ELISABETH. — Name of two biblical women. The etymology from *Elióphé* is “God of the oath,” “My oath is God.”
1. E., wife of Aaron (v.), daughter of Aminadab, of the tribe of Judah, mother of Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, Ithamar, sister of Naasson. The Septuagint in Ex. 6:23 and Numbers 3:3 call her *Elióphé*.
2. E. (St.), wife of Zechariah, mother of John the Baptist (*Elióphé*). She was of priestly stock (one of the daughters of Aaron, Luke 1:5) and related to the Blessed Virgin Mary, apparently on her mother’s side. Nicephorus Callistus (Hist. Eccl. II, 3: PG 145, 760), relying on apocryphal legends, claims that the Virgin’s mother, Anne, and E.’s mother, Sobe, were sisters in the strict sense. The *Metalogia Graeca* (8 Sept.) also shares this view.
St. Luke reports that E. and her husband were “righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless” (1:6). E. was barren; both were advanced in years and without hope of offspring. Yet the angel Gabriel, appearing to Zechariah, had foretold: “Your wife Elizabeth shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name John” (1:13).
After conceiving, E. hid herself for five months (it seems, to be more united to God); in the sixth month she received the visit of the Virgin Mary, who had been told by the angel of E.’s pregnancy. At their meeting E. was filled with the Holy Spirit, perceived the mysterious leaping of the unborn child, hailed Mary as “blessed among women” and “mother of my Lord” (1:42). The Magnificat (v.), which a few secondary manuscripts ascribe to E. She remained with E. for three months until the birth of her son, whom E. wished to name John. The mythical school of the rationalist Strauss claimed that the story of E. was a myth patterned on the tale of Aaron’s wife Elizabeth and Mary, his sister (Ex. 6:23; 15:20); a tendentious and arbitrary assertion.
The Latin Church celebrates the feast of E. with Zechariah on 19 November. V. VISITATION.