Moses as trustworthy witness to creation

A fitting beginning for one who is about to speak of the constitution of the world is to set before his discourse the beginning of the ordering of visible things. For the making of heaven and earth is about to be handed down to us—not brought together by chance, as some have imagined, but receiving its cause from God. What hearing is worthy of the greatness of what is said? How ought a soul to come prepared for the hearing of such things? It should be pure from the passions of the flesh, unclouded by worldly cares, diligent, searching, looking around from every side to see if it might gain a worthy thought of God. But before we examine the precision in the words and search out how great are the meanings of these small utterances, let us consider who it is who speaks with us. For even if we cannot reach the deep heart of the writer because of the weakness of our understanding, yet if we attend to the trustworthiness of the speaker, we shall be led of our own accord to assent to what is said. Moses, then, is the one who laid down this writing—that Moses who was testified to be pleasing to God while still an infant; whom the daughter of Pharaoh adopted and raised in royal fashion, appointing the wise men of the Egyptians as teachers for his education. He hated the bulk of tyranny and ran back to the lowliness of his own people, choosing to suffer hardship with the people of God rather than to have the temporary enjoyment of sin (Hebrews 11:25). He possessed friendship with righteousness from nature itself, since even before the rule of the people was entrusted to him, he is seen defending against the wicked even to the point of death because of his natural hatred of evil. He was driven into exile by those he had benefited, and gladly left behind the disturbances of Egypt and came to Ethiopia, and there, keeping himself entirely free from other pursuits, he spent forty whole years in the contemplation of realities. When he was already eighty years old, he saw God as far as it is possible for a human being to see—or rather, as it was granted to no one else, according to the very testimony of God: “If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known to him in a vision, and I will speak to him in sleep. Not so with my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house. Mouth to mouth I will speak to him, in visible form, and not in riddles” (Numbers 12:6-8). This man, then, who was counted worthy of the face-to-face vision of God equally with the angels, speaks to us from what he heard from God. Let us listen, then, to words of truth spoken not in persuasive words of human wisdom but in teachings of the Spirit, whose end is not the praise of the hearers but the salvation of those who are taught.

“In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). The wonder of the thought stops my speech. What shall I say first? Where shall I begin the explanation? Shall I refute the vanity of those outside, or shall I praise our truth? The wise men of the Greeks wrote much about nature, and not one doctrine among them has stood fixed and unshaken, since each one always overthrows the one before him. So there is no need for us to refute their teachings, for they are sufficient for one another's overthrow.