And not as Moses, who put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not steadfastly see the end of that which is abolished:
All Commentaries on 2 Corinthians 3:13 Go To 2 Corinthians 3
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face. Moses veiled his face, but we do not veil the face of Christ, but with great freedom bid all gaze upon it. From Exodus 24:33 we gather that Moses in his first interview with the people spoke to them with unveiled face because of the reverence due to the majesty of the law, but that he afterwards veiled his face that he might with the greater freedom speak to them. But when he entered the tabernacle ( Exodus 33:8), to converse with God, he took away the veil. In this and the next three verses, S. Paul gives the allegorical meaning of this veiling; for to the Jews the Old Testament is covered with a veil, so that they do not see the light of the New Testament, and Christ contained in it. From us, however, Christ has taken away the veil, and will take it away from the Jews when they are converted at the end of the world.
S. Gregory (Pastor. pt. iii. c5) says tropologically: "The preacher should, like Moses, suit himself to his hearers: what is deep ought to be concealed from many that hear, and be opened out to very few."
That the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end. This is the reading of the Greek MSS, the Syriac, and the older Latin authors, as Ambrose, but the Latin reads to the face. The end is Christ, mystically signified by the unveiled brightness of the face of Moses, as Ambrose and Theodoret say. Others take it more literally: they could not look on the perfect splendour of the face of Moses, or again, they could not look on the extremity of the surface of his face. Theophylact again explains it: "The ignorant Israelites could not see that the law was to have an end and be abolished." But this is a mystical meaning; the second is the literal meaning.
Which is abolished. The splendour of Moses was to be abolished, or the brightness of his face. These words may refer either to the face or to the veil, but it is better to understand them of the veil, especially as the following verses refer to the removal of the veil of Moses by the light of the law of the New Testament.
Theodoret observes that the sun-like splendour of the face of Moses typified the glorious brightness of the law of Christ, while the veil typified the shadow under which the dumb ceremonies of Moses lay. The Jews have not even yet been able to see the face of Moses without the veil, because they unbelievingly insist on the reality of their shadowy ceremonies, and have no eyes for the light of the Gospel.
