Wednesday, October 4, 2023

François Lambert (c. 1486-1530) on the “Woman” in Revelation 12

  

Lambert, 204v.2-5v.:

 

It is obvious from what has been said that this woman is the church, and it has also been made plain how this birth should be understood. As she struggles to give birth to ser son (Christ), as she tries with all her might and neglects nothing, the dragon stands in front of her trying to take Christ, that is, his Word, away from the faithful by making it ineffectual. For to devour the son means to remove the true faith in his name. And indeed, Saan literally did all he could so that Christ born of Mary would be killed by Herod. When he noticed that that plan did not work, he did not rest until Jesus was killed by the Jews. After Christ rose from the dead, he [Satan] stopped at nothing to suppress the faith in his Resurrection, and to render Christ useless to us. When the holy apostles and other fathers taught this faith with total sincerity, thus giving birth to Christ in others, he and his own tried to take it away from the elect and are still trying to this day by every kind of subterfuge. Every time the church gave birth, the dragon tried to eat the offspring . . . what was it she gave birth so? A male son. Why add male? Is it not every son a male? Male is the symbol of courage and strength . . . So when he adds male it is as if he were saying: This son will not be weak like the others. . . . His strength is shown by the following sentence: who will govern, etc. Christ’s iron rod is his unconquered Word. With this rod he was going to govern, together with his ministries, all his nations, as he had been told by the Father in Psalm 2: you shall break them with a rod of iron. (Irena Backus, Reformation Readings of the Apocalypse: Geneva, Zurich, and Wittenberg [Oxford Studies in Historical Theology; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000], 53)

 

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