In essence, this passage is describing a persecution of the church, not an assumption of Mary. That is why interpreting the woman as Mary has no precedent in the church until around the time people begin to wonder about Mary’s ultimate fate. As Shoemaker observes, “Although this exegesis would subsequently become quite popular and has endured even to this day, there is no evidence of its existence before Epiphanius. On the contrary the early church unanimously identified this apocalyptic woman with the church.”91 Even after the rise of belief in the assumption of Mary, many did not even think
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