ASK AUGUSTINE
Is it true that St. Patrick was not Irish? And did he really drive the snakes out of Ireland?
Yours is a very timely question since March 17 has been set aside each year to honor Ireland’s patron saint. Contrary to popular belief, St. Patrick was not of Irish birth. He was born in Wales, and later became a bishop, teacher and missionary.
He allegedly chased the “snakes” out of Ireland; but here “snakes” is implied to represent the sinful state of Ireland prior to the reforming teaching and scholarship of St. Patrick. Since then Ireland has been known as the isle of “Scholars and Saints.”
A little known fact is that there were more Irish who signed our Declaration of Independence than any other nationality.
Why did medieval artists, even the great Michelangelo depict Moses with horns? I would have thought, if anything, he’d be depicted with a halo.
Many medieval painters depicted Moses with horns protruding from his head. Michelangelo’s masterpiece, the colossal figure of Moses in the Church of St. Pietro in Rome, also represents the leader of the Israelites with horns.
This figure was designed for the mausoleum of Pope Julius II and was intended as a compliment to that Pope’s warlike prowess. It portrays the painfully restrained wrath and majestic indignation of Moses when he descended from Mt. Sinai and found his people worshipping the golden calf.
Although the horns undoubtedly heighten the effect desired, they were really owing to a mistake in Biblical translation. In Exodus 34:29-30 it is stated: “And it came about when Moses was coming down from Mount Sinai (and the two tablets of the testimony were in Moses’ hand as he was coming down from the mountain) that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because of his speaking with Him (God). So when Aaron and all the sons of Israel saw Moses, behold the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.”
In Hebrew the word for this shinning is qaran or karan, which means “rays of light darting out” or “sending forth beams.” The Hebrew word for horn is qeren.
The translators of the Latin version of the Old Testament known as the Vulgate rendered the phrase quod cornuta esset facies sua, which means, “his face was horned.” Since horn is frequently used in the Bible for strength, the medieval artists represented Moses with horns, thinking the horns were mentioned in the Bible to symbolize power.
The error was perfectly understandable, because the Vulgate version was made in the fourth century A.D. before vowels had been introduced into Hebrew. Perhaps the original idea in Exodus about the face of Moses shining alluded to what (as you mention) later became known as the halo, nimbus and aureole.