Catherine Brown Tkacz, Mystica signa crucis: The Widow of Zarephath As a Type of Christ

The distinctive exegetical tradition of the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17) as a type of Christ can now be elucidated from a dozen patristic and medieval texts and thirty-some artworks, several with inscriptions quoting her words and identifying her wood as mystica signa crucis. Before the first century of the Christian Era, apparently only men such as Moses had been interpreted as types of the Messiah. Innovatively, Christians expanded biblical exegesis by recognizing women in this role, a move that has important implications for Christian anthropology (Tkacz esp. 2004). Susanna and bat-Jephthah were the first women documented as such types, from the Gospels themselves onwards (Tkacz 1999, 2008, 2010; Brock in press). At least six other biblical women were interpreted as types of Christ, including Ruth, Judith and Esther (Tkacz 2008 + in press). Essential to the Sareptene widow’s role as a christological type are her words to Elijah (verse 12). During a drought she tells the prophet that, in order to make a fire to cook the last of her food for herself and her son, “I am gathering two pieces of wood” (mkosheshet shnayim 'etsim, colligo duo ligna). Christians found the word “wood” to be a potent reference to the Cross, as in the account of Isaac carrying the wood (ligna) on which he is to be sacrificed (Genesis 22:6, 7, 9). The importance of the widow and her wood as types of Christ and his Cross caused her biblical account to be included in the Latin Lectionary during Lent. In several Western artworks she and Isaac appear side by side as a sexually balanced pair of types of Christ. (Illustrated presentation)

Spokane, Washington, USA 

Education

Ph.D. in medieval studies, University of Notre Dame, 1983.

M.M.S. (Master of Medieval Studies), University of Notre Dame, 1981.

M.A. in English, University of Iowa, 1976.

B.A. in English, University of Iowa, 1974.

Selected Scholarly Publications

            Scholarly Books

The Key to the Brescia Casket:  Typology and the Early Christian Imagination.  Studies in Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity, vol. 15.  University of Notre Dame Press, 2001.

            European edition published in Collection des Études Augustiniennes, Série Antiquité,        tome 165.  Institut Augustiniennes, 2001.

Nova Doctrina Vetusque:  Essays on Early Christianity in Honor of Fredric W. Schlatter, S.J.  Ed.   Douglas Kries and Catherine Brown Tkacz.  Peter Lang, 1999.

            Selected Scholarly Articles

 “Esther as a Type of Christ and the Jewish Celebration of Purim,” Studia Patristica 49 (2007),     forcoming.

“Esther, Jesus, and Psalm 22,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 70 (2008): 695-714.

“Aneboesen phone megale:  Susanna and the Synoptic Passion Narratives,” Gregorianum 87       (2006): 449-86.

“Singing Women’s Words as Sacramental Mimesis,” Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie      Médiévales 70 (2003): 275-328.

“Susanna as a Type of Christ,” Studies in Iconography 21 (1999): 101-53.

“Labor tam utilis:  The Creation of the Vulgate,” Vigiliae Christianae 50 (1996): 42-72.

“Ovid, Jerome, and the Vulgate,” Studia Patristica 33 (1996): 378-82.

“The Seven Maccabees, the Three Hebrews and the Newly discovered Sermon of St. Augustine   (Mayence 50),” Revue des Études Augustiniennes 41 (1995): 59-78.

“Christian Formulas in Old English Literature:  Naes hyre wlite gewemmed and Its Implications,”            Traditio 48 (1993): 31-61.