Sources & method

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Sources & method

Source basis: Each hosted writing names its date, translator, source link, and manuscript survival notes where available. Sources

Worlds

The library · Edition and sources

Justin Martyr: First Apology

ANF historical edition · Translated text

Chapter LIX.—Plato’s obligation to Moses.

Read in this edition: source locators and uncertainty marks are retained. Square brackets can mark gaps or editorial interventions; headings and supplied subtitles belong to the edition. Coverage and cautions

And that you may learn that it was from our teachers—we mean the account given through the prophets— that Plato borrowed his statement that God, having altered matter which was shapeless, made the world, hear the very words spoken through Moses, who, as above shown, was the first prophet, and of greater antiquity than the Greek writers; and through whom the Spirit of prophecy, signifying how and from what materials God at first formed the world, spake thus: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was invisible and unfurnished, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God moved over the waters. And God said, Let there be light; and it was so.” So that both Plato and they who agree with him, and we ourselves, have learned, and you also can be convinced, that by the word of God the whole world was made out of the substance spoken of before by Moses. And that which the poets call Erebus, we know was spoken of formerly by Moses. [1]