Revelation 12:16Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

But the earth, as has been said, helped her. It restrained the demonic designs and assaults either by the length of the distances, or by drought and lack of rain, or by the meekness and humility of the saints. By the heartfelt confession, "I am dust and ashes" (Gen 18:27), they destroy all the devil's devices. Nothing so crushes and destroys the powers of the demons as humility, as was revealed by an angel to the divine Anthony.

Divine Scripture allegorically calls temptation a river. In one place Jonah says: "You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the sea, and the floods surrounded me" (Jon 2:4). In another place the Lord says: "The rain came down, the rivers overflowed, and the winds blew; and the house founded on the rock did not fall" (Mt 7:25). The temptation through the Lord's sufferings is called a river. By these the serpent tried to drown the Virgin. Indeed, since the rivers brought Her to the Cross and to the greatest grief, the serpent was able to carry out his intention. And what did Simeon say to Her? "And a sword will pierce through Your own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed" (Lk 2:35).

It is permissible here to refer the name earth to the Church, as in the psalm: "You established the earth upon its firm foundations; it shall not be shaken unto ages of ages" (Ps 103:5). "Upon firm foundations" means upon the saints, by whose prayers and labors of teaching and spreading salvation the enemy's manifest deceits are destroyed. Yet it would be better to understand the earth as human nature in Christ. For He is the truth that sprang from the earth (Ps 84:12), and He always appears before the face of God, according to the Apostle's word: "He appeared for us" (Heb 9:24). For it is said that this earth, having swallowed the death which it took into itself, opened its mouth, as it were, so that, as we know, it might swallow the prince of death by the abundance of its life. Nevertheless the devil was swallowed when Christ, sitting on the mountain and opening His mouth, gave His disciples the great commandment, abolishing the law of commandments by His teaching (Eph 2:15).

"The earth," says St Andrew, "helped her by restraining the assault of the evil ones, either through the length of the journey or through the waterlessness and dryness of the places. Thus it swallowed the river of temptations through the humility of the saints, who say from the heart: 'I am dust and ashes' (Gen 18:27). By this they break all the snares of the vengeful devil."

By this image are understood those terrible persecutions from the pagan emperors that came upon the Church after the fall of Judaism. For three centuries and more, Christian blood flowed like a river throughout all the borders of the Roman Empire. Satan devised thousands of deaths, executions, and unbelievable torments in order to destroy the Christian seed from the face of the earth, and, if possible, the very name of Christians. But all was in vain. Like a torrent or river spreading over the earth and being swallowed by it, all Satan's malicious efforts collapsed and vanished without trace. The persecutions ceased, and by the mouth of Constantine the Great political and civil freedom was proclaimed for Christianity.