[1] Moses is first mentioned in 1549 as an envoy of the Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch, Ignatius Abdullah I Stephan, to Rome to seek the means to print Syriac copies of the New Testament.
Whilst in Rome, Moses stayed in the monastery of St Stephen of the Abyssinians where Johannes Potken had printed the first Ge'ez book, Psalterium David et Cantica aliqu.
Here he printed a Syriac manuscript with the assistance of the Cardinals Marcello Cervini, Reginald Pole and Jean du Bellay.
Upon the advice of Masius, he left Rome in the company of Cardinal Pole as he was returning to England, to meet Johann Jacob Fugger in Augsburg.
Both sharing the same goals of printing a Syriac copy of the New Testament, Widmanstetter travelled with Moses to Vienna where they convinced Ferdinand I to fund their project.