Exodus 3:14

Exo. 3:14. "I am that I am," etc. Some of the heathen philosophers seem to have derived notions that they had of the Deity from hence. Plato and Pythagoras make the great object of philosophy to be Τὸ Ον, that which is; Τὸ ὂντως Ον, that which truly is; and also Τὸ αὔτο Ον, being itself. The Seventy render this place in Exodus thus: Εγω ειμι ὃ ὢν, that the philosophers by their Τὸ Ον, Τὸ ὂντως Ον, and Τὸ αὔτο Ον, meant God, appears by what Jamblicus saith of Pythagoras, by Των Οντων, Beings, he understood sole and self agents, immaterials, and eternals. Other beings indeed are not beings, but yet are equivocally called such by a participation with Τὸ Ον και Εν these eternals." So Plato, in his Parmenides (who was a Pythagorean), treating of, which he makes the first principle of all things, thereby understands God. So, in his Timoeus Locrus, he says, Τὸ Ον, Being is always; neither hath it beginning. So again in his Timoeus, folios 37, 38, he proves nothing properly is, but God, the eternal essence, "to which," says he, "we do very improperly attribute those distinctions of time, was, and shall be." Plutarch says, Τὸ ὂντως Ον, The true Being, is eternal, ingenerable, and incorruptible, unto which no time ever brings mutation." Hence in the Delphic temple there was engraved Ει, Thou art. Gale's Court of Gen. p. 2, b.2, ch. VIII, p. 173, 174, 175.

That Plato by Τὀ ὂντως Ον, meant God, appears by his own words in his Epist. 6, fol. 323. "Let there," says he, "be a law constituted and confirmed by oath, calling to witness the God of all things, the Governor of beings present, and things to come, the Father of that governing cause whom, according to our philosophy, we make to be the true Being, Ον ὂντως, etc. This is the same with him that revealed himself to Moses by the name I am that I am, out of the bush, that was the Son of God. G. C. of Gen. p. 1, b. 3, c. 5, p. 64. Plato seems evidently to have heard of this revelation that God made of himself to Moses by the name of I am, etc. out of the burning bush in mount Sinai, and to have a plain reference to it in his Philebus, fol. 17; he confesseth, "The knowledge of the Τὀ Ον, etc. was from the gods, who communicated this knowledge to us, by a certain Prometheus, together with a bright fire. G. C. of G. p. 2, b. 3, c. 2, p. 228.

Exo. 3:14. "And God said unto Moses, I am that I am; and he said, Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you." We are informed that there was an ancient inscription in the temple at Delphos, over the place where the image of Apollo was erected, consisting of these letters, ΕΙ; and Plutarch introduces his disputants querying what might be the true signification of it. At length Ammonius, to whom he assigns the whole strength of the argumentation, concludes that "the word ΕΙ was the most perfect title they could give the Deity, that it signifies THOU ART, and expresses the divine essential Being, importing that, though our being is precarious, fluctuating, dependent, subject to mutation, and temporary; so that it would be improper to say to any of us, in the strict and absolute sense, thou art; yet we may with great propriety give the Deity this appellation, because God is independent, uncreated, immutable, eternal, always and everywhere the same, and therefore he only can be said absolutely To Be. Plutarch would have called this Being Τὀ ὂντως Ον. Plato would have named him Τὀ ὂν, which he would have explained to signify Ουσία, implying TO BE essentially, or self-existent." Shuckford's Connections, vol. 2, p. 385, 386.