A Faithful Witness in Heaven: The Moon of David's Covenant and the Woman with the Moon Under Her Feet
Old Testament: Psalms 88:36-38
Once have I sworn by my holiness: I will not lie unto David: His seed shall endure for ever. And his throne as the sun before me: and as the moon perfect for ever, and a faithful witness in heaven.
Old Testament, also: Genesis 37:9-10
He dreamed also another dream, which he told his brethren, saying: I saw in a dream, as it were the sun, and the moon, and eleven stars worshipping me. And when he had told this to his father and brethren, his father rebuked him, and said: What meaneth this dream that thou hast dreamed? shall I and thy mother, and thy brethren worship thee upon the earth?
New Testament: Apocalypse 12:1-2, 5
And a great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars: And being with child, she cried travailing in birth ... And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with an iron rod: and her son was taken up to God, and to his throne.
The connection
When God swears to David that his line will not fail, He points at the sky for surety. "His throne as the sun before me: and as the moon perfect for ever, and a faithful witness in heaven." The moon is a faithful witness not because it does anything remarkable but because it keeps coming back: every month, on time, for every generation, testifying that the One who set it there keeps His word. Jeremias argues the same way, that the covenant with David can be broken only if the covenant with day and night can (33:20-21). The ordinary is the evidence. The moon stands in an older promise too. Joseph dreams that "the sun, and the moon, and eleven stars" bow to him, and his father reads it at once: "shall I and thy mother, and thy brethren worship thee?" Sun, moon and stars are a family, the house of Israel, bowing to the one God chose to save them. John sees the same three in heaven, rearranged. "A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars." The eleven have become twelve, the full number of Jacob's sons and of the apostles, and she "brought forth a man child ... and her son was taken up to God, and to his throne." The throne the moon was set in the sky to vouch for is occupied by her Son. St Hippolytus reads the woman as the Church, the moon under her feet as her "being adorned, like the moon, with heavenly glory", and the stars as "the twelve apostles by whom the Church was founded." St Augustine, on the psalm, says why the moon is called a faithful witness at all: "because of the faithful witnesses which she everywhere brings forth on the side of truth, the Church is called 'the moon, a faithful witness in heaven.'" The Church shines with a light that is not her own, keeps returning, and what she brings forth, century after century, is witnesses. The Church also reads the woman of Mary, the mother of the Child taken up to the throne, and the entry keeps both.
Moral sense
A faithful witness does not have to be spectacular. The moon's testimony is its regularity: it is there when the sky is clear and there behind the cloud when it is not. The witness most Christians are asked to give is the same kind, reliable, returning, reflecting a light that is not their own, and it is the kind that holds a promise up where the next generation can see it.
Anagogical sense
The woman stands on the moon. What witnessed faithfully through every generation of waiting becomes, at the end, the ground under her feet, and the Child is taken up to the throne it was set in the sky to vouch for. The promise to David does not outlast its witness by accident; the witness was only ever holding the place until the King came to sit in it.
The Fathers
St Augustine, Letter LV: "because of the faithful witnesses which she everywhere brings forth on the side of truth, the Church is called 'the moon, a faithful witness in heaven.'" St Hippolytus, On Christ and Antichrist 61: "by the 'moon under her feet' he referred to her being adorned, like the moon, with heavenly glory. And the words, 'upon her head a crown of twelve stars,' refer to the twelve apostles by whom the Church was founded."
Warrant
Interpretive. The Apocalypse does not cite Psalm 88 or Genesis 37, and no Father found in the site's corpora joins the faithful witness of the psalm to the woman of Apocalypse 12. Each leg is patristic: St Augustine reads the psalm's moon as the Church, called a faithful witness for the witnesses she brings forth (Letter LV), and St Hippolytus reads the woman, the moon and the twelve stars of the Church and the apostles (On Christ and Antichrist 61). Genesis 37:9 behind Apocalypse 12:1 is widely noticed by commentators, sun, moon and stars together standing for the house of Israel; the observation that the eleven become twelve is the entry's own. The Fathers differ on the moon under her feet. Hippolytus takes it as an adornment of glory; others take it as the changeable things of this world set beneath the Church, a reading Augustine's own remark on the moon's changeableness points toward. The anagogical sense leans on the second and is my reading, not a Father's. The woman is read of the Church by Hippolytus and of Mary by the Church's liturgy, and the entry keeps both without choosing. St Augustine on this psalm (Expositions on the Psalms, Psalm 88) says its promises "were made concerning Christ" and were not fulfilled in Solomon, who "fell, and gave room for hoping for Christ"; and he reads the moon "perfect for evermore" of our flesh, which now waxes and wanes but "will be perfect in the resurrection".
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2853.
The verses
Psalms 88:36 · Psalms 88:37 · Psalms 88:38 · Genesis 37:9 · Genesis 37:10 · Apocalypse 12:1 · Apocalypse 12:2 · Apocalypse 12:5
