Ritröð Guðfræðistofnunar - 01.01.2013, Side 28

standing for the future portion of Israel that would be saved through its belief
in the resurrection. By the same token, he argues, Moses did not, at the time
of the Sinai events, see God or even the back of God, but instead this vision
was put off for a distant future. In this way, Augustine defends his conviction
that human beings can see God only after death, in a future life.
qu. 2,154 (concerning Ex 33,14—23)
quod Moyses sic uidetur accepisse
«antecedam te», tamquam non
ei populoque praesens in itinere
futurus esset.
hanc autem prophetiam potius
fuisse quam locutus est dominus
ad Moysen satis res ipsa indicat,
quandoquidem de petra uel
cauerna eius et de manus eius
superpositione, de uisione post-
eriorum eius nihil postea uisibili
opere subsecutum legitur.
quomodo ergo, cum dixisset ei
Moyses: «ostende mihi gloriam
tuam», rursus tamquam praecess-
urus et non cum eis simul futurus
uidetur dicere: «ego transibo ante
te», nisi quia hoc aliud est?
ille quippe intellegitur loqui et
dicere: «transibo ante te», de quo
dicit euangelium: «cum uenisset
hora, ut transiret Iesus de hoc
mundo ad patrem»: qui transitus
etiam pascha interpretari perhi-
betur.
Mose appears to have understood
the expression “I will go before you”
as indicating that God would not
immediately accompany Moses and
the people on their journey...
That this was in reality a prophecy
that the Lord communicated to Moses
is sufficiently shown by the fact that
although one reads about the rock
and the hollow place in it and about
the shielding hand, one reads nothing
about any act of seeing of God’s back,
that should have followed in a visible
manner...
Why then does it appear that when
Moses said to him “Allow me to
see your glory”, God replied that
he intended to go ahead of them in
the future rather than to go together
with them now: Do not the words “I
will pass over in front of you” mean
something else?
One understands then that he who
speaks here and says: “I wiil pass over
in advance of you” is he of whom the
Gospel says: “When the hour had
come, in which Jesus was to pass over
out of this world to the Father: This
“passing over” is traditionally known
as the “Passover”.
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