Tag Archives: Moses

Two Witnesses

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The two witnesses of Apocalypse 11, about to be attacked by the beast from the abyss. They are standing before the Temple, described earlier in chapter 11; the witnesses are identified by the names “Enoch” and “Moses” above their heads.

I will commission my two witnesses to prophesy for those 1,260 days, dressed in sackcloth. These are the two olive-trees and the two lamps that stand before the Lord of the earth…. But when they have completed their testimony, the beast that comes up from the abyss will wage war on them and overcome them and kill them. (Apocalypse 11:3-4, 7)

The two witnesses–lit. martyrs–are spokesmen for God that are killed by the powers that oppose God. Their corpses will remain in the streets to be mocked and defiled but they will be raised from the dead and ascend into heaven. The murder of the two witnesses is the second of the “three woes” that are expected (Apoc. 9).

The witnesses are dressed as prophets, in sackcloth, and preach for more than a thousand days (the symbolic length of history). They are compared to the king Zerubbabel and the high priest Joshua (Zech. 2 and 4). Some authors thought the two witnesses would be Moses and Elijah (who was taken into heaven without dying), come to proclaim the judgement of God; frequently others think the two witnesses will be Moses and Enoch (who was also taken into heaven without dying).

The beast from the abyss slays the witnesses after they have been preaching for 1,000+ days. Later in the Apocalypse, we read the same story from another perspective: “When the 1,000 years are ended, Satan will be let loose from his prison and he will come out to deceive the nations” (Apoc. 20:7-8). We also read the same story from another perspective in the next chapter of the Apocalypse when the dragon attacks the woman clothed with the sun–one of my favorite episodes in the New Testament!

Repeatedly in the Gospel and throughout the history of the Church, the devil and the powers of Death that rebel against God attack and seem to triumph but are finally overthrown and defeated. This is the most basic message of the Apocalypse: the Enemy will seem to triumph but–take heart!–can never win the final victory.

Moses Atop Mt. Tabor and Mt. Sinai

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The Transfiguration of Christ: Part of an iconostasis from Mt. Sinai in the style of Constantinople (mid-12th century). We see the Prophet Elijah as an older man beside Christ and Moses, holding a copy of the Law given to him on Mt. Sinai, on Christ’s other side. St. Peter kneels below Elijah, with St. John the Divine below Christ and St. James below Moses.

Christ took the apostles Peter, James, and John the Divine to the top of Mt. Tabor to pray. The apostles fell asleep. When they awoke, they saw Christ transfigured–more brilliant than the sun–and Moses was there, with the Prophet Elijah, speaking with Christ about the Passion that Christ would soon experience in Jerusalem. (Moses and Elijah–the primary representatives of the Law and the Prophets of the Old Testament–were also representative of the living and the dead as Elijah was taken alive into heaven by the chariot of fire and Moses died on Mt. Nebo just outside the Promised Land.)

Although seen by the apostles on Mt. Tabor, Moses is more commonly associated with Mt. Sinai. The famous monastery of St. Catherine (a treasure trove of manuscripts and icons) marks the place on Mt. Sinai where Moses is said to have encountered God–his own face shining more brightly than the sun afterwards–and Moses gazes out at the congregation in the monastery church from the Transfiguration mosaic behind the altar-table; the church on Mt. Sinai is dedicated to the Transfiguration, underscoring Moses’ connections with both Sinai and Tabor.

The oldest record of monastic life at Sinai comes from the travel journal written in Latin by a woman named Egeria about 381–384. She visited many places around the Holy Land and Mount Sinai, where, according to the Old Testament, Moses received the Ten Commandments.

The monastery was built by order of Emperor Justinian I (reigned 527–565), enclosing the Chapel of the Burning Bush (also known as “Saint Helen’s Chapel”) ordered to be built by Empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, at the site where Moses is supposed to have seen the burning bush. The living bush on the grounds is purportedly the one seen by Moses. The place where Moses is said to have received the Ten Commandments is further up the mountain, behind the monastery.

The library at the monastery preserves the second largest collection of early codices and manuscripts in the world, outnumbered only by the Vatican Library The large icon collection begins with a few dating to the 5th-6th centuries; these icons are unique as the monastery was untouched by Byzantine iconoclasm, and never sacked.

A view of St Catherine’s Monastery on Mt. Sinai
Apse mosaic of the Transfiguration from Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Mt. Sinai, AD 565–6.

Maccabees and Moses and St. Peter

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Statue of Moses by Michelangelo, in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome. The relics of the Maccabees were kept in this same church.

The veneration of the Maccabean martyrs is unique in the Judeo-Christian tradition: they are the only martyrs commemorated by Jews and Christians alike. The seventh chapter of the Second Book of Maccabees (in the Old Testament) tells the story of seven faithful Jewish brothers who maintained their fidelity to the Law of God in the face of persecution during the tyranny of Antiochus IV in the second century B.C. The New Testament book of Hebrews commends these martyrs of Maccabees as exemplars of living faith (Heb 11:35).

These seven Jewish brothers and their mother were arrested and ordered to eat the un-kosher flesh of a pig. The horrific murder of these Maccabean martyrs was so terrible and gruesome that we derived an English word from it—-macabre.

The festival of Hanukkah in December celebrates the revolt led by the Maccabees against the Syrian emperor Antiochus IV. Christians have long commemorated the Maccabees on August 1 and the relics of the 7 Maccabee brothers, with their mother and teacher were long kept in the Church of St. Peter’s Chains (Rome). The relics were sent to Germany to be housed in a church in Cologne (the same city where the relics of the Magi are kept); evidently the Maccabean relics had been kept in Cologne before they had been sent to Rome.

By keeping the Maccabean relics and the statue of Moses in the Church of St. Peter’s Chains, we can see the connection between the Law of Moses and those Maccabean martyrs who died for refusing to abandon that Law. Even more, their memory is joined with the imprisonment and eventual martyrdom of the Apostle Peter. (We know that the festival of Hanukkah was still fairly new in the first century AD but that Jesus celebrated it with the apostles in John 10:22-23.)

You can find a very interesting article (in German!) here about the relics of the Maccabees that includes close-up photos of the golden reliquary which contains their bones. (If you open the page using Chrome, it will offer to translate the page for you–I want to thank my daughter Rebekah for teaching me that trick!)

The reliquary itself is fascinating. It was apparently made in 1500; it is a wooden box in the form of a church, covered with gilded copper plates. The walls of the shrine and top portions are composed of 40 scenes in which the story of the Maccabee brothers and their mother is placed in parallel with the suffering of Christ and His mother Mary. One of the most obvious examples is the contrast of the flagellation of the Maccabee brothers and the flagellation of Jesus. On the front of the shrine is the Coronation of Mary and the Coronation of the Maccabees, while on the back the Ascension of Christ is depicted with the heavenly glorification of the Maccabees.

The shrine for the Maccabees’ relics in St. Andrew’s Church (Cologne, Germany).