“A sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it cannot ‘develop’ into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound, bit by bit, ‘with backward mutters of dissevering power’—or else not.” C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
The New Eve is a theme which runs through the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, and it draws its significance from the new Adam.
1 Corinthians 15:45-49 “Thus it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being’; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual which is first but the physical, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.”
Genesis 3:15, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise they head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”
John 2:3 & John 19:25-27, Mary is “the Woman,” according to Jesus
Genesis 3:15 & Revelation 12:9, a woman and a serpent and a male Child who is the seed of the woman
Galatians 3:13, tree vs cross
Luke 1:42, “and she exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!'” forbidden fruit vs the Fruit of her womb
Zephaniah 3:14-17 with Luke 1:28, 30-32, Daughter of Zion vs Mary
Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si, “The creation accounts in the book of Genesis … suggest that human life is grounded in three fundamental and closely intertwined relationships: with God, with our neighbor, and with the earth itself. According to the Bible, these three vital relationships have been broken, both outwardly and within us. This rupture is sin.”
St. John Paul II, “God entrusted the human being to woman. Certainly, every human being is entrusted to each and every other human being, but in a special way the human being is entrusted to woman, precisely because the woman in virtue of her special experience of motherhood is seen to have a specific sensitivity towards the human person and all that constitutes the individual’s true welfare” (John Paul II, “Christifideles Laici”).
Genesis 2:18, “helper” or battle partner, “suitable” or “fit” for him, meaning his opposite or complement
Jn 14:16–17, Holy Spirit is Paraclete, also a battle word that conveys the idea of coming alongside, to surround, advise, guard, protect, and aid
Edith Stein, “The terms ‘woman’ and ‘offspring’ [in the proto-evangelium] designate the Mother of God and the Redeemer. This, however, does not exclude the other meaning; the first woman, to whom Adam gave the name ‘mother of all living creatures,’ as well as all her successors had been given a particular duty to struggle against evil and to prepare for the spiritual restoration of life.” The distinction of the female sex is that woman was the first to be tempted, and woman was the first to hear the message of God’s grace, “and each time woman’s assent determined the destiny of humanity as a whole.” (Edith Stein, Woman 64).
Ephesians 5:21-29, Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the church.”
“God assigns as a duty to every man the dignity of every woman” (General Audience 11.24.82, JPII)
Quotes from Church History
Christ became man by the Virgin that the disobedience which issued from the serpent might be destroyed in the same way it originated. Eve was still an undefiled virgin when she conceived the word of the serpent and brought forth disobedience and death. But the Virgin received faith and joy, at the announcement of the angel Gabriel…and she replied, “Be it done to me according you your word”. So through the mediation of the Virgin he came into the world, through whom God would crush the serpent (Apologia, ch. 100; 150 AD).
The seduction of a fallen angel drew Eve, a virgin espoused to a man, while the glad tidings of the holy angel drew Mary, a Virgin already espoused, to begin the plan which would dissolve the bonds of that first snare…For as the former was lead astray by the word of an angel, so that she fled from God when she had disobeyed his word, so did the latter, by and angelic communication, receive the glad tidings that she should bear God, and obeyed his word. If the former disobeyed God, the latter obeyed, so that the Virgin Mary might become the advocate of the virgin Eve. Thus, as the human race fell into bondage to death by means of a virgin, so it is rescued by a virgin; virginal disobedience is balanced in the opposite scale by virginal obedience (Against Heresies, Book 3, ch XXII, par. 4; 189 AD).
“Likewise, through a Virgin, the Word of God was introduced to set up a structure of life. Thus, what had been laid waste in ruin by this sex, was by the same sex re-established in salvation. Eve had believed the serpent; Mary believed Gabriel. That which the one destroyed by believing, the other, by believing, set straight.” (Tertullian, The Flesh of Christ 17:4; 210 AD)”(The Lord) was not averse to males, for he took the form of a male, nor to females, for of a female he was born. Besides, there is a great mystery here: that just as death comes to us through a woman, Life is born to us through a woman; that the devil, defeated, would be tormented by each nature, feminine and masculine, as he had taken delight in the defection of both” (Augustine Christian Combat 22:24; 396 AD).
We are all new Adams and new Eves working with the Holy Spirit toward a new creation.
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Image: @amutiomi