“For both is it a difficult task to discover the Father and Maker of this universe; and having found Him, it is impossible to declare Him to all. For this is by no means capable of expression, like the other subjects of instruction,” says the truth-loving Plato. For he had heard right well that the all-wise Moses, ascending the mount for holy contemplation, to the summit of intellectual objects, necessarily commands that the whole people do not accompany him. And when the Scripture says, “Moses entered into the thick darkness where God was,” this shows to those capable of understanding, that God is invisible and beyond expression by words. And “the darkness”--which, is in truth, the unbelief and ignorance of the multitude--obstructs the gleam of the truth. And again Orpheus, the theologian, aided from this quarter, says: “One is perfect in himself, and all things are made the progeny of one,” or, “are born;” for so also is it written. He adds: “Him No one of mortals has seen, but He sees all.” And he adds more clearly: “Him see I not, for round about, a cloud Has settled; for in mortal eyes are small, And mortal pupils--only flesh and bones grow there.” To these statements the apostle will testify: “I know a man in Christ, caught up into the third heaven, and thence into Paradise, who heard unutterable words which it is not lawful for a man to speak,”--intimating thus the impossibility of expressing God, and indicating that what is divine is unutterable by human[816] power; if, indeed, he begins to speak above the third heaven, as it is lawful to initiate the elect souls in the mysteries there. For I know what is in Plato (for the examples from the barbarian philosophy, which are many, are suggested now by the composition which, in accordance with promises previously given, waits the suitable time). For doubting, in _Timæus_, whether we ought to regard several worlds as to be understood by many heavens, or this one, he makes no distinction in the names, calling the world and heaven by the same name. But the words of the statement are as follows: “Whether, then, have we rightly spoken of one heaven, or of many and infinite? It were more correct to say one, if indeed it was created according to the model.” Further, in the Epistle of the Romans to the Corinthians it is written, “An ocean illimitable by men and the worlds after it.” Consequently, therefore, the noble apostle exclaims, “Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God!”[817]