Who is the “woman clothed with the sun,” in John’s vision?
As for Leo XIII’s extravagant passages about Mary, it remains the case that the Catholic Church has never taught that praying the Rosary or having a devotion to Mary is necessary for salvation. Leo’s statements are about what is highly recommended.
Nope....Leo said no one comes to Christ except through Mary. You can spin this blasphemy all you want but it is what he said. It is official teaching of the Catholic Church. Sorry you don’t like it
John -- who?
John the Apostle, who also wrote what can be referred to as the Gospel of John?
The same John (isn't it?) who he wrote of (writing of himself) in John 19: 26-27
That John, correct?
This vision...perhaps many years after Mary herself having "fallen asleep" as the euphemism for death or dying would have it, came how long after Christ was actually born? AD 90 some place the book of Revelation to have been written, though some push for earlier, I don't know why...
Would not John -- who witnessed the Christ directly with his own eyes, seeing Him in the flesh, and the risen Christ too(!) know that "Mary" was not in heaven struggling in the travails of childbirth?
It is more like Mary herself is representative of Israel, daughter of Israel, and this "woman clothed with the sun" being far beyond just Mary alone, though she be hid in this as was the early Church also, and all those whom had come before her in bringing this eventual arrival of Jesus Christ to pass -- and the continuing battle in the heavenlies concerning this longing of the Spirit to be born within the hearts of men (and women, mankind, if you will).
' If all this later arising " Mary" stuff, this focus upon her be so important (to the extent that has inflated far beyond what Scripture itself shows) then why did writers such as John who did know her and Christ both -- not make it more plain?
Why leave this needing to read in-between the lines, and needing do so while other spiritual principles (illuminated in a vision) were being shown?
The first patristic writer who expanded beyond what Paul wrote, spoke of his own opinion -- for he did not relate that any Apostle had taught himself that "Mary loosed the knot of Eve's [alledged] disobedience".
When we turn back to the book of Genesis, we see there that God instructed Adam to not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, but if we were to there take things in order of the writing, see that Eve had not yet been taken from Adam's own side at the time of that instruction.
She herself was quite possibly not told by God directly to not eat of that fruit, yet obviously she must have known of the prohibition. Let's say -- perhaps Adam had told her? Who else could it have been? The scriptures do not show God having told Eve the prohibition.
Then, after Eve was deceived by the serpent's smooth talking (up until then -- had she ever encountered a LIAR?) and then only after Adam had eaten also, it is written that both of their eyes were opened.
God does not charge Eve there with the crime -- even though He did ask -- what have you done? God tells here what her difficulties in the future shall be (difficulty in childbirth) and that her desire would be for her husband.
Yet to Adam God does lay charge of disobedience. Adam of course tried to blame it all on Eve, but that's the first case of blame-shifting to go along with the ah, first sin on record.
As Paul wrote, by one man sin entered the world. Paul did not write that by Adam and by Eve sin entered the world. Paul wrote that by one man -- Adam -- sin entered the world. That was the Hebrew theology of the day...
Paul put Christ as a "new Adam" but did not write of 'Mary' as a "new Eve".
That would have been awkward.
Here's Mary, the earthly mother and bearer of the Son of the Most High, having not conceived of this son of her own by way of the usual means, but by having been overshadowed by the Spirit (as it is written) be wife to her own son?
Let's have none of that sort of thing...
To perhaps help solve these sort of difficulties & mysteries, the words of Christ at Matthew 22
29 Jesus answered and said to them, “You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. 30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God[b] in heaven. 31 But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?[c] God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” 33 And when the multitudes heard this, they were astonished at His teaching.
... 41 While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, 42 saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?”
They said to Him, “The Son of David.”
43 He said to them, “How then does David in the Spirit call Him ‘Lord,’ saying:
44 ‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at My right hand,
Till I make Your enemies Your footstool”’?[f]45 If David then calls Him ‘Lord,’ how is He his Son?” 46 And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare question Him anymore.
goodbye
It was a sign and the sign was pointing to the nation if Israel. A sign>/b> is not a person. It's foretold in Isaiah.
Isaiah 66:7 Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child. 8 Who has ever heard of such things? Who has ever seen things like this? Can a country be born in a day or a nation be brought forth in a moment? Yet no sooner is Zion in labor than she gives birth to her children.
Here we find it in Revelation 12.
Revelation 12:5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, who "will rule all the nations with an iron scepter." And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.
The sign in Revelation 12 is not pointing to Mary. It's pointing to the nation of Israel just as Isaiah prophesied.