* Cf . the omission of the Temptation narrative.
t Cf. Moffatt, Historical New Testament, pp. 596-598 ; per contra, Swete, Epistles of St. Peter,
t There appears to have been another, identif j'' ng the site with the Mt. of Olives.
TRANSFIGURATION
TRANSFIGURATION
743
17", Mk 9^). There is, perhaps, a certain fitness in the Transfiguration scene having occurred in the vicinity of its intimate antecedents, and in the intense atmosphere charged with their novel and perplexing intimations. It is perhaps, too, not a mere fancy that Hermon's glittering cone of snow suggested Mk.'s exi^ression, Xeu/cd \iav ws x"^''> if the l<ast words are to be admitted into the text.*
(3) There is a little more definiteness about the occasion. Each of the three narrators connects it by time with what goes before: 'six days,' 'eight days'; the latter (Lk.) evidently, accord- ing to the common Jewish reckoning, inclusive. Tiie note of time is not without a purpose. The link is intentional between tlie new wonder and tlie surprising revelations recounted. Those were tiuee in number : (a) tlie great confession by Peter of Christ's Messianic dignity (Mt IG'^"-", Mk S^^"^", Lk 9'""-') ; (6) our Lord's solemn announcement of His near suffering (Mt le^i"-", Mk S^i-^?, Lk 9'^2-26) . ;ind (c) the definite prediction of His coming in His Kingdom (Mt !&-''■ -«, Mk S^ 9\ Lk g^"- -^). Compare with these the statements concerning His mind in {a) Jn ir-^', (6) 11-^'-" 12', and (c) 12'2--i«.
(4) As for the time of the day when the occurrence took place, the favoured view is that it was by night. For («) night was generally the time of His retirement for prayer (of. Lk 6'^ with 9-^) ; (b) the disciples were 'heavy with sleep,' and had to ' keep themselves awake ' ; + and (c) they descended the mountain ' the next day,' i.e. after spending the night on its summit.
On the higii land, J then, close by C-Esarea, pos- sibly in the early dawn, withdrawn a stone's cast from the disciples (cf, Lk 22'*i), communing face to face with the Father, Christ yielded His heart, ^^■llolly preoccupied with self-discovery and tragic anticipation, to the experience of the hour, and received the illumination and strengtli for Avhich He was ripe. To tlie disciples it seemed as if a Divine splendour beamed around Him, lighting up the departing darkness, imparting its brightness to His raiment, and sutt"using His features with a wondrous lustre, so that He appeared to be trans- formed. § And with it, from within the veil, came, standing forth as men (Lk 9^"), the greatest of OT men of God, Moses and Elijah, to talk with Him of His decease (^^o5os), and to manifest the absorbing 'interest of tlie spirit-world in His work (cf. 1 P V'^). Then, to the overMhelming awe of the three, there drew near a still Greater Presence, for the cloud which now cast its sliadow over them all was the cloud of God Himself, and the voice heard was His, ])roclaiming the Son's high state and attesting His lieavenly call.
2. Reality of the occurrence. — The narratives throw upon the mind of the reader the most ]io\\erful sense of the reality of the event. Their jirimary impression is of the outward actuality of the scene. The structure defies dissection, || the substance invention. The sim|)le naturalness of the one, the stupendous magnitude of the other, betray no indications of artificiality, while the story as a whole is as inextricably embedded in the surrounding records as the suj)ernatural element in the historical setting of the (iosjjel itself. It pre- sents accordingly a problem to faith and unfaith alike. For the former its substance is too thin,
* For a fuller discussion on the site, consult Keim, Jesus of Nazara, iv. 306, n. ; Kdersheini, LT ; F'arrar, fAfe of Christ. For an interesting note aprainst Hermon's claims, see ExpT xviii. [1907] p. 33.3. The facts are too few for anything beyond conjecture.
t ?;ix>'/i>!v»^v;<ra»T£,- = ' having kept themselves awake through- out.'
{ TO ipos i'vJ/jiXov may mean simply ' the high land.' § u.iTtu.op(faOvi : ^=Ta change of, uep^r, ' the abiding form.' Ii Of its textual construction, criticism has, so far, failed to give any clear account. Cf. the divergent theories of, e.<f., Strauss, Keim, Bacon, Schmiedel.
for the latter its form too full ; both are often in danger of missing its inner force.
With the e.\ternal details of the Transfiguration of Christ primitive opinion concerned itself but slightly. It dwells on the fact they served to portray— ' his majesty,' with the assured conviction of which the whole attitude of the early Church was animated. Patristic and mediaeval expositors connect the event with the prediction preceding, defining it as the inauguration of His Kingdom, not indeed in its actual working, but in that per- sonal condition of their Lord which should be the cause and signal of its conunencement. Uoubt of the objective reality of the glorification of Christ does not occur, and only rarely even any doubt of the literal realism of its accompanying details.*
In the modern period the historical credibility of the Trans- figuration has been ably contested by rationalistic criticism, and unwisely defended by spiritualistic theory. The prepossession of naturalistic thought against the supernatural has pushed it to a variety of shifts. There is the hypothesis of fraud, accord- ing to which Jesus had arranged a secret meeting on the hill, when a peculiar play of light and of clouds, perhaps also a thunderstorm, caused the disciples to suppose they had per- ceived the transfiguration of Jesus, and helped them to mistake the two confederates t in the plot for Moses and Elijah (Paulus, Schleiermacher) — an unfounded conjecture, which has justly lost all repute. There is the hypothesis of rnyth. Here the incident is taken in connexion with the subsequent Elijah con- versation (Mt 1710-13, Mk 91113) as its duplicate, and regarded as originating at a later date, when it was not held sufficient that in the Messianic time of Jesus, Elijah should only have appeared figuratix-ely in the person of the Baptist— when it was thought fitting that he should also have shown himself personally. The legend was constructed skilfully from OT figures and analogies (especially from the parallel illumination of Moses' countenance on Sinai), and from the prophecies as to the appearance of the Messiah and His forerunner (Mai 4^) Elijah. The aim of the story was to glorify Christ over Moses, and to exhibit His mes- sage as the fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets (Strauss). With inconsiderable modifications, the foregoing view is main- tained by Keim and others. The mythical hypothesis has the merit of directing attention to the probable sources from which the descripti\e details were drawn, and to the natural character of their application in the picture of the event. There is the hypothesis of allerjm-y, which finds in the incident a symboliza- tion of the disciples' intoxicated perception of the destiny of Jesus and His relation to the OT. The high mountain symbolizes the height of knowledge which the disciples then attained ; the metamorphosis of the form of Jesus and the splendour of His clothes are an image of their intuition of the Messianic idea ; the cloud which overshadowed the appearances signifies the dimness and indefiniteness in which the new knowledge faded away, from the inabihty of the disciples to retain it ; the proposal of Peter to build tabernacles is the attempt of this Apostle to fix at once in dogmatic form the sublime intuition (Weisse) — an absurd suggestion of ill-fitting symbols. There is the hypothesis of dream-vision. During or after prajer offered by Jesus or by themselves, in which mention was made of Moses "and Elias, and their advent as Messianic forerunners desired, the three disciples slept, and dreamed that Moses and Elijah were present, and that Jesus conversed with them — an illusion which continued during the first confused moments after waking (Neander and others) — a most superficial perception of the situation.