First Apology 60

And the physiological discussion in Plato's Timaeus about the Son of God, when he says, “He placed him crosswise in the universe,” he likewise said taking it from Moses. For in the writings of Moses it is recorded that at that time, when the Israelites had gone out from Egypt and were in the wilderness, venomous beasts met them, vipers and asps and every kind of serpent, which killed the people; and that, by inspiration and power that came from God, Moses took bronze and made a figure of a cross, and set it up at the holy tabernacle, and said to the people, “If you look at this figure and believe, you will be saved by it.” And when this was done, he recorded that the serpents died, and handed down that the people thus escaped death. Plato read this and, not knowing it accurately nor understanding that it was a figure of a cross, but taking it for the letter chi, said that the power next to the first God was placed crosswise in the universe. And his speaking of a third came about because, as we said before, he read what was said by Moses, that the Spirit of God was borne over the waters. For he gives the second place to the Word from God, who he said was placed crosswise in the universe, and the third to the Spirit said to be borne over the water, saying, “And the third things about the third.” And hear how the prophetic Spirit foretold through Moses that there would be a conflagration. It spoke thus: “Ever-living fire will come down and devour as far as the abyss below.” It is not, then, that we hold the same opinions as others, but all others say what they say by imitating ours. Among us, then, these things can be heard and learned even from those who do not know the shapes of the letters, people uneducated and barbarous in speech, but wise and faithful in mind, and some of them maimed and bereft of sight; so that one may understand that these things did not come about by human wisdom but are spoken by the power of God.