Introduction
Peter (also known as Peter Cellensis) was born of noble parentage in Champagne, France, in the first half of the 12th century. He was educated at the Monastery of St. Martin-des-Champs in Paris before he became a Benedictine. In 1150, he was named abbot of the Abbey of La Celle, near Troyes. He was later made abbot of the Abbey of St. Rémy at Rheims, in 1162, and in 1181, he became Bishop of Chartres, succeeding John of Salisbury. He died a few years later, on February 20, 1183. Peter wrote many epistles and sermons, as well as a few treatises, including On Conscience, On the Discipline of the Cloister, and an explanation of the Mosaic tabernacle.
This is the first of two sermons on the Transfiguration. The source is PL 202:840A-843A. I also recently translated Peter's first sermon on St. Mary Magdalene.
Sermon 65: On the Transfiguration of the Lord #I
Peter of Celle (d. 1183)
Like the eagle provoking its chicks
to fly, etc. (Dt 32:11).
Having
made mention of His passion, lest the faith of the apostles—unto now middling
and tender, like a mustard seed—be crushed by a heap and by such burdensome
heaps, Jesus overcame sorrow with consolation, overcame sickness with remedy,
overcame a bitter thing with sweetness, overcame, finally, the foulest death of
the Cross with the glorious Transfiguration.
Indeed, the laborers are worthy of compensation (Lk 10:7), and everyone
weighs it on the just balance of equity, the labor as much as the reward of the
work, so that what is expended and what is demanded would run with equal steps,
by diverse ways, yet they seek one crossroads.
Clearly,
different things are to honored and despised, glorified and reviled, yet, on one
shoulder, Jesus bore both the Cross and the glorification of the Transfiguration;
for the same face which shone like the sun in the Transfiguration suffered
spittle and blows in the Passion. If the
face of the image of the glory of God assumed the sun’s splendor, this was not
great.[1] But who would not wither away, hearing that
the filthiest perfidy of the Jews spat the venom of its breast into the face of
God? Who would not block up his ears,
not rend asunder his faithful heart? Yet
the vestments, which become white as snow,[2]
are taken away and distributed by lot among the soldiers.
O
patience of God, that what is scarcely believed worthy of angelic guards, what is
most mercifully designated as an incomparable treasury for the Christian
people, is handled by the unworthy hands of the crucifiers! But the reason for this truth and variety lies
in the mysteries hidden from the world. While
the boyhood of faith grows feathers, before it is exposed to the birds of prey,
the doctrine of flying is laid down and expounded; for, when the Lord foretold
His Passion, after six days, He took Peter and James and John, and He led them onto
a high mountain and was transfigured before them (Mt 17:1-2).
Flying
away, to the eagle, is the Transfiguration to the Lord; for, as the eagle is raised
up to the sun itself by most rapid flight, so the human nature assumed by the Word,
most powerfully flying away, at that hour, cast off all mortal impediments from
itself, not condemning the clarity of the sun or snow, but dressed in the
clarity[3]
which was in the Word before the world was, at which even angels long to peek. For neither could the evangelist express how
much the divine power was able to do; he spoke as a man could, in comparison,
but God could do much more in operation than the human tongue in relation.
Therefore,
the hen led her chicks up to the high mountain, and—not like a hen, but like an
eagle—provoked them to fly; for it is for hens to nourish chicks, not to fly;
but it is for the eagle to fly, and to provoke to flight. Therefore, Jesus was a hen in the fields, an
eagle on the mountains; He taught morals in the fields, He revealed heavenly
things on the mountains; He heals the sick in the fields, He teaches the
Beatitudes on the mountains. Jacob set
down a stone in the fields (Gen 28:11), He erected a ladder on the mountains; He
provokes with admiration, He provokes with delight, He provokes with paternal
consolation, He provokes with promise, He provokes with compassion, since, if
we suffer with Him,[4]
we shall also reign with Him (2 Tim 2:12).
And
what does it mean that “He was transfigured,” not “in their presence,” but “before
them” (Mt 17:2),[5]
except that He will configure the body of our humility to be configured to the
body of His clarity (Phil 3:21), so that we will be transferred from clarity to
clarity, as by the Lord’s spirit (2 Cor 3:18)?
“Before them” as the head itself, and we, afterwards, as the
members. For members follow their head
everywhere, be it unto death, be it unto life, whence He says: He who
ministers to Me, let him follow Me, and where I am, there too will My minister
be (Jn 12:26).
Then
follows the mode of transfiguration, like the single flight of an eagle, and
difficult to imitate: and His face shone like the sun, and His vestments became
white as snow (Mt 17:2); when the eagle grows old, he renews (Ps 103:5);
when Jesus, as if fatigued to old age by the troubles of the world, and urged
by a desire to finish the course, like Jacob (Gen 31:3), proposes to see his
father and fatherland again, He is first transfigured, with face changed into
the clarity of the sun, and clothing into the image of snow;[6]
for the face of the old man ceases where the glory of the new approaches—You
shall cast out the old, says Moses, when the new come upon you (Lev
26:10); but Jesus, having taken up the winnowing-fork, began to cleanse His threshing-floor
when He changed the tent of Kedar into the curtain of Solomon (Sgs 1:5), that
is, the old age of mortality into the glory of the Transfiguration. And since there was nothing artificial in the
Transfiguration, therefore, a comparison was taken from the sun, not from any
sub-solar image; for who could touch the sun, so that he could exercise some
deceptive art upon it? Therefore, it was
heavenly that, by divine power alone, the face of Jesus shone like the sun.
In
that comparison and this solemn mystery, there hides the fact that the sun
always shines when it is not covered by a cloud, yet it retracts its rays when it
is overshadowed by a thick and dense cloud; but the ignorance and malice of the
Jews formed a thick cloud and a dark blinding, wherefore it is said that their
malice blinded them (Wis 2:21).
Therefore, the blinded dashed against the stone of offense and the rock
of scandal, attending to the covering cloud, not the hidden sun, since Isaac
grew old, and could not clearly see the present (Gen 27:1), he who most truly
prophesied about the future. Jesus overshadowed
Himself with the thin and clear cloud of flesh, but His persecutors tripled
this by their evil, when, inculcating the devil’s venomous hatred and their own
depraved sense, twined the triple cord of their own damnation; for they did not
see the sun, since fire had fallen upon them (Ps 58:8), since their furor was
according to the likeness of the serpent (Ps 58:4), etc.
Certainly,
the eagle was well able to fly away, so that in vain is a trap laid right
before him, in the eyes of the fletchers, and he was well able to avoid
their snares, but he inclined towards the bait, which is the will of His
Father, wherefore My food is that I would do the will of My Father (Jn 4:34);
therefore, he preferred to be caught in the trap than to remain fasting and
without the bait of obedience. He
thinned the old face by fasting for forty days and forty days, that eagle who
was to take up the new again in the kingdom of His Father, where He was to
drink the new wine with His disciples and to eat the new bread with them (Mt
26:29).
There
follows: And His vestments became white as snow (Mt 17:2),
distinguishing between sun and snow, between face and clothing; for the
disciple is not above his master (Mt 10:24); but he will be perfect if he is
like his master, not in equality, but in likeness, as snow is not compared to sun
by dignity, but by a certain participation in its clarity. For by the face is Christ Himself to be understood,
through the vestments, His disciples; and note in this how the eagle provokes
his chicks to flight, for the faithful will not be made equal to the Son of
God, but they will be glorified with Him; and one is the clarity of the sun,
another the clarity of the moon, another the clarity of the stars; for star
differs from star in clarity; such will be the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor
15:41-42).
Therefore,
He provokes His chicks to flight, not to flying out or flying with, so that
they would imitate Him, they who are of His part, in simplicity of life, in passion
for the faith, in hope of the glory of the sons of God. For snow is light in regards to simplicity, frigid
in regards to passion, clear in regards to resurrection. Compare the Gospel to the song:[7] Like
an eagle provoking its chicks to fly, and flying above them (Dt 32:11). And His face shone like the sun, and His
vestments like snow—what does this mean except that He provokes His chicks
to fly and flies above them? Attend,
He says, hanging on the Cross, and see if there is sorrow like my sorrow
(Lam 1:12). Behold, He flies above in
sorrow. He will not be compared to the
dyed colors of India, gold from Ethiopia will not be equated to Him (Job
28:16,19).
Behold
how He flies above us in the splendor of wisdom and the swiftness of
virtues; in the song there follows, He spread out his wings and took them up,
etc. (Dt 32:11). In the Gospel: And
Moses and Elijah appeared, speaking with Him (Mt 17:3); who brought Moses
from death and Elijah from the remotest region[8]
except the eagle, Who spread the wings of His will and power and bore them on
His shoulders, that is, by insuperable operations? For He bears everything by the word of His
power (Heb 1:3); by that word, with those shoulders, He, therefore, bore Moses
and Elijah, so that they would be present at His Transfiguration. There follows: And, behold, a lightful
cloud overshadowed them (Mt 17:5); perhaps this is that cloud which took
Jesus from the eyes of the Apostles (Acts 1:9), them seeing how He is also to
come in judgment, according to this: So He will come, as you saw Him going
into heaven (Acts 1:11).
[1] By
“great” here, Peter means “surprising” or “unexpected.”
[2]
Interestingly, though “white as snow” is found in the Vulgate of Mt 17:2, as
well as certain versions of the Gospels in Syriac and Bohairic Coptic, it is
only found in a single Greek manuscript: the rest of the Greek textual
tradition instead reads “white as light.”
Possibly the “white as snow” reading was adapted from Mt 28:3, where the
angel’s garment is thus described.
[3] In
Latin, the word claritas can mean either “brightness” or “glory.” Throughout this sermon, there is a constant
play on words between the brightness associated with the Transfiguration (shining
like the sun, vestments white as snow) and the glory that Jesus displayed
then. In order to not simplify the
double meaning, I’ve translated claritas as “clarity” wherever it
appears.
[4] The
Latin word compassio (“compassion”) literally means “to suffer with,” and
Peter uses the related verb (compatimur) here as a pun.
[5] Peter
is commenting on the odd word choice in the Vulgate of this verse. Instead of using the preposition coram,
meaning “in the face of,” “in the presence of,” the Vulgate instead uses ante,
which primarily means “before” in the temporal sense. Peter takes this ante eos (‘before
them”) in a properly temporal sense, so that the Evangelist is referring to the
fact that, in the end, we, too, will be transfigured as Jesus was then.
[6] If
Peter intends to relate Jesus’ transfiguration of His face and garments to some
aspect of Jacob’s return to his father and fatherland, perhaps he is thinking
of how Jacob had his household and followers wash themselves and change their
clothes upon approaching Bethel (Gen 35:2).
[7] The
passage in Deuteronomy (Dt 32:1-43) that Peter is drawing from is often called “the
Song of Moses,” since Scripture itself describes Moses as speaking “the words
of a song” (Dt 31:30, 32:44). In the Greek
tradition, this song is the second of the Nine Odes drawn from the Old and New Testaments,
though, due to its severe nature, it is typically omitted in liturgical use.
[8]
Scripture simply says that Elijah was taken up in a fiery chariot and seen no
more (2 Kgs 2:11-12), not that he died.
There was thus a strong tradition claiming that Elijah, along with
Enoch, who “walked with God and was seen no more, because God took him” (Gen
5:24), did not die but was to come again.
(Thus John could be described as “Elijah who was to come” (Mt
11:14).) One explanation of the “two witnesses”
in Rev 11 is that they are Elijah and Enoch, come back at the end of time in
order to finally die. It is due to this
tradition that Peter says Elijah was brought “from the remotest region” and
not, like Moses, “from death.”
Translation ©2023 Brandon P. Otto. Licensed via CC BY-NC. Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the translator.
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