Ritröð Guðfræðistofnunar - 01.01.2013, Qupperneq 31

propter illud, quod dictum est ad Moysen:
Nemo potest faciem meam uidere et uiuere,
nisi quia potest humana mens diuinitus rapi ex hac uita ad angelicam uitam,
antequam per istam communem mortem carne soluatur.
[Next, one can ask, how the very substance of God could be seen by certain
people still situated in this life
because of what is said to Moses:
No one can see my face and live,
unless the human mind can be taken up by God from this life to the life
of the angels
before it is released from the flesh by common death.]19
Augustine calls attention to the parallel case of St. Paul, who according to
Cor 12:1-4 indicated that he had been taken up into the third heaven and
into Paradise, although he did not know whether with his body or without
it. Rapture, evidently, leaves the body behind in a death-like condition.
Thus it remains true that a person in this life, that is to say, in his earthly
body, can in no way see God. In this way, Augustine develops the thesis that
the vision of God in this life is only possible through a death-like rapture
out of the body into the heavenly spheres and through transformation
into an angel-like form of existence. Here a thesis was born that proved
extremely influential not only for the theology but also for the mysticism
of the western church.
In terms of these examples, we see not only the genius of Augustine but
also how much his methods of interpretation differ from contemporary
exegesis. I am not talking about his conviction, that one can find prophecies
of Christ and the Church in the diverse statements of the Old Testament.
He shared this conviction not only with the New Testament, but also with
Christian exegesis generally until well into the modern era. Often, however,
introducing the distinction between literal and spiritual meaning of the text
does not help much. Thus in Ex 33, Augustine finds an important prophecy
about Christ, but his argument based on the future tense and the meaning
of “transire” appears to me to show that in fact he is taking the spiritual
meaning to be the literal one.
19 Translation by RolandTeske S.J., Letters 100-155 (Epistulaé). Translation and notes (The Works
of Saint Augustine. A Translation for the 21 st Century II/2), Hyde Park, New York, 2003, 335.
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