"Mary was resplendent with virtues inside and" – The ark of the covenant as a prefiguration of Mary

Ausloos, Hans
(2024) Encountering Mary, Mother of Jesus: Christian Theological Reflections on Mary – Past and Present — Location: Bloemfontein (South Africa) (4.June.2024)

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Abstract
The mother of the Messiah is not mentioned anywhere in the Old Testament. It is rather in the Gospels that one finds a Christian interpretation of some Old Testament passages, in which the prefiguration of Mary as the mother of the Messiah is at stake. In addition, many titles by which Mary was and is honoured and invoked in Christianity are derived from the Old Testament. The title “ark of the covenant” is one of them. Within the Old Testament tradition, the “ark of the covenant of YHWH” occupies an important place. Containing the two stone plates with God’s commandments (Deut 10:5), it is the central object within the sanctuary, both in the stories of the desert journey (Exod 25:10-22; 37:1-9) and the temple in Jerusalem (1 Kgs 8:9; 2 Chron 5:10). In addition, according to the New Testament, it also contained Aaron’s staff and a golden jar of manna (Heb 9:4). Whatever the case, the ark was definitely considered as the visible sign of God’s protective presence. The present lecture looks at the way in which, within Christianity, the Old Testament “ark of the covenant” tradition has been perceived as prefiguration of Mary. Moreover, it also takes us to the African continent. After all, the fact that Ethiopian Orthodox Christians are convinced of the fact that they preserve the Biblical ark of the covenant in the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion is indicative of the close connection between the ark of the covenant and the figure of Mary in Christian tradition, as is the Our Lady of the Ark of the Covenant Church in Abu Gosh (Israel), built at the traditional site of Kiriath-Jearim, where the ark of the covenant, according to some Old Testament texts, remained for twenty years (1 Sam 7,1-2; 2 Sam 6:3; 1 Chron 13:7).
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Ausloos, H. (2024). “Mary was resplendent with virtues inside and” – The ark of the covenant as a prefiguration of Mary. Encountering Mary, Mother of Jesus: Christian Theological Reflections on Mary – Past and Present, Bloemfontein (South Africa).