De Virtutibus

Philo Judaeus

The works of Philo Judaeus, the contemporary of Josephus, volume 3. Yonge, C. D., translator. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1855.

And the clearest proof of what I have said may be afforded by the following consideration. He had a friend and pupil, one who had been so almost from his very earliest youth, Joshua by name, whose friendship he had won, not by any of the arts which are commonly in use among other men, but by that heavenly and unmixed love from which all virtue is derived. This man lived under the same roof, and shared the same table with him, except when solitude was enjoined to him on occasions when he was inspired and instructed in divine oracles. He also performed other services for him in which he was distinguished from the multitude, being almost his lieutenant, and regulating in conjunction with him the matters relating to his supreme authority.

But yet, though Moses had thus an accurate knowledge of

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him from his experience of him for a long time, and though he knew his excellence both in word and deed, and the greatness of his good will towards his nation, yet he did not think fit to leave him as his successor himself, fearing lest he might perchance be deceived in looking on that man as good who in reality was not so, since the tests by which one can judge of human nature are in a great degree indistinct and unstable.

On which account he did not trust to his own knowledge, but he supplicated and entreated God, who alone can behold the invisible soul, who sees accurately the mind of man, to choose and select the most suitable man for the supreme authority, one who would care for the people who were to be his subjects like a father. And stretching his pure, and, as one may say in a somewhat metaphorical manner, his virgin hands towards heaven, he said,