants/prophets. No more. Those dwelling in heaven can now rejoice (12:12). They conquered the dragon through the preeminent blood (aima) of the (male (arsen)) lamb (arnios) and because of their prophetic witness (12:11).
The dragon is thrown down to the earth and sea, full of rage because its time is short (12:12). Before now the dragon was in heaven accusing/condemning day and night (12:10). Like the four living creatures in 4:8 who day and night praise God, the dragon had all the time in the (heavenly) world to accuse the angels before God. When its thrown out of heaven, its earthly time is short/limited. At the same time, the heavenly queen mother/Spirit has now also come to earth, and her time in the wilderness is to be “a time and times and half a time” (12:14). Compare the time, times, and half a time in Dan. 7:25, 12:7. The half a time links with the short time of the dragon. Her time on earth includes the dragon’s time to accuse/persecute on the earth and in the sea. (In Dan. 9:27, half a time/week is when an evil king will bring abominations and desolation to the temple.).
When the dragon first tries to pursue the woman, she is given the two wings of the great eagle (12:13-14). She flies like an eagle, like the living creature of 4:8. Compare Deut. 32:10-11 where the divine eagle finds Jacob/Israel in the wilderness. The God who bore Israel, who gave them birth (Deut. 32:18), then cared for her children like a mother eagle. The eagle’s two wings in 12:14 point to 4:8 where each living creature (including the one like an eagle flying) has six wings. The twenty-four wings are the two times twelve elders who are extensions of the living creatures/Spirit. The foundational apostles and prophets will protect and nourish the woman/Witness/Spirit of prophecy as their (written) prophetic witness continues to nourish the lives and witness of certain lampstands/churches. The wings are foundational elders who closely follow Jesus in leading the way in protecting and furthering the woman/Witness of Jesus.
Wisdom is personified in the book of Proverbs in such a way that She is equal with God. The Hebrew word for Wisdom, Chokmah, carries the feminine gender. Both ancient Jewish and ancient Christian authorities point to Her co-divinity with God, as we shall demonstrate. Speaking as Wisdom in the first person, Solomon wrote in Proverbs (8:23), that she was with God and the Logos before creation: “I have been established from everlasting, From the beginning, before there was ever an earth.”
In an early Christian text found amongst the Nag Hammadi Codices, the Teaching of Silvanus 90-91, tells us:
“From now on, then, my son, return to your divine nature. Cast from [you] these evil, deceiving friends! [Accept] Christ, [this true friend], as a good teacher. Cast from you death, which has become a father to you. For death did not exist, nor will it exist at the end. But since you cast from yourself God, the holy Father, the true Life, the Spring of Life, therefore you have obtained death as a father and have acquired ignorance as a mother. They have robbed you of the true knowledge. But return, my son, to your first Father, God, and Wisdom your mother, from whom you came into being from the very first in order that you might fight against all of your enemies, the Powers of the Adversary.”
The same text also informs us that Sophia or Wisdom clothed her children in the garment of royal priesthood:
Wisdom summons you in her goodness, saying, “Come to Me, all of you, O foolish ones, that you may receive a gift, the understanding which is good and excellent. I am giving to you a high-priestly garment which is woven from every (kind of) wisdom.” What else is evil death except ignorance? What else is evil darkness except familiarity with forgetfulness? Cast your anxiety upon God alone. Do not become desirous of gold and silver, which are profitless, but clothe yourself with wisdom like a robe; put knowledge on yourself like a crown, and be seated upon a throne of perception. For these are yours, and you will receive them again on high another time.
In the [now almost] lost The Gospel of the Hebrews has Jesus calling the Holy Spirit his Mother.
“My Mother, the Holy Spirit, took Me by one of My hairs and carried Me to Mount Tabor.”
The Gospel of the Hebrews was an accepted scripture of the Judaizing Nazarene sect of Christianity—a group of Jewish Christians led by Jesus’ brother James, and later, by Jesus’ cousin Simeon. Spirit is a feminine noun in Hebrew (ruach), and so, the children of the Spirit should be understood as the children of the Mother in heaven:
The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. (Romans 8:16-18).
This teaching is not far from the Gnostic Ophites (according to St. Irenaeus in Against Heresies 1.30.13) claim that Sophia prepared Jesus’s baptism at the river Jordan and united with Christ to possess Jesus. They departed from him after the crucifixion, but Christ resurrected Jesus with a special resurrection spirit body since “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 15:50).
The Ophites also had similar beliefs to other heretical groups like the Ebionites, Carpocrates and Marcus, the Magician who held “adoptionist” ideas regarding Jesus as being born a human being but adopted into divine sonship at baptism. Much like the converted at baptism is said to be instantly considered a “child of God.” The Ophites also believed about Jesus being possessed by Christ and Sophia, as Irenaeus goes on to describe their beliefs about the passion and resurrection of Jesus Christ:
For they maintain that the whole besprinkling of light rushed to him, and that Christ, descending to this world, first clothed his sister Sophia [with it], and that then both exulted in the mutual refreshment they felt in each other’s society: this scene they describe as relating to bridegroom and bride. But Jesus, inasmuch as he was begotten of the Virgin through the agency of God, was wiser, purer, and more righteous than all other men: Christ united to Sophia descended into him, and thus Jesus Christ was produced.
They affirm that many of his disciples were not aware of the descent of Christ into him; but that, when Christ did descend on Jesus, he then began to work miracles, and heal, and announce the unknown Father, and openly to confess himself the son of the first man. The powers and the father of Jesus were angry at these proceedings, and laboured to destroy him; and when he was being led away for this purpose, they say that Christ himself, along with Sophia, departed from him into the state of an incorruptible Æon, while Jesus was crucified. Christ, however, was not forgetful of his Jesus, but sent down a certain energy into him from above, which raised him up again in the body…
Wisdom is justified, edikaiōthē, by all her deeds/children according to Matthew 11:19. Margaret Barker in Jesus the Nazorean tells us more about Jesus’s relationship with Wisdom.
In his gospel, John mentions the Lady twice. Or rather, on the two occasions when he mentions the mother of Jesus, he does so in a curious way which could indicate that he is not merely referring to the woman who bore and raised him, named elsewhere as Mary. At the wedding feast in Cana, Jesus’ first public appearance after calling his disciples, John says that the mother of Jesus was there but he does not name her. It is possible to read this as implying the presence of the Lady whom Jesus as first resists and tries to deny. According to the story, the Lady inspires the servants to do as Jesus tells them. And so they fill the six huge stone jars with water, Jesus changes the water into wine, and this shows his glory (John 2.1-11). This was a sign that he was a priest of the order of Melchizedek, who represented the old royal priesthood. The kings of Judah before the exile in Babylon were priests of the order of Melchizedek (Ps.110.4).
Melchizedek priests were an eternal priesthood, based on the belief that each one was already resurrected and so could not die, as opposed to the Aaron priests who were temporal and changed as each son inherited from his father. In the Genesis story (Gen.14.17-24), Melchizedek offered wine to Abraham when he was expecting water, and so the miracle at Cana was a sign of Melchizedek. John also mentions the mother of Jesus at the crucifixion. He describes the women standing by the cross, but there is a problem with punctuation, and it is not certain how many women were there. The first mentioned is the mother of Jesus, but she is not named. This may be because her name was well known, but there may be something more. John may be implying the presence of the Lady. The other gospels do not mention the Virgin Mary at the cross; like John, they name Mary Magdalene, another Mary, and a third woman.
John has the mysterious fourth woman with no name. We are told that Jesus entrusts his Mother to John, and he entrusts John to his Mother, which may mean no more than Jesus making provision for his Mother. But there is another possibility: that John became the son of Jesus’ heavenly Mother, another child of Wisdom, because John was the one to whom Jesus revealed his visions and his secret teaching. Luke’s Jesus spoke of ‘all the children of Wisdom’ through whom she worked and spoke (Luke 7.35); John the Baptist and Jesus were but two of them (Luke 7.33-34). There is a striking illustration of this idea - the idea of Wisdom as a female being with many children - in the two accounts of Jesus’ prophecy of disaster. Take the words: ‘Truly I say to you, all this will come upon this generation’. Matthew says they were the words of Jesus, but Luke’s Jesus says they were the words of Wisdom (Matt.23.34; Luke 11.49). Luke implies that Wisdom spoke through Jesus, that he was her messenger. John tells us that he - the beloved disciple - was named by Jesus as a successor in this role, as the speaker of the words of Wisdom.
In some forms of Valentinian Gnosticism, the Logos is the offspring of Sophia, which would subsequently imply that the Demiurge and the Logos were siblings! For the Valentinian Christians, the Demiurge was not wholly evil but simply an intermediate being that existed between matter and spirit, as a sort of “World Soul” along the lines of Plato. The origins of the Christian Trinity point to the divine threesome of Father, Mother, and Son. This is strikingly analogous to the Canaanite Trinity, with El as the Father, Asherah as the Mother, and Ba’al as the Son.
We also see the Mother archetype in the Nativity story in Luke (2:1-20), as depicted as the holy virgin Mary, who gave birth to her firstborn son, Jesus, and wrapped him in garments in a manger. Before Jesus ascended, he said to his disciples:
44 Then He said to them, “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.” 45 And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.
46 Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 And you are witnesses of these things. 49 Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.”
The promise that Jesus gave to his disciples was that the Mother or the Holy Spirit would clothe her children with righteousness and understanding (wisdom/logos). This is confirmed back in Proverbs (2:2-6).
So that you incline your ear to wisdom,
And apply your heart to understanding;
Yes, if you cry out for discernment,
And lift up your voice for understanding,
If you seek her as silver,
And search for her as for hidden treasures;
Then you will understand the fear of the Lord,
And find the knowledge of God.
For the Lord gives wisdom;
From His mouth come knowledge and understanding;
The Hebrew for “understanding” is Tawboon and the Greek Logos, both of which are masculine in gender, we can identify Tawboon with Logos, Understanding with Christ. Thus, we have here Son and Spirit, Understanding and Wisdom, together with God, completing the Holy Trinity. That the early church fathers identified Lady Wisdom with the Holy Spirit is beyond a doubt. St. Irenaeus in Against Heresies (4.20.1, 3-4) tells us:
For the Word and Wisdom were always present with God, the Son and the Spirit, by Whom and in Whom He freely and spontaneously created everything. These are the Ones to Whom He said, “Let us make man in Our own image and likeness… Therefore, it was not angels who made us”
The Word, Who is the Son, was always with the Father. Wisdom, too, Who is the Spirit, was in God’s presence before anything was created. For the Spirit declared by Solomon, “By Wisdom God set the foundations of the earth, and by Understanding He set up the heaven. By His knowledge the Deep burst forth and the clouds dropped down the dew...” and again, “When he began the heavens, I was with Him…” Therefore, there is one God, Who, by the Word and Wisdom created and arranged everything.”
Wisdom is more versatile than any motion. Since She is pure, she pervades and penetrates everything. She is the breath (Ruach/Spirit)[5] of God’s power, and the spotless emanation of the Almighty’s glory. Thus, no unclean thing finds a place within Her. She is the reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of God’s works, the image of His goodness. She is only one, but She can accomplish anything, and being within Herself, She rejuvenates everything. Throughout all generations She lives within holy souls, making them God’s friends and His prophets. – Wisdom of Solomon (7:24-27)
This last quote is especially interesting since it points to the fact that ancient pre-Christian Judaism identified Wisdom with the Spirit of prophecy, a trait of the Holy Spirit. Certainly, English Bibles have been calling the Holy Spirit “He” according to the masculine gender for a long time. You might ponder, “There must be a reason for this.” Indeed there is!
[1] Bishop Alexander (Mileant). Understanding The Bible. Part 9. Father Alexander, http://www.fatheralexander.org/booklets/english/revelat.htm
[2]“What Is the Significance of” “firstborn” in the Bible?” Bible.org. https://bible.org/question/what-significance-“firstborn”-bible
[3]The Mother in Heaven and Her Children.FairMormon. Available at: https://www.fairmormon.org/conference/august-2015/the-mother-in-heaven-and-her-children
[4] Mosher, Steve. “The Revelation To John and the Spirit.” 2001. http://web.archive.org/web/20050204163415/http://www.unm.edu/~smosher/
[5] It is interesting to note that the Mandaean Gnostic cult of Iraq calls the Holy Spirit “Ruha” which relates to the Hebrew Ruach. There must be some common language evolution occurring.
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