PHILO JUDÆUS.

trenches, carrying wood themselves day and night without pause. They had no rest or relief, and were not even allowed time to sleep. They were compelled to perform all the work of laborers and journeymen alike, so that in a short time their bodies failed them, their spirits having already fainted beneath their afflictions.

And so they died, one after another, as if struck by a pestilential plague. Their taskmasters threw their bodies away unburied beyond the borders of the land, not allowing their kinsmen or friends to sprinkle even a little dust on their corpses, nor to weep over those who had thus miserably perished. Like the impious men they were, they threatened to extend their despotism over the passions of the soul—which cannot be enslaved and which are almost the only things that nature has made completely free—oppressing them with the intolerable weight of a necessity beyond their strength.

VIII. At all these events, Moses was greatly grieved and indignant. He was unable to punish the unjust oppressors of his people or to assist those who were oppressed. However, he gave them all the help in his power by his words, urging their overseers to treat them with moderation and to relax some of the oppressive nature of their commands. He exhorted the oppressed, who were suffering so, to bear their present distresses with a noble spirit and to be men in their minds; not to let their souls faint as well as their bodies, but to hope for good fortune after their present adversity. For all things in this world have a tendency to change to the opposite: cloudy weather to fine, violent gales to calm and stillness, and storms and heavy waves at sea to fair weather and a smooth surface of the water; and human affairs are even more likely to change, inasmuch as they are more unstable than anything else.

By using these charms, as it were, like a good physician, he thought he would be able to alleviate their afflictions, although they were most grievous. But whenever their distress abated, their taskmasters returned and oppressed them with increased severity, always adding some new evil after the respite that was even more intolerable than their previous sufferings. For some of their overseers were very savage and furious men, being in their cruelty not at all different