(h) The transfiguration, &c. (Matt. xvii. 1-13; Mark ix, 243; Luke ix. 28-36). Jesus took Peter and James and John along with him into a high mountain apart to pray. While praying he was transfigured before them; his face shone as the sun; his raiment glistened; Moses and Elias appeared in glory talking with him, and spoke of the decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem; Peter and the others were heavy with sleep, but when awake they saw his glory and the two that were with him; Peter, in bewilderment, suggested that three tabernacles be made, one for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elias; a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice out of the cloud said, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." On this the disciples fell on their faces in fear, and when they revived they saw no one except Jesus himself. He charged them to conceal what they had seen until after his resurrection.
_John_ makes no mention of the transfiguration; but in chapter xii 28-30, when Jesus is at Jerusalem "exhorting the people, and praying, Father, glorify thy name; then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. The people, there-tore, that stood by and heard it said that it thundered, others said, An angel spake to him. Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes."
Peter, 2nd epistle i. 17,--"For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice, which came from heaven, we heard when we were with him in the holy mount."
The idea is an old one that because light of intense brilliancy dazzles the human eye it is therefore the dwelling-place and the raiment of the inhabitants of heaven, pictured thus as a refulgent abode with refulgent beings. "Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment" (Psalm civ. 2); "At length do thou come, we pray, with a cloud thy shining shoulders veiled, O Augur Apollo!" (Horace i. 2, 31,) are instances. Glory and dazzling light meant the same thing. Now, light is known to be one of the forms in which force manifests itself, convertible into the other force-forms, and the other force-forms, convertible into it. Still, the account of the transfiguration, if the evidence on which it rests were at all trustworthy, would be a very important credential to the supernatural pretensions of Jesus, under the claim that such special manifestations of a Power beyond and supreme over Nature were made so as best to suit the comprehension of those for whom they were intended, and as showing that Jesus could so command the force-forms of Nature as to irradiate his person at will. What, then, is the evidence? The persons who witnessed the occurrence were Peter, James, and John, and while it lasted they were in a state of bewilderment, and part of the time asleep. Jesus commanded them to conceal what they had seen until after his resurrection. Matthew, therefore, could not have heard of it at the time it happened, and he does not state from whom he received the particulars he narrates. Perhaps from the forward Peter, who, in his epistle quoted above, confirms the account. For, strange to say, John, the other eye-witness, has not one word in support of the supernatural appearance on the mount of transfiguration. Of three eyewitnesses there is only the testimony of one, Peter; and although John, one of the others, has written an account of the life of Jesus, he passes by this striking event in silence. So the evidence fails. Can it, then, have been a dream of Peter, when with Jesus, James, and John in some lonely mountain in Galilee?