MaryjaMary in the Typology of the Old Testament. A Reflection on Prefigurations and Prophecies.

The Church in its eloquent liturgy and the Fathers of the Church see Mary transformed in numerous persons and things of the Old Order, which we call types or pre-images.

Such types or figures were: paradise, Eve, Abraham’s tent, Jacob’s ladder, Mary the sister of Moses, the burning bush, Aaron’s rod, the stone tablets on which God engraved the Ten Commandments, the ark of the covenant, the golden vessel, the holy tabernacle, Gideon’s fleece, the city of God , Rahab, Solomon’s temple, the seven-branched lampstand, the table of showbread, the bride of the Song of Songs, the fiery furnace in which the three young men were miraculously preserved, the mountain of Daniel, the closed gate in Ezekiel, Judith, Esther, and others.

What is the evidentiary force of types? Type is real prophecy as opposed to verbal prophecy; the proof, therefore, based on it, is that God, who foresees the future, indicates it by certain things, events or persons, which are called types. If it can be proven that the anti-type corresponds to the type, and if it can be certain that God had the anti-type in mind in the type, that, for example, through the Easter lamb he wanted to draw attention to the future Savior, then such a pre-image also proves the truth of the object prefigured, as…