Chapter VII. That Moses Himself Has Recorded in His Own Writings the Lives of Those Hebrews Who Lived Before His Time

So then the great theologian Moses, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, if ever any was, and understanding well the customs of his forefathers, by way of preface to the sacred laws has committed to indelible records the lives of the forefathers of the Hebrews, and the blessings which God vouchsafed to them, and on the other hand the characters and the punishments of other godless and impious nations, because he thought that this would be a needful lesson for those who were to be taught his laws, both for avoidance of the like customs to those of the wicked, and for encouragement to adopt the life of the godly.

It was needful besides that they should not be ignorant, that before them, and before his own written laws, many of their forefathers by right use of reason had already been honourably distinguished for excellence in religion; who having been called friends of God and prophets, gained in his writings eternal remembrance; who also were no aliens in race to these for whom he was ordaining his laws.

Wherefore also it was the more necessary for them, as being by birth descendants of righteous men beloved of God, to show themselves emulous of the piety of their forefathers, and to be eager to obtain from God equal blessings with those who had begotten them. Nor must they grow sluggish and discouraged as if this were impossible, nor renounce the hope of those blessings for themselves; for they were possible, and had been gained with entire success by their own forefathers; whose portraits he was handing down to those who were being instructed in the things of God, recounting the lives of the men of old, and delineating as in painted likenesses the peculiar virtue of each one.