Apocalypse 12:6
And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she had a place prepared by God, that there they should feed her a thousand two hundred sixty days.
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- et mulier fugit in solitudinem ubi habebat locum paratum a Deo, ut ibi pascant eam diebus mille ducentis sexaginta.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- καὶ ἡ γυνὴ ἔφυγεν εἰς τὴν ἔρημον, ὅπου ἔχει ἐκεῖ τόπον ἡτοιμασμένον ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ, ἵνα ἐκεῖ τρέφωσιν αὐτὴν ἡμέρας χιλίας διακοσίας ἑξήκοντα.
Haydock's commentary
The woman fled into the wilderness. The Church, in the times of persecutions, must be content to serve God in a private manner; but by divine Providence, such persecutions never lasted with violence only for a short time, signified by 1260 days, or as the same is expressed here, (ver. 14) for a time, and times, and half a time, i.e. for a year, and two years, and half a year. (Witham)
The Christians were accustomed to fly during the times of persecution into the deserts, to avoid the fury of the pagans. This was done by the greatest saints; and St. Jerome remarks, that it was this which gave rise to the eremitical state of life.
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Methodius The Banquet of the Ten Virgins; or Concerning Chastity, Chapter IV
Chapter IV. Exhortation to the Cultivation of Virginity; A Passage from the Apocalypse is Proposed to Be Examined.
St Methodius The Banquet of the Ten Virgins; or Concerning Chastity, Chapter IV
John, in the course of the Apocalypse, says: “And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: and she, being with child, cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. And she brought forth a man-child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to His throne. …
St Victorinus of Pettau Commentary on the Apocalypse of the Blessed John, From the twelfth chapter
6. “But the woman fled into the wilderness, and there were given to her two great eagle’s wings.”] The aid of the great eagle’s wings, to wit, the gift of prophets, was given to that Catholic Church, whence in the last times a hundred and forty-four thousands of men should believe on the preaching of Elias ; but, moreover, he here says that the rest of the people should be found alive on the coming of the Lord. And the Lord says in the Gospel: “Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains;” that is, as many as should be gathered together in Judea, let them go to that place which they have ready, and let them be supported there for three years and six months from the presence of the devil.