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36. And yet, O my God, Thou exaltation of my humility, and
rest of my labour, who hearest my confessions, and forgivest my sins,
since Thou commandest me that I should love my neighbour as myself,
I cannot believe that Thou gavest to Moses, Thy most faithful
servant, a less gift than I should wish and desire for myself from
Thee, had I been born in his time, and hadst Thou placed me in that
position that through the service of my heart and of my tongue those
books might be distributed, which so long after were to profit all
nations, and through the whole world, from so great a pinnacle of
authority, were to surmount the words of all false and proud
teachings. I should have wished truly had I then been Moses (for we
all come from the same mass; and what is man, saving that Tho.u art
mindful of him?). I should then, had I been at that time what he
was, and enjoined by Thee to write the book of Genesis, have wished
that such a power of expression and such a method of arrangement should
be given me, that they who cannot as yet understand how God creates
might not reject the words as surpassing their powers; and they who are
already able to do this, would find, in what true opinion soever they
had by thought arrived at, that it was not passed over in the few words
of Thy servant; and should another man by the light of truth have
discovered another, neither should that fail to be found in those same
words.
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