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| Out of the Many True Things, It is Not Asserted Confidently that Moses Understood This or That.
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Chapter XXIV.—Out of the Many
True Things, It is Not Asserted Confidently that Moses Understood
This or That.
33. But which of us, amid so many truths which
occur to inquirers in these words, understood as they are in
different ways, shall so discover that one interpretation as to
confidently say “that Moses thought this,” and “that in that
narrative he wished this to be understood,” as confidently as he
says “that this is true,” whether he thought this thing or the
other? For behold, O my God, I Thy servant, who in this book have
vowed unto Thee a sacrifice of confession, and beseech Thee that of
Thy mercy I may pay my vows unto Thee,1146
behold, can I, as I confidently
assert that Thou in Thy immutable word hast created all things,
invisible and visible, with equal confidence assert that Moses
meant nothing else than this when he wrote, “In the beginning God
created. the heaven and the earth.”1147
| 1147 It is curious to note here Fichte’s strange idea
(Anweisung zum seligen Leben, Werke,
v. 479), that St. John, at the commencement of his Gospel, in his
teaching as to the “Word,” intended to confute the Mosaic
statement, which Fichte—since it ran counter to that idea of
“the absolute” which he made the point of departure in his
philosophy—antagonizes as a heathen and Jewish error. On “In
the Beginning,” see p. 166, note 2, above. | No. Because it is not as clear to
me that this was in his mind when he wrote these things, as I see
it to be certain in Thy truth. For his thoughts might be set upon
the very beginning of the creation when he said, “In the
beginning;” and he might wish it to be understood that, in this
place, “the heaven and the earth” were no formed and perfected
nature, whether spiritual or corporeal, but each of them newly
begun, and as yet formless. Because I see, that which-soever of
these had been said, it might have been said truly; but which of
them he may have thought in these words, I do not so perceive.
Although, whether it were one of these, or some other meaning which
has not been mentioned by me, that this great man saw in his mind
when he used these words, I make no doubt but that he saw it truly,
and expressed it suitably.
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