Why Did Jesus Bring Moses & Elijah to the Transfiguration?

FOR WHAT reason does Jesus bring Moses and Elijah onto the scene [of the transfiguration]? One might offer a number of reasons. First this: that since “some” of the crowd “said he was Elijah, others Jeremiah or one of the ancient prophets” (Mt. 16:14), He brought the leading prophets there, so that even from them one might see the difference between servants and the master, and how right it was that Peter was praised for confessing Him to be Son of God. But secondly, one may also say something else. People constantly charged Him with transgressing the law, and considered Him a blasphemer, usurping for Himself the glory that belonged to the Father, and said, “This one is not from God, because He does not observe the Sabbath” (Jn. 9:16), and again, “It is not for a good work that we are stoning You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a human being, make Yourself to be a God” (Jn. 10:33). So, that it might be obvious that both these charges were based on jealousy, and that He was innocent of both of them, and that what had happened was not a transgression of the law, nor His saying He was equal to the Father a usurpation of a glory that did not belong to Him, He brought into His presence the shining authorities on both these issues. Moses, after al, gave the law, and the Jews could be convinced that he would not stand by and watch it be trampled under foot, as they suspected, nor would he be conciliatory towards anyone who was transgressing it and hostile to its giver. And Elijah was “jealous for God’s glory” (Cf. 1 Kg. 19:10, 14), and would not himself have stood by submissively if Jesus were opposed to God, and said He was God, making Himself equal to the Father, yet were not what He said He was, and not making appropriate claims.

One might mention another reason, along with those we have given. What is that? That they might learn that He has authority over death and life, and rules both what is above and what is below. So He brings on the scene both one who is dead and one who never suffered that fate. And the fifth reason – for this is the fifth among all we have given – the Evangelist himself revealed. What is it? To show forth the glory of the cross, and to encourage Peter and the others who were in dread suffering, and raise their thoughts higher. For as they [Moses and Elijah] came to the spot, they were not silent, but “were speaking,” Scripture says, “of the glory that He was to bring to fulfillment in Jerusalem” (Lk. 9:31); the Passion, that is, and the cross, for that is what they always call it. And it was not only on this point that He was training them [ēleiphen = “was anointing them;” suggests a trainer preparing athletes for a contest], but on manly virtue itself, which He especially looked for in them. For since He said, “If anyone wants to come after me, let him take up his cross and follow me” (Mt. 16:24), He brings into their midst men who had died ten thousand times over for God’s commands and for the people who had been entrusted to them. Each of them, in fact, in losing his life had found it. For each had spoken boldly to tyrants – the one to the King of Egypt, the other to Achab – and on behalf of an ungrateful and disobedient people; by the very people they were rescuing they were led into mortal danger. Each of them wanted to free the people from idolatry; each of them, too, lacked polish – the one slow and hesitant in speech, the other rustic in manner. Each was very strict about having no possessions; for Moses owned nothing, nor did Elijah have anything more than a sheepskin cloak. And all this was in the Old Covenant, when they had not yet received such great grace in working signs.

For if Moses divided the sea, Peter walked on water, and was capable of moving mountains, and healed all kinds of bodily disease, and drove out wild demons, and worked those great marvels by the shadow of his own body (Cf. Acts 5:15), and brought the whole world to conversion. And if Elijah, too, raised a dead man (1 Kg. 17:17-22), they raised thousands, even some who had not been yet thought worthy of the Spirit. He brings them, then, on the scene, for this reason: he wanted his disciples to imitate their ability to lead, their energy, their determination – to become gentle like Moses, impassioned like Elijah, careful guardians like both of them. For the one endured three years of famine for the sake of the Jewish people (1 Kg. 17-18), and the other said, “If You will take away their sin, take it away; but if not, then blot me also out of the book which You have written” (Ex. 32:32). By the vision, he reminded them of all these things. For He brought them [i.e., Moses and Elijah] forth in glory, not that they [i.e., the disciples] might come up to their measure and rest, but that they might surpass it. When they said, for example, “Let us call fire down from heaven,” and recalled the example of Elijah doing this (1 Kg. 18:36-39), he replied: “You do not know what spirit you belong to!” (Lk. 9:54-55). He was training them in endurance by the difference in the grace that was given. And let no one think we look down on Elijah’s example as of little worth; we are not saying that – for surely, he had attained great perfection! But in his own times, when the mind of men and women was less mature, they needed this kind of paedagogy. In this way, Moses too was perfect, yet nevertheless, they would be held to a higher standard than he. “For if your righteousness is not more abundant than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 5:20). For they did not go out of Egypt, but to the whole world – a far worse situation than Egypt! Nor were they simply to argue with Pharaoh, but to spar with the devil, the very lord of evil! The contest set before them was to bind him, and to capture all his armor (Cf. Mt. 12:29); and they did this not by splitting the sea in two, but by splitting the depth of wickedness, whose waves are far more terrible, with the rod of Jesse. Look at all the things that terrify people: death, poverty, lack of respect, countless sufferings; they trembled more at these things, than the Jews had formerly done at the sea. Nevertheless, he persuaded them to take on all these dangers daringly, and to cross them, as it were, on dry land in full safety. Readying them, then, for all these challenges, he brought before them the Old Testament’s shining examples.

~St John Chrysostom, Homily 56 on Matthew