TRANSFIGURATION

TRANSFIGURATION, that miraculous event in the life of our Saviour which is recorded in Matt. xvii., Mark ix., Luke ix. We are there told that he took Peter and James and John up into an high mountain, and was transfigured before them, his face shining as the sun, and his raiment appearing white as the light. Moses and Elias were seen in conversation with him, and a voice came out of a cloud saying, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him." An ancient tradition assigns Mount Tabor as the scene of this event; but as this height is 50 miles from Cæsarea Philippi where Christ last taught, it is now generally supposed to have been a mountain much less distant—namely, Mount Hermon. There can be no doubt that one of the objects to be served by this event was to strengthen the faith and encourage the hearts of the disciples, who were destined soon to see Him in whom they believed taken from them and put to an ignominious and shameful death. The apostle Peter, in his second Epistle (i. 17, 18), and probably only a short time before his death, alludes with peculiar satisfaction to the voice from heaven, which "we heard when we were with him in the holy mount."