Note 24 — Chapter X · THE TRANSFIGURATION OF JESUS, AND HIS LAST JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM.

In order next to understand how such a narrative could arise in a legendary manner, the first feature to be considered, on the examination of which that of all the rest will most easily follow, is the sun-like splendour of the countenance of Jesus, and the bright lustre of his clothes. To the oriental, and more particularly to the Hebrew imagination, the beautiful, the majestic, is the luminous; the poet of the Song of Songs compares his beloved to the hues of morning, to the moon, to the sun (vi. 9); the holy man supported by the blessing of God, is compared to the sun going forth in his might (Judg. v. 31); and above all the future lot of the righteous is likened to the splendour of the sun and the stars (Dan. xii. 3; Matt. xiii. 43).24 Hence, not only does God appear clothed in light, and angels with resplendent countenances and shining garments (Ps. l. 2, 3; Dan. vii. 9 f., x. 5, 6; Luke xxiv. 4; Rev. i. 13 ff.), but also the pious of Hebrew antiquity, as Adam before the fall, and among subsequent instances, more particularly Moses and Joshua, are represented as being distinguished by such a splendour;25 and the later Jewish tradition ascribes celestial splendour even to eminent rabbins in exalted moments.26 But the most celebrated example of this kind is the luminous countenance of Moses, which is mentioned, Exod. xxxiv. 29 ff., and as in other points, so in this, a conclusion was drawn from him in relation to the Messiah, a minori ad majus. Such a mode of arguing is indicated by the Apostle Paul, 2 Cor. iii. 7 ff., though he opposes to Moses, the minister of the letter, διακόνος τοῦ γράμματος, not Jesus, but, in accordance with the occasion of his epistle, the apostles and Christian teachers, ministers of the spirit, διακόνος τοῦ πνεύματος, and the glory, δόξα, of the latter, which surpassed the glory of Moses, is an object of hope, ἐλπίς, to be attained only in the future life. But especially in the Messiah himself, it was expected that there would be a splendour which would correspond to that of Moses, nay, outshine it; and a Jewish writing which takes no notice of our history of the transfiguration, argues quite in the spirit of the Jews of the first Christian period, when it urges that Jesus cannot have been the Messiah, because his countenance had not the splendour of the countenance of Moses, to say nothing of a higher splendour.27 Such objections, doubtless heard by the early Christians from the Jews, and partly suggested by their own minds, could not but generate in the early church a tendency to introduce into the life of Jesus an imitation of that trait in the life of Moses, nay, in one respect to surpass it, and instead of a shining countenance that might be covered with a veil, to ascribe to him a radiance, though but transitory, which was diffused even over his garments.