Commentary on Genesis, Vol. 1: Luther on the CreationLuther, Martin
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Commentary on Genesis, Vol. 1: Luther on the Creation
Luther, Martin
Bible. Genesis -- Commentaries
As Adam knew by the Holy Spirit the things just mentioned, which he
saw not before, and as he praises God and extols him for his having
created for him a meet life-companion out of his own body; so now, by
the same Spirit, he prophesies of his Eve's future, when he says that
she ought to be called a man-formed or man-like female (_virago_). The
truth is, that it is utterly impossible for any interpreter to convey
through any other language the peculiar strength and beauty of the
original Hebrew expression. ISCH signifies a man,--and Adam says
concerning Eve, "She shall be called ISCHA," as if we should say, She
shall be called _vira_, from _vir_, a man. Because a wife is an heroic
or man-like woman; for she does man-like things, and performs man-like
duties.
This name Adam gives to the woman contains in it a wonderful and sweet
description of marriage, in which, as the lawyers express it, "The
woman shines in the rays of her husband." For whatever the husband
possesses, is possessed and held by the wife also. And not only is all
their wealth possessed by them in common, but their children also,
their food, their bed, and their habitation. Their wishes are also
equal. So that the husband differs from the wife in no other thing
than in sex. In every other respect, the woman is really a man. For
whatsoever the man possesses in their house, the woman possesses also;
and what the man is, that also is the woman; she differs from the man
in sex only. In a word the woman, as Paul remarks in his instructions
to Timothy, is man-formed and man-like by her very origin; for, as the
apostle says to Timothy, Adam was first formed, then Eve from the man,
and not the man from the woman, 1 Tim. 2:13.
Of this communion of all things in marriage, we still possess some
feeble remnants, though miserable indeed they be when compared with
what they were in their original state. For even now the wife, if she
be but an honorable, modest and godly woman, participates in all the
cares, wishes, desires, pursuits, duties and actions of her husband.
And it was for this end indeed that she was created "in the
beginning;" and for this end was called _virago_, that she might
differ in sex only from the father of the family, since she was taken
from man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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