Victorinuss Commentary on Revelation (circa AD 280-304) is often thought not to support a Marian interpretation of the Woman in Revelation 12, as he explicitly identifies her as the Ancient Church:Thewomanclothed with the sun, and having the moon under her feet, and wearing a crown of twelve stars upon her head, and travailing in her pains, is the ancient Church of fathers, andprophets, andsaints, andapostles, which had the groans and torments of its longing until it saw thatChrist, the fruit of its people according to the flesh long promised to it, had taken flesh out of the selfsame people(Commentary on the Apocalypse, From the 12th Chapter, 1).For instance, Greg Weaver writes, Victorinus, as we can see by the quote, believes the woman to be not Mary, but the church of the agesthe church which first came in the biblical Fathers and has continued unbroken into the new covenant era. Not as a different church but as a matured church. He puts both the Jewish patriarchs, prophets and then the apostles inside this same unit typified by the woman (Is the Assumption of Mary Found in Revelation 12).There are a few things to note here: 1) the ancient Church includes Ancient Israel, as evidenced by the inclusion of the prophets and the notion that Christ had taken flesh from the selfsame people.In this, Victorinus offers a genealogical reflection of Christs flesh, which he mentions earlier in his commentary when he discusses the Four Living Creatures and connects each to one of the Four Gospels.The living creature with the face of a man is identified with Matthew.Of this creature, Victorinus writes:And in the figure of a man, Matthew strives to declare to us the genealogy of Mary, from whom Christ took flesh. Therefore, in enumerating from Abraham to David, and thence to Joseph, he spoke of Him as if of a man: therefore his announcement sets forth the image of a man (Victorinus. From the 4th Chapter, 7-10).Indeed, it is quite clear that it is Mary and her ancestors that gave flesh to Christ.Victorinus understands the incarnation and birth of Christ to be a concrete historical reality, in which Jesus Christ has at this time taken a beginning from the Virgin (ibid. From the 1st Chapter, 4).This is all the more interesting when we find that Victorinus interprets the Woman of Revelation 12 as bringing forth Christ at a concrete point in time.This is made clear when he writes:And the earth helped the woman, and opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. That the earth opened her mouth and swallowed up the waters, sets forth the vengeance for the present troubles. Although, therefore, it may signify this woman bringing forth, it shows her afterwards flying when her offspring is brought forth, because both things did not happen at one time; for we know that Christ was born, but that the time should arrive that she should flee from the face of the serpent: (we do not know) that this has happened as yet (ibid. From Chapter 12, 6, emphasis mine).Therefore, the Woman of Revelation 12 is portrayed as bringing forth Christ at a specific point in history. Given Victorinuss other statements about the Virgin Mary and the origins of Christs incarnation and birth, identifying the Woman as the one who brings forth Christ in His birth implicitly refers to the Virgin Mary, from whom Christ took flesh.Victorinus presents a multifaceted view of Johns vision of the Great Sign, representing both past and future events, where the Woman simultaneously embodies Ancient Israel, the Church, and the one who brought forth Christ through birth, i.e., the Virgin Marythe perfect confluence of these concepts.Formally, Id represent my argument this way:P1. If Victorinus interprets the Woman of Revelation 12 to bring forth Christ at a concrete point in time and to provide his flesh such that it is genealogically connected to Israel while understanding this genealogical connection to be through Mary, then Victorinus has an implicitly Marian interpretation of the Woman of Revelation 12.P2. Victorinus interprets the Woman of Revelation 12 to bring forth Christ at a concrete point in time and to provide his flesh genealogically, understanding this genealogical connection to be through Mary.C. Victorinus has an implicitly Marian interpretation of the Woman of Revelation 12 [From P1, P2 MP].Defense of Premises:P1: The crux of this implication is that if Victorinus believes that the historic event of Christs birth is represented in the bringing forth of Christ represented in Revelation while not explicitly naming the woman as the Virgin Mary, then it is an implicit identification of the woman as the Virgin Mary.P2. This premise is defended through an analysis of Victorinuss Commentary, especially noting his underlying understanding of the Virgin and her genealogy as the source of Christs flesh, and and the identification of Christs nativity with the vision of the Woman in Revelation 12.Potential objections?The woman is not explicitly called Mary: the conclusion of this argument is not that the Woman is explicitly identified as Mary, so to object in this way is a red herring.This objection ignores the actual conclusion, which is that Victorinus implicitly identifies the Woman with Mary.Implicit interpretations are improbable or tenuous: Implications are not inherently improbable or tenuous, they are just mediated by more steps.This can mean that the identification is less strong than it would be were it explicit.In this case, though, Christ is said to have been brought forth by the Woman in this vision and it is explicit that this occurred in history by the Virgin.So, though it is implicit, it is not tenuous.Victorinus says the Woman is the Ancient Church: The identification of this sign with the Ancient Church would only preclude a Marian interpretation, if signs functioned in an exclusive way.However, signs, especially the Apocalyptic signs of John, can take on layers of meaning, and so an argument which appeals to the fallacy of affirming the disjunct is especially fraught with difficulties.Signs and symbols can have multiple meanings simultaneously.I am not taking the stance of an exclusive Marian interpretation in Victorinus, while my opponent will likely have to adopt the stance that he is offering an interpretation to the exclusion of others.Lastly, my analysis accords with scholars like D.J. Unger (1949) who writes, Victorinus seems to suppose that Mary is the Woman in the background, else he has a mixture that is hard to understand. For the Child is the personal Christ in his personal birth and Ascension, supposing his physical Mother as the Woman. Again, his interpretation relative to the Church, does not seem to destroy the tradition about Mary as the WomanIndeed, Thomas Livius concurs as well, saying, S. Victorinus in the 3d century, in his interpretation of the Woman in the Apocalypse, identifies, so to say, the Church with the Blessed Virgin (1893, 265, fn. 2)So, I think we can conclude that one of the earliest commentaries on Revelation implicitly identifies the Woman of Revelation 12 as the Virgin Mary.References:Livius,T.(1893).The Blessed Virgin in the Fathers of the First Six Centuries.United Kingdom:Burns and Oates.Unger, D. J. (1949). DID SAINT JOHN SEE THE VIRGIN MARY IN GLORY? The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 11(3), 249262. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43720132Victorinus. (1886). Commentary on the Apocalypse. Trans. R. E. Wallis.FromAnte-Nicene Fathers,Vol. 7.Eds. A. Roberts, J. Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe.(Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co.)Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight.<http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0712.htm>.Weaver, G. (2023, June 11). Is the Assumption of Mary found in Revelation 12? Anabaptist Faith. https://anabaptistfaith.org/mary-assumption-revelation-12/