Martin Luther, “The Defeat of Satan” from the Book of Revelation, Das Newe Testament Mar Luthers (Wittemberg: Hans Lufft, 1530). KB, 78 D47.
Web (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Munich).
“Die Fünfundzwanzigste Figur”
Martin Luther’s revolutionary translation of the Bible aimed to make the text accessible to the common people, who could not read Latin. This translation coincided with a period when the Ottoman Empire, boasting Europe’s largest army, both impressed and threatened Europeans while Christian Europe was also divided by the Reformation. When the Ottomans failed to capture Vienna in 1530, Christian Europe celebrated a united victory over a common enemy. Luther’s version of the Bible features the revelations of St. John and the prophecy about Gog and Magog—the apocalypse. A woodcut by Lucas Cranach the Elder depicts this triumph, partially colored in red, blue, green, and yellow.
One side of the illustration shows a Gog and Magog narrative, with a dragon slithering from the sky. The mounted horseman (wearing a turban with a crown) below the beast can be interpreted as Suleyman, the feared conqueror of the Ottoman empire. The top of the image shows beams of light breaking through the sky, fire, symbolizing God’s punishment of Satan and the misled nations, fulfilling the biblical prophecy. At the top right we see the inscription GOG MAGOG and parts of the Ottoman army fleeing WIEN (=Vienna).
From the Book of Revelation (Chap. 20:7-10) of the English Standard Version of the Bible:
“And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, +Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”
+ (Gog) Those are the Turks, who descend from the Tatars, and who are called Red Jews.
Svenja Beierlipp