De Virtutibus

the one, as being pupils, in order to learn to display their own grateful dispositions in a similar manner, and the others as presiding over them, and as by their own experience being able to take care that no part of this hymn shall be out of tune, and also as feeling some doubt whether any human being bound up in a mortal body could be able to attune his soul to music in the same manner as the sun, and the moon, and the rest of the company of the stars, having properly conformed himself to that divine instrument, the heaven, and to the universal world.

And the declarer of the will of God being thus placed amid the beings who form the host of heaven, mingled with his grateful hymns of praise to God proofs of his own genuine affection and good will towards his nation, while he reproved them for their previous sins, and gave them admonitions, and advice, and precepts for the present occasion, and exhortations for the future, inspiring

And when he had finished his hymn of melodious praise, which was thus in a manner woven together and made up of piety and humanity, he began to be changed and to depart from mortal existence to immortal life, and gradually to feel a separation of the different parts of which he was composed, namely of his body, which was now removed from him like a shell from a fish, from his soul which was thus laid bare and naked, and which desired its natural departure from hence.

Then, having prepared all things for his departure, he did not approach the actual termination of his existence until he had shown respect to all the tribes of his nation by harmonious and consistent prayers in their behalf, honouring them all to the number of twelve by the recapitulation of the name of the patriarch of each tribe, all which prayers we must believe will certainly be accomplished, for the man who offered up the prayers was a devout servant of God, and God is merciful, and the persons on whose behalf the supplications were uttered were men of pure and noble birth, classed in the highest rank possible by the supreme leader of the people, the Creator and Father of the universe.

And the things which were entreated for in the petitions were real blessings, not only that such things might fall to their share in this mortal life, but still more so when the soul should be released from the bondage of the flesh;

for Moses alone, looking upon it as it should seem that his whole nation had from the very beginning the closest of all possible relationships to God, one much more genuine than that which consists of ties of blood, made it the inheritor of all the good things which the nature of mankind is capable of receiving, giving from his own store things which he had himself, and entreating God to supply what he himself was not possessed of, knowing that the fountains of his graces are everlasting, but yet that they are not dispensed to all men, but only to such as are suppliants for them; and suppliants are those persons who love virtue and piety, and it is lawful for them to drink up those most sacred springs, inasmuch as they are continually thirsting for wisdom.

We have now, then, spoken of the proofs of the humanity