The New Eve
inimicitias ponam inter te et mulierem
et semen tuum et semen illius
ipsa conteret caput tuum
et tu insidiaberis calcaneo eius
God said to the serpent:
‘I will put enmities between thee and the woman,
and thy seed and her seed:
she shall crush thy head,
and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.’
Genesis 3, 15 {DRB}
A Hebrew epicene personal pronoun may have been used in the Protoevangelium (First Gospel) in Genesis 3:15. ₁This pronoun, “hūʾ,” has only one form to denote either male (“hû”) or female (“hî”) in the singular. It states, “He or She shall crush thy head, and thou shall lie in wait for his or her heel.” In the Catholic tradition, the woman and her offspring are associated. It is not only the woman but also her child who is at enmity or opposition with the serpent and its offspring: sinful and wicked humanity. From different theological perspectives, the woman or her offspring can be seen striking at the head of the serpent in collaboration with each other in their respective roles. ₂
In the Gospel of Luke 1:42, Mary and Jesus are presented as equally “blessed” (euologemene / eulogemenos) by having nothing in common with Satan, who has worked sin and the corruption of death. Mary is elevated above all women, including Eve, because of her association with Jesus in undoing the consequences of the fall of Adam and Eve. The Mother and the Son are equally blessed by having been set apart by God and consecrated to Him for undoing what the serpent started at the beginning (Gen. 3:14).
Then Uzziah said to her, “Blessed are
you daughter, by the
Most High God, above all the women on earth; and blessed be the
Lord God, who guided your blow at the head of the chief of our enemies.”
Judith 13, 18
The Protoevangelium contains a dual subject (He-She) in the original Hebrew text. This means that the male or female or even the plural rendering of the epicene pronoun is acceptable depending on one’s theological perspective. St. Jerome’s Latin translation of the Hebrew female pronoun (ipsa) emphasizes the crucial role that God granted Mary in His plan of salvation. This plan was brought to completion by the final victory of her Son over sin and death. It is important to note that the female rendering of the neuter pronoun does not denote a final victory attributed to the woman. In the case of Judith, it was God who directed her blow against Holofernes, saving her people from imminent slavery and destruction.
Similarly, God’s grace preceded and prompted Mary to pronounce her Fiat at the Annunciation and fulfill her commitment to the Divine work of salvation. She gave birth to the Messiah and endured sorrow at the foot of the Cross to temporally appease God for mankind’s sins. Mary defeats the serpent by working with God to bring the Messiah into the world through her faith, charity, and grace. This act of faith helps save humanity from sin’s consequences, which include eternal separation from God. The woman mentioned by God in His conversation with the serpent is not Eve, but a different woman who will redeem our fallen ancestors through her own faith.
It is evident from the apologetic writings of St. Irenaeus (189 A.D.) that the early Church interpreted Genesis 3:15 as a prophecy of the Virgin Mary, whom they saw as a second Eve. St. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, testified to the Apostolic Catholic faith by saying, “So, if Eve disobeyed God, yet Mary was persuaded to be obedient to God, in this way, the Virgin Mary might become the advocate of the virgin Eve” (Against Heresies, 5:19:1). This interpretation of the woman in the Proto-gospel is more sensible in Christian thought because Jesus is the son of Mary. Mary’s obedient faith in charity and grace vindicates our fallen primordial mother, Eve.
According to classical Jewish theology, the woman is considered the Daughter of Zion and her offspring. This includes the righteous remnant of Israel, including the Messiah. It is believed that through him, people of all nations will come to know and accept God and be redeemed of their sins upon his appearance at the end of this age. ₃ A Latin reading of the text would reveal that the victory achieved by the woman’s offspring would directly announce the final victory. However, this does not necessarily exclude the essential part she had to play in humanity’s redemption, which she accomplished in collaboration with him.
In the Epistle to the Romans, St. Paul reminds us that all Church members can overcome Satan through their faith perseverance. He says, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet” (Rom 16:20). In the order of grace, Mary is considered the most important member and the model of the Church. This is because it was through her faith in charity and grace that her Divine offspring, Jesus Christ, came into the world to save humanity from its sins and restore it to a life of grace. All who are baptized can also defeat Satan each time they resist his temptations and follow the will of God with the help of His grace (James 4:17). As the Blessed Virgin Mary is a moral channel of grace, she is connected with all her Son’s disciples in their fight against evil. She supports them through her prayerful intercession in Heaven (Rev 12:17).
The reading of “she” (ipsa) does not equate Mary with Jesus by coordinating her merits with his. The ultimate victory over Satan and his works belongs exclusively to her Son in strict justice (meritum perfecta condigno) because of his divine nature and equality with the Father. His work of salvation was a theandric act. However, from a theological perspective, the female reading is acceptable. Depending on what one chooses to emphasize, both the woman and her seed can be said to crush the serpent’s head. It is not an either-or but a both-and proposition. Mary crushes the serpent’s head through her supernatural merits (meritum de congruo) or the right of friendship with God in cooperation with divine grace through the merits of her divine Son, who is the primary source of all saving grace.
God chose to become incarnate to reconcile the world to Himself. However, the Incarnation happened according to His righteous design through Mary’s meritorious and free consent to be the mother of our Lord and Saviour, in alignment with God’s will. In their respective roles, Jesus (as a man) and Mary (as a woman) crushed the serpent’s head together following the Divine initiative. Christ redeemed the world through His humanity by serving as a ransom for sin, which was paid by His blood. This blood was received with divine necessity only through Mary’s act of faith, working through love in collaboration with the Holy Spirit.
Although our Blessed Lady was a finite created being, unlike God, who is infinite and uncreated, she could mediate the Incarnation for herself and humanity. This was possible because she acted in a state of sanctifying grace where she partook of the divine life of God and was sealed with the Holy Spirit (2 Pet 1:4; 2 Cor 5:17; Eph 1:13; Phil 2:13; 1 Jn 3:7,10, etc.). Through this state of grace, her human nature was raised and transformed, allowing her to merit nothing from God apart from His efficacious grace and sharing in the supernatural life of God in His grace. God honored her Fiat because Mary acted in understanding and saw with God’s own supernatural vision. She loved with His infinite and burning supernatural love in the depths of her soul, infused with His sanctifying grace (Lk 1:46).
In Elizabeth’s declaration of praise, “Blessed (eulogemene) are you among women,” the perfect passive participle is a Hebraism meaning “most blessed among women” or “blessed above all women” or Eve (Lk 1:42). We have an example in the following passage from the Hebrew Old Testament.
תְּבֹרַךְ֙
מִנָּשִׁ֔ים
יָעֵ֕ל אֵ֖שֶׁת
חֶ֣בֶר הַקֵּינִ֑י
מִנָּשִׁ֥ים
בָּאֹ֖הֶל תְּבֹרָֽךְ׃
“Blessed of women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be,
blessed above women shall she be in the tent.”
– Judges 5, 24
The second clause qualifies the first clause. The expression “blessed of women” implies Jael is blessed above all other women because of her singular deed in collaboration with YAHWEH. And how is it that Jael is supremely blessed?
She
put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workman’s hammer,
and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head
when she had pierced and stricken through his temples.
– Judges 5, 25-26
Some Catholic scholars and apologists argue that Jerome’s translation of the Hebrew Old Testament is accurate. They claim that the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo, who lived around A.D. 40, preferred the “hi, ipsa” reading. Philo argued that this reading was supported by the Hebrew poetic technique, parallel poetry or chiasmus. This literary form is found in three-quarters of the Old Testament, particularly in the Books of Proverbs and Psalms. Even though the Book of Genesis is written in prose, parallel poetry is sometimes used when recording spoken prophecies. Genesis 3:15, the first Messianic prophecy in the Bible, is an example of this. We can look at examples of parallelism in the Old Testament to understand how this literary device works. The verses below are taken from Hebrew Parallelism by Jeff A. Benner.₄
Here, Psalm 15:1-3 and Isaiah 6:10 are broken down into their poetic sequences. Each thought is represented by the letters A-D, and each expression of thought is represented by the numbers 1 and 2.
A1.
Lord, who may [dwell] in your [sanctuary]?
A2. Who may [live] on your [holy hill]?
B1. He whose [walk] is [blameless]
B2. and who [does] what is [righteous]
C1. who [speaks the truth] from his [heart]
C2. and has [no slander] on his [tongue]
D1. who does his [neighbor] no wrong
D2. and casts no slur on his [fellow man]
[does no wrong – casts no slur]
A. A. Make the [heart] of these people [fat]
B. and make their [ears] [heavy]
C. and [shut] their [eyes]
C1. lest they [see] with their [eyes]
B1. and [hear] with their [ears]
A1. and [understand] with their [heart],
and return, and be healed.
Now, in Genesis 3:15, a couplet (distich) parallels the following couplet:
A1. I shall put enmities between [thee] and the [woman]
B1. and between [thy seed] and [her seed]
A2. [She] shall crush [thy head]
B2. and [thou] shalt lie in wait for [her heel]
We see that line A1 corresponds with line A2 and B1 with B2. The “woman” in line A1 refers to “she” in A2. Thus, to make the subject of line A2 “he” (ipse) or “it” (ipsum) and to say it relates to the seed in line B1 is obviously bad Hebrew poetry. Clearly, the “he” or “it” readings ruin the synonymous parallelism of this verse, and so are more likely to be at variance with the author’s intention. Jerome consulted with eminent Jewish scholars while translating Hebrew into Latin in a monastery he had founded in Bethlehem. So, he could have considered this literary device when choosing pronouns.
The following pattern disrupts the rhythm of the verse by making an abrupt switch of focus between subjects:
You/woman
Your seed/her seed
He (It)
shall crush your head/you lie in wait for his (its) heel.
In the sacred text, it is the woman who is in enmity with the serpent, while the woman’s seed is in enmity with the serpent’s seed: wicked humanity. If we accurately observe the parallelism here, we should reasonably conclude from the first enmity announced between the woman and the serpent that the subsequent pronouns refer to the first protagonist, the woman, and the first antagonist, the serpent. The pronoun ipsa thereby refers to the female protagonist who, because of the serpent’s antagonism and her opposition against it, victoriously crushes its head by her obedience to the will of God and in collaboration with Him as His “fellow worker” (1 Cor 3:9).
A radical shift to the woman’s seed certainly does violence to the rhythm of the passage from a literary perspective, though theologically, there is no conflict. As previously pointed out, the woman could be said to have crushed the serpent’s head by her act of faith since it resulted in her giving birth to the offspring who would achieve the final victory over it by destroying its dominion on earth. Mary crushed the serpent’s head in collaboration with her divine Son in concurrence with the graces he merited for her by his passion and death. And the merit of the temporal satisfaction our Blessed Lady made to God for the world’s sins received its worth from the eternal satisfaction our Lord had made to his heavenly Father.
To bring about the eternal expiation of our Lord, a promised woman and virgin was required to complete it through her obedience. This woman, similar to Eve in her state of innocence and fullness of grace, justifies the first mother of all living beings by untying the knot of her disobedience while never having fallen from God’s grace (Lk 1:28). After her fall from grace, Eve received her name. She was no longer called “Woman” once she lost her innocence. When Jesus addressed his immaculate mother, Mary, as “Woman,” it was in allusion to the enmity his heavenly Father had put between her and the serpent following Eve’s transgression.
And the dragon was angry against the
woman:
and went to make war with the rest of her seed,
who keep the commandments of God,
and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Revelation 12, 17
In Genesis 3:15, God is speaking to the serpent about Eve’s transgression, which draws our attention to her moral contribution to the fall of mankind (Adam). It’s only reasonable, therefore, that our focus should be kept on the female protagonists in this drama and how it unfolds in the restoration of mankind through the moral contribution of the woman whom God promises will undo what the serpent started by tempting Eve. The serpent aimed to ruin all that was good in God’s creation by targeting Adam, but it was through his helpmate, the Woman, that it brought about Adam’s fall from grace. The serpent did not speak to Adam and tempt him directly but allied with his wife to entice and join her in their rebellion against God.
The Woman, therefore, must vindicate herself by opposing the serpent. Still, this can only be accomplished by the woman whom God has promised shall conceive and bear the Messiah by her act of faith so that he may restore what Adam brought about by his sin. The Fall of mankind from God’s grace was accomplished by Adam alone. So, the Blessed Virgin Mary opposes the serpent in her covenant with God, while her offspring, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, is in enmity with the serpent’s works: fallen mankind or Adam and creation. Christ (the second Adam) accomplished redemption and mankind’s reconciliation to God more than enough but with his faithful and obedient “helpmate” who remained true to God in her covenant with Him.
The Woman and her Offspring allied themselves against the serpent to undo the sins of Adam and Eve, who were created to give spiritual life to their offspring before the Fall. And ever since our Lord rose from the dead and ascended into heaven to take his seat at the right hand of God, the serpent or dragon has been at enmity with the Virgin Mary and her spiritual offspring in their daily spiritual combat with him. The actual graces her children receive through her prayerful intercession are the armor they must wear in their battle with the foe.
St. Luke does draw a parallel between the Virgin Mary and Daughter Zion in her Canticle of Praise (Lk 1:46-49) by referring to the prophets Isaiah, Zechariah, and Zephaniah and the Psalms (Isa 61:10; Zech 9:9; Zeph 3:1415, 20; Ps 102:13; 126:1-3; 147:12-13). It appears, then, that the Ecclesia in apostolic time acknowledged Mary as the new Eve and the anti-type of Daughter Zion because of her Divine Maternity, which she acquired by her salutary obedient act of faith. Her divine motherhood would be redefined at the Cross to include redeemed humanity, especially all her Son’s faithful disciples, her spiritual offspring (Jn 19:26-27).
Eve is the mother of all Adam’s fallen descendants. The Blessed Virgin Mary is the mother of all the new Adam’s regenerated offspring restored to the life of grace with God. Mary crushed the serpent’s head by undoing Eve’s disobedience through her obedience to the will of God. Thus, she is the mother of righteous offspring because of her righteousness in God’s grace. Eve remains the mother of unrighteous offspring, her firstborn son Cain being a murderer, because of her transgression and fall from grace, which led to her expulsion from Eden.
So, then, who are the offspring of the serpent? We find the answer summed up in 1 John 3:10-12: “By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. This is the message you have heard from the beginning: that we should love one another, not like Cain, who was of the evil one and slew his brother Abel. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s righteous.” The seeds of the serpent, therefore, are people who possess the disposition of the Devil. They are consumed by pride, jealousy, and malice towards their neighbor and loathe what is righteous. And not unlike their progenitor, they hate God and all his righteous children, even to the point of persecuting and putting them to death because they bear witness to the truth against them.
In the apostolic age, [Pope] St. Clement l (A.D. 98) exhorts the faithful not to conduct themselves in the manner of the serpent’s offspring: “Seeing, therefore, that we are the portion of the Holy One, let us do all those things which pertain to holiness, avoiding all evil speaking, all abominable and impure embraces, together with all drunkenness, seeking after change, all abominable lusts, detestable adultery, and execrable pride. ‘For God,’ saith [the Scripture], ‘resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.’ Let us cleave, then, to those to whom grace has been given by God. Let us clothe ourselves with concord and humility, ever exercising self-control, standing far off from all whispering and evil speaking, being justified by our works, and not our words” (Epistle to the Corinthians, 30).
How long wilt thou be dissolute in
deliciousness,
O wandering daughter?
for the Lord hath created a new thing upon the earth:
A woman shall compass a man.
Jeremiah 31, 22
Of all human creatures, the Blessed Virgin Mary is the most perfect “portion of the Holy One” clothed with “concord and humility,” graced with temperance and charity, and pure in heart. Rather than being proud, boastful, and judgmental, she was meek and poor in spirit. She “stood far off” from the prince and spirit of this world. The angel Gabriel came to Mary since she had “found grace with God” (Lk 1:30). The Annunciation wouldn’t have happened if she had possessed the disposition of the serpent and heeded its words as Adam’s wife and helpmate had instead. Mary had to have no affinity whatsoever with the dragon and be completely unlike its offspring if she were to crush its head in collaboration with God for the world’s salvation.
The virgin spouse of the Holy Spirit was “a garden enclosed” and “a fountain sealed” (Songs 4:12). Not unlike the virgin bride of Christ, which is the Church, pure and unblemished in her faith by the sanctifying presence of the Holy Spirit, the Virgin Mary stood on a rock beyond the Devil’s reach. The serpent could never slither into the garden of her soul, which proclaimed God’s glory and through which the Messiah shone forth as the world’s light. The gates of Hell could not prevail against the blessed mother of our Lord. Meanwhile, it wasn’t the Devil whom Jesus and the prophets before him were at enmity with, at least not directly, but rather the serpent’s offspring – that “brood of vipers” who acted as his advocates (Mt 23:29-33).
Finally, John envisions the dragon waiting for the Woman to give birth to her Son. But he is snatched up to his throne in Heaven before it can devour him, as the Woman keeps waging war against the dragon with her other offspring – those who keep God’s commandments and bear witness to Jesus Christ. It is she, the Virgin Mary and spiritual mother of all the living, whom Satan is in enmity with because of her dual maternity. By her faith working through love, she gave birth to the Messiah and, from the same womb, regenerated humanity for persevering in faith beneath the Cross, thereby crushing his head. In other words, the serpent could no longer boast before God because of its victory over Eve. Mary’s moral participation perfected and completed God’s plan.
Yet our Blessed Mother’s pierced Immaculate Heart shall finally triumph at the end of time, leaving the Devil to carry the weight of his humiliation for all eternity. Only an innocent woman who never fell from grace could shatter his pride once and for all. If the Virgin Mary hadn’t crushed the serpent’s head with her immaculate foot, not only would it hold a trophy or prized possession for all eternity, but she – the woman – would be in enmity with it forever. ₅ The Fall would never be finally and fully resolved. The redemption could not be a perfect and complete reciprocation of what had transpired in the Garden of Eden.
And you, O tower of the flock, hill of
the daughter of Zion,
to you shall it come, the former dominion shall come,
kingship for the daughter of Jerusalem.
Micah 4, 8
Early Sacred Tradition
“For Eve, who was a virgin and undefiled, having
conceived the word of the serpent, brought forth disobedience and death. But
the Virgin Mary received faith and joy, when the angel Gabriel announced
the good tidings to her that the Spirit of the Lord would come upon her, and
the power of the Highest would overshadow her: wherefore also the Holy Thing
begotten of her is the Son of God; and she replied, ‘Be it unto me according to
thy word.’ And by her has He been born, to whom we have proved so many
Scriptures refer, and by whom God destroys both the serpent and those angels
and men who are like him; but works deliverance from death to those who repent
of their wickedness and believe upon Him.”
St. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 100
[155 A.D]
“Consequently, then, Mary the Virgin is found to
be obedient, saying, ‘Behold, O Lord, your handmaid; be it done to me according
to your word.’ …Thus, the knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the
obedience of Mary. What the virgin Eve had bound in unbelief, the Virgin Mary
loosed through faith.”
St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3:22:24
[inter A.D. 180-189]
.webp)
“These ecclesiastical writers in quoting the words by which at the beginning of the world God announced his merciful remedies prepared for the regeneration of mankind — words by which he crushed the audacity of the deceitful serpent and wondrously raised up the hope of our race, saying, “I will put enmities between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed” — taught that by this divine prophecy the merciful Redeemer of mankind, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, was clearly foretold: That his most Blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary, was prophetically indicated; and, at the same time, the very enmity of both against the evil one was significantly expressed. Hence, just as Christ, the Mediator between God and man, assumed human nature, blotted the handwriting of the decree that stood against us, and fastened it triumphantly to the cross, so the most holy Virgin, united with him by a most intimate and indissoluble bond, was, with him and through him, eternally at enmity with the evil serpent, and most completely triumphed over him, and thus crushed his head with her immaculate foot.”
Pope Piux lX (Apostolic Constitution)
Ineffabilis Deus
[8 December 1854]
