Page:Anglo-Saxon version of the Hexameron of St. Basil.djvu/28



1. In another discourse we said sometime since, how the Almighty God created all things within six days and seven nights; but it is (a subject) so complex, and so great to understand, that we could not say so much about it, in the former relation, as we have wished; nor can we even yet speak so fully to you on its deep signification as might be fitting; we will, nevertheless, relate some thing to you, more deeply, concerning the works of God—in this truthful treatise—in order that ye may, with greater wisdom, acknowledge your Creator with true belief, and have a knowledge of yourselves. There was not any man, alive in this wearisome world, that could impart to any man these precepts, before that the Almighty God, who alone is the Creator, imparted them to Moses on the mount Sinai, and there instructed him concerning these profound precepts, for the space of forty days at once; and he (Moses) took no care of food during all that time, but God fed him, and he received then from the dictating of God Himself all the mysteries, which he afterwards inscribed in five books. These books are called the Old Testament, and the old law, that is, the public law which God appointed for the people of Israel, before that Christ came into this world, begotten in the state of man. And He made known Himself the spiritual meaning of the Old Testament to His disciples, until that it came to us. The commencement of the five books is made in these words: In principio creavit Deus cælum et terram, that is to say in English, "God Almighty created first in the beginning heaven and the earth." Here you may hear that the