Sunday, October 8, 2023

Augustin Marlorat (1506-1562) on the “Woman” in Revelation 12

  

Marlorat goes about obtaining the desired effect in very deliberate fashion. It is worth remembering here that Meyer interpreted the verse as follows:

 

WOMAN: The church of the faithful.

 

SUN: Having put on Christ or the Gospel as a robe. The apostolic church is compared to a woman who is weak by nature but strong and fecund due to Christ, giving birth to many faithful.

 

MOON: Administering temporal goods in conformity with divine commands, and not being subservient to them; or the access of even the lowliest members of the church to some divine light, albeit not in its strongest form; or the Law as compared to the Sun of the Gospel.

 

TWELVE STARS: The twelve patriarchs or the twelve apostles, more likely the latter. Moreover, twelve being a number denoting perfection and universality, it can also denote all those who teach Christ in pure faith. (Meyer, In Apc, 45r., 48r)

 

Marlorat cites in extension Meyer’s interpretation of the apostolic church as the small weak woman made strong by Christ. He adds to it one line from du Pinet on the church as the bride of Christ. He then quotes Meyer’s interpretation of the sun which represents the light of the Gospel and follows it with his own injunction to his readers, composed of two biblical quotations:

 

Be such that no one can complain about you, sincere sons of God, blameless in the midst of a crooked and depraved generation in which you shine like stars in the world and proffer the world of life, Phil. 2.15. And also: all you who are baptized, have put on Christ as a garment, Gal. 3.27. Indeed the church which has put on Christ as garment in her conversation and doctrine is lit up by the Spirit much more brightly than air by the sin. (Marlorat, Noui Testamenti Expositio, 1570, 189 col. B) (Irena Backus, Reformation Readings of the Apocalypse: Geneva, Zurich, and Wittenberg [Oxford Studies in Historical Theology; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000], 63)