Category Archives: Byzantium

Gideon, the Dewy Fleece, & St. Mary Major

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This Byzantine image is another depiction of Gideon and the miracle of the angel meant to reassure Gideon that he was chosen to save Israel from their enemies. There are many more icons of this event here.
This contemporary Greek image depicts Gideon and the commander of the heavenly armies on the left; on the right is the Mother of God enthroned with Christ. Read more here.

I recently wrote about St. Mary Major and the miracle of the snow in Rome. I realized this morning how similar the story about St. Mary Major is to the story of Gideon and the miracle of the fleece in the Old Testament.

In the book of Judges (chapter 6), we read that Gideon was told by an angel that he would save the people of Israel from their enemies as they were settling the Promised Land after wandering in the desert for 40 years after the Exodus. But Gideon wants reassurance that God would fulfil this promise that he would lead the people to victory. He tells the angel,

“If now I have found favor in your eyes, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me. Please do not depart from here until I come to you and bring out my present and set it before you.” And the angel said, “I will stay till you return.”

So Gideon went into his house and prepared a young goat and unleavened cakes from an ephah of flour. The meat he put in a basket, and the broth he put in a pot, and brought them to him under the terebinth and presented them. And the angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened cakes, and put them on this rock, and pour the broth over them.” And he did so. Then the angel of the Lord reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes. And fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes. And the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight. Then Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the Lord. And Gideon said, “Alas, O Lord God! For now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.” But the Lord said to him, “Peace be to you. Do not fear; you shall not die.”

After Gideon wins a series of battles, the enemies of Israel gather large reinforcements and Gideon calls for more Israelites to join him. While he is hoping the Israelites will respond to his call and come to join him, we are told that

… Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said, behold, I am laying a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there is dew on the fleece alone, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said.” And it was so. When he rose early next morning and squeezed the fleece, he wrung enough dew from the fleece to fill a bowl with water. Then Gideon said to God, “Let not your anger burn against me; let me speak just once more. Please let me test just once more with the fleece. Please let it be dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground let there be dew.” And God did so that night; and it was dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground there was dew.

Christian preachers always associated both the miracle of the sacrifice consumed by fire and the miracle of the fleece with the Incarnation of the Word of God in the womb of the Virgin Mary. St. Ambrose of Milan preached, “as soon as the Angel touched them with the end of the staff which he bore, fire burst forth out of the rock, and so the sacrifice which he was offering was consumed. By which it seems clear that that rock was a figure of the Body of Christ, for it is written: “They drank of that rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ.” (1 Cor. 10:4)

Other early Christian writers, such as St. Proclus of Constantinople describe the Blessed Virgin as the “loom” of the incarnation and linked the miracle of the fleece with Mary: “The holy Mary has called us together, that undefiled treasure of virginity… the most pure fleece with heavenly dew, from which the Shepherd clothed the sheep… She is the awe-inspiring loom of the incarnation.”

The dew on the fleece that announces God’s choice of Gideon is remarkably similar to the snowfall that announces God’s choice of the building site for the church of St. Mary Major in Rome. Both miracles announce to the world what God has previously revealed to only a few people and both miracles are associated with the Mother of God whose consent made the incarnation possible.

Mary, Pentecostal Teacher of the Church

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17th century Icon of Pentecost (from the border of Russia and Finland)

Some icons of Pentecost show Mary the Mother of God in the centre, occupying the “Teacher’s Seat.” Mary was present at Pentecost; she is the ultimate exemplar of a Christian. With Jesus Christ ascended into Heaven, the Holy Spirit acts within people, and through the saints, Christ is manifest in the world. Mary is therefore shown in the “teacher’s seat” as the best example we have, and the person on earth who most resembled Jesus Christ (both physically, as His mother, and spiritually as His disciple).

By the 9th century the Church came to recognize Mary as the Stella Maris, the Star of the Sea, an image reminiscent of sailors who would chart their course by the stars. Mary points the way to Christ.

The presence of the Apostle Paul in the icon, even though at that time he had not yet converted on the road to Damascus, hints that this icon is more than a purely historical picture. Sometimes, the evangelists Luke and Mark are also shown, despite also not having been present in the upper chamber at Pentecost. The gathering, then, is a representation of the Church. The Apostles are shown as equals, with no individual among them taking the central seat of authority. They are seated in a semi-circle, representing a unity and harmony similar to that found in Icons of the Holy Trinity. As in icons of the Holy Trinity, a semi-circle, rather than a full circle, is used so that we as observers are drawn into the unity.

See a Pentecost sermon that includes the role of the Mother of God here, preached at St. Matthew’s, Sheffield (a Church of England parish).

When the Mother of God Went to Hell

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Icon of the enthroned Virgin and Child with SS. George, Theodore and angels, 6th century, Saint Catherine’s Monastery. An antiphon from the Saltair Mhuire, attributed to Domhnall Albannach Ó Troighthigh, in a manuscript dated 1477, reads, “Ave Marie mater Domini nostri Iesus Christi regina celi domina mundi imperatrix inferni misere mei & totius populi Christiani Amen.” (“Hail, Mary — mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, Queen of heaven and Lady of the world, Empress of hell: have mercy on me and on all Christian people. Amen.”)
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There was an early Christian folktale that the damned in Hell got a short reprieve every year: their suffering was reduced–or stopped altogether–for the fifty days between Easter and Whitsunday (Pentecost) or Trinity Sunday. Around the year AD 1000, this reprieve was said to be the result of the prayer of the Mother of God who was said to have gone to Hell to see the suffering of the damned. Escorted by St. Michael the Archangel, she went on a tour of the Underworld and was moved to tears at what she saw. She pleaded with her Son to spare the damned as much of their suffering as possible. So it became common practice in the Middle Ages to offer special prayers for the dead at Pentecost as the punishment of the damned began again.

In one story, a man makes a deal with the devil and sells his soul in exchange for special favors from the devil during life. As the man was dying, he is sorry about his decision and begs the Mother of God to help him. Mary is infinitely merciful, so she does. She girds her loins for battle, descends into hell, and steals back the contract giving the man’s soul to the devil!

In this story, Mary’s mission to hell is portrayed as warfare. The tale evokes the devil’s anger, and uses the language of violence and theft to describe Mary’s actions. In her guise as empress of hell–that is, more powerful even than Satan–she is not the mother of mercy, she is the “queen of vengeance” against the devil and the powers of Hell.

I think these stories are all trying to express an intuition about the power of the Mother of God to save us from ourselves and our own worst choices and behavior. They also show the inability of Hell to confine anyone who really wants to escape, underlining the original understanding that when Christ smashed down the gates of Death and Hell, everyone who wanted to escape did and now only those who choose to remain in Hell–unable to accept responsibility for their actions and thus unable to accept forgiveness–are there.

Curious about these stories? Read more here and here. This is another good one to read. See how many of them there are?