Lux in Tenebris, in Latin, meaning "Light in Darkness". "Lux in Tenebris" was also the national motto for the country that was once 'Nyasaland' [that country is now known as 'Malawi']

The phrase belongs to the Latin translation of the Gospel of John: "et lux in tenebris lucet et tenebrae eam non comprehenderunt", meaning "The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it". (Fifth verse of Chapter I)[1]

It is also the title of a short one-act farce, written in prose, by the German dramatist Bertolt Brecht. It is thought that he wrote it in 1919, under the influence of "that great Munich clown Karl Valentin".[2]

Sources

Notes

  1. ^ Chapter 1, The Gospel According to Saint John, Jerome's Latin Vulgate (405 A.D.) (The HTML Bible)
  2. ^ Willett and Manheim (1994, viii).



S. S. Murray [Chief Clerk, Nyasaland Government] compiled "A Handbook of Nyasaland" see - [1] At the bottom of page 64 of this Handbook there is this paragraph:- 'By Royal Warrant of the 11th of May, 1914, the following Armorial Ensign was assigned to the Protectorate (of Nyasaland) : — Argent on a rock issuant from the base a Leopard statant proper on a Chief wavy Sable the Rising Sun Or, with the Motto " Lux in tenebris." '