Ann Conway-Jones: Caught between Exodus and Paul: Moses’ Transformation in Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses

According to Exodus, when Moses descended Mount Sinai with the second set of tablets his face had changed. The LXX reads, ‘the appearance of the skin of his face was charged with glory’ (Ex 34:29). Gregory of Nyssa comments on this in Life of Moses,but there are a number of oddities about his account. Firstly, he does not include it in part one, the historia. Secondly, he disrupts the biblical sequence, placing Moses’ transformation before, not after, his request that God might appear to him. Thirdly, there is a jarring reference to Judaizing heresy, which would seem more suited to a polemical work. Fourthly, rather than relating the light on Moses’ countenance to his personal growth in virtue and transformation into friend of God – as Gregory does inHomilies on the Song of Songs12 – he takes Moses as a type of Christ. This paper will ask whether the influence of 2 Corinthians might explain these features. It will argue that the sequence of 2 Corinthians 3 can be detected behind Gregory’s exposition of Exodus 33-4: tablets equated to hearts; the glory of Moses’ face set aside for the greater glory in Christ; the hardening of the Israelites’ minds; and transformation from one degree of glory to another, which becomes Gregory’s doctrine of epektasis. Moses’ participation in divine glory, as portrayed in Exodus, fits Gregory’s theme of progressive deification through virtue. But Paul’s negative assessment of this episode forces Gregory to sidestep into typology and Christology.