Peter's confession shown to lead up to the Transfiguration
The
Gospel lesson, dearly-beloved, which has reached the inner hearing of our minds
through our bodily ears, calls us to the understanding of a great mystery, to
which we shall by the help of God's grace the better attain, if we turn our
attention to what is narrated just before.
The
Saviour of mankind, Jesus Christ, in founding that faith, which recalls the
wicked to righteousness and the dead to life, used to instruct His disciples by
admonitory teaching and by miraculous acts to the end that He, the Christ,
might be believed to be at once the Only-begotten of God and the Son of Man.
For the one without the other was of no avail to salvation, and it was equally
dangerous to have believed the Lord Jesus Christ to be either only God without
manhood, or only man without Godhead , since both had equally to be confessed,
because just as true manhood existed in His Godhead, so true Godhead existed in
His Manhood. To strengthen, therefore, their most wholesome knowledge of this
belief, the Lord had asked His disciples, among the various opinions of others,
what they themselves believed, or thought about Him: whereat the Apostle Peter,
by the revelation of the most High Father passing beyond things corporeal and
surmounting things human by the eyes of his mind, saw Him to be Son of the
living God, and acknowledged the glory of the Godhead, because he looked not at
the substance of His flesh and blood alone; and with this lofty faith Christ
was so well pleased that he received the fullness of blessing, and was endued
with the holy firmness of the inviolable Rock on which the Church should be
built and conquer the gates of hell and the laws of death, so that, in loosing
or binding the petitions of any whatsoever, only that should be ratified in
heaven which had been settled by the judgment of Peter.
The
same continued
But this
exalted and highly-praised understanding, dearly-beloved, had also to be
instructed on the mystery of Christ's lower substance, lest the Apostle's
faith, being raised to the glory of confessing the Deity in Christ, should deem
the reception of our weakness unworthy of the impassible God, and incongruous,
and should believe the human nature to be so glorified in Him as to be
incapable of suffering punishment, or being dissolved in death. And, therefore,
when the Lord said that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from
the elders and scribes and chief of the priests, and the third day rise again,
the blessed Peter who, being illumined with light from above, was burning with
the heat of his confession, rejected their mocking insults and the disgrace of
the most cruel death, with, as he thought, a loyal and outspoken contempt, but
was checked by a kindly rebuke from Jesus and animated with the desire to share
His suffering. For the Saviour's exhortation that followed, instilled and
taught this, that they who wished to follow Him should deny themselves, and
count the loss of temporal things as light in the hope of things eternal;
because he alone could save his soul that did not fear to lose it for Christ.
In order, therefore, that the Apostles might entertain this happy, constant
courage with their whole heart, and have no tremblings about the harshness of
taking up the cross, and that they might not be ashamed of the punishment of
Christ, nor think what He endured disgraceful for themselves (for the
bitterness of suffering was to be displayed without despite to His glorious
power), Jesus took Peter and James and his brother John, and ascending a very
high mountain with them apart, showed them the brightness of His glory;
because, although they had recognised the majesty of God in Him, yet the power
of His body, wherein His Deity was contained, they did not know. And,
therefore, rightly and significantly, had He promised that certain of the
disciples standing by should not taste death till they saw the Son of Man
coming in His Kingdom , that is, in the kingly brilliance which, as specially
belonging to the nature of His assumed Manhood, He wished to be conspicuous to
these three men. For the unspeakable and unapproachable vision of the Godhead
Itself which is reserved till eternal life for the pure in heart, they could in
no wise look upon and see while still surrounded with mortal flesh. The Lord
displays His glory, therefore, before chosen witnesses, and invests that bodily
shape which He shared with others with such splendour, that His face was like
the sun's brightness and His garments equalled the whiteness of snow.
The
object and the meaning of the Transfiguration
And in
this Transfiguration the foremost object was to remove the offense of the cross
from the disciple's heart, and to prevent their faith being disturbed by the
humiliation of His voluntary Passion by revealing to them the excellence of His
hidden dignity. But with no less foresight, the foundation was laid of the Holy
Church's hope, that the whole body of Christ might realize the character of the
change which it would have to receive, and that the members might promise
themselves a share in that honour which had already shone forth in their Head.
About which the Lord had Himself said, when He spoke of the majesty of His
coming, Then shall the righteous shine as the sun in their Father's Kingdom
Matthew 13:43, while the blessed Apostle Paul bears witness to the self-same
thing, and says: for I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy
to be compared with the future glory which shall be revealed in us Romans 8:18:
and again, for you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. For when
Christ our life shall appear, then shall you also appear with Him in glory
Colossians 3:3 . But to confirm the Apostles and assist them to all knowledge,
still further instruction was conveyed by that miracle.
The
significance of the appearance of Moses and Elias
For Moses
and Elias, that is the Law and the Prophets, appeared talking with the Lord;
that in the presence of those five men might most truly be fulfilled what was
said: In two or three witnesses stands every word Deuteronomy 19:15 . What more
stable, what more steadfast than this word, in the proclamation of which the
trumpet of the Old and of the New Testament joins, and the documentary evidence
of the ancient witnesses combine with the teaching of the Gospel? For the pages
of both covenants corroborate each other, and He Whom under the veil of
mysteries the types that went before had promised, is displayed clearly and
conspicuously by the splendour of the present glory. Because, as says the
blessed John, the law was given through Moses: but grace and truth came through
Jesus Christ John 1:17, in Whom is fulfilled both the promise of prophetic
figures and the purpose of the legal ordinances: for He both teaches the truth
of prophecy by His presence, and renders the commands possible through grace.
St.
Peter's suggestion contrary to the Divine order
The Apostle
Peter, therefore, being excited by the revelation of these mysteries, despising
things mundane and scorning things earthly, was seized with a sort of frenzied
craving for the things eternal, and being filled with rapture at the whole
vision, desired to make his abode with Jesus in the place where he had been
blessed with the manifestation of His glory. Whence also he says, Lord, it is
good for us to be here: if you will let us make three tabernacles , one for
You, one for Moses, and one for Elias. But to this proposal the Lord made no
answer, signifying that what he wanted was not indeed wicked, but contrary to
the Divine order: since the world could not be saved, except by Christ's death,
and by the Lord's example the faithful were called upon to believe that,
although there ought not to be any doubt about the promises of happiness, yet
we should understand that amidst the trials of this life we must ask for the
power of endurance rather than the glory, because the joyousness of reigning
cannot precede the times of suffering.
The
import of the Father's voice from the cloud
And so
while He was yet speaking, behold a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold
a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased; hear Him. The Father was indeed present in the Son, and in the Lord's
brightness, which He had tempered to the disciples' sight, the Father's Essence
was not separated from the Only-begotten: but, in order to emphasize the
two-fold personality, as the effulgence of the Son's body displayed the Son to
their sight, so the Father's voice from out the cloud announced the Father to
their hearing. And when this voice was heard, the disciples fell upon their
faces, and were sore afraid, trembling at the majesty, not only of the Father,
but also of the Son: for they now had a deeper insight into the undivided Deity
of Both: and in their fear they did not separate the One from the Other,
because they doubted not in their faith. That was a wide and manifold
testimony, therefore, and contained a fuller meaning than struck the ear. For
when the Father said, This is My beloved Son, in Whom, etc., was it not clearly
meant, This is My Son, Whose it is to be eternally from Me and with Me? Because
the Begetter is not anterior to the Begotten, nor the Begotten posterior to the
Begetter. This is My Son, Who is separated from Me, neither by Godhead, nor by
power, nor by eternity. This is My Son, not adopted, but true-born, not created
from another source, but begotten of Me: nor yet made like Me from another
nature, but born equal to Me of My nature. This is My Son, through Whom all
things were made, and without Whom was nothing made because all things
that I do He does in like manner: and whatever I perform, He performs with Me
inseparably and without difference: for the Son is in the Father and the Father
in the Son , and Our Unity is never divided: and though I am One Who begot, and
He the Other Whom I begot, yet is it wrong for you to think anything of Him
which is not possible of Me. This is My Son, Who sought not by grasping, and
seized not in greediness , that equality with Me which He has, but remaining in
the form of My glory, that He might carry out Our common plan for the
restoration of mankind, He lowered the unchangeable Godhead even to the form of
a slave.
Who
it is we have to hear
Hear Him,
therefore, unhesitatingly, in Whom I am throughout well pleased, and by Whose
preaching I am manifested, by Whose humiliation I am glorified; because He is
the Truth and the Life , He is My Power and Wisdom. Hear Him, Whom the
mysteries of the Law have foretold, Whom the mouths of prophets have sung. Hear
Him, Who redeems the world by His blood, Who binds the devil, and carries off
his chattels, Who destroys the bond of sin, and the compact of the
transgression. Hear Him, Who opens the way to heaven, and by the punishment of
the cross prepares for you the steps of ascent to the Kingdom? Why do you
tremble at being redeemed? Why do you fear to be healed of your wounds? Let
that happen which Christ wills and I will. Cast away all fleshly fear, and arm
yourselves with faithful constancy; for it is unworthy that you should fear in
the Saviour's Passion what by His good gift you shall not have to fear even at
your own end.
The
Father's words have a universal application to the whole Church
These
things, dearly-beloved, were said not for their profit only, who heard them
with their own ears, but in these three Apostles the whole Church has learned
all that their eyes saw and their ears heard. Let all men's faith then be
established, according to the preaching of the most holy Gospel, and let no one
be ashamed of Christ's cross, through which the world was redeemed. And let not
any one fear to suffer for righteousness' sake, or doubt of the fulfilment of
the promises, for this reason, that through toil we pass to rest and through
death to life; since all the weakness of our humility was assumed by Him, in
Whom, if we abide in the acknowledgment and love of Him, we conquer as He conquered,
and receive what he promised, because, whether to the performance of His
commands or to the endurance of adversities, the Father's fore-announcing voice
should always be sounding in our ears, saying, This is My beloved Son, in Whom
I am well pleased; hear Him: Who lives and reigns, with the Father and the Holy
Ghost, for ever and ever. Amen.
By Saint Leo the Great
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