RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Tran scendentali sm Transfiguration
to incessant difference in detail that characterizes it in its whole course. Mark gives a simple, straightforward narrative. In describing the effects of the transfiguration on the Savior's person, he takes his illustration from the fuller's art. The disciples, speaking to Jesus, address him in the current Aramaic as " Rabbi." Luke (ix. 28-36) differs considerably. He changes the order of apostolic names, John taking precedence of James. The transfiguration comes upon Jesus while he is praying. The disciples address Jesus as Epistata, " Master " — possibly a deliberate avoidance of the Palestinian " Rabbi." He adds verses 31-32. In the voice from heaven " my chosen " takes the place of " my beloved." The solemn and detailed injunction of Jesus that the disciples should keep silent regarding the event is condensed into the simple statement, " they held their peace." Matthew (xvii. 1-13) abounds in his own sense. The Christology is more conscious and more advanced. The divine majesty of the Savior is brought out in every possible way. He is addressed as " Lord." His face and person shine " as the sun " and " like the light." In addressing him Peter says, " If thou wilt." The disciples fall on their faces in fear. The words from heaven are identical with the words used at the baptism. In brief, Matthew's molding of the event is deeply characteristic, in close keeping with the purpose and method of his Gospel.
In the light of the threefold narrative, the account of the transfiguration has quite as strong right to be considered historical as the happenings at Csesarea Philippi, with which it is connected. Possibly its right is a shade better, for the variations are less substantial. The account may even be compared with the baptism and come off well. Unless, outside the Synoptists, some reason can be found for impugning the historicity of the narrative, it must be accepted as a solid part of the very earliest tradition regarding the Savior. By the test of position also, it shows up well. It is fixed near the end of the Galilean ministry. Contrasted with the Sermon on the Mount or with the materials which Luke groups under the so-called " Peraean ministry," it holds a position that does not vary. It is fixed as solidly as the baptism or the crucifixion. Tested, then, by such standards as an undogmatic criticism is able to provide, the account of the transfiguration is the report of a real event in the life of Jesus. Beyond doubt the facts have been interpreted and molded. The " Life of Christ," as the Gospels give it, is not a scientific history, but a religious history. It came into literature out of the life, the spiritual warfare, the unwritten memory and faith of Christians in the Apostolic Age. Unless God had worked an inconceivably immoral miracle, suspended all mental laws, then, under the conditions of Christianity in the first century, it could not but happen that the facts in the life of the Savior and the Church's interpretation of the facts should blend in the record. Therefore the fact of the transfiguration, like the other main facts in the Savior's life, has been interpreted, and the interpretation has fused itself with the fact reported. Matthew gives the most marked evidence of this process, particularly in the direction of developing the likeness between Jesus the su-
preme authority in spiritual matters and Moses the great lawgiver. But in Mark and Luke also the interpretative element appears.
None the less the threefold report makes the fact the necessary presupposition of the interpretation. The transfiguration was an event of vital moment in the experience of the Savior. In its importance for knowledge of his life and mind, it comes fairly near the level of the baptism. To find its meaning, the larger context, as sketched by Mark, will serve. The Galilean ministry lay behind him. Jerusalem is calling him to his passion and death. The tragedy inherent in every great life whose purpose both transcends its time and place and yet seeks intimacy with its time and place, is at its height in the life of Jesus. He had utterly failed to convert his own people. His deepening experience of his nation's incompetence and unbelief leads him to appropriate Isa. liii. as the word of Holy Scripture that makes his experience clear and intelligible to him. But the tragic strain of the situation can be relieved in only one way. In the intensity of communion with the Father, his will and nature are taken up into the will and being of God. On his mental side, the Savior must be described as the supreme prophetic mystic. So he realizes the divine being and purpose as every ancient mystic realized it, in terms of the " light " within the light. The experience of his soul shines out through his face and transfigures it. Science has nothing to say at this point which can justly interfere with the believer's rights.
The place where the transfiguration took place has been the subject of much learned discussion. A tradition as early as the fourth century fastened on Mt. Tabor. But modern investigation, beginning with Robinson, has made that site impossible. P Schaff (Dictionary of the Bible, Philadelphia, 1880) with other scholars fixed on some high peak in the Anti-Lebanon range. If justification exists for searching for a definite mountain-peak, no other inference seems possible. The context in the Synoptists points in this direction. But it is to be remembered that the Synoptists, aside from vague suggestion, give no real help. Mark and Matthew say " a mountain." Luke writes " the mountain." All that the three make it safe to say is that the transfiguration took place in close connection with the events recorded in Mark viii. 27-33 (Caesarea Philippi). The phrase " high mountain " does not justify thinking of some very high peak. The language is relative and mystical, not scientific and exact. The habit of climbing high mountain- peaks is distinctly modern. There is no reason to suppose that the Savior did what no other ancient ever did. The attempt at identification should be abandoned. The geography of the episode concerns the ways of the Spirit rather than the map made with hands. Henky S. Nash.
Bibliography: D. F. Strauss, Leben Jesu, ii. 252 sqq., Tubingen, 1836, Eng. transl., iii. 1-21, London, 1846, and Life of Jesus for the People, ii. 281-285, ib. 1879; C. Weizsacker, U ntersuchungen iiber die evangelische Geschichte, pp. 480-484, Gotha, 1864; K. T. Keim, Jesus o Nazara, vol. iv., 6 vols., London, 1876-83; F. W. Farrar. Life of Christ, ii. 34-41, 13th ed., London and New York, n.d. ; S. J. Andrews, Life of our Lord, pp. 351-359, New York, 1891; A. Edersheim, Jesus the Messiah, ii. 94-101, ib. 1896; A. Reville, Jesus de Nazareth, vol. ii.. Paris.
Tran smigration Xransubstantiation