Is Mary the new Eve?

St. Irenaeus wrote less than 200 years after Christ, Mary truly is the “new Eve,” because “the knot of Eve’s disobedience was untied by Mary’s obedience; what the virgin Eve bound through her unbelief, the Virgin Mary loosened by her faith.”

I think it is safe to say that Our Lord was well aware of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s role in salvation history. Why on any given occasion He might refer to her as “woman” would require speculation on our part, but clearly the connection with Eve was at least part of the story. This is especially true with the evangelist John, who alone recounts the Wedding at Cana (John 2) and Jesus’ exchange with Mary and John at the Cross (John 19) where the use of the title “Woman” is so prominent and meaningful.

Here is one more cool connection: After the fall, the Book of Genesis says, “And Adam called his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all the living” (Gen. 3:20). The Church has traditionally identified the “woman” of Revelation 12 as representing the Blessed Virgin Mary. And we know that Revelation was also written by the evangelist John. In Revelation 12:17 we find out who the children of this woman are: “Then the dragon became angry with the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring, those who keep God’s commandments and bear witness to Jesus.”

So we are all enter this world as children of the Old Eve, the mother of all the living. When we become new creations in Baptism as disciples of Christ, we become, as Revelation 12:17 seems to suggest, children of “the woman”—Mary, the New Eve, the mother of all who are alive in Christ. So, for example, when Jesus refers to Mary as “Woman” at the wedding at Cana, is He suggesting or at least alluding to all of this typology?

I personally think He is.

Courtesy of Leon Suprenant