Ritröð Guðfræðistofnunar - 01.01.2013, Page 25

In what follows, I will present an example in which Augustine wrestles
with a major theological problem, and thus reveals further characteristics
of his exegesis. The issue is, whether Moses really saw the essence of God
and if so, in what manner.
In qu. 2,151 (commenting on Ex 33,12-13) Augustine expresses his
conviction that the Old Testament accounts of divine visions were not
meant to say that a human being saw God’s essence directly, but only that
God allowed himself to be seen through some created medium. That is then
the case in the visions of Moses recounted in Ex 33:
quibus uerbis satis ostendit Moyses,
quod non ita uidebat deum in illa
tanta familiaritate conspectus, ut
desiderabat uidere, quoniam illae
omnes uisiones dei, quae mortalium
praebebantur aspectibus et ex
quibus fiebat sonus, quo mortalis
adtingeretur auditus, sic exhibeb-
antur adsumpta, sicut deus uolebat,
specie qua uolebat, ut non in eis ipsa
ullo sensu corporis sentiretur diuina
natura, quae inuisibilis ubique tota
est et nullo continetur loco.
With these words, Moses makes
sufficiently clear that he die not
see God in that kind of intimate
vision that he had asked for, since
all of the visions of God accorded
to living persons and accompanied
by a sound heard by such persons
took a form intended by God to
fit the recipients receptive capacity;
thus, in such visions it was not the
divine nature itself that was seen
by a sensory power, for the divine
nature is invisibly present everyw-
here and is not confined to any
place.
Ex 33, however, appears to say just the opposite. This chapter was especially
important for Augustine, who on other several occasions had extensively
discussed the vision of God.15 In Ex 33:12-23, there is a very carefully
constructed dialog between Moses and YHWH, which is shaped into a
theologically differentiated statement, Moses struggles with the future of
Israel in the wake of the grave sin of worshipping the golden calf, which had
been related in the preceding chapter, Ex 32. Now in Ex 33, Moses argues
15 On this issue, from the early fathers up to Augustine, see: Erich Naab, Augustinus. Úber Schau
und Gegenwart des unsichtbaren Gottes. Texte mit Einfuhrung und Obersetzung (Mystik in
Geschichte und Gegenwart. Abt. I: Christliche Mystik. Bd. 14), Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, 1998,
1-62.
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