not as He really is, but as the beholders could bear the sight._
Neither need we be surprised that God, invisible as He is, should
often have appeared visibly to the patriarchs. For as the sound which
communicates the thought conceived in the silence of the mind is
not the thought itself, so the form by which God, invisible in His
own nature, became visible, was not God Himself. Nevertheless it is
He Himself who was seen under that form, as that thought itself is
heard in the sound of the voice; and the patriarchs recognised that,
though the bodily form was not God, they saw the invisible God. For,
though Moses conversed with God, yet he said, 'If I have found grace
in Thy sight, show me Thyself, that I may see and know Thee.'[401]
And as it was fit that the law, which was given, not to one man or a
few enlightened men, but to the whole of a populous nation, should be
accompanied by awe-inspiring signs, great marvels were wrought, by
the ministry of angels, before the people on the mount where the law
was being given to them through one man, while the multitude beheld
the awful appearances. For the people of Israel believed Moses, not
as the Lacedæmonians believed their Lycurgus, because he had received
from Jupiter or Apollo the laws he gave them. For when the law which
enjoined the worship of one God was given to the people, marvellous
signs and earthquakes, such as the divine wisdom judged sufficient,
were brought about in the sight of all, that they might know that it
was the Creator who could thus use creation to promulgate His law.