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Citation: S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies, V3 N2 (2024)
Goddesses in Translation: The Apocalyptic Persephone
Mary Ann Beavis
Abstract It has long been recognized that the three striking female figures that punctuate the second half of the Book of Revelation, the Woman Clothed with the Sun, the Whore of Babylon, and the Bride of the Lamb, have affinities with Greco-Roman goddesses. Using the ancient method of interpretation known as the Interpretatio Graeca/Latina, where foreign deities are equated or “translated” as Greek or Roman gods, this essay shows that the Woman Clothed with the Sun and the Bride of the Lamb can be related to several goddesses of the underworld, especially Persephone. This link, in turn, enriches our understanding of the portrayal of the Virgin Mary in the Apocalypse of the Virgin as having special concern for the souls of the dead, a characteristic of the chthonic goddess Isis-Persephone.
Keywords Goddess, Book of Revelation, Persephone, Isis, Apocalypse of the Virgin
Introduction
This essay probes an unlikely source, the Book of Revelation, for traces of the Goddess, especially Persephone, in her role as Queen of the Underworld, highlighting aspects of her mythology that are often overlooked. Here, I will use a history of religions approach, which seeks to discover the history and origins of religious symbols by comparing them with contemporaneous evidence from cognate cultures.[1] In particular, I will marshal the ancient method of interpretation known as the Interpretatio Graeca to uncover the submerged presence of the feminine counterpart of Hades in a literary work that is notoriously anti-pagan and reputedly misogynistic. My argument is not that the prophet John was a somehow a devotee of the Goddess—an assertion that he would vehemently deny—but that the symbols and attributes of the deities that pervaded the culture of first-century Asia Minor, and the Ancient Near Eastern archetypes inherent in the Jewish scriptures alluded to throughout the apocalypse, shaped his visionary imagination, eventually contributing to the development of Mariology.
The Goddesses and Gods of Revelation
The author of the Book of Revelation (Apokalypsis) identifies himself as “John” (Rev 1:1), writing from the isle of Patmos (Rev 1:9) to seven churches in western Asia Minor, present-day Turkey. Although the book has traditionally been regarded as written by the apostle John, the author doesn’t self-identify as such, nor does he call himself a prisoner, although in his time Patmos was a Roman penal colony. Scholars date the writing to the last decade of the first century C.E., during the reign of Domitian (81-96), at a time when Christianity was not clearly differentiated from Judaism. After a series of letters directed specifically to each of the seven churches (Rev 2-3), the author turns to a series of apocalyptic visions, culminating in in a vision of the triumph of God over the forces of evil and death, and the establishment of a new heaven and a new earth ruled by Christ and his Bride, the Church. The second half of the composition (Rev 12-22) is punctuated by striking visions of three female figures, each identifiable with goddesses well-known in the Greco-Roman world. The first of these is a heavenly woman, clothed with the sun, standing on the moon, crowned with twelve stars (constellations). She is pregnant and about to give birth, but she is threatened by another heavenly sign, a giant red dragon that threatens to devour her son as soon as he is born. The newly-born child is rescued by God and snatched away to the heavenly throne, and a war breaks out in the heavens between an angelic army led by the divine warrior Michael and the dragon/Satan/Devil, who is thrown down to earth, along with his emissaries (Rev 12:1-9)…
[1] See Adela Yarbro Collins , “Feminine Symbolism in the Book of Revelation,” in Amy-Jill Levine, ed., A Feminist Companion to the Apocalypse of John (London: T. & T. Clark, 2010), 121.
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