Bible -- Commentaries; Bible -- Feminist criticism; Women in the Bible
Here is a little well intended respect for woman as representing the
Church. In this vision she appears clothed with the sun, and the moon
under her feet, which denotes her superiority, says the commentator, to
her reflected feebler light of the Mosaic dispensation. The crown of
twelve stars on her head represents her honorable maintenance of the
doctrines of the Church. just as the woman was watched by the dragon,
and her children devoured, so was the Church watched and persecuted by
the emissaries of the Papal hierachy {sic}. The seven heads of the
dragon represent the seven hills on which Rome is built; the ten horns,
ten kingdoms into which the Western empire was divided. The tail of the
dragon drawing a third part of the stars represent the power of the
Romans, who had conquered one-third part of the earth.
Revelation xvii.
3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness; and I saw a
woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast, full of names of blasphemy,
having saves heads and ten horns.
4 And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked
with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in bar
hand.
5 And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon the Great.
18 And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth
over the kings of the earth.
The woman draped in scarlet, seated on a beast, was the emblem of the
Church of Rome. The beast represents the temporal power by which it has
been supported. These colors have always distinguished the popes and
the cardinals, as well as the Roman emperors and senators. The horses
and the mules were covered with scarlet cloth to answer the
description, and the woman was decked in the brightest colors, in gold
and jewels. No one can describe the pomp, splendor and magnificence of
the Church of Rome. The cup in the woman's hand contained potions to
intoxicate her victims. It was the custom at that time for public women
to have their names on their foreheads, and as they represented the
abominations of social life, they were often named after cities. The
writers of the Bible are prone to make woman the standard for all kinds
of abominations; and even motherhood, which should be held most sacred,
is used to illustrate the most revolting crimes. What picture can be
more horrible than the mother, in her hour of mortal agony, watched by
the dragon with his seven heads and ten horns!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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