But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
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Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
But we all with open face. The open face is that of Christ incarnate or of the mysteries of the faith. We, looking on them, see the glorious Godhead of the Lord and His grace, and the work of our redemption foreshadowed in Moses and the Old Testament.
Beholding as in a glass. "Seeing as in a mirror, not beholding as from a watch-tower," says S. Augustine (de Trin. lib. xv. c8); but Erasmus renders the passage, "representing in a mirror," because he says this is the image of the glory of God. But the Greek verb is clearly to see, not represent in a mirror, and besides the representation is spoken of in the next phrase, "are changed into the same image." Since we see the glory of God in Christ and His Gospel, as though in a mirror, we are by this transformed into the same image of God, and we represent in ourselves this glory. This mirror, therefore, is the cause of the image, not the image itself.
The Apostle here means by mirror the Word clothed in flesh, and made visible, and whatev...
We all, beholding, Ver. 18. St. Augustine, de gloriâ fidei in gloriam speciei, de gloriâ, quâ Filii Dei sumus, in gloriam, quâ similes ei erimus, quoniam videbimus eum sicuti est.
Therefore, I do not think it is a fearful thing (I mean that our nature is changeable). The Logos shows that it would be a disadvantage for us not to be able to make a change for the better, as a kind of wing of flight to greater things. Therefore, let no one be grieved if he sees in his nature a penchant for change. Changing in everything for the better, let him exchange “glory for glory,” becoming greater through daily increase, ever perfecting himself and never arriving too quickly at the limit of perfection. For this is truly perfection: never to stop growing toward what is better and never placing any limit on perfection. .
For the matter stands thus: The Old Testament proclaimed the Father openly and the Son more obscurely. The New manifested the Son and suggested the deity of the Spirit. Now the Spirit himself dwells among us and supplies us with a clearer demonstration of himself. For it was not safe, when the Godhead of the Father was not yet acknowledged, plainly to proclaim the Son; nor when that of the Son was not yet received, to burden us further (if I may use so bold an expression) with the Holy Ghost… . For this reason it was, I think, that he gradually came to dwell in the disciples, measuring himself out to them according to their capacity to receive him, at the beginning of the gospel, after the passion, after the ascension, making perfect their powers, being breathed upon them and appearing in fiery tongues. And indeed it is by little and little that he is declared by Jesus, as you will learn for yourself if you will read more carefully.
Not that which is brought to an end, but that which remains.
Are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit.
Do you see how again he places the Spirit in the rank of God, (vide infra) and raises them up to the rank of the Apostles. For he said before, You are the Epistle of Christ; and here, But we all with open face. Yet they came, like Moses, bringing a law. But like as we, he says, needed no veil, so neither ye who received it. And yet, this glory is far greater, for this is not of our countenance, but of the Spirit; but nevertheless you are able as well as we to look steadfastly upon it. For they indeed could not even by a mediator, but you even without a mediator can [look steadfastly on] a greater. They were not able to look upon that of Moses, you even upon that of the Spirit. Now had the Spirit been at all inferior, He would not have set down these things as greater than those. But what is, we reflecting as a mirror the glory of ...
Do you wish to know of another way in which you were judged worthy of greater wonders? In their day the Jews were unable to see the face of Moses transfigured, although he was their fellow slave and kinsman. But you have seen the face of Christ in his glory. St. Paul cried aloud, saying: “But we all, with faces unveiled, reflect the glory of the Lord.” At that time the Jews had Christ following them, but all the more does he follow us now. Then Christ followed along with them thanks to Moses; he goes along with us not only thanks to [the new] Moses but thanks to your own ready obedience. For the Jews, after Egypt came the desert; for you, after your exodus will come heaven. They had Moses as their leader and excellent general; we have another Moses, God, to lead and command us.
This does not refer to those things which are brought to an end but to those which remain. The Spirit is God, and we are raised to the level of the apostles, because we shall all behold him together with uncovered faces. As soon as we are baptized, the soul beams even more brightly than the sun because it is cleansed by the Spirit, and we not only behold God’s glory, we receive from it a kind of splendor.
We are being changed from knowledge of the law into the grace of the Spirit. And it must be remembered that from the glory of the Spirit working in us we come to the glory of our inheritance as sons. This is the work of the Spirit, for it must be held that here the word Lord refers to the Spirit and not to the Son of God. .
Of the heart, which in the Jews had been covered with a veil), "beholding Christ, are changed into the same image, from that glory "(wherewith Moses was transfigured as by the glory of the Lord) "to another glory.".
By thus setting forth the glory which illumined the person of Moses from his interview with God, and the veil which concealed the same from the infirmity of the people, and by super inducing thereupon the revelation and the glory of the Spirit in the person of Christ-"even as "to use his words, "by the Spirit of the Lord"
