Annotation LXXIV

”And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah.” — Matthew 17:3

On Moses, appearing in the Transfiguration of Christ.

Jerome, in the third book of the Commentaries on Matthew, hints that Moses had risen again from the lower regions, and in his own body was present to our Savior transfiguring himself, saying these [words]: “To the scribes and Pharisees tempting him and demanding signs from heaven, he refused to give [them], but confuted [their] depraved demand with a prudent reply. But here, to increase the faith of the Apostles, he gives a sign from heaven — Elijah descending thence, whither he had ascended, but Moses rising again from the lower regions.” This same [thing] the author of the work On the Marvels of Divine Scripture confirms, book 3, chapter 10. St. Thomas, in the third volume of the Summa, question 45, says that this opinion is not to be so taken, as though the soul of Moses had resumed its [own] body; but that his soul, some other body being assumed, appeared in that manner in which angels render themselves visible in assumed bodies. An observation similar to this you have below, Annotation 145.