Journal News
A news bulletin for E-mail subscribers from Christians Evangelizing Catholics
E-mail: cecmotc@juno.com Website: www.dodone.org
April 20, 2001
For your relaxation this weekend, I thought you might be interested in a profound theological question posed by a Roman Catholic and answered in his column, The Question Box, by Priest John Dietzen.
It is entitled, Why Does Moses Have Horns?
Question: Recently, at the tomb of Pope Julius in the Church of St. Peter in Chains in Rome, we saw the statue of Moses by Michelangelo. It's an awesome sculpture. But why does the statue have horns on the head of Moses? I've seen the same since then on the copies of the statue. No one has been able to explain where the horns came from? (Illinois)
Answer: The book of Exodus (34:29-35) describes how the face of Moses was transformed when he came down from Mount Sinai after speaking with the Lord. The Latin Vulgate translation of St. Jerome says the people at the time saw that Moses wore a horned face (facies cornuta).
Horns, of course, appear throughout the Bible as symbols for God's power and majesty. For example, the lamb in Revelation (5:6) has seven horns. Luke (1:69) speaks of God raising up a "horn for our salvation."
In addition, specialists in Near East history tell us that masks made from the horned skulls of cattle were known in that period, apparently in the context of religious or civil ceremonies.
This is certainly how Michelangelo came to include the horns on his statue. Since then, translations refer rather to "beams of light" emanating from the face of Moses. The King James Version says that "the skin of Moses shone."
In 1986 a New Latin Vulgate, based on more extensive biblical scholarship, was published under the auspices of the Vatican Library. This edition says simply that the skin of Moses' face was radiant, a translation similar to the one used in most Bibles today.
In other words, Michelangelo followed the lead of the most acceptable Scripture translation available. He would likely do it differently if he were creating his Moses today.