In the next episode of "Addressing Marian Prooftexts," we take on one I've heard used a few times to defend what is, in my view, an errantly high view of the ever-virgin. The section in question is specifically the last verse: "I will cause your name to be remembered in all generations; therefore nations will praise you forever and ever." (v. 17) This passage is clearly mirrored by Mary's inspired words in the Magnificat: "For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed" (Luke 1:48b). Thus, so the argument goes, Mary is the woman that fulfills this passage, and in the same way, she fulfills the other parts of the passage, which would seem to delineate her as the queen of heaven.
The first issue with this line of argumentation is that it is exegetically implausible from both texts. Firstly, the "daughter" in the text has more said about her than simply than this blessing. For one thing, she is referred to as the Lord's queen (v. 9), which simply is not Mary but is rather the Church, but I won't elaborate on that, since I have already done that somewhere else. Another piece that would be strange in the case of Mary is that she is told to "forget [her] people and [her] father's house, and the king will desire [her]" (v. 10-11). I simply do not understand what this could refer to if this was Mary. If we refer to her house literally, she didn't leave her house to join with the Lord, she left her house to marry Joseph. If we take it in a more symbolical sense, it makes even less sense, because she certainly didn't leave the house of David and was not found in an idolatrous nation. This narrative is also strange because it seems to portray her as a kind of bride of the Lord, which isn't necessarily illicit but is at least weird. The idea of her coming into the chambers of her Lord is strange if applied to Mary because she conceived miraculously and without any kind of sexual act.
Many of the church fathers have also weighed in on the issue, so I'll go through a few quotes that I could find on it. Because there are so many different places where they address it, I'll stick with the Ante-Nicene fathers that I could find: Hippolytus, Cyprian, Methodius, and Gregory Thaumaturgus.
First, I would like to take on Gregory's text, because he is the only one of the bunch that applies it specifically to Mary. I won't cite the whole section here because it is a huge one, but I'll simply say it's found in his first homily on the Annunciation, it doesn't really say much more than the to quote a large chunk of the Psalm and say it applies to Mary. There are two things important to note about this. Firstly, as mentioned before, he doesn't say anything more than that verses 10-11 apply to her, and this is really non-controversal. As I said above, it's strange to include verse 10 but not illicit, and of course Mary ought to worship the Lord. This says nothing about her reign in heaven as queen, in fact, in his three homilies on the topic, Gregory never even mentions her queenship! Thus, even if he's right that this Psalm can partially refer to her, he doesn't seem to mean that she takes part in any divine role that isn't shared with the other saints. The second, and in my opinion more important, point is that these homilies are listed as among his spurious works. In my edition of the works of Gregory, the editor writes, "I can do no better than follow Dupin as to the authorship of these Homilies. He thinks the style of Proclus (of Constantinople) may be detected in them, though the fourth is beyond him for eloquence, and has even been thought worthy of St. Chrysostom...The titles of these Homilies are the work of much later editors; and interpolations probably occur frequently, by the same hands." In this way, we see that even if he were to follow this interpretation, the real author is much more likely of the 6th century than the 3rd, and while his testimony is still valid, it is still less weighty than those which may come from saints a generation or two from the holy virgin.
Hippolytus and Cyprian were largely of the same mind on this matter, interpreting the queen as the Church and Jerusalem, which are, for all intents and purposes, the same here. The former, in his exegetical fragment on Genesis 49:16-20, writes the following:
Whereas, on the abolition of the shadow in the law, and the introduction of the worship in spirit and truth, the world had need of greater light, at last, with this object, the inspired disciples were called, and put in possession of the lot of the teachers of the law. For thus did God speak with regard to the mother of the Jews— that is to say, Jerusalem — by the voice of the Psalmist: Instead of your fathers were your sons; that is, to those called your sons was given the position of fathers.
In this passage, he writes that this passage is a foretelling of the fact that the Old Testament Church - Israel - is lesser than the New Testament Church in terms of enlightenment, since in Christ we see all mysteries made known. Cyprian, following this same line of thought, writes,
But if the spouse of Christ is one, which is the Catholic Church, it is she herself who alone bears sons of God. For there are not many spouses of Christ, since the apostle says,…’Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, for the King hath greatly desired thy beauty' (Epistle 74.14)
In this passage, Cyprian uses this passage to argue for the importance of the Church's unity since, just as the bishop ought to be the "husband of one wife" (1 Tim. 3), so too is Christ the husband of only one - the Church.
This interpretation fits far better than the Marian interpretation. In this way, we see verse 9's daughters and queen as the same figure, because the Church is made up of numerous individuals united in the mind of Christ. The forgetting of the father's houses refers to the calling of all from paganism, both Gentiles and Jews, since Abraham was himself called out of idolatry. The people of Tyre bowing could refer to the preeminence of the Church over all nations. The chamber is the divine throne room as well as the physical meeting places where heaven meets earth, and the multicolored and golden robes refer to the new Joseph's bloody robe, which the Church wears, but which is covered in Christ's blood, more precious than gold. Finally, the Christian is both the virgin companion and the son of the Church, who is our mother.
Both of these passages have very straightforward readings, in which the Church is called the bride of Christ, applying Ephesians 5 as a solid hermeneutic. Methodius parts from the bunch, writing,
And in the forty-forth psalm [Ps. 45 for us], the queen who, chosen out of many, stands at the right hand of God, clothed in the golden ornament of virtue, whose beauty the King desired, is, as I said, the undefiled and blessed flesh, which the Word Himself carried into the heavens at the right hand of God (Methodius, Discourse 7 (Procilla), Chap. 8)
This section is absolutely beautiful as he describes the incarnation of our Lord, but it must be read allegorically and loosely, lest one fall into Nestorianism. In it, he says that the woman is Christ's flesh which is united to the divine nature in Mary's womb and is brought into the chamber of God in the ascension. While far odder, I think this passage actually accounts for more of the details in a somewhat more robust way than the former interpretation. The daughter and queen angle is because the flesh was created by the very one united to it. Thus the two are one even though one is created by the other, thus both queen (bride) and daughter. Also, this flesh is at the "right hand" and is "in the gold of Ophir" because Christ's person, both human and divine natures, dwells at the right hand of the Father, and He is given dominion over all creation, hence being dressed in the finest of gold. The leaving of the father's house refers to human nature leaving behind Adam's house and, in the incarnation, returning to the prelapsarian state of Christ's house. The people of Tyre coming to Him is fulfilled in the arrival of the Gentile kings to bring great gifts to Christ. The many-colored robe once again refers to Joseph's torn and bloodied robe of promise, which our Lord wears. Finally, in Christ's flesh, ours is born again, and thus we, the children of God, are greater than Adam, Christ's hereditary patriarch according to the flesh.
Now, with all that said, I would actually take a more liberal, so-to-speak, perspective on this and say that both interpretations are correct. This is because we are united with Christ according to the flesh, since we are in His archetype. Thus, because the Church is Christ's body and the two have become one flesh, we can say that this queen of heaven is both the Church and the human nature.
As a final point, I want to finally address the point I started with: why does Mary apply the promise of the last verse to herself? Well this is a fairly easy answer. For one thing, it certainly does apply to her. She, as a type for the Church, does match her in certain capacities. It is true that her fame will last to all generations, and it is also true that her child is greater than all her fathers. It is true that Gentile men showed up in her house to give her, via her Son, great gifts. These are not untrue, but as in the case of the woman of Revelation, she cannot possibly fulfill all these types, but they can only be fulfilled in the ultimate type, which is Christ's Body, the Church.
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