The Woman and the Serpent: Genesis 3:15

I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed: he shall crush your head. (1)

The historical datum of this fundamental text of Genesis opens our eyes to that stupendous drama whose conclusion is the promised salvation. At the dawn of human history, our first parents, Adam and Eve, were living happily in the earthly paradise. The woman, Eve, unfortunately was seduced by the cunning of the serpent. She fell into sin and induced the man, Adam, to fall with her.

It was a tragic moment in that history. Its entire future had been compromised. In its first ancestors, the human race was forever lost, unless a Redeemer capable of restoring man to friendship with God was found. But precisely then, at the onset of the gloomy darkness of sin, there shone a ray of future hope. God intervened to tell how a "woman," with her "seed," would do battle against the serpent and crush its head. This text of Genesis has rightly been called the "Protoevangelium," i.e., the first and most important prophetic announcement heralding the good news of salvation for mankind.

Philologically, the "woman" of this text poses a critical problem for exegesis. Fr. Testa writes in this regard:

Is it the woman (hi'—she), or her offspring (hŭ'—he) who treads upon the serpent?... The feminine reading of some manuscripts of the old Latin (ipsa) later passed into the Vulgate, as attested by the better manuscripts of the Vulgate: G (Turonensis), A (Amiatinus).

... Nonetheless, so ancient and respectable a tradition must give way to the masculine reading found in the Masoretic text, in the Samaritan, and also in the Syriac version. In fact, even if the present consonant reading hw’ can be pointed either as hŭ' (he) or as hi’ (she), whose archaic written form was hŭw’, it now appears that the masculine form must prevail either because of the verbal form of "will crush" (yesafeka; the feminine would have required tesŭfeka) or because of the masculine pronominal suffix (-ennŭ, and not -ennâh) added to the verb "you shall try to wound" (him, not her; or you shall try to wound his—not her—heel). (2)

This not withstanding, according to more recent philological studies, it is now admitted to be certain that the translation of the pronoun ipsa, chosen by St. Jerome, must be regarded as quite legitimate because as Donatella Scaiola affirms "from the philological standpoint the reading in the feminine is possible in so far as in the Pentateuch we find many masculine pronouns (q’re) to be understood in the feminine sense." (3) In respect to the three versions of the pronoun of Gen 3:15: in Hebrew (neuter), in Greek (masculine: the Septuagint) and in Latin (feminine: the Vulgate), the masculine reading (ipse) entails "a violent grammatical passage from the neuter to the masculine" as Vanni writes, noting that "the variant ipse, witnessed by codices O, S, T is obviously an addition to the LXX and therefore is rather a confirmation of the authenticity of ipsa. For this reason one cannot "qualify as arbitrary a directly Mariological interpretation of Gen 3:15." (4)

On the other hand the competence and carefulness of St. Jerome cannot but guarantee the value of his translation in the feminine (ipsa). It acknowledged on all sides that in order to achieve as exact a translation as possible, as P.L. Ferrari writes "St. Jerome underscored the importance of knowing Greek and Aramaic to understand the Scriptures and stressed the superiority of the original text over the Greek LXX translation." In confirmation of this well nigh scrupulous scholarship St. Jerome himself "purchased from the Jews the best Hebrew manuscripts, and on the basis of a comparative analysis, what is called today textual criticism, chose those readings which to him seemed closest to the original." (5)

In the dogmatic bull Ineffabilis Deus on the Immaculate Conception of Mary, Pope Pius IX explained the content of the Protoevangelium in this way:

The Fathers and ecclesiastical writers, enlightened by instruction from on high, taught that the divine prophecy: I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed, clearly and plainly foretold how there was to be a merciful Redeemer for mankind, namely, the only-begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ. They also taught how the prophecy pointed to His Blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary, and how it clearly expressed at the same time their common enmity toward the devil. Just as Christ, the Mediator between God and men, by taking our nature, cancelled the decree of condemnation against us, triumphantly nailing it to the cross, so too the most holy Virgin, intimately and indissolubly united to Christ, became with Him the everlasting enemy of the venomous serpent, and thus shared with her Son His victory over the serpent, crushing as she did the serpent's head with her virginal foot. (6)

Hence, as Pope Pius IX summarizes it, both according to tradition (the Fathers and ecclesiastical writers) (7) and according to the express declarations of the papal Magisterium, (8) the Protoevangelium "clearly and plainly" foretold the Redeemer, indicated the Virgin Mary as the Mother of the Redeemer, and described the common enmity of Mother and Son against the devil and their complete triumph over the poisonous serpent. One can, therefore, without hesitation affirm that the content of the Protoevangelium is "Marian" as well as messianic. Not only this, but the mariological dimension in reference to the "woman" must be also understood literally to be exclusive to that "woman," to Mary, that is, to the Mother of the Redeemer, and not to Eve. (9)

When Pope Pius IX interrogated the commission preparing for the definition of the Immaculate Conception on the import of Genesis 3:15, the consultors unanimously replied that this text, as may be inferred from its very wording, is the basis of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. For "if the seed of the woman is the Redeemer who, according to Catholic doctrine, was first promised to mankind in this passage of Genesis, for this reason customarily known as the Protoevangelium, then the woman is His Most Holy Mother." (10)

The bull Ineffabilis Deus also affirms that "the most glorious Virgin... was foretold by God when He said to the serpent: 'I will put enmity between you and the woman.' Without doubt it is that same woman who crushed the poisonous head of that serpent." (11) It is perfectly evident, then, according to the exegesis of the solemn papal Magisterium, that the woman of Genesis 3:15, at enmity with the serpent and victorious over him, is Mary, not Eve. (12)

On the other hand, one may quite naturally ask why it is not possible to envision Eve as somehow included in the "woman" of Genesis. Superficially, the position of those who argue for an interpretation of Genesis 3:15 in reference to Eve alone, since at that moment she was the only existing woman, would seem plausible. How could "woman" not be taken in reference to her, or if not to her alone, at least as also connoting her? On reflection, however, this exegesis seems rather naive, for its strength rests solely on exclusive attention to a single word, rather than on the text and context of that word. It involves a methodology that in practice may be described as arbitrary vivisection of a biblical passage, without reference to real differences of content or to its general meaning. (13)

For this a reflection as simple as it is basic suffices: if Genesis 3:15 contains a prophecy projected into the future, it follows that the real content of this text and its overall meaning are likewise projected into the future. Therefore, it follows that the text's content and overall meaning cannot be determined from that present moment in which it is first spoken. Rolla writes that "the Protoevangelium before all else has a prophetic character setting it apart from the rest of the narrative. Moreover, its orientation is messianic and universal, because it is projected toward the future." (14) The Protoevangelium, then, is a prophetic text. Indeed, it is the "queen of prophecies," (15) announcing the promise, messianic and universal, of future victory linked to a "woman" and her "seed," who will crush the serpents head.

Moreover, the woman of the promise, victorious over the serpent and bearer of the Savior, finds no echo in poor, sinful Eve, who will live and die in the obscurity of her days. In fact, immediately after that divine oracle of Genesis 3:15, Eve heard God speak to her those bitter words: "I will multiply your sorrows and your conceptions; in sorrow you shall bear children. You will be drawn to your husband, but he shall have dominion over you" (Gen 3:16). (16)

The two verses of Genesis 3:15 and 16, so sharply contrasting one another, make it psychologically impossible for them to refer to one and the same person. Immediately after having spoken so solemnly of how the "woman" with her "seed" is to triumph over the serpent, God speaks of how Eve must endure suffering and humiliation for the rest of her life. On what grounds is it possible to understand in each the same "woman"? Nor, similarly, can one, with any kind of consistency, suppose in the same person, Eve, a plan of life to unfold simultaneously under the sign of victory (Gen 3:15) and the sign of subjection to suffering and man (Gen 3:16).

Rather, the point of departure for the logical development of this powerful and fruitful antithesis between Eve and Mary, noted by the earliest Fathers, such as St. Justin and St. Irenaeus, and commented upon down the centuries since, is the reality of that contrast between Eve and the "woman" of Genesis 3:15. It is a contrast that makes it impossible for both verses to refer to the same "woman." The antithesis between the "woman" and Eve is clearly evident both in God's manner of speaking of the "woman" (Gen 3:15) and to the woman Eve (Gen 3:16), as well as in the diametrical opposition between Eve and the "woman," considering the fundamental role each exercised historically. The formula of St. Jerome has become classical: "Per Evammors, vita per Mariam" (through Eve death, life through Mary). (17)

Essentially, a salvific prophecy so solemn as that of Genesis 3:15 cannot but refer to an exceptional woman of the future, the bearer and Mother of the Messiah-Savior, with whom she is intimately united in enmity to the serpent, who will be crushed by her "immaculate foot."

Now, if God had also intended Eve, or only Eve, to be victorious over the serpent as our avenger,

one could hardly understand why in the verses immediately following (Gen. 3:16-21) God addresses Eve only in terms of reproach and chastisement; nor why throughout the history of redemption "the victory of Eve" is never even alluded to. Rather, every time mention is made of Eve, she is indicated as the cause of our ruin, never as the beginning of our restoration (Sir 25:24; 2 Cor 11:3; 1 Tim 2:14). (18)

Hence, only by way of arbitrary and contradictory interpretation can one find Eve as well as Mary in the "woman" of Genesis 3:15. There is simply nothing in her entire life in any way related to the great salvific mission of the two protagonists described by the Protoevangelium: the Messiah and His Mother.

In fact, in the New Testament, we see how the divine oracle concerning the "woman" who is to battle victoriously against the serpent of hell clearly finds its fulfillment in the Virgin Mary, that exceptional woman, the Mother of the Messiah, the invincible enemy of Satan, victorious over him in her Immaculate Conception (19) and glorious Assumption. (20)