X. While Christ remained on the earth, however, his body was not advanced to that full perfection of glory, which it has possessed ever since its exaltation above the heavens. From condescension to the weakness of the disciples, he suffered it to be somewhat obscured, so as not visibly to shine forth in all its brightness, during the forty days he conversed with them. They must, otherwise, have been incapable of looking stedfastly upon him, and far less able to behold his splendour, than were the Israelites of old, to behold the radiant face of Moses.

—Herman Witsius, Sacred Dissertations on What Is Commonly Called the Apostles’ Creed, trans. Donald Fraser, vol. 2 (London: Khull, Blackie & Co., 1823), 171.