'Older than All Creation'

The article explores whether we can meaningfully hold together teaching on the creation ex nihilo and people being created in the image of God without mediating figures. First, attention is directed to the scriptural texts, especially Isaiah and Paul, that deal with the figure of a Barren Woman, older than all creation, who will give birth to many children. It is then shown that this mediating figure was interpreted in the early Patristic writings, such as The Shepherd of Hermas, Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Irenaeus and Tertullian, as Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, and as the Church. This Scriptural and Patristic witness, the article argues, makes exclusion of the mediating realm more complicated, if one does not wish to extend the concept of ex nihilo both to how God keeps creation in existence and to the Incarnation and salvation itself.