Post Tenebras Lux

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Post Tenebras Lux is a Latin phrase meaning After Darkness, Light though often translated as Light After Darkness. It is Post tenebras spero lucem ("After darkness, I hope for light") in the Vulgata version of Job 17:12[1].

Post Tenebras Lux in the Seal of the Canton of Geneva.
Post Tenebras Lux in the Seal of the Canton of Geneva.

The phrase was adopted as the Calvinist motto, and was subsequently adopted as the motto of the entire Protestant Reformation,[2] and also of John Calvin's adopted city of Geneva, Switzerland. As a mark of its role in the Calvinist movement, the motto is engraved on the Reformation Wall, in Geneva, and the Huguenot Monument, in Franschhoek, South Africa.

Post Tenebras Lux was formerly the state motto of Chile, before being replaced by the Spanish Por la razón o la fuerza ('By reason or by strength'). It is the motto of American International College in Springfield, Massachusetts and is one of the two mottos of Robert College, an American school in Istanbul, Turkey.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Job 17:11-13:
    11 dies mei transierunt cogitationes meae dissipatae sunt torquentes cor meum
    12 noctem verterunt in diem et rursum post tenebras spero lucem
    13 si sustinuero infernus domus mea est in tenebris stravi lectulum meum
  2. ^ History of the Reformation. Retrieved on 3 Mar 2007.
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