No one, I think, can deny that the miracles and portents which Moses performed were all circumscribed within the compass of this lower world. All the plagues of Egypt, the division of the Red Sea, the food of manna, and all other things of that kind, took place in the air, the water, and the earth: nothing was ever done by him in the spheres of the heavens, nothing in the stars. Who, then, doubts that in this matter Moses is surpassed by Joshua? But [Scripture says], at the end of Deuteronomy: “There arose no more a Prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.” What certain Rabbis have fabricated on this account, I have indicated before (question 24). But others, to whom that fabrication is displeasing, answer variously. First. R. Joseph Albo (book of the Foundations [Sefer ha-Ikkarim], oration 3, chapter 8) [holds that Moses] excelled all the Prophets in this one [thing]:
that the imaginative power of those [other prophets] was struck first by the divine afflatus, [and] through it then the rational [power]; but in Moses, after he had once seen the Angel in the bush, the rational power [was] always struck by God without any imagination. But from those [things] which have been disputed elsewhere, it is established that on Mount Sinai there was an Angel who, bearing the person of God, spoke to Moses. And again, did he not, in the sacred approach to God, sometimes receive vocal oracles with his [own] ears, which were then suggested to the mind through the phantasy?
R. Maimon[ides] (book 2 of the Moreh Nevuchim) will have it that Moses performed miracles in the sight of more of the Israelites than any of the other Prophets — even than Joshua himself; because of him it is written, “in the sight of all Israel,” but of Joshua [only] here (verse 12), “in the sight of Israel.” But surely this is to hunt syllables too much, for the sense of both phrases is the same. For this too is said below (verses 15, 24, & 43) — that all Israel was now with Joshua. And indeed, was all Israel, none excepted, always present to Moses when he performed some wonderful thing? Were there always more present than now to Joshua?
The same [Maimonides], writing on the Mishnah, answers otherwise — that Moses excelled all the other Prophets in four ways. First: because the mind of those [others] was roused by an Angel, [but] Moses’ [mind] by God alone. Secondly: that others beheld divine [things] in dreams, in sleep, but Moses [while] waking. Thirdly: that others were wont to be frightened by the divine afflatus, but Moses conferred discourses with God familiarly, as a friend with a friend. Fourthly: that others were not always, when they wished, divinely inspired, but Moses [was inspired] as often as it pleased him. But as to the first, I said a little before that Moses’ mind too was sometimes struck by Angels through phantasms. As to the second, certain of the Prophets also received some oracles [while] waking — as often our Joshua (as we have seen up to now), and Elijah, Elisha, Jeremiah, and others. As to the third, the others were not always frightened, and Moses himself was sometimes frightened — for [in] Hebrews 12, verse 21: “I am terrified,” he says, “and trembling” — as St. Jerome relates (on Amos, chapter 5) that the Apostle [Paul] knew this from tradition. As to the fourth, Moses was inspired by God when he sought and willed it; I think the same befell almost the other Prophets too, although perhaps their mind was moved much more quickly and easily than his. Yet I find none of all the Prophets who besought God to be taught and roused [by Him], nor [who] obtained [it].
Masius reckons that Moses excels all the Prophets not in the magnitude of [his] miracles, but only in [his] exceptional familiarity with God. But [others] show that the magnitude of the miracles too was regarded in that place of Deuteronomy — [namely] the words which follow there: “in all the signs and portents which [God] sent through him, to do in the land of Egypt.” Wherefore I gladly descend to the explanation in St. Thomas (Secunda Secundae, question 174, article 4): that as to some particulars, some of the Prophets surpass Moses — for example, as to this very miracle of Joshua; but as to all things regarded together, Moses is to be preferred to all. And this Theodoret declares…
(col. 1035)
…and this Theodoret declares, that prince of the Theologians, [reckoning] the gifts and offices of the Prophets [to be] four: First, the clear cognition of the mind, or intellectual vision. Secondly, the imaginative cognition, or imaginary vision. Thirdly, the announcing of those [things] which have been received from God. Fourthly, the confirmation of the same through miracles. But these are, as I said, to be taken cumulatively, not severally — and indeed especially the three last. For whether Moses saw the essence of God (which St. Thomas asserts in the first [respect]) has been discussed in [the commentary on] Exodus.