The Life of Moses has special significance because it reflects Gregory's "spiritual sense" of the Scriptures. He maintained that the ultimate purpose of the Bible was not its historical teachings but its capacity for elevating the soul to God. Gregory saw the totality of the spiritual life as an "epektasis," a continual growth or straining ahead, as in the words of St. Paul, "Forgetting the past, I strain for what is still to come."

Gregory frames an immensely significant synthesis of the earlier Hellenistic and Jewish traditions in this work. He describes the spiritual ascent as taking place in three stages, symbolized by the Lord's revelation of Himself to Moses, first in light, then in the cloud and, finally, in the dark. This translation and introduction, winner of the Christian Research Foundation Award, has been expertly rendered by Professors Abraham Malherbe of Yale University and Everett Ferguson of Abilene Christian University.