De Virtutibus

Philo Judaeus

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

He had also received an oracular command to call his successor and to render him full of confidence and good courage to undertake the care of the nation, without being

v.3.p.428

apprehensive of the great burden of the authority committed to him, in order that he might be a standard and rule for all governors who should come hereafter, and who should look upon Moses as their model; so that none of them should ever grudge good advice to their successors, but should train, and exercise, and instruct their souls with their suggestions and counsels.

For the advice of a good man is often able to raise up again those men whose minds are prostrate, and to elevate them again to a height, implanting in them a noble and intrepid spirit, which shall thus be established firmly above all circumstances and exigencies of time.

Accordingly, after having held a discourse in which he uttered sentiments suited both to the people who had been committed to his care, and to those who were to be the inheritors of his authority, he begins to hymn the praises of God in a song, uttering the last psalm of thanksgiving in this life while still in the body, for all the kindnesses and mercies of extraordinary and unprecedented kinds, which he had received from his birth to this his old age;