His Face Was Horned: The Glory Moses Borrowed and the Glory That Is Christ's Own
Old Testament: Exodus 34:29, 35
And when Moses came down from the mount Sinai, he held the two tables of the testimony, and he knew not that his face was horned from the conversation of the Lord. ... And they saw that the face of Moses when he came out was horned, but he covered his face again, if at any time he spoke to them.
Old Testament, also: Exodus 24:16
And the glory of the Lord dwelt upon Sinai, covering it with a cloud six days: and the seventh day he called him out of the midst of the cloud.
New Testament: Matthew 17:1-3, 5; 2 Corinthians 3:7, 18
And after six days Jesus taketh unto him Peter and James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart: And he was transfigured before them. And his face did shine as the sun: and his garments became white as snow. And behold there appeared to them Moses and Elias talking with him. ... And as he was yet speaking, behold a bright cloud overshadowed them. And lo, a voice out of the cloud, saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear ye him. ... Now if the ministration of death, engraven with letters upon stones, was glorious; so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses, for the glory of his countenance, which is made void: ... But we all beholding the glory of the Lord with open face, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.
The connection
Moses came down from Sinai with the two tables, "and he knew not that his face was horned from the conversation of the Lord" (Exodus 34:29). The people were afraid to come near, and Moses covered his face whenever he spoke to them (34:30, 35). The glory was not his. Moses caught it from Another, as a face catches the light of a fire, and had to go back in for it again and again. On another mountain the glory is at home. "After six days", as the cloud covered Sinai six days before God called Moses into it (Exodus 24:16), Christ takes three disciples up a high mountain, "and he was transfigured before them. And his face did shine as the sun" (Matthew 17:1-2). Moses is there, talking with Him, and St Luke says what they spoke of: "his decease that he should accomplish in Jerusalem" (Luke 9:31), where the Greek word is exodos. The voice from the cloud ends with the words of Moses' own prophecy of the prophet like him, "him thou shalt hear" (Deuteronomy 18:15): "hear ye him" (Matthew 17:5). St Paul draws the contrast himself: Israel "could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses, for the glory of his countenance, which is made void", but "we all beholding the glory of the Lord with open face, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory" (2 Corinthians 3:7, 18). Archelaus sets the two faces side by side: "There, the countenance of Moses shone with the glory of the Lord ... and here, the Lord Jesus Christ shone like the sun." St John Damascene names the difference: Moses "was arrayed with a glory, which came from without; our Lord, with that which proceeded from the inherent brightness of Divine glory."
Moral sense
Moses did not know that his face was shining. The glory that comes from speaking with God is seen by others before it is felt by oneself, and the one who carries it is the last to know. It is also borrowed: Moses had to go back in to the Lord for it, and so do we, in prayer and in the sacraments. St Paul promises more than Moses had, for God "hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Christ Jesus" (2 Corinthians 4:6). The Catechism teaches that the glory was shown so that the disciples, seeing Him crucified, would know His Passion was freely chosen (CCC 555); whoever comes down from the mountain still goes on to Jerusalem.
Anagogical sense
The veil and the shining are both for a time. Moses covered a glory that was fading, and the disciples saw a glory that was hidden again when they came down. At the end nothing is covered. Christ "will reform the body of our lowness, made like to the body of his glory" (Philippians 3:21), and "we shall be like to him: because we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2). What shone on Moses from outside, and on Christ from within, will shine on the saints as His light given to them to keep; in the city to come every face is open, and "they shall see his face" (Apocalypse 22:4).
The Fathers
Archelaus, Disputation with Manes 44: "There, the countenance of Moses shone with the glory of the Lord, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look upon his face, on account of the glory of his countenance; and here, the Lord Jesus Christ shone like the sun, and His disciples were not able to look upon His face by reason of the glory of His countenance and the intense splendour of the light." St John Damascene, in the Catena Aurea on Luke 9:28-31: "Moses indeed was arrayed with a glory, which came from without; our Lord, with that which proceeded from the inherent brightness of Divine glory. For since in the hypostatical union there is one and the same glory of the Word and the flesh, He is transfigured not as receiving what He was not, but manifesting to His disciples what He was." St Gregory Nazianzen, Oration on Holy Baptism: "the written law, adumbrating the truth and the sacrament of the great Light, for Moses' face was made glorious by it."
Warrant
Scriptural because St Paul himself sets the glory of Moses' face against the glory into which Christians are transformed (2 Corinthians 3:7-18), and the Gospels frame the Transfiguration in the words of Sinai: after six days, a high mountain, the cloud, Moses present, and the Father's "hear ye him" answering Deuteronomy 18:15. The Gospels never mention Moses' face at the Transfiguration; that comparison is St Paul's in substance and the Fathers' in so many words (Archelaus, Disputation with Manes 44; St John Damascene in the Catena Aurea on Luke 9:28-31). Checked in the Greek: one verb, metamorphoo, stands at Matthew 17:2, metemorphothe, and at 2 Corinthians 3:18, metamorphoumetha, so Christ is transfigured and the Christian transformed in the same word; and the Septuagint of Exodus 34:29 says the face was glorified, dedoxastai, which St Paul takes up at 2 Corinthians 3:7 as the doxa of the prosopon, the glory of the face. The Douay's "horned" follows the Latin cornuta: the Hebrew verb qaran comes from qeren, a horn, and means that the skin of his face sent out rays, as horns stand for rays of light at Habacuc 3:4, "His brightness shall be as the light; horns are in his hands." From the Latin come the horns of Michelangelo's Moses. The six days of Exodus 24:16 set beside Matthew 17:1 are the entry's own reading. The veil of 2 Corinthians 3:13-16 belongs to the entry on Moses' intercession and is not treated here. St John Chrysostom says Christ brought Moses and Elias to the mountain so that the disciples "might see the difference even hereby between the servants and the Lord" (Homilies on Matthew 56).
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 555.
The verses
Exodus 34:29 · Exodus 34:35 · Exodus 24:16 · Matthew 17:1 · Matthew 17:2 · Matthew 17:3 · Matthew 17:5 · 2 Corinthians 3:7 · 2 Corinthians 3:18
