Compare the books themselves

We would say, challenging him to set book beside book: “Bring out, sir, the poems of Linus, Musaeus and Orpheus and the writing of Pherecydes, and examine them together with the laws of Moses, setting histories beside histories, and moral discourses beside laws and commandments. See which are better able to turn those who hear them, even at the first hearing, and which of them might even ruin the listener. Observe how the company of your writers cared little for those who would read them in the plain sense, and wrote their own philosophy, as you say, only for those able to interpret it figuratively and allegorically. Moses, on the other hand, in his five books has acted like a noble orator who studies the figures of speech and everywhere puts forward the double sense of his wording with care: he neither gave the mass of the Jews under his law occasions of harm in matters of conduct, nor set before the few who are able to read with greater understanding, those who can search out his intent, a writing lacking in contemplation.

“And it seems that the books of your wise poets are not even preserved any longer, though they would have been kept if the reader had perceived any benefit. But the writings of Moses have moved many, even of those foreign to the Jewish way of life, to believe that, as the writings themselves declare, the One who first gave them as law and delivered them to Moses was God, who created the world. For it was fitting that the Maker of the whole world, who had laid down laws for the whole world, should give his words a power able to prevail over people everywhere. And I say this not yet examining the case of Jesus, but still showing that Moses, who is far less than the Lord, far surpasses, as the argument will establish, your wise poets and philosophers.”