Commentaria in Exodum
The reason is, first, because, as Solomon says, Wisd. 9:14, “our foresights are uncertain”: therefore by the supreme prudence of God they are to be directed, and his direction is to be besought.
Secondly, because it belongs to the providence of God to direct the actions of all creatures, especially of men: and this is its object. Wherefore he invades God’s office and does him injury who arrogates this to himself, as though without God he alone could be wise, and direct himself and his actions wisely.
Thirdly, because God alone knows future events, both absolutely and conditionally, namely what will happen if I do this or that, or do not do it; what I should do in this or that matter, in this or that place, time, state and condition, and above all whether I shall live well, persevere and be saved, or live ill and be damned. Therefore let him who is wise run back to God, and pray continually: Lord, who hast foreknowledge and providence of all things, direct me rightly to salvation, by those ways which have no scandal of sin, by those paths by which thou foreknowest I shall surely come to the glory for which thou hast created me; and turn aside and keep from me those ways which, if I enter on them, thou foreknowest I shall sin and be damned; for on this the hinge of salvation turns, on this depends my election or reprobation, my glory or damnation. So was pious Abraham directed by God, safe and happy through all the ways of his pilgrimage. So was Jacob directed, whence the Wise Man says of him, chap. 10: “She (the wisdom of God) conducted the just through the right ways, and shewed him the kingdom of God (in Bethel), and gave him the knowledge of the holy things: made him honourable (that is, enriched him) in his labours, and accomplished his labours.” So was Joseph directed by God, of whom in the same chapter it is said: “She forsook not the just man when sold, etc., till she brought him the sceptre of the kingdom, etc., and gave him everlasting glory.” So was Moses directed with the Hebrews through the Red Sea, through the desert, under the leadership of the angel presiding in the pillar, for forty years, until they came into the promised land. So was Josue directed in all the wars in which he destroyed the Chanaanites. So was Judas Machabeus directed, fighting with few against very many and always conquering, because before battle he always implored the guidance of God, except the last, in which he fell. So was Gregory Thaumaturgus directed, who, relying by faith on God, happily accomplished all that he undertook, and that often by miracles: and therefore when he came to Neocaesarea to the episcopate and found only seventeen faithful, at his death he left only seventeen unbelievers in it. So were Theodosius, Charlemagne, Charles V, and other pious kings and princes directed in the wars which they waged most successfully against the Church and their enemies.
18. WHO SAID: SHEW ME THY GLORY.—Moses had asked, in verse 13, saying: “Shew me thy face”: this God granted him; here he asks further, saying: “Shew me thy glory”; but this God refuses and denies.
Thou wilt ask, what glory of God does Moses here ask to see? Philo, On Monarchy, understands by glory the ideas and powers which are in God and in the mind of God. Secondly, Tertullian understands the glory of the humanity of Christ, which he himself showed in the transfiguration, on mount Thabor before Moses and Elias, of which a little after more. Thirdly, others understand by glory the divine essence, as though Moses asked to see this. So St. Jerome, or whoever is the author of the Commentary on St. Mark, last chapter; Rupert, Lipomanus and St. Augustine, book 12 On Genesis according to the letter, chap. 27, and Suarez, On God Three and One, book 2, chap. 30, num. 13. Nay, St. Ambrose, on Psalm 118, sermon 8, seems to think that Moses asked to see the essence of God with bodily eyes: “The holy prophet of the Lord knew,” he says, “that he could not see the invisible God face to face; but holy devotion passes measure. He thought, therefore, that it was possible even for God to cause that which is incorporeal to be comprehended by bodily eyes. A pleasing and insatiable desire, which wished to hold his Lord with the hand, and to see him with the gaze of the eyes.” But St. Ambrose seems to speak of the vision of the divine essence, not in itself, but in some idea, species or embodied figure. For he seems himself to have held that God cannot be seen as he is in himself, but only by means of some light, shadow, veil or species, which St. Chrysostom Against the Anomoeans, and St. Basil, book 1 Against Eunomius, also seem to have held: for he reproves him for teaching that the substance of God as it is in itself can be seen by man: though some limit this, and add “by the powers of nature, and in this life.” For this Eunomius wished, namely that he and like wise men by the keenness of their wit, and by their own powers in this life, could see, nay comprehend, God as he is in himself, which SS. Basil, Chrysostom and others rightly oppose.
But I say that Moses here asked only that the Lord, that is the angel bearing the person of the Lord, who, covered by darkness, was speaking with him, would remove it, that he might see clearly his glory, that is, the outward appearance of his glory; and this that he might receive from this vision a clearer knowledge of the divine majesty, and be able to report and proclaim this glory of God to the people. So we saw in chap. 3, verse 13, that the same Moses asked God that his name should be revealed to him, that he might set it before the people. For the Lord spoke with Moses with a bodily voice, but was not seen by him on account of the darkness: Moses therefore desired to see the form of him who was speaking with him. That Moses asked only this is plain from the Lord’s answer, saying: “Thou canst not see my face,” namely my glory, which thou, O Moses, so greatly askest to see. Glory is therefore the glorious face, or glorious body of God, which Moses could not see in the face, but only in the back, as I shall presently say. So Abulensis, Oleaster and others.
19. I WILL SHEW THEE ALL GOOD.—Hebrew, I will shew my good. Many by this good understand the divine essence (for this is all good), which they think Moses saw in this life. So think St. Augustine, epist. 112, chaps. 12 and 13; Basil, hom. 14 on the Hexameron, who however recalls it in book 1 Against Eunomius; Ambrose, book 1 Hexam. chap. 2; Lyranus, Abulensis, Bede, Hugh, St. Thomas, 2–2, Question 175, art. 3; Durandus, on book 4, dist. 46, Question 6; Sixtus Senensis, book 5, chap. 41. But, as I shall show at the end of the chapter, nothing can be gathered from this place for their opinion. Whence I say: God here grants Moses what he himself had asked, saying: “Shew me thy glory”; for this he here calls the good of God, or all good; good here, therefore, is the same as excellence, pre-eminence and beauty, that is, the glory of God appearing in an assumed body, which may in some way represent the majesty of God, and which may be as great as the mortal eye of Moses can bear, as if to say: Thou askest, O Moses, to see my glorious body; I will show it to thee, not in the face, but in the back. Whence the Chaldee renders, I will make all my glory pass over thy face; the Hebrew has, I will make all my good pass before thy face, which without doubt is nothing else than what is subjoined a little after: “When my glory shall pass, I will set thee in a hole of the rock, and thou shalt see my back parts.” “I will have mercy on whom I will, and I will be merciful to whom it shall please me.” This, first, Abulensis, Vatablus and Lipomanus thus expound, as if to say: I will shew thee all good, not for thy merits, but of my liberal clemency and mercy. Secondly, St. Chrysostom, Theophylact, Theodoret and Oecumenius on Rom. 9 thus expound, as if to say: The worshippers of the calf, whom I will, I will slay by the Levites or by myself; but others, whom I will pardon, I will have mercy on and spare.