But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their hearts.
Read Chapter 3
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
The vail is upon their heart. This veil is the foolish pertinacity with which the Jews still stubbornly cling to the carnal sacrifices and rites of the Old Law, and so are blinded that they cannot see Christ typified by them
Yet the shadows bring forth the truth, even if they are not at all the truth themselves. Because of this, the divinely inspired Moses placed a veil upon his face and spoke thus to the children of Israel, all but shouting by this act that a person might behold the beauty of the utterances made through him, not in outwardly appearing figures but in meditations hidden within us. Come, therefore, by taking off the veil of the law and by setting the face of Moses free of its coverings, let us behold the naked truth.
But we all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."
The curtain of the temple is torn, for that which had been veiled in Judea is unveiled to all the nations; the curtain is torn and the mysteries of the law are revealed to the faithful, but to unbelievers they are hidden to this very day. When Moses, the Old Testament, is read aloud by the Jews on every Sabbath, according to the testimony of the apostle: “the veil covers their hearts.” They read the law, true enough, but they do not understand because their eyes have grown so dim that they cannot see. They are, indeed, like those of whom Scripture says: “They have eyes but see not; they have ears but hear not.” ().
For since he said that in the reading of the Old Testament the veil remains, lest any should think that this that is said is from the obscurity of the Law, he both by other things showed even before what his meaning was, (for by saying, their minds were hardened, he shows that the fault was their own,) and, in this place too, again. For he said not, 'The veil remains on the writing,' but in the reading; (now the reading is the act of those that read;) and again, When Moses is read. He showed this however with greater clearness in the expression which follows next, saying unreservedly, The veil lies upon their heart. For even upon the face of Moses it lay, not because of Moses, but because of the grossness and carnal mind of these.
4. Having then suitably accused them, he points out also the manner of their correction. And what is this?
