Freud erroneously assumed that Michelangelo's Moses was related to the first ascent of Mount Sinai. Consequently, he was confronted by numerous problems about which he advanced solutions so tendentious that his final interpretation bore little relevance to the statue which, as Bremer persuasively argues, portrays the second ascent. This episode, in which Moses became the only human being ever to see God's posterior parts, represented Moses at the acme of his career. The details of the statue are consistent with this interpretation. In addition, Pope Julian would not have agreed to having a Moses at the nadir of his relationship with God (breaking the tablets) on his tomb, but would have welcomed being identified with Moses at his supreme moment.