He or she shall crush the serpent's head?

[Techno2000]

The Mystical City of God: Life of the Virgin Mother of God, manifested to Sister Mary of Jesus of Agreda:

Excerpt :

The dragon in agonizing efforts to escape,
said Woman, give me leave to hurl myself into hell,
for I cannot bear thy presence, nor will I ever venture to
come before Thee as long as Thou livest upon this world.
Thou hast conquered, O Woman, Thou hast conquered,
and I acknowledge thy power in Him who has made
Thee his Mother. Omnipotent God, chastise us Thyself,
since we cannot resist Thee

but do not send thy punishments
through a Woman of a nature so inferior to ours.
Her charity consumes us, her humility crushes us, and
She is in all things a living manifestation of thy mercy
for men. This is a torment surpassing many others.
Assist me, ye demons! But alas, what can our united
efforts avail against this Woman, since all our power
cannot ever deliver us from her presence until She her
self casts us forth? O foolish children of Adam, who
follow me, forsaking life for the sake of death, truth or
falsehood? What absurdity and insanity
is yours, (so
in despair I must confess), since you have in your midst
and belonging to your own nature the incarnate Word
and this Woman ? Greater is your ingratitude than mine
and this Woman forces me to confess the truths, which
I abhor with all my heart. Cursed be my resolve to
persecute this Daughter of Adam, who so torments and
crushes me!
themostholyrosary.com/mystical-city.htm

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[FormerXCatholic]

I can’t access the link. Who is the translator of the quote you provide?

PAX
:heaven:

Its from a translation by Sir Roger L’estrange. I know for sure it says “she” in the Ebenezer Thompson translation, because I recently purchased it

I also purchased the book Dave Noonan suggested. The translator says that St Jerome says “It shall watch your head and you shall watch its heel”. This may be what Jerome read from the Hebrew texts he had, yet 300 years before Philo Judaeas said this:

And the expression, "He shall watch thy head, and thou shalt watch his heel", is, as to its language, a barbarism, but, as to the meaning which is conveyed by it, a correct expression. Why so It ought to be expressed with respect to the woman but the woman is not he, but she. What, then, are we to say? From his discourse about the woman he has digressed to her seed and her beginning. Now the beginning of the outward sense is the mind. But the mind is masculine, in respect of which one may say, he, his, and so on.

Josephus and Philo are two great sources, both living around the time of Christ and before (we can assume) any errors in the Masoretic texts to manifest. Josephus admittedly uses the Septaugint as his reference.

I think its safe to assume that the confusion over this began with the masculinity vs femininity complex of nouns in language. Where “seed” is seen as a feminine noun such *la semilla * in spanish.

It would be really silly of God to call the seed “it”. Is that what God thinks of his children!? As “its”? No way. He was talking about the women and her party (the seeds).

If God used the word “he”, that would be even more silly. The only “he” in the conversation is Adam. Theres no way that God, when speaking to serpent, immediately reveals Christ (“he shall crush”) to him. Why would God reveal such a detail this early in time? Especially to the serpent! This is why it makes perfect sense that the REAL REAL rendering of this should be:

**"She shall watch your head and you shall **(lie-and-wait-for | watch) her heel."

“Lying and waiting” is what the serpent will be doing, which is essentially the same as “watching” because the serpent no longer has legs and is required to watch by lying in the dust. This proves that Jerome chose “lie and wait for” to replace the word “watch” in his translation. It was NOT a later interpolation like you assume. It was Jerome describing the snakes watchfulness.

 

[Good_Fella]

Its from a translation by Sir Roger L’estrange. I know for sure it says “she” in the Ebenezer Thompson translation, because I recently purchased it

Thank you very much for your reply. I appreciate the time you have taken. JT quoted a translation found in Cornelius A Lapide’s Commentary on Sacred Scripture. I don’t have the 8 volume series and am wondering which translation the author used. Unfortunately, the dozen of websites I went to have only Whiston’s translation of The Antiquities.

I also purchased the book Dave Noonan suggested. The translator says that St Jerome says “It shall watch your head and you shall watch its heel”. This may be what Jerome read from the Hebrew texts he had…It would be really silly of God to call the seed “it”. Is that what God thinks of his children!? As “its”? No way. He was talking about the women and her party (the seeds).

I read a tract by Jewish scholar Dr. Yuri Josef who convincingly argues that the pronoun “it” as contained in the KJV is a mistranslation. He also regards the plural pronoun “they” as a poor translation. His choice is the masculine pronoun “he” but taken in a plural context which includes both genders, according to a Jewish interpretation of the text. Still, the singular pronoun “she” (hi) is possible based on another interpretation, that being the woman is Israel, Mother Zion. In Catholic theology “she” would refer to Mary, Daughter Zion and Mother of the Church in a step above classical Jewish theology which had existed in Josephus’ time. Both “he” and “she” were used by the ECFs by the time Jerome produced the Vulgate. Justin Martyr, I believe, must have read “she” and accepted this as the more fitting translation, for he writes in his Apologia, 100 (155 A.D.): "We understand that He [Christ] became man by means of the Virgin, so that the disobedience caused by the serpent might be destroyed just as it began. Eve, a virgin, having conceived the word of the serpent, gave birth to disobedience and death. Mary on the other hand, conceiving faith and joy, when the Angel Gabriel announced to her that the Spirit of the Lord would come upon her and the power of the Most High would overshadow her so that the Holy One born of her would be called the Son of God, answered: ‘Be it done unto me according to thy word.’ He is then bbecame like to the serpentorn of her, He of whom the Scriptures so often speak. By her, God destroyed the empire of the serpent and of all the angels and men who become like the serpent , and frees from death those who repent of their faults and believe in Him." Both “he” and “she” are acceptable depending on our theological perspectives. Mary crushed the head of the serpent by her obedient act of faith, as opposed to E’ve’s disobedience, which led to Adam’s fall and the coming of sin and death into the world. As a result of Mary’s obedience, Christ entered the world and crushed the serpent’s head in his humanity by freeing us from the slavery of sin and death, meriting for us in his Divine person in his assumed humanity and obedience to the Father the grace of forgiveness and justification and the graces we need for our regeneration and entrance into eternal life. The value of Mary’s obedience in faith depended on the grace her divine Son has merited for us all by his redemptive act on our behalf.

If God used the word “he”, that would be even more silly. The only “he” in the conversation is Adam. Theres no way that God, when speaking to serpent, immediately reveals Christ (“he shall crush”) to him. Why would God reveal such a detail this early in time? Especially to the serpent! This is why it makes perfect sense that the REAL REAL rendering of this should be:

**"She shall watch your head and you shall **(lie-and-wait-for | watch) her heel."

“Lying and waiting” is what the serpent will be doing, which is essentially the same as “watching” because the serpent no longer has legs and is required to watch by lying in the dust. This proves that Jerome chose “lie and wait for” to replace the word “watch” in his translation. It was NOT a later interpolation like you assume. It was Jerome describing the snakes watchfulness.

The dragon stood in front of the woman [lay in wait for?] who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.” And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.
Revelation 12, 4-6

PAX
:heaven::