About the Planting of Noah (66-70)

The lawgiver teaches us that we should account those people wise who are not eager to be rich in created things, but who despise all created things in comparison of the friendship of the uncreated God, whom they look upon as the only true wealth, and the boundary of most perfect happiness.

Never, then, let those men boast, who have acquired power and sovereignty, as some do, because they have subdued one city, or country, or nation; and others, because they have acquired the dominion over all the countries of the earth, to its furthest borders, and over all Grecian and barbarous nations, and over all the rivers and seas, infinite both in number and magnitude.

For if, besides these things, they had made themselves masters (which it is impious even to mention) of that sublime nature which was the only thing that the Creator made free from the bond of slavery and servitude, they would still be looked upon but as private individuals in comparison with the great kings who have received God for their inheritance; for in proportion as that nature which has acquired a possession is better than the possession itself, and the Creator than the thing created, by so much also are they more royal.

Therefore, some people considered, that they who said that everything was the property of the one good Being, were speaking in an unreasonable manner, looking at the deficiencies and abundance which existed externally, and thinking no one rich who was in want of either money or possessions. But Moses thinks wisdom a thing of such preeminent value, and deserving to be so eagerly sought after, that not only the whole world deserves to be his inheritance, but that he even looks upon the Governor of the universe in that light;

and these are the doctrines, not of men who are halting between two opinions, but of those who are occupied in a firm and sure faith; since, even now, there are some persons among those who make a show and pretence of piety, who calumniate the literal meaning of this saying, saying that it is neither pious nor safe to speak of God as the inheritance of a man.