Ritröð Guðfræðistofnunar - 01.01.2013, Side 30

Os ad os loquar ad illum
in specie, et non per aenigmata,
et claritatem Domini vidit.
[From mouth to mouth I will speak to him,
in [my] essence and not in riddles.
and he saw the glory of the Lord.]
Augustine concluded from this text that Moses in fact had been given a
vision of God’s essence in this life.17 He describes Moses’ unique vision of
God which singled him out from all the other prophets in the following
terms:
De Genesi ad litteram XII,26.54:
videtur claritas Domini ... per speciem, non per aenigmata,
quantum eam capere mens humana potest,
secundum assumentis Dei gratiam,
ut os ad os loquatur ei quem dignum tali Deo collquio fecerit;
non os corporis, sed mentis.
[There the glory of the Lord is to be seen ... not in code but clearly,
to the extent that the human mind can grasp it,
depending on God’s grace as he takes it up,
so that God may speak mouth to mouth with any whom he has made
worthy of such conversation —
the mouth of the mind, not the body.]18
Augustine explains the tension arising between this text and God’s
negative response in Ex 33,20 by proposing the thesis that this extraordinary
vision of God’s essence did not occur in this life, but rather in a temporary
rapture (“raptus”), which took him out of this life.
ep. 147,31:
Deinde potest mouere, quo modo iam ipsa dei substantia uideri potuerit
a quibusdam in hac uita positis,
17 Augusdne, De Genesi ad litteram XII,27,55.
18 Translation by Edmund Hill O.P., On Genesis: A Refutation ofthe Manichees. Unfinished Literal
Commentary on Genesis. The Literal Meaning of Genesis. Translation and notes (The Works of
Saint Augustine. A Translation for the 21st Century 1/13), Hyde Park, New York, 2002, 495.
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