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diff --git a/old/14657.txt b/old/14657.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4fde8f8 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14657.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7760 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria, by Norman Bentwich + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria + +Author: Norman Bentwich + +Release Date: January 10, 2005 [EBook #14657] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PHILO-JUDAEUS OF ALEXANDRIA *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin, jayam, David King, and the PG Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + + + + + +PHILO-JUDAEUS + +OF ALEXANDRIA, + + + +BY + + + +NORMAN BENTWICH +Sometime Scholar of Trinity College, +Cambridge. + + + + +PHILADELPHIA +THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA +1910 + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1910, +BY THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA + + + + + +TO MY MOTHER [Greek: threpteria] + + + + + + + + + +PREFACE + + +It is a melancholy reflection upon the history of the Jews that they +have failed to pay due honor to their two greatest philosophers. +Spinoza was rejected by his contemporaries from the congregation of +Israel; Philo-Judaeus was neglected by the generations that followed +him. Maimonides, our third philosopher, was in danger of meeting the +same fate, and his philosophical work was for long viewed with +suspicion by a large part of the community. Philosophers, by the very +excellence of their thought, have in all races towered above the +comprehension of the people, and aroused the suspicion of the +religious teachers. Elsewhere, however, though rejected by the Church, +they have left their influence upon the nation, and taken a commanding +place in its history, because they have founded secular schools of +thought, which perpetuated their work. In Judaism, where religion and +nationality are inextricably combined, that could not be. The history +of Judaism since the extinction of political independence is the +history of a national religious culture; what was national in its +thought alone found favor; and unless a philosopher's work bore this +national religious stamp it dropped out of Jewish history. + +Philo certainly had an intensely strong Jewish feeling, but his work +had also another aspect, which was seized upon and made use of by +those who wished to denationalize Judaism and convert it into a +philosophical monotheism. The favor which the Church Fathers showed to +his writings induced and was balanced by the neglect of the rabbis. + +It was left till recently to non-Jews to study the works of Philo, to +present his philosophy, and estimate its value. So far from taking a +Jewish standpoint in their work, they emphasized the parts of his +teaching that are least Jewish; for they were writing as Christian +theologians or as historians of Greek philosophy. They searched him +primarily for traces of Christian, neo-Platonic, or Stoic doctrines, +and commiserated with him, or criticised him as a weak-kneed eclectic, +a half-blind groper for the true light. + +Even during the last hundred years, which have marked a revival of the +historical consciousness of the Jews, as of all peoples, it has still +been left in the main to non-Jewish scholars to write of Philo in +relation to his time and his environment. The purpose of this little +book is frankly to give a presentation of Philo from the Jewish +standpoint. I hold that Philo is essentially and splendidly a Jew, and +that his thought is through and through Jewish. The surname given him +in the second century, "Judaeus," not only distinguishes him from an +obscure Christian bishop, but it expresses the predominant +characteristic of his teaching. It may be objected that I have pointed +the moral and adorned the tale in accordance with preconceived +opinions, which--as Mr. Claude Montefiore says in his essay on +Philo--it is easy to do with so strange and curious a writer. I +confess that my worthy appeals to me most strongly as an exponent of +Judaism, and it may be that in this regard I have not always looked on +him as the calm, dispassionate student should; for I experience +towards him that warmth of feeling which his name, [Greek: philon], +"the beloved one," suggests. But I have tried so to write this +biography as neither to show partiality on the one side nor +impartiality on the other. If nevertheless I have exaggerated the +Jewishness of my worthy's thought, my excuse must be that my +predecessors have so often exaggerated other aspects of his teaching +that it was necessary to call a new picture into being, in order to +redress the balance of the old. + +Although I have to some extent taken a line of my own in this Life, my +obligations to previous writers upon Philo are very great. I have used +freely the works of Drummond, Schuerer, Massebieau, Zeller, Conybeare, +Cohn, and Wendland; and among those who have treated of Philo in +relation to Jewish tradition I have read and borrowed from Siegfried +(_Philon als Ausleger der heiligen Schrift_), Freudenthal +(_Hellenistische Studien_), Ritter (_Philo und die Halacha_), and Mr. +Claude Montefiore's _Florilegium Philonis_, which is printed in the +seventh volume of the Jewish Quarterly Review. Once for all Mr. +Montefiore has selected many of the most beautiful and most vital +passages of Philo, and much as I should have liked to unearth new +gems, as beautiful and as illuminating, I have often found myself +irresistibly attracted to Mr. Montefiore's passages. Dr. Neumark's +book, _Geschichte der juedischen Philosophie des Mittelalters_, +appeared after my manuscript was set up, or I should have dealt with +his treatment of Philo. With what he says of the relation of Plato to +Judaism I am in great part in agreement, and I had independently come +to the conclusion that Plato was the main Greek influence on Philo's +thought. + +To these various books I owe much, but not so much as to the teaching, +influence, and help of one whose name I have not the boldness to +associate with this little volume, but whose notes on my manuscript +have given it whatever value it may possess. The index I owe to the +kindly help of a sister, who would also be nameless. Lastly I have to +thank Dr. Lionel Barnett, professor of Sanscrit at University College, +London, and my father, who read my manuscript before it was sent to +the printers. The one gave me the benefit of his wide and accurate +scholarship, the other gave me much valuable advice and removed many a +blazing indiscretion. + +NORMAN BENTWICH. + +_February 28, 1907._ + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + I. THE JEWISH COMMUNITY AT ALEXANDRIA + + II. THE LIFE AND TIMES OF PHILO + + III. PHILO'S WORKS AND METHOD + + IV. PHILO AND THE TORAH + + V. PHILO'S THEOLOGY + + VI. PHILO AS A PHILOSOPHER + + VII. PHILO AND JEWISH TRADITION + + VIII. THE INFLUENCE OF PHILO + + BIBLIOGRAPHY + + ABBREVIATIONS USED FOR THE REFERENCES + + INDEX + + + + + + +PHILO-JUDAEUS OF ALEXANDRIA + + + + + +I + +THE JEWISH COMMUNITY AT ALEXANDRIA + + +The three great world-conquerors known to history, Alexander, Julius +Caesar, and Napoleon, recognized the pre-eminent value of the Jew as a +bond of empire, an intermediary between the heterogeneous nations +which they brought beneath their sway. Each in turn showed favor to +his religion, and accorded him political privileges. The petty tyrants +of all ages have persecuted Jews on the plea of securing uniformity +among their subjects; but the great conqueror-statesmen who have made +history, realizing that progress is brought about by unity in +difference, have recognized in Jewish individuality a force making for +progress. Whereas the pure Hellenes had put all the other peoples of +the world in the single category of barbarians, their Macedonian +conqueror forced upon them a broader view, and, regarding his empire +as a world-state, made Greeks and Orientals live together, and +prepared the way for a mingling of races and culture. Alexander the +Great became a notable figure in the Talmud and Midrashim, and many a +marvellous legend was told about his passing visit to Jerusalem during +his march to Egypt.[1] The high priest--whether it was Jaddua, Simon, +or Onias the records do not make clear--is said to have gone out to +meet him, and to have compelled the reverence and homage of the +monarch by the majesty of his presence and the lustre of his robes. Be +this as it may, it is certain that Alexander settled a considerable +number of Jews in the Greek colonies which he founded as centres of +cosmopolitan culture in his empire, and especially in the town by the +mouth of the Nile that received his own name, and was destined to +become within two centuries the second town in the world; second only +to Rome in population and power, equal to it in culture. By its +geographical position, the nature of its foundation, and the sources +of its population, and by the wonderful organization of its Museum, in +which the records of all nations were stored and studied, Alexandria +was fitted to become the meeting-place of civilizations. + +There was already a considerable settlement of Jews in Egypt before +Alexander's transplantation in 332 B.C.E. Throughout Bible times the +connection between Israel and Egypt had been close. Isaiah speaks of +the day when five cities in the land of Egypt should speak the +language of Canaan and swear to the Lord of hosts (xix. 18); and when +Nebuchadnezzar led away the first captivity, many of the people had +fled from Palestine to the old "cradle of the nation." Jeremiah (xliv) +went down with them to prophesy against their idolatrous practices and +their backslidings; and Jewish and Christian writers in later times, +daring boldly against chronology, told how Plato, visiting Egypt, had +heard Jeremiah and learnt from him his lofty monotheism. Doubt was +thrown in the last century upon the continuance of the Diaspora in +Egypt between the time of Jeremiah and Alexander, but the recent +discovery of a Jewish temple at Elephantine and of Aramaic papyri at +Assouan dated in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E. has proved that +these doubts were not well founded, and that there was a +well-established community during the interval. + +From the time of the post-exilic prophets Judaism developed in three +main streams, one flowing from Jerusalem, another from Babylon, the +third from Egypt. Alexandria soon took precedence of existing +settlements of Jews, and became a great centre of Jewish life. The +first Ptolemy, to whom at the dismemberment of Alexander's empire +Egypt had fallen,[2] continued to the Jewish settlers the privileges +of full citizenship which Alexander had granted them. He increased +also the number of Jewish inhabitants, for following his conquest of +Palestine (or Coele-Syria, as it was then called), he brought back to +his capital a large number of Jewish families and settled thirty +thousand Jewish soldiers in garrisons. For the next hundred years the +Palestinian and Egyptian Jews were under the same rule, and for the +most part the Ptolemies treated them well. They were easy-going and +tolerant, and while they encouraged the higher forms of Greek culture, +art, letters, and philosophy, both at their own court and through +their dominions, they made no attempt to impose on their subjects the +Greek religion and ceremonial. Under their tolerant sway the Jewish +community thrived, and became distinguished in the handicrafts as well +as in commerce. Two of the five sections into which Alexandria was +divided were almost exclusively occupied by them; these lay in the +north-east along the shore and near the royal palace--a favorable +situation for the large commercial enterprises in which they were +engaged. The Jews had full permission to carry on their religious +observances, and besides many smaller places of worship, each marked +by its surrounding plantation of trees, they built a great synagogue, +of which it is said in the Talmud, "He who has not seen it has not +seen the glory of Israel."[3] It was in the form of a basilica, with a +double row of columns, and so vast that an official standing upon a +platform had to wave his head-cloth or veil to inform the people at +the back of the edifice when to say "Amen" in response to the Reader. +The congregation was seated according to trade-guilds, as was also +customary during the Middle Ages; the goldsmiths, silversmiths, +coppersmiths, and weavers had their own places, for the Alexandrian +Jews seem to have partially adopted the Egyptian caste-system. The +Jews enjoyed a large amount of self-government, having their own +governor, the ethnarch, and in Roman times their own council +(Sanhedrin), which administered their own code of laws. Of the +ethnarch Strabo says that he was like an independent ruler, and it was +his function to secure the proper fulfilment of duties by the +community and compliance with their peculiar laws.[4] Thus the people +formed a sort of state within a state, preserving their national life +in the foreign environment. They possessed as much political +independence as the Palestinian community when under Roman rule; and +enjoyed all the advantages without any of the narrowing influences, +physical or intellectual, of a ghetto. They were able to remain an +independent body, and foster a Jewish spirit, a Jewish view of life, a +Jewish culture, while at the same time they assimilated the different +culture of the Greeks around them, and took their part in the general +social and political life. + +At the end of the third and the beginning of the second century +Palestine was a shuttlecock tossed between the Ptolemies and the +Seleucids; but in the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes (_c._ 150 B.C.E.) +it finally passed out of the power of the Ptolemaic house, and from +this time the Palestinian Jews had a different political history from +the Egyptian. The compulsory Hellenization by Antiochus aroused the +best elements of the Jewish nation, which had seemed likely to lose by +a gradual assimilation its adherence to pure monotheism and the Mosaic +law. The struggle of foe as against the Hellenizing party of his own +people, which, led by the high priests Jason, Menelaus, and Alcimus, +tried to crush both the national and the religious spirit. The +Maccabaean rule brought not only a renaissance of national life and +national culture, but also a revival of the national religion. Before, +however, the deliverance of the Jews had been accomplished by the +noble band of brothers, many of the faithful Palestinian families had +fled for protection from the tyranny of Antiochus to the refuge of his +enemy Ptolemy Philometor. Among the fugitives were Onias and +Dositheus, who, according to Josephus,[5] became the trusted leaders +of the armies of the Egyptian monarch. Onias, moreover, was the +rightful successor to the high-priesthood, and despairing of obtaining +his dignity in Jerusalem, where the office had been given to the +worthless Hellenist Alcimus, he conceived the idea of setting up a +local centre of the Jewish religion in the country of his exile. He +persuaded Ptolemy to grant him a piece of territory upon which he +might build a temple for Jewish worship, assuring him that his action +would have the effect of securing forever the loyalty of his Jewish +subjects. Ptolemy "gave him a place one hundred and eighty furlongs +distant from Memphis, in the nomos of Heliopolis, where he built a +fortress and a temple, not like that at Jerusalem, but such as +resembled a tower."[6] Professor Flinders Petrie has recently +discovered remains at Tell-el-Yehoudiyeh, the "mound of the Jews," +near the ancient Leontopolis, which tally with the description of +Josephus, and may be presumed to be the ruins of the temple. + +It is difficult to arrive at an accurate idea of the nature and +importance of the Onias temple, because our chief authority, +Josephus,[7] gives two inconsistent accounts of it, and the Talmud +references[8] are equally involved. But certain negative facts are +clear. First, the temple did not become, even if it were designed to +be, a rival to the temple of Jerusalem: it did not diminish in any way +the tribute which the Egyptian Jews paid to the sacred centre of the +religion. They did not cease to send their tithes for the benefit of +the poor in Judaea, or their representatives to the great festivals, +and they dispatched messengers each year with contributions of gold +and silver, who, says Philo,[9] "travelled over almost impassable +roads, which they looked upon as easy, in that they led them to +piety." The Alexandrian-Jewish writers, without exception, are silent +about the work of Onias; Philo does not give a single hint of it, and +on the other hand speaks[10] several times of the great national +centre at Jerusalem as "the most beautiful and renowned temple which +is honored by the whole East and West." The Egyptian Jews, according +to Josephus, claimed that the prophecy of Isaiah had been +accomplished, "that there shall be an altar to the Lord in the midst +of the land of Egypt" (Is. xix. 19). But the altar, it has recently +been suggested,[11] was rather a "Bamah" (a high place) than a temple. +It served as a temporary sanctuary while the Jerusalem temple was +defiled, and afterwards it was a place where the priestly ritual was +carried out day by day, and offerings were brought by those who could +not make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Though the synagogue was the +main seat of religious life in the Diaspora, there was still a desire +for the sacrificial worship, and for a long time the rabbis looked +with favor upon the establishment of Onias. But when the tendency to +found a new ritual there showed itself, they denied its holiness.[12] +The religious importance of the temple, however, was never great, and +its chief interest is that it shows the survival of the affection for +the priestly service among the Hellenized community, and helps +therefore to disprove the myth that the Alexandrians allegorized away +the Levitical laws. + +During the checkered history of Egypt in the first century B.C.E., +when it was in turn the plaything of the corrupt Roman Senate, who +supported the claims of a series of feeble puppet-Ptolemies, the prize +of the warriors, who successively aspired to be masters of the world, +Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, and Octavian, and finally a province of the +Roman Empire, the political and material prosperity of the Alexandrian +Jews remained for the most part undisturbed. Julius Caesar and +Augustus, who everywhere showed special favor to their Jewish +subjects, confirmed the privileges of full citizenship and limited +self-government which the early Ptolemies had bestowed.[13] Josephus +records a letter of Augustus to the Jewish community at Cyrene, in +which he ordains: "Since the nation of the Jews hath been found +grateful to the Roman people, it seemed good to me and my counsellors +that the Jews have liberty to make use of their own customs, and that +their sacred money be not touched, but sent to Jerusalem, and that +they be not obliged to go before the judge on the Sabbath day nor on +the day of preparation for it after the ninth hour," _i.e._, after the +early evening.[14] This decree is typical of the emperor's attitude to +his Jewish subjects; and Egypt became more and more a favored home of +the race, so that the Jewish population in the land, from the Libyan +desert to the border of Ethiopia, was estimated in Philo's time at not +less than one million.[15] + +The prosperity and privileges of the Jews, combined with their +peculiar customs and their religious separateness, did not fail at +Alexandria, as they have not failed in any country of the Diaspora, to +arouse the mixed envy and dislike of the rude populace, and give a +handle to the agitations of self-seeking demagogues. The third book of +the Maccabees tells of a Ptolemaic persecution during which Jewish +victims were turned into the arena at Alexandria, to be trodden down +by elephants made fierce with the blood of grapes, and of their +deliverance by Divine Providence. Some fiction is certainly mixed with +this recital, but it may well be that during the rule of the stupid +and cruel usurper Ptolemy Physcon (_c._ 120 B.C.E.) the protection of +the royal house was for political reasons removed for a time from the +Jews. Josephus[16] relates that the anniversary of the deliverance was +celebrated as a festival in Egypt. The popular feeling against the +peculiar people was of an abiding character, for it had abiding +causes, envy and dislike of a separate manner of life; and the +professional anti-Semite,[17] who had his forerunners before the reign +of the first Ptolemy, was able from time to time to fan popular +feelings into flame. In those days, when history and fiction were not +clearly distinguished, he was apt to hide his attacks under the guise +of history, and stir up odium by scurrilous and offensive accounts of +the ancient Hebrews. Hence anti-Jewish literature originated at +Alexandria. + +Manetho, an historian of the second century B.C.E., in his chronicles +of Egypt, introduced an anti-Jewish pamphlet with an original account +of the Exodus, which became the model for a school of scribes more +virulent and less distinguished than himself. The Battle of Histories +was taken up with spirit by the Jews, and it was round the history of +the Israelites in Egypt that the conflict chiefly raged. In reply to +the offensive picture of a Manetho and the diatribes of some +"starveling Greekling," there appeared the eulogistic picture of an +Aristeas, the improved Exodus of an Artapanus. Joseph and Moses +figured as the most brilliant of Egyptian statesmen, and the Ptolemies +as admirers of the Scriptures. The morality of this apologetic +literature, and more particularly of the literary forgeries which +formed part of it, has been impugned by certain German theologians. +But apart from the necessities of the case, it is not fair to apply to +an age in which Cicero declared that artistic lying was legitimate in +history, the standard of modern German accuracy. The fabrications of +Jewish apologists were in the spirit of the time. + +The outward history of the Alexandrian community is far less +interesting and of far less importance than its intellectual progress. +When Alexander planted the colony of Jews in his greatest foundation, +he probably intended to facilitate the fusion of Eastern and Western +thought through their mediation. Such, at any rate, was the result of +his work. His marvellous exploits had put an end for a time to the +political strife between Asia and Europe, and had started the movement +between the two realms of culture, which was fated to produce the +greatest combination of ideas that the world has known. Now, at last, +the Hebrew, with his lofty conception of God, came into close contact +with the Greek, who had developed an equally noble conception of man. +Disraeli, in his usual sweeping manner, makes one of his characters in +"Lothair" tell how the Aryan and Semitic races, after centuries of +wandering upon opposite courses, met again and, represented by their +two choicest families, the Hellenes and the Hebrews, brought together +the treasures of their accumulated wisdom and secured the civilization +of man. Apart from the question of the original common source, of +which we are no longer sure, his rhetoric is broadly true; but for two +centuries the influence was nearly all upon one side. The Jew, +attracted by the brilliant art, literature, science, and philosophy of +the Hellene, speedily Hellenized, and as early as the third century +B.C.E. Clearchus, the pupil of Aristotle, tells of a Jew whom his +master met, who was "Greek not only in language but also in mind."[18] +The Greek, on the other hand, who had not yet comprehended the majesty +of his neighbor's monotheism, for lack of adequate presentation, did +not Hebraize. In Palestine the adoption of Greek ways and the +introduction of Greek ideas proceeded rapidly to the point of +demoralization, until the Maccabees stayed it. Unfortunately, the +Hellenism that was brought to Palestine was not the lofty culture, the +eager search for truth and knowledge, that marked Athens in the +classical age; it was a bastard product of Greek elegance and Oriental +luxury and sensuousness, a seeking after base pleasures, an assertion +of naturalistic polytheism. And hence came the strong reaction against +Greek ideas among the bulk of the people, which prevented any +permanent fusion of cultures in the land of Israel. + +The Hellenism of Alexandria was a more genuine product. The liberal +policy of the early Ptolemies made their capital a centre of art, +literature, science, and philosophy. To their court were gathered the +chief poets, savants, and thinkers of their age. The Museum was the +most celebrated literary academy, and the Library the most noted +collection of books in the world. Dwelling in this atmosphere of +culture and research, the Hebrew mind rapidly expanded and began to +take its part as an active force in civilization. It acquired the love +of knowledge in a wider sense than it had recognized before, and +assimilated the teachings of Hellas in all their variety. Within a +hundred years of their settlement Hebrew or Aramaic had become to the +Jews a strange language, and they spoke and thought in Greek. Hence it +was necessary to have an authoritative Greek translation of the Holy +Scriptures, and the first great step in the Jewish-Hellenistic +development is marked by the Septuagint version of the Bible. + +Fancy and legend attached themselves early to an event fraught with +such importance for the history of the race and mankind as the +translation of the Scriptures into the language of the cultured world. +From this overgrowth it is difficult to construct a true narrative; +still, the research of latter-day scholars has gone far to prove a +basis of truth in the statements made in the famous letter of the +pseudo-Aristeas, which professes to describe the origin of the work. +We may extract from his story that the Septuagint was written in the +reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, about 250 B.C.E., with the approval, if +not at the express request, of the king, and with the help of rabbis +brought from Palestine to give authority to the work. But we need not +believe with later legend that each of the seventy translators was +locked up in a separate cell for seventy days till he had finished the +whole work, and that when they were let out they were all found to +have written exactly the same words. Philo gives us a version of the +event, romantic, indeed, but more rational, in his "Life of +Moses."[19] He tells how Ptolemy, having conceived a great admiration +for the laws of Moses, sent ambassadors to the high priest of Juddea, +requesting him to choose out a number of learned men that might +translate them into Greek. "These were duly chosen, and came to the +king's court, and were allotted the Isle of Pharos as the most +tranquil spot in the city for carrying out their work; by God's grace +they all found the exact Greek words to correspond to the Hebrew +words, so that they were not mere translators, but prophets to whom +it had been granted to follow in the divinity of their minds the +sublime spirit of Moses." "On which account," he adds, "even to this +day there is in every year celebrated a festival in the Island of +Pharos, to which not only Jews but many persons of other nations sail +across, reverencing the place in which the light of interpretation +first shone forth, and thanking God for His ancient gift to man, which +has eternal youth and freshness." It is significant that Philo makes +no mention in his books of the festival of Hanukah, while the Talmud +has no mention of this feast of Pharos; the Alexandrian Jews +celebrated the day when the Bible was brought within reach of the +Greek world, the Palestinians the day when the Greeks were driven out +of the temple. At the same time the celebrations in honor of the +Septuagint and of the deliverance from the Ptolemaic persecution[20] +are remarkable illustrations of a living Jewish tradition at +Alexandria, which attached a religious consecration to the special +history of the community. + +It is not correct to say with Philo that the translator rendered each +word of the Hebrew with literal faithfulness, so as to give its proper +force. Rather may we accept the words of the Greek translator of Ben +Sira: "Things originally spoken in Hebrew have not the same force in +them when they are translated into another tongue, and not only these, +but the law itself (the Torah) and the prophecies and the rest of the +books have no small difference when they are spoken in their original +language."[21] + +From the making of the translation one can trace the movement that +ended in Christianity. By reading their Scriptures in Greek, Jews +began to think them in Greek and according to Greek conceptions. +Certain commentators have seen in the Septuagint itself the infusion +of Greek philosophical ideas. Be this as it may, it is certain that +the version facilitated the introduction of Greek philosophy into the +interpretation of Scripture, and gave a new meaning to certain Hebraic +conceptions, by suggesting comparison with strange notions. This +aspect of the work led the rabbis of Palestine and Babylon in later +days, when the spread of Hellenized Judaism was fraught with misery to +the race, to regard it as an awful calamity, and to recount a tale of +a plague of darkness which fell upon Palestine for three days when it +was made;[22] and they observed a fast day in place of the old +Alexandrian feast on the anniversary of its completion. They felt as +the old Italian proverb has it, _Traduttori, traditori!_ ("Translators +are traitors!"). And the Midrash in the same spirit declares[23] that +the oral law was not written down, because God knew that otherwise it +would be translated into Greek, and He wished it to be the special +mystery of His people, as the Bible no longer was. + +The Septuagint translation of the Bible was one answer to the lying +accounts of Israel's early history concocted by anti-Semitic writers. +As we have seen,[24] the Alexandrian Jews began early to write +histories and re-edit the Bible stories to the same purpose. And for +some time their writings were mainly apologetic, designed, whatever +their form, to serve a defensive purpose. But later they took the +offensive against the paganism and immorality of the peoples about +them, and the missionary spirit became predominant. Alexander +Polyhistor, who lived in the first century, included in his "History +of the Jews" fragments of these early Jewish historians and +apologists, which the Christian bishop Eusebius has handed down to us. +From them we can gather some notion of the strange medley of fact and +imagination which was composed to influence the Gentile world. Abraham +is said to have instructed the Egyptians in astrology; Joseph devised +a great system of agriculture; Moses was identified variously with the +legendary Greek seer Musaeus and the god Hermes. A favorite device for +rebutting the calumnies of detractors and attracting the outer world +to Jewish ideas, was the attachment to some ancient source of +panegyrics upon Judaism and monotheism. To the Greek philosopher +Heraclitus and the Greek historian Hecataeeus, who wrote a history of +the world, passages which glorify the Hebrew people and the Hebrew God +were ascribed. Still more daring was the conversion into archaic +hexameter verse of the stories of Genesis and Exodus, and of Messianic +prophecies in the guise of Sibylline oracles. The Sibyl, whom the +superstitions of the time revered as an inspired seeress of +prehistoric ages, was made to recite the building of the tower of +Babel, or the virtues of Abraham, and again to prophesy the day when +the heathen nations should be wiped out, and the God of Israel be the +God of all the world. Although the fabrication of oracles is not +entirely defensible, it is unnecessary to see, with Schuerer, in these +writings a low moral standard among the Egyptian Jews. They were not +meant to suggest, to the cultured at any rate, that the Sibyl in one +case or Heraclitus in another had really written the words ascribed to +them. The so-called forgery was a literary device of a like nature +with the dialogues of Plato or the political fantasies of More and +Swift. By the striking nature of their utterances the writers hoped to +catch the ear of the Gentile world for the saving doctrine which they +taught. The form is Greek, but the spirit is Hebraic; in the third +Sibylline oracle, particularly, the call to monotheism and the +denunciation of idolatry, with the pictures of the Divine reward for +the righteous, and of the Divine judgment for the ungodly, remind us +of the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah; as when the poet says,[25] +"Witless mortals, who cling to an image that ye have fashioned to be +your god, why do ye vainly go astray, and march along a path which is +not straight? Why remember ye not the eternal founder of All? One only +God there is who ruleth alone." And again: "The children of Israel +shall mark out the path of life to all mortals, for they are the +interpreters of God, exalted by Him, and bearing a great joy to all +mankind."[26] The consciousness of the Jewish mission is the dominant +note. Masters now of Greek culture, the Jews believed that they had a +philosophy of their own, which it was their privilege to teach to the +Greeks; their conception of God and the government of the world was +truer than any other; their conception of man's duty more righteous; +even their conception of the state more ideal. + +The apocryphal book, the Wisdom of Solomon, which was probably written +at Alexandria during the first century B.C.E., is marked by the same +spirit. There again we meet with the glorification of the one true God +of Israel, and the denunciation of pagan idolatry; and while the +author writes in Greek and shows the influence of Greek ideas, he +makes the Psalms and the Proverbs his models of literary form. "Love +righteousness," he begins, "ye that be judges of the earth; think ye +of the Lord with a good mind and in singleness of heart seek ye Him." +His appeal for godliness is addressed to the Gentile world in a +language which they understood, but in a spirit to which most of them +were strangers. The early history of the Israelites in Egypt comes +home to him with especial force, for he sees it "in the light of +eternity," a striking moral lesson for the godless Egyptian world +around him in which the house of Jacob dwelt again. With poetical +imagination he tells anew the story of the ten plagues as though he +had lived through them, and seen with his own eyes the punishment of +the idolatrous land. He ends with a paean to the God who had saved His +people. "For in all things Thou didst magnify them, and Thou didst +glorify them, and not lightly regard them, standing by their side in +every time and place." + +At this epoch, and at Alexandria especially, Judaism was no +self-centred, exclusive faith afraid of expansion. The mission of +Israel was a very real thing, and conversion was widespread in Rome, +in Egypt, and all along the Mediterranean countries. The Jews, says +the letter of Aristeas, "eagerly seek intercourse with other nations, +and they pay special care to this, and emulate each other therein." +And one of the most reliable pagan writers says of them, "They have +penetrated into every state, and it is hard to find a place where they +have not become powerful."[27] Nor was it merely material power which +they acquired. The days had come which the prophet Amos (viii. 11) had +predicted, when "God will send a famine in the land, not a famine of +bread, nor a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of +the Lord." The Greek world had lost faith in the poetical gods of its +mythology and in the metaphysical powers of its philosophical schools, +and was searching for a more real object to revere and lean on. The +people were thirsting for the living God. And in place of the gods of +nature, whom they had found unsatisfying, or the impersonal +world-force, with which they sought in vain to come into harmony, the +Jews offered them the God of history, who had preserved their race +through the ages, and revealed to them the law of Moses. + +The missionary purpose was largely responsible for the rise of a +philosophical school of Bible commentators. The Hellenistic world was +thoroughly sophisticated, and Alexandria was distinguished above all +towns as the home of philosophical lectures and book-making. One of +Philo's contemporaries is said to have written over one thousand +treatises, and in one of his rare touches of satire Philo relates[28] +how bands of sophists talked to eager crowds of men and women day and +night about virtue being the only good, and the blessedness of life +according to nature, all without producing the slightest effect, save +noise. The Jews also studied philosophy, and began to talk in the +catchwords of philosophy, and then to re-interpret their Scriptures +according to the ideas of philosophy. The Septuagint translation of +the Pentateuch was to the cultured Gentile an account in rather bald +and impure Greek of the history of a family which grew into a petty +nation, and of their tribal and national laws. The prophets, it is +true, set forth teachings which were more obviously of general moral +import; but the books of the prophets were not God's special +revelation to the Jews, but rather individual utterances and +exhortations: and their teaching was treated as subordinate to the +Divine revelation in the Five Books of Moses. Those, then, who aimed +at the spread of Jewish monotheism were impelled to draw out a +philosophical meaning, a universal value from the Books of Moses. +Nowadays the Bible is the holy book of so much of the civilized world +that it is somewhat difficult for us to form a proper conception of +what it was to the civilized world before the Christian era. We have +to imagine a state of culture in which it was only the Book of books +to one small nation, while to others it was at best a curious record +of ancient times, just as the Code of Hammurabi or the Egyptian Book +of Life is to us. The Alexandrian Jews were the first to popularize +its teachings, to bring Jewish religion into line with the thought of +the Greek world. It was to this end that they founded a particular +form of Midrash--the allegorical interpretation, which is largely a +distinctive product of the Alexandrian age. The Palestinian rabbis of +the time were on the one hand developing by dialectic discussion the +oral tradition into a vast system of religious ritual and legal +jurisprudence; on the other, weaving around the law, by way of +adornment to it, a variegated fabric of philosophy, fable, allegory, +and legend. Simultaneously the Alexandrian preachers--they were never +quite the same as the rabbis--were emphasizing for the outer world as +well as their own people the spiritual side of the religion, +elaborating a theology that should satisfy the reason, and seeking to +establish the harmony of Greek philosophy with Jewish monotheism and +the Mosaic legislation. Allegorical interpretation is "based upon the +supposition or fiction that the author who is interpreted intended +something 'other' [Greek: allo] than what is expressed"; it is the +method used to read thought into a text which its words do not +literally bear, by attaching to each phrase some deeper, usually some +philosophical meaning. It enables the interpreter to bring writings of +antiquity into touch with the culture of his or any age; "the gates of +allegory are never closed, and they open upon a path which stretches +without a break through the centuries." In the region of jurisprudence +there is an institution with a similar purpose, which is known as +"legal fiction," whereby old laws by subtle interpretation are made to +serve new conditions and new needs. Allegorical interpretation must be +carefully distinguished from the writing of allegory, of which +Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" is the best-known type. One is the +converse of the other; for in allegories moral ideas are represented +as persons and moral lessons enforced by what purports to be a story +of life. In allegorical interpretation persons are transformed into +ideas and their history into a system of philosophy. The Greek +philosophers had applied this method to Homer since the fourth century +B.C.E., in order to read into the epic poet, whose work they regarded +almost as a Divine revelation, their reflective theories of the +universe. And doubtless the Jewish philosophers were influenced by +their example. + +Their allegorical treatment of the Bible was intended, not merely to +adapt it to the Greek world, but to strengthen its hold on the +Alexandrian Jews themselves. These, as they acquired Hellenic culture, +found that the Bible in its literal sense did not altogether satisfy +their conceptions. They detected in it a certain primitiveness, and +having eaten further of the tree of knowledge, they were aware of its +philosophical nakedness. It was full of anthropomorphism, and it +seemed wanting in that which the Greek world admired above all +things--a systematic theology and systematic ethics. The idea that the +words of the Bible contained some hidden meanings goes back to the +earliest Jewish tradition and is one of the bases of the oral law; but +the special characteristic of the Alexandrian exegesis is that it +searched out theories of God and life like those which the Greek +philosophers had developed. The device was necessary to secure the +allegiance of the people to the Torah. And from the need of expounding +the Bible in this way to the Jewish public at Alexandria, there arose +a new form of religious literature, the sermon, and a new form of +commentary, the homiletical. The words "homiletical" and "homily" +suggest what they originally connoted; they are derived from the Greek +word [Greek: homilia], "an assembly," and a homily was a discourse +delivered to an assembly. The Meturgeman of Palestine and Babylon, who +expounded the Hebrew text in Aramaic, became the preacher of +Alexandria, who gave, in Greek, of course, homiletical expositions of +the law. In the great synagogue each Sabbath some leader in the +community would give a harangue to the assembly, starting from a +Biblical text and deducing from it or weaving into it the ideas of +Hellenic wisdom, touched by Jewish influence; for the synagogues at +Alexandria as elsewhere were the schools (_Schule_) as much as the +houses of prayer; schools, as Philo says, of "temperance, bravery, +prudence, justice, piety, holiness, and in short of all virtues by +which things human and Divine are well ordered."[29] He speaks +repeatedly of the Sabbath gatherings, when the Jews would become, as +he puts it, a community of philosophers,[30] as they listened to the +exegesis of the preacher, who by allegorical and homiletical fancies +would make a verse or chapter of the Torah live again with a new +meaning to his audience. The Alexandrian Jews, though the form of +their writing was influenced by the Greeks, probably brought with them +from Palestine primitive traces of allegorism. Allegory and its +counterpart, allegorical interpretation, are deeply imbedded in the +Oriental mind, and we hear of ancient schools of symbolists in the +oldest portions of the Talmud.[31] At what period the Alexandrians +began to use allegorical interpretation for the purpose of harmonizing +Greek ideas with the Bible we do not know, but the first writer in +this style of whom we have record (though scholars consider that his +fragments are of doubtful authenticity) is Aristobulus. He is said to +have been the tutor of Ptolemy Philometor, and he must have written at +the beginning of the first century B.C.E. He dedicated to the king his +"Exegesis of the Mosaic Law," which was an attempt to reveal the +teachings of the Peripatetic system, _i.e._, the philosophy of +Aristotle, within the text of the Pentateuch. All anthropomorphic +expressions are explained away allegorically, and God's activity in +the material universe is ascribed to his [Greek: Dunamis] or power, +which pervades all creation. Whether the power is independent and +treated as a separate person is not clear from the fragments that +Eusebius[32] has preserved for us. Aristobulus was only one link in a +continuous chain, though his is the only name among Philo's +predecessors that has come down to us. Philo speaks, fifteen times in +all, of explanations of allegorists who read into the Bible this or +that system of thought[33] regarding the words of the law as "manifest +symbols of things invisible and hints of things inexpressible." And if +their work were before us, it is likely that Philo would appear as the +central figure of an Alexandrian Midrash gathered from many sources, +instead of the sole authority for a vast development of the Torah. We +must not regard him as a single philosophical genius who suddenly +springs up, but as the culmination of a long development, the supreme +master of an old tradition. + +If the allegorical method appears now as artificial and frigid, it +must be remembered that it was one which recommended itself strongly +to the age. The great creative era of the Greek mind had passed away +with the absorption of the city-state in Alexander's empire. Then +followed the age of criticism, during which the works of the great +masters were interpreted, annotated, and compared. Next, as creative +thought became rarer, and confidence in human reason began to be +shaken, men fell back more and more for their ideas and opinions upon +some authority of the distant past, whom they regarded as an inspired +teacher. The sayings of Homer and Pythagoras were considered as +divinely revealed truths; and when treated allegorically, they were +shown to contain the philosophical tenets of the Platonic, the +Aristotelian, or the Stoic school. Thus, in the first century B.C.E., +the Greek mind, which had earlier been devoted to the free search for +knowledge and truth, was approaching the Hebraic standpoint, which +considered that the highest truth had once for all been revealed to +mankind in inspired writings, and that the duty of later generations +was to interpret this revealed doctrine rather than search +independently for knowledge. On the other hand, the Jewish +interpreters were trying to reach the Greek standpoint when they set +themselves to show that the writers of the Bible had anticipated the +philosophers of Hellas with systems of theology, psychology, ethics, +and cosmology. Allegorism, it may be said, is the instrument by which +Greek and Hebrew thought were brought together. Its development was in +its essence a sign of intellectual vigor and religious activity; but +in the time of Philo it threatened to have one evil consequence, which +did in the end undermine the religion of the Alexandrian community. +Some who allegorized the Torah were not content with discovering a +deeper meaning beneath the law, but went on to disregard the literal +sense, _i.e._, they allegorized away the law, and held in contempt the +symbolic observance to which they had attached a spiritual meaning. On +the other hand, there was a party which adhered strictly to the +literal sense ([Greek: to hreton]) and rejected allegorism.[34] Philo +protested against these extremes and was the leader of those who were +liberal in thought and conservative in practice, and who venerated the +law both for its literal and for its allegorical sense. To effect the +true harmony between the literal and the allegorical sense of the +Torah, between the spiritual and the legal sides of Judaism, between +Greek philosophy and revealed religion--that was the great work of +Philo-Judaeus. + +Though the religious and intellectual development of the Alexandrian +community proceeded on different lines from that of the main body of +the nation in Palestine, yet the connection between the two was +maintained closely for centuries. The colony, as we have noticed, +recognized whole-heartedly the spiritual headship of Jerusalem, and at +the great festivals of the year a deputation went from Alexandria to +the holy sanctuary, bearing offerings from the whole community. In +Jerusalem, on the other hand, special synagogues, where Greek was the +language,[35] were built for Alexandrian visitors. Alexandrian +artisans and craftsmen took part in the building of Herod's temple, +but were found inferior to native workmen.[36] The notices within the +building were written in Greek as well as in Aramaic, and the golden +gates to the inner court were, we are told by Josephus,[37] the gift +of Philo's brother, the head of the Alexandrian community. Some +fragments have come down to us of a poem about Jerusalem in Greek +verse by a certain Philo, who lived in the first century B.C.E., and +was perhaps an ancestor of our worthy. He glorifies the Holy City, +extols its fertility, and speaks of its ever-flowing waters beneath +the earth. His greater namesake says that wherever the Jews live they +consider Jerusalem as their metropolis. The Talmud again tells how +Judah Ben Tabbai and Joshua Ben Perahya, during the persecution of the +Pharisees by Hyreanus, fled to Alexandria, and how later Joshua Ben +Hanania[38] sojourned there and gave answers to twelve questions which +the Jews propounded to him, three of them dealing with "the Wisdom." +The Talmud has frequent reference to Alexandrian Jews, and that it +makes little direct mention of the Alexandrian exegesis is explained +by the distrust of the whole Hellenistic movement, which the rise of +Christianity and the growth of Gnosticism induced in the rabbis of the +second and third centuries. They lived at a time when it had been +proved that that movement led away from Judaism, and its main tenets +had been adopted or perverted by an antagonistic creed. It was a +tragic necessity which compelled the severance between the Eastern and +Western developments of the religion. In Philo's day the breach was +already threatened, through the anti-legal tendencies of the extreme +allegorists. His own aim was to maintain the catholic tradition of +Judaism, while at the same time expounding the Torah according to the +conceptions of ancient philosophy. Unfortunately, the balance was not +preserved by those who followed him, and the branch of Judaism that +had blossomed forth so fruitfully fell off from the parent tree. But +till the middle of the first century of the common era the Alexandrian +and the Palestinian developments of Jewish culture were complementary: +on the one side there was legal, on the other, philosophical +expansion. Moreover, the Judaeo-Alexandrian school, though, through its +abandonment of the Hebrew tongue, it lies outside the main stream of +Judaism, was an immense force in the religious history of the world, +and Philo, its greatest figure, stands out in our annals as the +embodiment of the Jewish religious mission, which is to preach to the +nations the knowledge of the one God, and the law of righteousness. + + * * * * * + + + + +II + +THE LIFE AND TIMES OF PHILO + + +"The hero," says Carlyle, "can be poet, prophet, king, priest, or what +you will, according to the kind of world he finds himself born +into."[39] The Jews have not been a great political people, but their +excellence has been a peculiar spiritual development: and therefore +most of their heroes have been men of thought rather than action, +writers rather than statesmen, men whose influence has been greater on +posterity than upon their own generation. Of Philo's life we know one +incident in very full detail, the rest we can only reconstruct from +stray hints in his writings, and a few short notices of the +commentators. From that incident also, which we know to have taken +place in the year 40 C.E., we can fix the general chronology of his +life and works. He speaks of himself as an old man in relating it, so +that his birth may be safely placed at about 20 B.C.E. The first part +of his life therefore was passed during the tranquil era in which +Augustus and Tiberius were reorganizing the Roman Empire after a +half-century of war; but he was fated to see more troublesome times +for his people, when the emperor Gaius, for a miserable eight years, +harassed the world with his mad escapades. In the riots which ensued +upon the attempt to deprive the Jews of their religious freedom his +brother the alabarch was imprisoned;[40] and he himself was called +upon to champion the Alexandrian community in its hour of need. +Although the ascent of the stupid but honest Claudius dispelled +immediate danger from the Jews and brought them a temporary increase +of favor in Alexandria as well as in Palestine, Philo did not return +entirely to the contemplative life which he loved; and throughout the +latter portion of his life he was the public defender as well as the +teacher of his people. He probably died before the reign of Nero, +between 50 and 60 C.E. In Jewish history his life covered the reigns +of King Herod, his sons, and King Agrippa, when the Jewish kingdom +reached its height of outward magnificence; and it extended probably +up to the ill-omened conversion of Judaea into a Roman province under +the rule of a procurator. It is noteworthy also that Philo was partly +contemporary with Hillel, who came from Babylon to Jerusalem in 30 +B.C.E., and according to the accepted tradition was president of the +Sanhedrin till his death in 10 C.E. In this epoch Judaism, by contact +with external forces, was thoroughly self-conscious, and the world was +most receptive of its teaching; hence it spread itself far and wide, +and at the same time reached its greatest spiritual intensity. Hillel +and Philo show the splendid expansion of the Hebrew mind. In the +history of most races national greatness and national genius appear +together. The two grandest expressions of Jewish genius immediately +preceded the national downfall. For the genius of Judaism is +religious, and temporal power is not one of the conditions of its +development. + +Philo belonged to the most distinguished Jewish family of +Alexandria,[41] and according to Jerome and Photius, the ancient +authorities for his life, was of the priestly rank; his brother +Alexander Lysimachus was not only the governor of the Jewish +community, but also the alabarch, _i.e._, ruler of the whole Delta +region, and enjoyed the confidence of Mark Antony, who appointed him +guardian of his second daughter Antonia, the mother of Germanicus and +the Roman emperor Claudius. Born in an atmosphere of power and +affluence, Philo, who might have consorted with princes, devoted +himself from the first with all his soul to a life of contemplation; +like a Palestinian rabbi he regarded as man's highest duty the study +of the law and the knowledge of God.[42] This is the way in which he +understood the philosopher's life[43]: man's true function is to know +God, and to make God known: he can know God only through His +revelation, and he can comprehend that revelation only by continued +study. [Hebrew: v-nbi' lbb hkma], God's interpreter must have a wise +heart,[44] as the rabbis explained. Philo then considered that the true +understanding of the law required a complete knowledge of general culture, +and that secular philosophy was a necessary preparation for the deeper +mysteries of the Holy Word. "He who is practicing to abide in the city +of perfect virtue, before he can be inscribed as a citizen thereof, +must sojourn with the 'encyclic' sciences, so that through them he may +advance securely to perfect goodness."[45] The "encyclic," or +encyclopaedic sciences, to which he refers, are the various branches of +Greek culture, and Philo finds a symbol of their place in life in the +story of Abraham. Abraham is the eternal type of the seeker after God, +and as he first consorted with the foreign woman Hagar and had +offspring by her, and afterwards in his mature age had offspring by +Sarah, so in Philo's interpretation the true philosopher must first +apply himself to outside culture and enlarge his mind with that +training; and when his ideas have thus expanded, he passes on to the +more sublime philosophy of the Divine law, and his mind is fruitful in +lofty thoughts.[46] + +As a prelude to the study of Greek philosophy he built up a harmony of +the mind by a study of Greek poetry, rhetoric, music, mathematics, and +the natural sciences. His works bear witness to the thoroughness with +which he imbibed all that was best in Greek literature. His Jewish +predecessors had written in the impure dialect of the Hellenistic +colonies (the [Greek: koine dialektos]), and had shown little +literary charm; but Philo's style is more graceful than that of any +Greek prose writer since the golden age of the fourth century. Like +his thought, indeed, it is eclectic and not always clear, but full of +reminiscences of the epic and tragic poets on the one hand, and of +Plato on the other,[47] it gives a happy blending of prose and poetry, +which admirably fits the devotional philosophy that forms its subject. +And what was said of Plato by a Greek critic applies equally well to +Philo: "He rises at times above the spirit of prose in such a way that +he appears to be instinct, not with human understanding, but with a +Divine oracle." From the study of literature and kindred subjects +Philo passed on to philosophy, and he made himself master of the +teachings of all the chief schools. There was a mingling of all the +world's wisdom at Alexandria in his day; and Philo, like the other +philosophers of the time, shows acquaintance with the ideas of +Egyptian, Chaldean, Persian,[48] and even Indian thought. The chief +Greek schools in his age were the Stoic, the Platonic, the Skeptic and +the Pythagorean, which had each its professors in the Museum and its +popular preachers in the public lecture-halls. Later we will notice +more closely Philo's relations to the Greek philosophers: suffice it +here to say that he was the most distinguished Platonist of his age. + +Philo's education therefore was largely Greek, and his method of +thought, and the forms in which his ideas were associated and +impressed, were Greek. It must not be thought, however, that this +involved any weakening of his Judaism, or detracted from the purity of +his belief. Far from it. The Torah remained for him the supreme +standard to which all outside knowledge had to be subordinated, and +for which it was a preparation.[49] But Philo brought to bear upon the +elucidation of the Torah and Jewish law and ceremony not only the +religious conceptions of the Jewish mind, but also the intellectual +ideas of Greek philosophy, and he interpreted the Bible in the light +of the broadest culture of his day. Beautiful as are the thoughts and +fancies of the Talmudic rabbis, their Midrash was a purely national +monument, closed by its form as by its language to the general world; +Philo applied to the exposition of Judaism the most highly-trained +philosophic mind of Alexandria, and brought out clearly for the +Hellenistic people the latent philosophy of the Torah. + +Greek was his native language, but at the same time he was not, as has +been suggested, entirely ignorant of Hebrew. The Septuagint +translation was the version of the Bible which he habitually used, but +there are passages in his works which show that he knew and +occasionally employed the Hebrew Bible.[50] Moreover, his etymologies +are evidence of his knowledge of the Hebrew language; though he +sometimes gives a symbolic value to Biblical names according to their +Greek equivalent, he more frequently bases his allegory upon a Hebrew +derivation. That all names had a profound meaning, and signified the +true nature of that which they designated, is among the most firmly +established of Philo's ideas. Of his more striking derivations one may +cite Israel, [Hebrew: v-shr-'l], the man who beholdeth God; Jerusalem, +[Hebrew: yrv-shlom], the sight of peace; Hebrew, [Hebrew: 'bri], one who +has passed over from the life of the passions to virtue; Isaac, [Hebrew: +ytshk], the joy or laughter of the soul. These etymologies are more +ingenious than convincing, and are not entirely true to Hebrew philology, +but neither were those of the early rabbis; and they at least show that +Philo had acquired a superficial knowledge of the language of Scripture. +Nor can it be doubted that he was acquainted with the Palestinian Midrash, +both Halakic and Haggadic. At the beginning of the "Life of Moses" he +declares that he has based it upon "many traditions which I have +received from the elders of my nation,"[51] and in several places he +speaks of the "ancestral philosophy," which must mean the Midrash +which embodied tradition. Eusebius also, the early Christian +authority, bears witness to his knowledge of the traditional +interpretations of the law.[52] + +It is fairly certain, moreover, that Philo sojourned some time in +Jerusalem. He was there probably during the reign of Agrippa (_c._ 30 +C.E.), who was an intimate friend of his family, and had found a +refuge at Alexandria when an exile from Palestine and Rome. In the +first book on the Mosaic laws[53] Philo speaks with enthusiasm of the +great temple, to which "vast assemblies of men from a countless +variety of cities, some by land, some by sea, from East, West, North, +and South, come at every festival as if to some common refuge and +harbor from the troubles of this harassed and anxious life, seeking to +find there tranquillity and gain a new hope in life by its joyous +festivities." These gatherings, at which, according to Josephus,[54] +over two million people assembled, must, indeed, have been a striking +symbol of the unity of the Jewish race, which was at once national and +international; magnificent embassies from Babylon and Persia, from +Egypt and Cyrene, from Rome and Greece, even from distant Spain and +Gaul, went in procession together through the gate of Xistus up the +temple-mount, which was crowned by the golden sanctuary, shining in +the full Eastern sun like a sea of light above the town. Philo +describes in detail the form of the edifice that moved the admiration +of all who beheld it, and for the Jew, moreover, was invested with the +most cherished associations. Its outer courts consisted of double +porticoes of marble columns burnished with gold, then came the inner +courts of simple columns, and "within these stood the temple itself, +beautiful beyond all possible description, as one may tell even from +what is seen in the outer court; for the innermost sanctuary is +invisible to every being except the high priest." The majesty of the +ceremonial within equalled the splendor without. The high priest, in +the words of Ben Sira (xlv), "beautified with comely ornament and +girded about with a robe of glory," seemed a high priest fit for the +whole world. Upon his head the mitre with a crown of gold engraved +with holiness, upon his breast the mystic Urim and Thummim and the +ephod with its twelve brilliant jewels, upon his tunic golden +pomegranates and silver bells, which for the mystic ear pealed the +harmony of the world as he moved. Little wonder that, inspired by the +striking gathering and the solemn ritual, Philo regarded the temple as +the shrine of the universe,[55] and thought the day was near when all +nations should go up there together, to do worship to the One God. + +Sparse as are the direct proofs of Philo's connection with Palestinian +Judaism, his account of the temple and its service, apart from the +general standpoint of his writings, proves to us that he was a loyal +son of his nation, and loved Judaism for its national institutions as +well as its great moral sublimity. His aspiration was to bring home +the truths of the religion to the cultured world, and therefore he +devised a new expression for the wisdom of his people, and transformed +it into a literary system. Judaism forms the kernel, but Greek +philosophy and literature the shell, of his work; for the audience to +which he appealed, whether Jewish or Gentile, thought in Greek, and +would be moved only by ideas presented in Greek form, and by Greek +models he himself was inspired. + +Philo's first ideal of life was to attain to the profoundest knowledge +of God so as to be fitted for the mission of interpreting His Word: +and he relates in one of his treatises how he spent his youth and his +first manhood in philosophy and the contemplation of the universe.[56] +"I feasted with the truly blessed mind, which is the object of all +desire (_i.e._, God), communing continually in joy with the Divine +words and doctrines. I entertained no low or mean thought, nor did I +ever crawl about glory or wealth or worldly comfort, but I seemed to +be carried aloft in a kind of spiritual inspiration and to be borne +along in harmony with the whole universe." The intense religious +spirit which seeks to perceive all things in a supreme unity Philo +shares with Spinoza, whose life-ideal was the intuitional knowledge of +the universe and "the intellectual love of God." Both men show the +pursuit of righteousness raised to philosophical grandeur. + +In his early days the way to virtue and happiness appeared to Philo to +lie in the solitary and ascetic life. He was possessed by a noble +pessimism, that the world was an evil place,[57] and the worldly life +an evil thing for a man's soul, that man must die to live, and +renounce the pleasures not only of the body but also of society in +order to know God. The idea was a common one of the age, and was the +outcome of the mingling of Greek ethics and psychology and the Jewish +love of righteousness. For the Greek thinkers taught a psychological +dualism, by which the body and the senses were treated as antagonistic +to the higher intellectual soul, which was immortal, and linked man +with the principle of creation. The most remarkable and enduring +effect of Hellenic influence in Palestine was the rise of the sect of +Essenes,[58] Jewish mystics, who eschewed private property and the +general social life, and forming themselves into communistic +congregations which were a sort of social Utopia, devoted their lives +to the cult of piety and saintliness. It cannot be doubted that their +manner of life was to some degree an imitation of the Pythagorean +brotherhoods, which ever since the sixth century had spread a sort of +monasticism through the Greek world. Nor is it unlikely that Hindu +teachings exercised an influence over them, for Buddhism was at this +age, like Judaism, a missionizing religion, and had teachers in the +West. Philo speaks in several places of its doctrines.[59] Whatever +its moulding influences, Essenism represented the spirit of the age, +and it spread far and wide. At Alexandria, above all places, where the +life of luxury and dissoluteness repelled the serious, ascetic ideas +took firm hold of the people, and the Therapeutic life, _i.e._, the +life of prayer and labor devoted to God, which corresponded to the +system of the Essenes, had numerous votaries. The first century +witnessed the extremes of the religious and irreligious sentiments. +The world was weary and jaded; it had lost confidence in human reason +and faith in social ideals, and while the materialists abandoned +themselves to hideous orgies and sensual debaucheries, the +higher-minded went to the opposite excess and sought by flight from +the world and mortification of the flesh to attain to supernatural +states of ecstasy. A book has come down to us under the name of +Philo[60] which describes "the contemplative life" of a Jewish +brotherhood that lived apart on the shores of Lake Mareotis by the +mouth of the Nile. Men and women lived in the settlement, though all +intercourse between the sexes was rigidly avoided. During six days of +the week they met in prayer, morning and evening, and in the interval +devoted themselves in solitude to the practice of virtue and the study +of the holy allegories, and the composition of hymns and psalms. On +the Sabbath they sat in common assembly, but with the women separated +from the men, and listened to the allegorical homily of an elder; they +paid special honor to the Feast of Pentecost, reverencing the mystical +attributes of the number fifty, and they celebrated a religious +banquet thereon. During the rest of the year they only partook of the +sustenance necessary for life, and thus in their daily conduct +realized the way which the rabbis set out as becoming for the study of +the Torah: "A morsel of bread with salt thou must eat, and water by +measure thou must drink; thou must sleep upon the ground and live a +life of hardship, the while thou toilest in the Torah."[61] + +We do not know whether Philo attached himself to one of these +brotherhoods of organized solitude, or whether he lived even more +strictly the solitary life out in the wilderness by himself. Certainly +he was at one period in sympathy with ascetic ideas. It seemed to him +that as God was alone, so man must be alone in order to be like +God.[62] In his earlier writings he is constantly praising the ascetic +life, as a means, indeed, to virtue rather than as a good in itself, +and as a helpful discipline to the man of incomplete moral strength, +though inferior to the spontaneous goodness which God vouchsafes to +the righteous. Isaac is the type of this highest bliss, while the life +of Jacob is the type of the progress to virtue through asceticism.[63] +The flight from Laban represents the abandonment of family and social +life for the practical service of God, and as Jacob, the ascetic, +became Israel, "the man who beholdeth God," so Philo determined "to +scorn delights and live laborious days" in order to be drawn nearer to +the true Being. But he seems to have been disappointed in his hopes, +and to have discovered that the attempt to cut out the natural desires +of man was not the true road to righteousness. "I often," he says,[64] +"left my kindred and friends and fatherland, and went into a solitary +place, in order that I might have knowledge of things worthy of +contemplation, but I profited nothing: for my mind was sore tempted by +desire and turned to opposite things. But now, sometimes even when I +am in a multitude of men, my mind is tranquil, and God scatters aside +all unworthy desires, teaching me that it is not differences of place +which affect the welfare of the soul, but God alone, who knows and +directs its activity howsoever he pleases." + +The noble pessimism of Philo's early days was replaced by a noble +optimism in his maturity, in which he trusted implicitly in God's +grace, and believed that God vouchsafed to the good man the knowledge +of Himself without its being necessary for him to inflict +chastisements upon his body or uproot his inclinations. In this mood +moderation is represented as the way of salvation; the abandonment of +family and social life is selfish, and betrays a lack of the humanity +which the truly good man must possess.[65] Of Philo's own domestic +life we catch only a fleeting glimpse in his writings. He realized the +place of woman in the home; "her absence is its destruction," he said; +and of his wife it is told in another of the "Fragments" that when +asked one day in an assembly of women why she alone did not wear any +golden ornament, she replied, "The virtue of a husband is a sufficient +ornament for his wife." + +Though in his maturity Philo renounced the ascetic life, his ideal +throughout was a mystical union with the Divine Being. To a certain +school of Judaism, which loves to make everything rational and +moderate, mysticism is alien; it was alien indeed to the Sadducee +realist and the Karaite literalist; it was alien to the systematic +Aristotelianism of Maimonides, and it is alien alike to Western +orthodox and Reform Judaism. But though often obscured and crushed by +formal systems, mysticism is deeply seated in the religious feelings, +and the race which has developed the Cabbalah and Hasidism cannot be +accused of lack of it. Every great religion fosters man's aspiration +to have direct communion with God in some super-rational way. +Particularly should this be the case with a religion which recognizes +no intermediary. The Talmudic conceptions of [Hebrew: nb'a], prophecy, +[Hebrew: shkyna], the Divine Presence, and [Hebrew: rua hkdsh], the +holy spirit, which was vouchsafed to the saint, certainly are mystic, and +at Alexandria similar ideas inspired a striking development. Once again we +can trace the fertilizing influence of Greek ideas. Even when the old +naturalistic cults had flourished in Greece, and political life had +provided a worthy goal for man, mystical beliefs and ceremonies had a +powerful attraction for the Hellene; and, when the belief in the old +gods had been shattered, and with the national greatness the liberal +life of the State had passed away, he turned more and more to those +rites which professed to provide healing and rest for the sickening +soul. Many of the Alexandrian Jews must have been initiated into these +Greek mysteries, for Philo introduces into his exegesis of the law of +Moses an ordinance forbidding the practice.[66] He himself advocates a +more spiritual mysticism, and it is a cardinal principle of his +philosophy to treat the human soul as a god within and its absorption +in the universal Godhead as supreme bliss, the end of all endeavor. He +claimed to have attained, himself, to this union, and to have received +direct inspiration. Giving a Greek coloring to the Hebrew notion of +prophecy, "My soul," he says, "is wont to be affected with a Divine +trance and to prophesy about things of which it has no knowledge"[67].... +"Many a time have I come with the intention of writing, and knowing +exactly what I ought to set down, but I have found my mind barren and +fruitless, and I have gone away with nothing done, but at times I have +come empty, and suddenly been full, for ideas were invisibly rained +down upon me from above, so that I was seized by a Divine frenzy, and +was lost to everything, place, people, self, speech, and thought. I +had gotten a stream of interpretation, a gift of light, a clear survey +of things, the clearest that eye can give."[68] + +In his "Guide of the Perplexed,"[69] Maimonides describes the various +degrees of the [Hebrew: rua hkdsh], or what we call religious "genius," +with which man may be blessed. He distinguishes between the man who +possesses it only for his own exaltation, and the man who feels +himself compelled to impart it to others for their happiness. To this +higher order of genius Philo advanced in his maturity. He consciously +regarded himself as a follower of Moses, who was the perfect +interpreter of God's thought. So he, though in a lesser degree, was an +inspired interpreter, a hierophant (as he expressed it in the language +of the Greek mystics) who expounded the Divine Word to his own +generation by the gift of the Divine wisdom. When he had fled from +Alexandria, to secure virtue by contemplation, he had as his final +goal the attainment of the true knowledge of God, and as he advanced +in age, he advanced in decision and authority. He was conscious of his +philosophic grasp of the Torah, and the diffidence with which he +allegorized in his early works gave place to a serene confidence that +he had a lesson for his own and for future generations. Hoping for the +time when Judaism should be a world-religion, he spoke his message for +Jew and Gentile. We can imagine him preaching on Sabbaths to the great +congregation which filled the synagogue at Alexandria, and on other +days of the week expounding his philosophical ideas to a smaller +circle which he collected around him. + +Essentially, then, he was a philosopher and a teacher, but he was +called upon to play a part in the world of action. Following the +passage already quoted, wherein Philo speaks of the blessings of the +life of contemplation that he had led in the past,[70] he goes on to +relate how that "envy, the most grievous of all evils, attacked me, +and threw me into the vast sea of public affairs, in which I am still +tossed about without being able to make my way out." A French +scholar[71] conjectures that this is only a metaphorical way of saying +that he was forced into some public office, probably, a seat in the +Alexandrian Sanhedrin; and he ascribes the language to the bitter +disappointment of one who was devoted to philosophical pursuits and +found himself diverted from them. Philo's language points rather to +duties which he was compelled to undertake less congenial than those +of a member of the Sanhedrin would have been; and probably must refer +to the polemical activity which he was called upon to exert in +defending his people against misrepresentation and persecution. During +the reign of Augustus and the early years of Tiberius (30 B.C.E.-20 +C.E.) the Roman provinces were firmly ruled, and the governors were as +firmly controlled by the emperor. To Rectus, who was the prefect of +Egypt till 14 C.E., and who was removed for attempted extortion, +Tiberius addressed the rebuke, "I want my sheep to be shorn, not +strangled." But when Tiberius fell under the influence of Sejanus, and +left to his hated minister the active control of the empire, harder +times began for the provincials, and especially for the Jews. Sejanus +was an upstart, and like most upstarts a tyrant; and for some +reason--it may be jealousy of the power of the Jews at Rome--he hated +the Jewish race and persecuted it. The great opponent of Sejanus was +Antonia, the ward of Philo's brother, and a loyal friend to his +people; and this, too, may have incited Sejanus' ill-feeling. Whatever +the reason, the Alexandrian Jews felt the heavy hand, and when Philo +came to write the story of his people in his own times, he devoted one +book to the persecution by Sejanus. Unfortunately it has not survived, +but veiled hints of the period of stress through which the people +passed are not wanting in the commentary on the law. + +There were always anti-Semites spoiling for a fight at Alexandria, and +there was always inflammable material which they could stir up. The +Egyptian populace were by nature, says Philo, "jealous and envious, +and were filled moreover with an ancient and inveterate enmity towards +the Jews,"[72] and of the degenerate Greek population, many were +anxious from motives of private gain as well as from religious enmity +to incite an outbreak; since the Jews were wealthy and the booty would +be great. Among the cultured, too, there was one philosophical school +powerful at Alexandria, which maintained a persistent attitude of +hostility towards the Jews. The chief literary anti-Semites of whom we +have record at this period were Stoics, and it is probably their +"envy" to which Philo refers when he complains of being drawn into the +sea of politics. In writings and in speeches the Stoic leaders Apion +and Chaeremon carried on a campaign of misrepresentation, and sought to +give their attacks a fine humanitarian justification by drawing fancy +pictures of the Jewish religion and Jewish laws. The Jews worshipped +the head of an ass,[73] they hated the Gentiles, and would have no +communication with them, they killed Gentile children at the Passover, +and their law allowed them to commit any offences against all but +their own people, and inculcated a low morality. When it was not +morally bad, it was degraded and superstitious. Whereas the modern +anti-Semite usually complains about Jewish success and dangerous +cleverness, Apion accused them of having produced no original ideas +and no great men, and no citizen as worthy of Alexandria as himself! +Against these charges Philo, the most philosophical Jew of the time +and the most distinguished member of the Alexandrian community, was +called upon to defend his people, and that part of his works which +Eusebius calls [Greek: Hypotheticha]; _i.e._ apologetics, was probably +written in reply to the Stoic attacks. The hatred of the Stoics was a +religious hatred, which is the bitterest of all; the Stoics were the +propagators of a rival religious system, which had originally been +founded by Hellenized Semites and borrowed much from Semitic sources. +They had their missionaries everywhere and aspired to found a +universal philosophical religion. In their proselytizing activity they +tried to assimilate to their pantheism the mythological religion of +the masses, and thus they became the philosophical supporters of +idolatry. Their greatest religious opponents were the Jews, who not +only refused to accept their teachings, but preached to the nations a +transcendental monotheism against their impersonal and accommodating +pantheism, and a divinely-revealed law of conduct against their vague +natural reason. In the Stoic pantheism the first stand of the pagan +national deities was made against the God of Israel, and at Alexandria +during the first century the fight waxed fierce. It was a fight of +ideas in which persons only were victims, but at the back of the +intermittent persecutions of which we have record we may always +surmise the influence of the Stoic anti-Semites. The war of words +translated itself from time to time into the breaking of heads. + +Philo, indeed, never mentions Apion by name, but he refers covertly in +many places to his insolence and unscrupulousness.[74] Josephus wrote +a famous reply to his attacks, refuting "his vulgar abuse, gross +ignorance and demagogic claptrap,"[75] and the fact that a Palestinian +Jew thought this apology necessary, proves the wide dissemination of +the poison. The disgrace and death of Sejanus seem to have brought a +relief from actual persecution to the Alexandrian Jews; but the +ill-will between the two races in the city smouldered on, and it only +required a weakening of the controlling hand at Rome to set the +passions aflame again. Right through Philo's treatise "On the +Confusion of Tongues," we can trace the tension. As soon as Gaius, +surnamed Caligula, came to the imperial chair, the opportunity of the +anti-Semites returned. Gaius, after reigning well a few months, fell +ill, was seized with madness, and proved how much evil can be done in +a short space by an imbecile autocrat. Flaccus, the governor of Egypt, +who had hitherto ruled fairly, hoping to ingratiate himself by +misrule, allowed himself to be led by worthless minions, who, from +motives of private greed, desired a riot at Alexandria; he was won +over by the anti-Semites and gave the mob a free hand in their attacks +upon the "alien Jews."[76] The arrival of Agrippa, the grandson of +Herod, who was on his way to his kingdom of Palestine, which the +capricious emperor had just conferred upon him, excited the ill-will +of the Alexandrian mob. Flaccus looked on while the people attacked +the Jewish quarters, sacked the houses, and assailed everyone that +came within their reach. The most distinguished Jews were not spared, +and thirty members of the Council of Elders were dragged to the +marketplace and scourged. Philo's account gives a picture strikingly +similar to that of a modern pogrom. The brutal indifference of Flaccus +did not indeed avail to ingratiate him with the emperor, and he was +recalled to Italy, exiled, and afterwards executed. + +The recall of Flaccus did not, however, put an end to the troubles; +the mob had got out of hand, the anti-Semitic demagogues were elated, +and a fresh opportunity for outrage soon presented itself. The mad +emperor, having exhausted ordinary human follies, went on to imagine +himself first a god and then the Supreme God, and finally ordered his +image to be set up in every temple throughout his dominion. The Jews +could not obey the order, and the mob rushed into fresh excesses upon +them, defiled the synagogues with images of the lunatic, and in the +great synagogue itself set up a bronze statue of him, inscribed with +the name of Jupiter. With bitterness Philo points out that it was easy +enough for the vile Egyptians, who worshipped reptiles and beasts, to +erect a statue of the emperor in their temples; for the Jews, with +their lofty idea of God, it was impossible. Against the attack upon +their liberty of conscience they appealed directly to Gaius. An +embassy was sent to lay their case before him, and Philo went to Italy +at the head of the embassy. "He who is learned, gentle, and modest, +and who is beloved of men, he shall be leader in the city." So said +one of the rabbis of old, and the maxim is especially appropriate to +Philo, who in name and deed was "beloved of men." Philo has left us a +very full account of his mission, so that this incident of his life is +a patch of bright light, which stands out almost glaringly from the +general shadow. The account is not merely, nor, indeed, entirely +history. Looking always for a sermon or a subject for a philosophical +lesson, Philo has tricked out the record of the facts with much +moralizing observation on the general lot of mankind, and elaborated +the part of Providence more in the spirit of religious romance than of +scientific history. Yet the main facts are clear. Philo prepared a +long philosophical "apologia" for the Jews and set out with five +colleagues for Italy. Nor were the enemies of the Jews remiss; and +Apion, the Alexandrian anti-Semite, was sent at the head of a hostile +deputation. The emperor, Gaius, was in one of his most flippant moods +and little inclined to listen to philosophical or literary +disquisitions. At first he received the Jewish deputation in a +friendly way, and led them to think that he was favorable; but when +they came to plead their cause, they had a rude awakening. Philo, who +was not likely to appreciate the bitter humor of the situation, +tells[77] with gravity that he expected that the emperor would hear +the two contending parties in all proper judicial form, but that in +fact he behaved like an insolent, overbearing tyrant. The audience--if +it can be so called--took place in the gardens of the palace, and the +emperor dragged the unfortunate deputation after him about the place, +while he gave orders to his gardeners, builders, and workmen. Whenever +they tried to put forward their arguments, he would rush ahead, +enjoying the fright and dismay of his helpless victims. At times he +would stop to make some ribald and jeering remark, as, "Why don't you +eat pork, you fools?" at which the Egyptians following loudly +applauded. Philo and his comrades, half-dead with agony, could only +pray; and in response to the prayer, says our moralizing chronicler, +the emperor's heart was turned to pity, so that he dismissed them +without giving any hostile answer. According to Josephus, he drove +them away in a passion, and Philo had to cheer his companions by +assuring them of the Divine aid.[78] + +The affair was a pathetic farce, and the Jewish actors in it had a +sorry time. The people about the palace, taking their lead from the +emperor, treated them as clowns, and hissed and mocked them, and even +beat them. The scene is somewhat revolting when one conjures up the +picture of the aged Jewish philosopher being roughly handled by the +set of ruffians and impudent slaves who surrounded a Roman emperor. +Happily Gaius jeered once too often in his mad life. One Chaerea, a +Roman of position, nursed an insult of the emperor, and stabbed him +shortly after these events; and the world had the respite of a +tolerably sane emperor before the crowning horror of Nero was let +loose upon it. + +The murder of the capricious tyrant released not only the Jews of +Alexandria, but also the Jews of Palestine, from the burden of fear +for their religion. The order had been given to set up a bronze statue +of the emperor in the temple; the Roman governor Petronius was averse +to obeying the edict, but the emperor insisted. King Agrippa, who had +been but lately advanced by him to the kingdom of Judaea, interceded +zealously on behalf of his people. Philo gives us an account of this +appeal by the Jewish king,[79] which recalls at every turn the scenes +of the book of Esther. We have again the fasting, the banquet, the +emperor's request, the appeal of the royal favorite for his people. +One higher critic, indeed, has been found to suggest that the Biblical +book really relates Agrippa's intercession at Rome disguised in the +setting of a Persian story. Agrippa secured for a short time the +rescission of the fateful decree, but the capricious madman soon +returned to his old frame of mind, and ordered his image to be set up +immediately. Had not his death intervened, there would certainly have +been rebellion in Palestine. As it was, the great revolt was postponed +for thirty years. For a little the Jews prevailed over their +adversaries; the anti-Semitic influences were put down in Judaea and +in Alexandria, and in both places "there was light and joy and +gladness for the Jews." Their political privileges were reaffirmed by +imperial decree, and Philo's brother Alexander, who had been +imprisoned, was restored to honor.[80] "It is fitting," ran the +rescript of Claudius, "to permit the Jews everywhere under our sway to +observe their ancient customs without hindrance. And I charge them to +use my indulgence with moderation, and not to show contempt for the +religious rites of other peoples." + +The note of triumph rings through the political references to be found +in the last parts of Philo's allegorical commentary, and no doubt it +was accentuated in the lost book which he added as an epilogue, or +palinode, to his history of the embassy. God had again preserved his +people, and discomfited their foes; recently-discovered papyri have +revealed that the arch anti-Semites, Isidorus and Lampon, were tried +at Rome and executed. Claudius was well-disposed to the Jewish race, +and before the final storm there was a calm. Howbeit, after the death +of Agrippa, in 44 C.E., Judaea became a Roman province, and under the +rapacious governorship of Felix Florus and Cestius Gallus, the +hostility of the people to the Romans grew more and more bitter. But +in Alexandria there was tranquillity, or at least we know of no +disquieting events during the next decade. + +"Old age," said Philo, "is an unruffled harbor,"[81] and the saying +refers possibly to his own experience. For he must have died full of +years and full of honors. Through his life he was the spiritual and +philosophical guide, and finally he had become the champion of his +people against their persecutors, giving dignity to their cause and +inspiring respect even in their enemies. He was happy in the time of +his death, for he did not live to see the destruction of the national +home of his people and of that temple which he had loved to +contemplate as the future centre of a universal religion. The +disintegration of his own community at Alexandria followed full soon +on the greater disaster; the temple of Onias was dismantled and +interdicted against Jewish worship by Vespasian in the year 73 C.E., +and though, as has been noted, this was not in itself of great +importance, it is symbolic of the uprooting of national life in the +Diaspora as well as in Palestine itself. On the downfall of Jerusalem +in 70 C.E. many of the extreme anti-Roman party, known as the Zealots, +fled to Alexandria and stirred up rebellion and dissension. Nothing +but disaster could have attended the outbreak, but it is a sad +reflection that the governor who put it down and ruthlessly +exterminated the rebels was none other than Tiberius Alexander, the +nephew of Philo, who was in turn procurator of Judaea and Egypt. By +another irony of history he had in the previous year been largely +instrumental in securing for Vespasian, who was besieging Jerusalem, +the imperial throne of Rome.[82] With him ends our knowledge of +Philo's family, and it ends significantly with one who has ceased to +be a Jew. The ruin of the Jewish-Alexandrian community was completed +by a desperate revolt in the reign of Trajan, 114-117 C.E., after +which they were deprived of their chief political privileges; and +finally, after incessant conflicts with the Christians, they were +expelled from the city by the all-powerful Bishop Cyril (415 C.E.). + +Philo himself passed out of Jewish tradition within a short time, to +become a Christian worthy. The destruction of the nation and the +gradual severance of the Christian heresy from the main community +compelled the abandonment of missionary activity and distrust of the +work of its exponents. The dangerous aspect of the Alexandrian +development was revealed. Its philosophical allegorizing might attract +the Gentile to the Jewish Scriptures, but it also led the Jew away +from his special conduct of life. The Alexandrian Church, which +claimed to continue the tradition of Philo, departed further and +further from the Jewish standpoint, and formulated a dogmatic creed +that was utterly opposed to Jewish monotheism. A philosophical Judaism +for the whole world was a splendid ideal, but unfortunately in Philo's +time it was incapable of accomplishment. The result of the attempt to +found it was the establishment of a religion in which, together with +the adoption of Hebraic teachings about God, certain ideas of +Alexandrian mysticism became stereotyped as dogmas, and Jewish law was +abrogated. When Babylon replaced Palestine as the centre of Jewish +intellect, the works of Philo, like the rest of the Hellenistic-Jewish +literature, written as they were in a strange tongue, fell into +disuse, and before long were entirely forgotten. The Christians, on +the other hand, found in Philo a notable evidence for many of their +beliefs and a philosophical testimony for the dogmas of their creed. +They claimed him as their own, and the Church Fathers, to bind him +more closely to their tradition, invented fables of his meeting with +Peter at Rome and Mark at Alexandria, They traced, in the treatise "On +the Contemplative Life," a record of early Christian monastic +communities, and on account of this book especially regarded Philo +almost with the reverence of an apostle. To the Christian theologians +of Alexandria we owe it that the interpretation of Judaism to the +Hellenic world in the light of Hellenic philosophy has been preserved. +Of the two Jewish philosophers who have made a great contribution to +the world's intellectual development, Spinoza was excommunicated in +his lifetime, and Philo suffered moral excommunication after his +death. The writings of both exercised their chief influence outside +the community; but the emancipated Jewry of our own day can in either +case recognize the worth of the thinker, and point with pride to the +saintliness of the man. + + * * * * * + + + + +III + +PHILO'S WORKS AND METHOD + + +The first thing that strikes a reader of Philo is the great volume of +his work: he is the first Jewish writer to produce a large and +systematic body of writings, the first to develop anything in the +nature of a complete Jewish philosophy. He had essentially the +literary gift, the capacity of giving lasting expression to his own +thought and the thought of his generation. Treating him merely as a +man of letters, he is one of the chief figures in Greek literature of +the first century. We have extant over forty books of his composition, +and nearly as many again have disappeared. His works are one and all +expositions of Judaism, but they fall into six distinct classes of +exegesis: + +I. The allegorical commentary, or "Allegories of the Laws," which is a +series of philosophical treatises based upon continuous texts in +Genesis, from the first to the eighteenth chapter. Together with this, +the best authorities place the two remaining books on the "Dreams of +the Bible," which are a portion of a larger work, and deal +allegorically with the dreams of Jacob and Joseph. + +II. The Midrashic commentary on the Five Books of Moses, for which we +have no single name, but which was clearly intended to be an ethical +and philosophical treatise upon the whole law. + +III. A commentary in the form of "Questions and Answers to Genesis and +Exodus," which is incomplete now, and save for detached fragments +exists only in a Latin translation. In its original form it provided a +short running exegesis, verse by verse, to the whole of the first +three books of the Pentateuch, and was contained in twelve parts. + +IV. A popular and missionizing presentation of the Jewish system in +the form of a "Life of Moses," and three appended tractates on the +virtues "Courage," "Humanity," and "Repentance." Scholars[83] are of +opinion that there are gaps in the extant "Life of Moses," but the +general plan of the work is clear. It is at once an abstract and an +interpretation of Jewish law for the Greek world, and also an ideal +biography of the Jewish lawgiver. + +V. Philosophical monographs, not so intimately connected with the +Bible as the preceding works; but in the nature of rhetorical +exercises upon the stock subjects of the schools, which receive a +Jewish coloring by reason of Biblical illustrations. + +VI. Historical and apologetic works that set out the case of the +contemporary Jews against their persecutors and traducers. Of these +writings the larger part has disappeared, and of a portion of those +which remain the genuineness has been doubted. + +Lastly, there is a miscellaneous number of works ascribed to Philo, +which all good scholars[84] now admit to be spurious: "On the +Incorruptibility of the World," "On the Universe," "On Samson," and +"On Jonah," etc. + +It will be seen from this classification of Philo's works, that he has +dealt in several ways with the Biblical material. The reason of this +is partly that his mind developed, and the interpretation of his +maturer years differed widely from that of his earliest writings. +Partly, however, it arises from the fact that the different treatments +were meant for different audiences, and Philo always took the measure +of those whom he was addressing. His most representative works are "a +triple cord" with which he binds the Jewish Scripture to Greek +culture. For the Greek-speaking populace he set out a broad statement +of the Mosaic law; for the cultured community of Alexandria, Jew and +Gentile, a more elaborate exegesis, in which each character and each +ordinance of the Pentateuch received a particular ethical value; and, +finally, for the esoteric circle of Hellenic-Jewish philosophers, a +theological and psychological study of the allegories of the law. +Origen, the first great Christian exegete of the Bible and a close +student of the Philonic writings, distinguished three forms of +interpreting: the historical, the moral, and the philosophical; he +probably took the distinction from Philo, who exemplifies it in his +commentaries upon the Books of Moses. + +Varied as is its scope, the religious idea dominates all his work, and +endows it with one spirit. Whether he is writing philosophical, +ethical, or mystical commentary, whether history, apology, or essay, +his purpose is to assert the true notion of the one God, and the +Divine excellence of God's revelation to His chosen people. Thus he +regards history as a theodicy, vindicating the ways of God to man, and +His special providence for Israel; philosophy as the inner meaning of +the Scriptures, revealed by God in mystic communion with His holy +prophets,[85] and, if comprehended aright, able to lead us on to a +true conception of His Divine being. The greater part of the +Hellenistic-Jewish literature has disappeared, but Philo sums up for +us the whole of the Alexandrian development of Judaism. He represents +it worthily in both its main aspects: the infusion of Greek culture +into the Jewish pursuit of righteousness, and the recommendation of +Jewish monotheism and the Torah to the Greek world. Aristaeus, +Aristobulus, and Artapanus are hardly more than names, but their +spirit is inherited and glorified in Philo-Judaeus. His work, +therefore, is more than the expression of one great mind; it is the +record and expression of a great culture. + +The chronology of Philo's writings is as uncertain as the chronology +of his life. Yet it is possible to trace a deepening of outlook and an +increasing originality, if we work our way up from the sixth to the +first division of the classification. It does not follow that the +works were written in this order--and it may well be that Philo was +producing at one and the same time books of several classes--but we +may use this order as an ideal scale by which to mark off the stages +of his philosophical progress. In the first place come the [Greek: +Hypotheticha], or apologetic works, which have a practical purpose. +With these we may associate the moralizing history that dealt in five +books respectively with the persecutions of Sejanus, Flaccus, and +Caligula, the ill-starred embassy, and the final triumph of the Jews +over their enemies. The [Greek: Hypotheticha] proper, as we gather +from Eusebius, contained a general apology for Judaism, and an account +of the Essenes--which have disappeared--and the suspected book on the +Therapeutic sect known by the title "On the Contemplative Life." +Whether they received this generic name because they are suggestions +for the Jewish cause, or because they are written to answer the +insinuations ([Greek: kath' hypothesin]) of adversaries, is a moot +point. But their general purport is clear: they were an apologetic +presentation of Jewish life, written to show the falsity of +anti-Semitic calumnies. The Jews are good citizens and their manner of +life is humanitarian. The Essene sect is a living proof of Jewish +practical socialism and practical philosophy, the Therapeutae show the +Jewish zeal for the contemplative life. + +Next we come to Philo's philosophical monographs, which are not, as +one might expect, the work of his mature thought, but rather the +exercises of youth. Dissertations or declamations upon hackneyed +subjects were part of the regular course of the university student at +Alexandria, and Philo prepared himself for his Jewish philosophy by +composing in the approved style essays upon "Providence," "The Liberty +of the Good," and "The Slavery of the Wicked," etc. What chiefly +distinguishes them above other collections of commonplaces is the +appeal to the Bible for types of goodness, and here again the Essenes +figure as the type of the philosophical life.[86] The writer, while +still engaged in the studies of the Greek university, is feeling his +way towards his system of universal Mosaism. + +This he expounds confidently and enthusiastically in his "Life of +Moses." Philo in this book is not any longer the apt pupil of Greek +philosophers, nor the eloquent defender of the Jewish-Alexandrian +community against lying detractors. He preaches a mission to the whole +world, and he lays before it his gospel of monotheism and humanity. +Each Greek school has its ideal type, its Socrates, Diogenes, or +Pythagoras; but Philo places above them all "the most perfect man that +ever lived, Moses, the legislator of the Jews,[87] as some hold, but +according to others the interpreter of the sacred laws, and the +greatest of men in every way." And above all the ethical systems of +the day he sets the law of life that God revealed to His greatest +prophet: "The laws of the Greek legislators are continually subject to +change; the laws of Moses alone remain steady, unmoved, unshaken, +stamped as it were with the seal of nature herself, from the day when +they were written to the present day, and will so remain for all time +so long as the world endures. Not only the Jews but all other peoples +who care for righteousness adopt them.... Let all men follow this code +and the age of universal peace will come about, the kingdom of God on +earth will be established."[88] Nor is the Greek to fear the lot of a +proselyte. "God loves the man who turns from idolatry to the true +faith not less than the man who has been a believer all his life;"[89] +and in the little essays upon Repentance and Nobility, which are +attached to the larger treatise, Philo appeals to his own people to +welcome the stranger within the community. "The Life of Moses" is the +greatest attempt to set monotheism before the world made before the +Christian gospels. And it is truer to the Jewish spirit, because it +breathes on every page love for the Torah. Philo in very truth wished +to fulfil the law. + +If Judaism was to be the universal religion, it must be shown to +contain the ultimate truth both about real being, _i.e._ God, and +about ethics; for the philosophical world in that age--and the +philosophical world included all educated people--demanded of religion +that it should be philosophical, and of philosophy that it should be +religious. The desire to expound Judaism in this way is the motive of +Philo's three Biblical commentaries. The "Questions and Answers to +Genesis and Exodus" constitute a preliminary study to the more +elaborate works which followed. In them Philo is collecting his +material, formulating his ideas, and determining the main lines of his +allegory. They are a type of Midrash in its elementary stage, the +explanation of the teacher to the pupil who has difficulties about the +words of the law: at once like and unlike the old Tannaitic Midrash; +like in that they deal with difficulties in the literal text of the +Bible; unlike in that the reply of Philo is Agadic more usually than +Halakic, speculative rather than practical. In these books,[90] as has +been pointed out, there are numerous interpretations which Philo +shares with the Palestinian schools. A few specimens taken from the +first book will illustrate Philo's plan, but it should be mentioned +that in every case he sets out the simple meaning of the text, the +_Peshat_, as well as the inner meaning, or _Derash_. + +"Why does it say: 'And God made every green herb of the field before +it was upon the earth'? (Gen. ii. 4.) + +"By these words he suggests symbolically the incorporeal Idea. The +phrase, 'before it was upon the earth,' marks the original perfection +of every plant and herb. The eternal types were first created in the +noetic world, and the physical objects on earth, perceptible by the +senses, were made in their likeness." + +In this way Philo reads into the first chapter of the Bible the +Platonic idealism which we shall see was a fundamental part of his +philosophy. + +"Why, when Enoch died, does it say, 'And he pleased God'? (Gen. v. +24.) + +"He says this to teach that the soul is immortal, inasmuch as after it +is released from the body it continues to please." + +"What is the meaning of the expression, 'And Noah opened the roof of +the ark'? (Gen. viii. 13.) + +"The text appears to need no interpretation; but in its symbolical +meaning the ark is our body, and that which covers the body and for a +long time preserves its strength is spoken of as its roof. And this is +appetite. Hence when the mind is attracted by a desire for heavenly +things, it springs upwards and makes away with all material desires. +It removes that which threw a shade over it so as to reach the eternal +Ideas." + +The "Questions and Answers" are essentially Hebraic in form, designed +for Jews who knew and studied their Bible; and we can feel in them the +influences of a training in traditional Mishnah and Midrash; but Philo +passed from them to a more artistic expression and a more thoroughly +Hellenized presentation of the philosophy of the Bible. This work is +the largest extant expression of his thought and mission; it embraces +the treatises which we know as "On the Creation of the World," "The +Lives of Abraham and Joseph," "On the Decalogue," and finally those +"On the Specific Laws," which are partly thus entitled and partly have +separate ethical names, as "On Honoring Parents," "On Rewards and +Punishments," "On Justice," etc. Large portions of it have +disappeared, notably the "Lives of Isaac and Jacob"; and also the +"Life of Moses," which was introductory to his laws. For the book +which we have under that name does not belong to the series, but is +separate. The purpose of the work broadly is to deepen the value of +the Bible for the Jews by revealing its constant spiritual message, +and to assert its value for the whole of humanity by showing in it a +philosophical conception of the universe and its creation, the most +lofty ethical and moral types, the most admirable laws, and, above +all, the purest ideas of God and His relation to man. All that seems +tribal and particularist is explained away, and the spiritual aspect +of every chapter--of every word almost--of the Torah is emphasized. +Philo expounds the sacred book, not of one particular nation, but of +mankind. The Roman and Greek peoples were waiting for a religious +message which should at once harmonize with rational ideas and satisfy +their longing for God. All the philosophical schools were converting +the scientific systems of the classical age into [Greek: Tropoi Biou], +"plans of life," and Philo challenges them all with a new faith which +has as its basis a God who not only was the sole Creator and Ruler of +the world, but who had revealed to man the way of happiness, and the +good life, social as well as individual. To-day, when the world about +us has accepted--or has professed to accept--the ethical law of the +Bible, we are apt to regard the essentials of Judaism as the belief in +One God and the observance of ceremonies. But to Philo Judaism was +something more comprehensive. It was the spiritual life, and the +Mosaic law is the complete code of the Divine Republic, of which all +are or can be citizens. In the introduction to the "Life of Abraham," +Philo explains the scheme of his work:[91] + + "'The Sacred Laws' [as he regularly calls the Bible] were + written in five books, of which the first is entitled + Genesis. It derives its title from the account of the + creation which it contains, though it deals also with + endless other subjects, peace and war, hunger and plenty, + great cataclysms, and the histories of good and evil men. We + have examined with great care the accounts of the creation + in our former treatise ['On the Making of the Universe'], + and we now go on naturally to inquire into the laws; and + postponing the particular laws, which are as it were copies, + we will first of all examine the more universal, which are + their models. Now men who have lived irreproachable lives + are these laws, and their virtues are recorded in the Holy + Scriptures not only by way of eulogy, but in order to lead + on those who read about them to emulate their life. They are + become living standards of right reason, whom the lawgiver + has glorified for two reasons: (1) To show that the laws + laid down are consistent with nature [the conception of a + natural law binding upon all peoples was one of the fixed + ideas of the age]. (2) To show that it is not a matter of + terrible labor to live according to our positive laws if a + man has the will to do so; seeing that the patriarchs + spontaneously followed the unwritten principles before any + of the particular laws were written. So that a man may + properly say that the code of law is only a memorial of the + lives of the patriarchs. For the patriarchs, of their own + accord and impulse, chose to follow nature, and, regarding + her course with truth as the most ancient ordinance, they + lived a life according to the law." + +Philo dwells affectionately on the patriarchs, because, as he held, +they proved the Jewish life to be truest to man's nature and to the +highest ideal of humanity, and served therefore as examples to the +Gentile world of the universal truth of the religion. The rabbis also +took the patriarchs as the perfect type of our life, saying, +"Everything that happens to them is a sign to future generations,"[92] +and again: "The patriarchs are the true [Hebrew: mrbba], manifestation of +God." But while he emphasized the broad moral teachings of Judaism +exemplified by the patriarchs, Philo nevertheless upheld in its +integrity the Mosaic law, and found in every one of the six hundred +and thirteen precepts a spiritual meaning. Even the details of the +tabernacle offerings have their universal lesson when he expounds them +as symbols. Voltaire speaks cynically of Judaism as a religion of +sacrifices: Philo shows that the ritual of sacrifice suggests moral +lessons. The command of the red heifer, a part of the law which was +particularly subject to attack, emphasizes the law of moral as well as +of physical cleanliness. The prohibition to add honey or leaven to the +sacrifice[93] (Lev. ii. 13) points the lesson that all superfluous +pleasure is unrighteous; and so on with each prescription. + +The Mosaic code in his exposition is commensurate with life in all its +aspects. It deals not only with the duties of the individual but also +with the good government of the state. The life of Joseph is made the +text of a political treatise, and throughout the books "On the +Specific Laws," the socialism of the Bible is emphasized,[94] and held +up as the ideal order of the future. The Jewish State is enlarged in +Philo's vision from a national theocracy into a world-city inspired by +the two ideas of love of God and love of humanity. In this conception, +no doubt, the influence of Greek philosophy is to be seen; the Jewish +interpreter keeps before him the "Republic" of Plato, and the "Polity" +of Aristotle. With him, however, the ideal state is not a vision +"laid up in heaven";[95] its foundation is already laid upon earth, +its capital is Jerusalem, and it is the mission of his people to +extend its borders till it embraces all nations[96]--an idea which +permeates the Jewish litany. + +This commentary of the law is allegorical in the sense that beneath +the particular law the interpreter constantly reveals a spiritual +idea, but it is not allegorical in the sense that he makes an exchange +of values. He is not for the most part reading into the text +conceptions which are not suggested by it, but really and truly +expounding; and where he gives a philosophical piece of exegesis, as +when he explains the visit of the three angels to Abraham as a theory +of the human soul about God's being,[97] he does so with diffidence or +with reference to authorities that have founded a tradition. It is +quite otherwise with the last class of Philo's work, the fruit of his +maturest thought, with which it remains to deal. + +Throughout the "Allegories of the Laws" he takes the verse of the +Bible not so much as a text to be amplified and interpreted, but as a +pretext for a philosophical disquisition. The allegories indeed are +only in form a commentary on the Bible; in one aspect they are a +history of the human soul, which, if they had been completed, would +have traced the upward progress from Adam to Moses. It is not to be +expected, however, that Philo should adhere closely to any plan in the +allegories. Theology, metaphysics, and ethics have as large a part in +the medley of philosophical ideas as the story of the soul. His +Hebraic mind, even when fortified by the mastery of philosophy, was +unable to present its ideas systematically; it passed from subject to +subject, weaving the whole together only by the thread of a continuous +commentary upon Genesis. Parts of the work are missing, it is true, +which adds to the seeming want of plan; and--greatest loss of all--the +first part, which gave the philosophical account of the first chapter +of Genesis, the first six days of creation, referred to as "The +Hexameron" [Greek: to Hexemeron], has disappeared.[98] Here must +have been the general introduction to the allegories, wherein Philo +declared his purpose and his method of exposition. The first treatise +that we possess starts abruptly with a comment on the first verse of +the second chapter, "'And the heaven and earth and all their world +were completed.' Moses has previously related the creation of the mind +and sense, and now he proceeds to describe their perfection. Their +perfection is not the individual mind or sense, but their archetypal +'ideas.' And symbolically he calls the mind heaven, because in heaven +are the ideas of the mind, and the sense he calls earth, because it is +corporeal and material."[99] + +So in a rambling, unsystematic way Philo embarks upon a discourse on +idealism and psychology, making a fresh start continually from a verse +or a phrase of the Bible. The Biblical narrative in the earliest +chapters offered a congenial soil for his explorations, but no ground +is too stubborn for his seed. The genealogy of Noah's sons is as +fertile in suggestion as the story of Adam and Eve, for each name +represents some hidden power or possesses some ethical import. + +The allegorical commentary is clearly the work of Philo's maturity, +wherein he exhibits full mastery of an original method of exegesis. +His allegories are no longer tentative, and he writes with the +confidence of the sage, who has received not only the admiration of +his people, but the inspiration of God. Another sign of their maturity +is that asceticism seems no longer the true path to virtue, as it was +to the author of "The Lives of the Patriarchs" and "The Specific +Laws," but, on the contrary, a moderate use of the world's goods and a +share in political life are marks of the perfect man. These +characteristics bespeak the firmer hand and the profounder experience. +Yet the series of works which form together Philo's esoteric doctrine +were certainly put together over a long period of years, as the varied +political references indicate. It has indeed been suggested by a +modern German scholar[100] that large parts were originally given in +the form of detached lectures and sermons, and that Philo later +composed them together into a continuous commentary, working them up +with much literary elaboration. In support of this theory, it may be +urged that several of the treatises contain political addresses to +public audiences, notably the _De Agricultura_ and _De Confusione +Linguarum_, while in others there are invocations to prayer, or a +summons to read a passage in the Bible, addressed apparently by the +preacher to the Hazan, who had before him the scroll of the law. From +Philo's own statements we know that the wisest men used to deliver +philosophical homilies upon the Bible on the Sabbath day; and it is +natural that the man who was appointed to head the Jewish embassy to +Gaius had made himself known in the past to his brethren for oratory +and wisdom of speech. "Sermons," said Jowett, "though they deal with +eternal subjects, are the most evanescent form of literature." The +dictum is true for the most part, but occasionally the sermon, by its +depth of thought, the universality of its message, and the beauty of +its expression, has become part of the world's heritage from the ages. +Moreover, at Alexandria philosophy was associated with preaching. And +the sermons of the Jewish-Hellenistic writer, in their style as well +as in their thought, represent an epoch. Philo spoke in the language +of the intellectual world of his day, and strove to associate the +intellectual precepts of Hellenism with the Hebraic passion for +righteousness. In his great moments, however, the Hebraic spirit +towers supreme. "He was," said Croiset, the historian of Greek +literature, "the first Greek prose writer who could speak to God and +of God to man with the ardent piety and reverence of the Jewish +prophets."[101] + +It is a serious misconception to imagine that Philo's philosophical +allegories were meant for the general body of Alexandrian Jews. He +frequently[102] declares that he is speaking to a specially initiated +sect, and warns his hearers not to divulge his teaching. The +notion of an esoteric doctrine for the aristocracy of intellect had +become a fixed idea in the Greek schools for three centuries, ever +since the days of Aristotle; and whether through Greek influence or +otherwise it had been generally adopted by the Jewish teachers. The +rabbis of the Talmud derived from the first chapters of Genesis the +inner mystery of the law, which was cognizable only by the sage; and +the same idea is found in later Jewish tradition, which, expounding +Paradise ([Hebrew: prds]) as four stages of interpretation, each +marked by a letter of the word, Peshat, Remez, Derash, and Sod +([Hebrew: sod]),[103] regarded the last as the final reward of the +devoted seeker after God, as it is said in the Psalms, "The secret of +the Lord is for those who fear Him." Jewish religious philosophers +have in all ages designed their work for a select few. The Halakah, or +way of life, is the fit study of the many. So Maimonides wrote his +Moreh only for those who already were masters of the law. And Philo +likewise at Alexandria taught an esoteric doctrine to an esoteric +circle, which alone was fitted to receive the profoundest +theology.[104] The allegories of the law do not take the place of the +law itself, nor of its ethical ordinances. They are additional to the +other exegesis and distinct, destined only for the man of learning. +And as we shall see, he asserts emphatically in the midst of his +allegories[105] that the perception of the philosophical value does +not release man from the practice itself. The wise man even as the +fool must obey the law. + +Why, it may be asked, does Philo artificially attach his philosophy to +the Scriptures? He does so for two reasons: first, because he holds +and wishes to prove that between faith and philosophy there is no +conflict, and his generation worked out the agreement by this method; +he does so also because he wishes to establish the Torah and Judaism +upon a sure foundation for the man of outside culture. The pursuit of +philosophy must have menaced the attachment to Judaism and challenged +the authority of the Bible at Alexandria. A superficial knowledge of +the materialistic or rationalistic theories, which were propagated +respectively by the Epicurean and Stoic schools, was made the excuse +for indifference to the law. Then as now the advanced Jew would mask +his self-indulgence under the guise of a banal philosophy, and jeer +easily at archaic myths and tribal laws. The dominating motive of +Philo's work is to show that the Bible contains for those who will +seek it the richest treasures of wisdom, that its ethical teaching is +more ideal and yet more real than that which hundreds of sophists +poured forth daily in the lecture-theatres[106] to the gaping +dilettanti of learning, and lastly that the cultured Jew may search +out knowledge and truth to their depths, and find them expressed in +his holy books and in his religious beliefs and practices. Philo +frequently introduces into his philosophical interpretation a polemic +against the disintegrating and demoralizing forces which were at work +in the Alexandria of his day. His commentary therefore is a strange +medley, compounded of idealistic speculation, theology, homiletics, +moral denunciation, and polemical rhetoric. The idea, which is not +uncommon, that Philo represents the extreme Hellenic development of +Judaism, and that he gathered into his writings the opinions of all +Greek schools to the ruin of his Jewish individuality, is utterly +erroneous. In fact, he chooses out only the valuable parts of Greek +thought, which could enter into a true harmony with the Hebraic +spirit; and he not only rejects, but he attacks unsparingly those +elements which were antagonistic to holiness and righteousness. With +the enthusiasm of a Maccabee, if with other weapons, he fought against +the bastard culture, which meant self-indulgence and the excessive +attention to the body, the idol-worship, the degraded ideas of the +Divine power, and the disregard of truth and justice, that were +current in the pagan society about him. The seeking after sensual +pleasure and luxury was the most glaring evil of his city--as the +Talmud says,[107] of ten parts of lust nine were given to +Alexandria--and with every variety of denunciation he returns again +and again to the charge. Epicureanism is detestable not only for its +low idea of human life, but for its godless conception of the +universe. Its theory that the world was a fortuitous concourse of +atoms, which was governed by blind chance, and that the gods lived +apart in complete indifference to men--this was to Philo utter +atheism, and as such the greatest of sins. He attacked paganism not +only in its crude form of idolatry,[108] but in its more seductive +disguise of a pretentious philosophy. Always and entirely he was the +champion of monotheism. + +Nearly as godless, and therefore as vile in his eyes as the follower +of Epicurus, is the follower of the Stoic doctrines. It has been shown +that the Jews and the Stoics were continually in conflict at +Alexandria; and the "Allegories of the Laws" are filled with attacks, +overt and hidden, upon the Stoic doctrines. The Stoics, indeed, +believed in one supreme Divine Power, not however in a transcendental +and personal God, but a cosmic, impersonal, fatalistic world-force.[109] +To Philo this conception, with its denial of the Divine will and the +Divine care for the individual, was as atheistic as the Epicurean +"chance." Equally repulsive to his religious standpoint was the Stoic +dogma, that man is, or should be, independent of all help, and that +the human reason is all-powerful and can comprehend the universe by +its own unaided power.[110] Repulsive also were their pride, their +rejection of the emotions, their hard rationalism. The battle of Philo +against the Stoics is the battle of personal monotheism against +impersonal pantheism, of religious faith and revelation against +arrogant rationalism, and of idealism against materialism. Hostile as +he is to the Stoic intellectual dogmatism, Philo is none the less +opposed to its converse, intellectual skepticism and agnosticism. Man, +he is convinced, has a Divine revelation[111] which he may not deny +without ruin. He holds with Pope that we have + + "Too much of knowledge for the Skeptic side, + Too much of weakness for the Stoic's pride," + +and he attacks the Skeptics of the day who devoted their minds to +destructive dialectical quibbling and sophistry[112] instead of +seeking for God and the human good. They are the Ishmaels of +philosophy. + +Philo's polemic is directed less against the Greek schools in +themselves than against the Jewish followers of the Greek schools. He +saw the danger to Judaism in the teachings of these anti-religious +philosophers, and deeply as he loved Greek culture, he loved more +deeply his religion. He wanted to reveal a philosophy in the Bible +which should win back to Judaism the men who had been captivated by +foreign thought. In one aspect, therefore, his master-work is a plea +for unity. The community at Alexandria was a very heterogeneous body; +not only were the sects which had appeared in Palestine, the Sadducees, +Samaritans, Pharisees, and Essenes, represented there too, but in +addition there were parties who attached themselves to one or other of +the Greek schools, the Pythagoreans, Skeptics, and the like, and +lastly Gnostic groups, who cultivated an esoteric doctrine of the +Godhead, and were lax in their observance of the law, which they held +to be purely symbolical and of no account in its literal meaning. The +mental activity which this growth of sects exemplified was in some +respects a healthy sign, but it contained seeds of religious chaos, +which bore their fruit in the next century. Men started by thinking +out a philosophical Judaism for themselves; they ended by ceasing to +be Jews and philosophers. Philo foresaw this danger, and he tried to +combat it by presenting his people with a commentary of the Bible +which should satisfy their intellectual and speculative bent, but at +the same time preserve their loyalty to the Bible and the law. To the +Greek world he offered a philosophical religion, to his own people a +religious philosophy. Thus the allegorical commentary is the crowning +point of his work, the offering of his deepest thought to the most +cultured of the community; and though much of its detail had only +relevancy for its own time, and its method may repel our modern taste, +yet the spirit which animates it is of value to all ages, and should +be an inspiration to every generation of emancipated Jews. That spirit +is one of fearless acceptance of the finest culture of the age +combined with unswerving love of the law and loyalty to catholic +Judaism. + +We have already treated of the general characteristics of Philo's +method of allegorical interpretation, but we must now consider rather +more closely the way in which he employs it. The general principle +upon which he depends is, that besides and in addition to the literal +meaning which the Bible bears for the common man, it has a hidden and +deeper meaning for the philosopher. It is, as it were, a sort of +palimpsest; the writing on the top all may read, the writing below the +student alone can decipher. With the rabbis Philo holds that the Torah +was written "in the language of the sons of man,"[113] but he believes +with them again that it contains all wisdom. And if the ideas of +reason do not appear in its literal meaning, then they must be +searched out in some inner interpretation. Commenting on the verse in +Genesis (xi. 7), "Let us confound their language, that they may not +understand one another's speech," he says: "Those who follow the +literal and obvious interpretation think that the origin of the Greek +and barbarian languages is here described; [the contrast between +Greek, on the one hand, and barbarian--in which Hebrew, it seems, is +included--on the other, is remarkable]. I would not find fault with +them, because they also, perhaps, employ right reason, but I would +call on them not to remain content with this, but to follow me to the +metaphorical renderings, considering that the actual words of the holy +oracle are, as it were, shadows of the real bodies, and the powers +which they reflect are the true underlying ideas."[114] + +Elsewhere he tells a story of the condign punishment which befell a +godless and impious man, perchance a Samaritan Jew, who made mock of +the race of allegorical interpreters, jeering at the idea that the +change of names from Abram to Abraham and from Sarai to Sarah +contained some deep meaning. He soon paid a fitting penalty for his +wicked wit, for on some very trivial pretext he went and hanged +himself. Which was just, says Philo; for such a rascal deserved a +rascal's death.[115] It is noteworthy that the Talmud also lays stress +upon the deep meaning of the patriarch's change of name.[116] "He who +calls Abraham Abram," said Bar Kappara, "transgresses a positive +command" [Hebrew: mtsva 'sha]. "Nay," said Rabbi Levi, "he transgresses +both a positive and a negative command (and commits a double sin)." Clearly +this was a test-question and an article of faith, possibly because the +letter [Hebrew: h], which was added to the name, was a letter of +mystical import in the opinion of the age. Both the rejection of the +literal and the rejection of the allegorical value of the Bible, Philo +regarded as impious, and he had to struggle against opposite factions +that were one-sided. The true son of the law believes in both [Greek: +to hreton] and [Greek: to en hyponoiais].[117] Seeing that the +Bible was the inspired revelation of God, who is the fountain of all +wisdom and knowledge--this is Philo's cardinal dogma--it is not to be +supposed, on the one hand, that it was silent about the profoundest +ideas of the human mind, or, on the other, that it contained ideas +opposed to right reason and truth. Yet at first sight it seemed to +lack any definite philosophy and to offer anthropomorphic views of +God. Hence the true interpreter must use the actual words of the sage +as metaphors, following the maxim, "Turn it about and about, because +all is in it, and contemplate it and wax grey over it, for thou canst +have no better rule than this."[118] The principle upon which Philo, +Saadia, Maimonides, and in fact the whole line of Jewish philosophical +exegetes have worked, is that the "words of the law are fruitful and +multiply"; or, as the Bible phrase runs, "The Torah which Moses +commanded unto us is the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob." It +is the separate inheritance of each generation, which each must +cultivate so as to gather therefrom its own fruit. + +The Halakah is the outcome of this devotion in one aspect, the +philosophical exegesis in another. In the one case Jewish +jurisprudence and the body of legal tradition, in the other, +philosophical ideas inspired by outer civilization, are attached to +the text of the Bible by ingenious devices of association. The device +is partly a pious fiction, partly a genuine belief; in other words, +the teachers honestly thought that there was respectively a hidden +philosophical meaning in the Bible and an oral tradition, +supplementary to the written law and arising out of it; but on the +other hand they would not have urged that their particular +interpretation alone was portended by the Scriptures. This is shown in +the Talmud by the fact that different rabbis deduced the same lessons +from different verses, and contrary laws from the same verse; in Philo +by the fact that he often gives various interpretations of one text in +different parts of his work. All that was claimed was that knowledge +and truth must be primarily referred to the Divine revelation, and all +law and practice to the authority of the Mosaic code. Philo, then, in +the same way as the rabbis, deduces all his teaching from the Bible, +not because he holds that it was explicitly contained there, but +because he desires to give to his philosophical notions Divine +authority. Like the rabbis, again, he suggests definite rules of +interpretation which may always be applied [Greek: kanones tes +allegorias].[119] He declares that every name in the Torah has a deep +symbolical meaning, and symbolizes some power.[120] Thus the names of +the sons of Jacob typify each some moral quality, and these qualities +together make the perfect man and the perfect nation. Reuben is "the +son of insight" [Hebrew: ru'bn], Simeon is learning [Hebrew: shm'-on], +Judah [Hebrew: yhuda] stands for the praise of God.[121] It may be noted, +by the way, that all these values show traces of Hebrew etymology. Again, +the synonyms in the Bible are to be carefully studied, while even +particles and parts of words have their special value and importance. +And the skilful exegete may for homiletical purposes make slight +changes in a word, following the rabbinical rule,[122] "Read not so, +but so." Thus he plays upon the name Esau, and takes the Hebrew word +as though it were written, not [Hebrew: 'eshaw] but [Hebrew: 'ashav], a +thing made.[123] Whence he shows that Esau represents the sham +(made-up) greatness, which is boastful and insolent and shameless. +Philo is referring perhaps to Apion, the vainglorious anti-Semite, +whom he often covertly attacks. Again, whenever there is repetition in +the text, a deeper meaning is portended. Dealing with the verse, +"Sarah the wife of Abraham took Hagar the Egyptian" (Gen. xvi. 3), +Philo comments, that we already knew that Sarah was Abraham's wife: +why, then, does the Bible mention it again? And following certain +values which he has made, he draws the lesson that the study of +philosophy must always go together with the study of general +culture.[124] These examples are not isolated; yet it is rather a +barren science to search for the canons of Philo's allegory, as +Siegfried has done. + +For his allegory is a very flexible instrument, which can be employed +at pleasure to deduce anything from anything. And Philo regards these +"points of construction" as the excuse, not as the motive, of his +ethical and philosophical teaching. He does not depend on such +devices, for he wanders into allegory more often than not without any +pretext of the kind. + +The modern reader may consider the allegorical method artificial and +unconvincing, even if he does not go so far as Spinoza, and say that +it is "useless, harmful, and absurd."[125] We prefer to-day to show +the inner agreement of philosophical with Biblical teaching, rather +than pretend that all philosophy is contained within the Bible; and we +accept the Bible as it stands, as a book of supreme religious worth, +without requiring more of it. But that is mainly a difference of taste +or of method, and in Philo's day, and in fact down to the time of the +sixteenth-century Renaissance, Jew and Gentile alike preferred the +other way. For thought, ancient and mediaeval, was pervaded with the +craving for authority or a plausible show of it. The Bible was not +only the great book of morality, but the standard of truth, that from +which knowledge in all its branches started, and that by which it was +to be judged. As all knowledge came from God, so all knowledge was in +God's Book; and allegory was the method by which the intellectual +conceptions of succeeding ages were attached to it. + +The two main heads of Biblical interpretation which the Jewish +religious genius developed, Peshat and Derash,--these represent two +permanent attitudes of mind. In the first the commentator tries to get +at the exact meaning of the text before him, to make its lesson clear +and discuss the circumstances of the composition, the exact relations +of its parts. He is satisfied to take the writer of the Biblical book +for what he says in his own form of utterance. In the second the +commentator is more anxious to inculcate ideas and lessons which do +not arise obviously from the text, and to widen the significance of +what he finds in the Bible. The interpretation ceases to be a mere +exposition; it becomes creative or conciliating thought, and the +interpreter becomes a religious reformer, a philosopher, a prophet. To +this school Philo belongs, and the framework of his teaching or the +ingenuity by which he develops it from his text is of small account. +It is what he teaches and what he considers to be the vital things in +religion and life to which we must pay attention. Judged on this +ground Philo is a supreme master of Derash, and must take a place +among the most creative of the interpreters of the Bible. + + * * * * * + + + + +IV + +PHILO AND THE TORAH + + +Over and over again Philo declares that his function is to expound the +law of Moses. Moses was the interpreter of God's word to Israel; and +Philo aspired to be the interpreter of the revelation of Moses to the +Hellenistic world, "the living voice of the holy law." He believed +that Israel was a chosen people in the sense that it had received the +Divine message on behalf of the whole human race,[126] a Kingdom of +Priests, in that it occupied to other nations the position which the +priest--using the word in the fullest sense--occupied to the common +people.[127] The Torah is God's covenant, not only with one small +nation, but with all His children, and its teachings are true for all +times and for all places. "The Bible," as Professor Butcher says,[128] +"is the one book which appears to have the capacity of eternal +self-adjustment, of uninterrupted correspondence with an ever-shifting +and ever-widening environment." Nowadays this appears a truism, but +the truth first presented itself to the Jewish-Alexandrian community +when they came in contact with external culture. The Palestinian and +Babylonian Jews, free for the most part from outside influences, +developed the Torah for the Jewish people, amplified the tradition, +and determined the Halakah, the practical law. But the Alexandrian +Jews in the first place found their own attitude to the Torah affected +by their acquaintance with Greek ethics and metaphysics, and also +found it necessary to interpret the Bible in a new fashion in order to +make its value known to their environment. The Greek world required to +be shown the general principle, the broad ethical idea in each +ordinance. And thus it came about that the Alexandrian interpreters +always emphasized the universal beneath the particular, the moral +spirit beneath the forms. + +It had been one of the chief functions of the prophets to demonstrate +the moral import of the law. In their vision the God of Israel became +the God of the universe, and His law of conduct was spread over all +mankind. "For the law shall go forth from Zion, and the word of the +Lord from Jerusalem" (Micah iv. 2). Philo in effect expounds Judaism +in their spirit, though he speaks their message in the voice of Plato +and to a people whose minds were trained in Greek culture. Yet it is +significant that he wrote all his commentaries round the Five Books of +Moses, and used the prophets and other Biblical books only to +illustrate and support the Mosaic teaching, which contains the whole +way of life and the whole religious philosophy. According to the +rabbis also the Prophets formed only a complement to the Torah, "a +species of Agadah";[129] and the prophetic vision of Moses was much +clearer than that of his successors. Philo, too, clearly realized that +Judaism was the religion of the law. His view of the Torah is what the +modern world would call uncritical: that is to say, he accepts the +idea that the whole of the Five Books was an objective revelation to +Moses at Sinai. But though--or because--he is innocent of the higher +criticism, and believes in the literal inspiration of the Torah, his +conception is none the less enlightened and spiritual. The law--the +Divine Logos--is not the enactment of an outside power, arbitrarily +imposed, and to be obeyed because of its miraculous origin; it is the +expression of the human soul within, when raised to its highest power +by the Divine inspiration. Every man may fit himself to receive the +Divine word, which is, in modern language, revelation.[130] Moses, +then, is distinguished above all other legislators, not because he +alone received it, but because he received it in its purest form, and +because he was the most noble interpreter of it. It is for this reason +that the law of Moses is of universal validity for conduct. The Divine +spirit possessed him so fully that his Logos, or revelation, is +eternally true, and by following it all men become fit to be blessed +with the Divine gift themselves. This is true of the other prophets of +the Bible to a smaller degree, and in a still minor degree Philo hoped +that it was true of himself. + +It should be premised that the "law of nature" was at the time of +Philo an idea as widely accepted as "evolution" is to-day. Men +believed that by a study of the processes of the universe the +individual might discover the law of conduct that should bring his +action into harmony with the whole. What the Greek philosophers +declared to be the privilege of the few, Philo declared to have been +imparted by God to His people as their law of life. Hence the Mosaic +legislation is the code of nature and reason, and the righteous man +directs his conduct in accordance with those rules of nature by which +the cosmos is ordered.[131] Obedience to the law should not be +obedience to an outward prescription, but rather the following out of +our own highest nature. The ideal which the Stoic sage continually +aspired for and never attained to--the life according to nature and +right reason--this Philo claimed had been accomplished in the Mosaic +revelation, handed down by God to Israel and through them to the +world. + +Before we deal with Philo's treatment of the law in its narrower +sense, it will be as well to consider briefly his interpretation of +the historical parts of the Torah. Here likewise he finds ideas of +natural reason and eternal truths embodied. To Philo, as we have seen, +the Torah is a unity, and every part of it has equal validity and +value. He had to contend against certain higher critics of his day, +who declared that Genesis was a collection of myths ([Greek: +mython plasmata]).[132] Moreover, the long catalogues of +genealogies in Genesis and the longer recitals of sacrifices in +Leviticus and Numbers seemed to refute those who declared that every +part of the Pentateuch was a Divine revelation. In the third book of +the "Questions to Genesis" Philo directly grapples with this +objection. Commenting on the verse (Gen. xv. 9), "Take for me a heifer +of three years old and a goat of three years old," etc., he says that +in interpreting any part or any verse of Scripture we must look to the +purpose of the whole and explain it from this outlook, "without +dissecting or disturbing its harmony or disintegrating its +unity."[133] Why should God, asked the scoffer, reveal these trivial +or prolix details? Philo's answer is in fact to spiritualize +everything that is material, and universalize everything that is +particular. While he believes in the literal inspiration of the Bible, +he does not insist upon the literal truth of every word of it, and in +the opening chapters of Genesis in particular, he treats the tales as +symbolical or allegorical myths. His philosophical commentary on the +creation, corresponding to the [Hebrew: m'sha br'shit] of the +rabbis, is found in the book _De Mundi Opificio_, which stands in +modern editions at the head of his writings. Its main theme is to +trace in the text the Platonic idealism, _i.e._, the theory that God +first created transcendental, incorporeal archetypes of all +physical and material things. Philo uses the double account of the +creation of man in the first and second chapters of Genesis as clear +evidence that the Bible describes--for those who have the mind to +see--the creation of an ideal before the terrestrial man. + +In the "Allegories of the Laws," which is the profounder philosophical +doctrine, the account of Adam and Eve is deliberately chosen by Philo +as the text of a psychological treatise, in which he analyzes[134] the +relations of the mind, the senses, and the pleasures, represented +respectively by Adam, Eve, and the Serpent. The necessity of +explaining the story symbolically is professedly based on the fact +that otherwise we are driven to the idea that the Bible spoke +inaccurately about God. "It is silly," he says, "to suppose that Adam +and Eve can have hidden themselves in the Garden of Eden, for God +filled the whole." We are driven then to suggest another meaning; and +Philo passes into a homily about the false opinion of the man who +follows the bidding of the senses (Eve) at the instigation of pleasure +(the Serpent).[135] + +The story of Cain and Abel is another piece of moral philosophy +embodied in a concrete form. Abel symbolizes pious humility, Cain the +deadly sin of atheism and intellectual pride, which denies the +absolute and ever-present power of the Deity. Philo asks himself the +question that other commentators have frequently raised, some in +reverence, some in ridicule, "Who was Cain's wife?"[136] And he +answers that the Bible expression about the children of Cain cannot be +taken literally, but suggests the union of the ill-ruled mind with +impious opinions, which have as their issue false pride and sin. + +Philo here treats the stories in the opening of Genesis as pure +allegories, in which the men and women represent symbolically +characters and qualities. It should be remembered, however, that these +interpretations occur in the commentary where our author is not so +much expounding the Torah as deducing secret doctrines from it. His +proper exposition of the law proceeds from the book on the Creation to +the lives of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and then to the +lives of Joseph and Moses. And in this commentary the Bible narrative +is taken as historical truth: only in addition to the historical fact +there is a moral and universal value in every figure and every +episode. The patriarchs' lives represent the unwritten law which the +Greek world held in high honor, for it was considered to contain the +broad principles of individual and social conduct, and to be prior +logically and chronologically to the written codes. Moses, therefore, +the perfect legislator, according to Philo, has presented in the three +founders of the Hebrew race embodiments of the unwritten law of good +conduct for all mankind. Each of them is a moral type of eternal +validity and represents one of the ways in which blessedness may be +attained.[137] Abraham represents the goodness which comes from +instruction; Isaac, the spontaneous goodness that is innate, and the +joy (or laughter) of the soul that is God's gift to his favored sons; +Jacob, the goodness that comes after long effort, through the life of +practice and severe discipline. Before this triad, the Bible presents +another group of three, who represent the virtues preparatory to the +acquisition of perfect goodness: Enosh, Enoch, and Noah.[138] They +typify respectively, as their names indicate, hope, repentance, and +justice. It is a pretty thought, helped by an error in the Septuagint +translation,[139] which sees in the name of the first (_i.e._, man, +[Hebrew: 'nosh]) the symbol of hope. Hope, the commentator suggests, is the +distinguishing characteristic of man[140] as compared with other +animals, and hope therefore is our first step towards the Divine +nature, the seed of which faith is the fruit. Next in order come +repentance and natural justice, and from these stepping-stones we can +rise to the higher self. Philo's interpretation of these Bible figures +would appear to have behind it an old Midrashic tradition. As far back +as the book of Ben Sira, in the passage on "the Praises of Famous Men" +(xliv), they are taken as typical of the different virtues, and Enoch +notably is the type of repentance. In the first century the world was +becoming incapable of understanding abstract ideas, and required +ethics to be concretely embodied in examples of life. Philo found +within the Jewish Scriptures what the Christian apostles later +transferred to other events. + +Joseph, whose life followed that of the patriarchs, is the type of the +political life, the model of the man of action and ambition. Taken +alone, this is inferior to the life of the saint and philosopher, but +mixed with the other it produces the perfect man, for the truly good +man must take his part in public life. The story of Joseph, then, +illustrates the full humanity of Moses' scheme, and it marks also, +according to Philo, the great moral lesson, that if there be one spark +of nobility in a man's soul, God will find it and cause it to shine +forth.[141] For Joseph, until he comes down to Egypt, is not a +virtuous man, but full of conceit and unworthy aspiration for +supremacy; he shows his true worth when he is sold into slavery; and +then by the Divine inspiration he becomes the ideal statesman. Very +suggestive is Philo's homily, by which he develops the Bible +narrative, that the function of the statesman is to expound +dreams;[142] because his task is to interpret the life of man, which +is one long dream of changing scenes, wherein we forget what has gone +before, as the fleeting shadow leads us from childhood to youth, from +youth to manhood, from manhood to old age. Lastly, from the story of +Joseph he draws the lesson that when the Hebrew has attained to a high +position in a foreign land, as in Egypt, where there is utter +blindness about the true God, he can and should retain his national +laws,[143] and not assimilate the practices of his environment. + +Eusebius[144] mentions, among the works of Philo which he had before +him, a book on "The Statesman," in which doubtless the principles of +government and social life were more fully treated. The book has +disappeared, but the life of Joseph suffices to show that Philo +recognized the place of public service in the human ideal. + +Moses is not only the divinely inspired legislator, but he typifies +also the perfection of the human soul, the highest example of the man +at one with God, supreme as king, lawgiver, priest, and prophet. He is +the link between God and man, the perfect interpreter of the Divine +Word; and though Philo avoids the suggestion of any Divine power +incarnate in man, he speaks imaginatively of the Logos of Moses,[145] +_i.e._, his reason, as identical with the Logos of God, the Divine law +of the universe. It is significant of his attitude to religion that he +lays no stress upon the miracles of the Bible narrative. Not that he +rationalizes them away; he rejects all rationalizing whatsoever; but +he interprets them as great spiritual signs, rather than as diversions +from the laws of nature. His allegory of the burning bush, which Moses +saw at Horeb is typical, and presents a truth to which the whole +history of Israel bears witness. The weak thorn-bush, which was not +consumed by the fire, is the image of the idea of Israel, which almost +cries to the people in their misfortune: "Do not despair! Your +weakness is your strength, and by it you shall wound race after race. +You will be preserved by those who wish to destroy you, and you shall +not perish. In evil days you shall not suffer, and when a tyrant +thinks to uproot you, you shall shine forth the more in brighter +glory."[146] The passage is typical also of the rhetorical artifice +with which Philo, following the taste of the time, recommended the +Bible to the Greeks. + +We turn now to Philo's treatment of the Mosaic legislation, the Torah +in its narrower sense, which is to modern Jewry perhaps the most +striking part of his commentary. His problem was the same as ours--to +bring the ancient law into harmony with the ideas of a non-Jewish +environment, and to show its essential value when tried by an external +cultural standard. Briefly his solution is that he sees everything in +the Torah _sub specie aeternitatis_, in the light of eternity; and by +his faithfulness to the law, combined with his spiritual +interpretation of it, he stands forth as the greatest Jewish +missionary of his age. Unfortunately for Judaism, depth of thought and +philosophical judgment are not the qualities which mark the successful +religious missionary. Philo's philosophical treatment of the Torah was +understood only of the few; the fanatical Pauline rejection of the law +appealed to the masses. The spirit of the age demanded, indeed, the +ethical interpretation of the Bible, and it was carried out in many +ways, some true, some untrue to Judaism. Philo and Josephus tell us +how Judaism was spreading over the world.[147] "There is not any city +of the Greeks," says the historian, "nor of the barbarians, nor of any +nation whatsoever, to which our custom of resting on the seventh day +has not been introduced, and where our fasts and our dietary laws are +not observed.... As God Himself pervadeth all the universe, so hath +our law passed through the world." And their testimony is supported by +the frequent gibes against Judaizing Romans in the Roman poets,[148] +and by the explicit statements of Strabo,[149] the famous geographer, +and, more remarkable still, of Seneca, the Stoic +philosopher-statesman. The bitter foe of the Jews, he confessed that +this superstitious pest was infecting the whole world, and that the +conquered people (Judaea had lately been made a Roman province) were +taking their conquerors captive.[150] Philo, with his ardent hope, +looked for the near coming of the time when the worship of the Jewish +God would prevail over the world, and sought to show that the Jewish +law, which is the expression of Jewish belief, and which differs from +all others, not only in the extent of its sway, but in its +unchangeableness, could be universalized to fit its new service. To +this end he interpreted the Mosaic code, which "no war, tyrant, +persecution, or visitation, human or Divine, can destroy: for it is +eternal."[151] In the arrangement of the Torah, Philo finds a proof of +its universality. It begins with the account of the creation, to teach +us that the same Being that is the Creator and Father of the universe +is also its Legislator, and, again, that he who follows the law will +choose to live in harmony with nature, and will exhibit consistency of +action with words and of words with action. Other philosophers, +notably the Stoics, claimed to lay down a plan of life that followed +the law of nature; but their practice notoriously fell below their +unrealizable professions. In Judaism alone spirit and practice were at +one, so that each inspired the other and secured human excellence. +"Not theory but practice is the root of the matter" ([Hebrew: l' hmdrsh +'kr 'l' hm'sha]), according to the rabbis:[152] and Philo, who, +contemplative philosopher as he was, yet recognized the all-importance of +conduct, writes in the same spirit:[153] "We must first study and then act, +for we learn, not for learning's sake, but in order to action." + +Philo seeks to arrange the law under general moral heads, and he finds +in the Decalogue the holy text upon which the rest of the code is but +a commentary. He may be following a tradition common among all the +Jews, for in the Midrash to Numbers (xiii) it is said that the six +hundred and thirteen precepts are all contained in the Ten +Commandments: [Hebrew: shtrig mtsvt klilit bhn]. We do not know, however, +in what way the early rabbis carried out this idea, whereas we possess +Philo's arrangement; and some of its features are very suggestive.[154] +To the first two commandments he attaches the ritual laws relating to +priests and sacrifices, to the fourth the laws of all the festivals, to +the seventh the criminal and civil law, to the tenth the dietary laws. +The Decalogue he conceives as falling into two divisions, between which +the fifth commandment is a link. For the first four commandments are +ordinances that determine man's relation to God, and the last five +those which determine his relation to his fellows. Honor of the +parents is the link between the Divine and the human virtues, even as +parents themselves are a link between immortal God and mortal man. +Corresponding to the two divisions of the Decalogue are the two +generic virtues which the Mosaic legislation has set as its goal, +piety, and humanity, or what the rabbis called charity ([Hebrew: tsdka]). +"He who loves God, but does not show love towards his own kind, +has but the half of virtue."[155] Thus in one and the same age Hillel, +incited by a single scoffer, and Philo, moved by the taunts of a tribe +of anti-Semites, looked for the most vital lesson of the Torah, and +they found it alike in "the love of our neighbor." That was Judaism on +its practical side. + +In order to show the humanitarian spirit of the Torah, Philo +emphasizes its socialistic institutions, the law of the seventh year's +rest to the land ([Hebrew: shnt hshmita]), of the emancipation of the +slaves, and of the Jubilee. These to him are not tribal laws, but the +ideal institutions for the whole world, which shall one day be set up +when the theocracy has been established over all mankind. And in an age +when slavery was as accepted a condition as factory-labor is to-day, +he ventured to assert the principle of the equality of man. "If," +saith the law, "one of thy brethren be sold to thee, let him serve +thee for six years, and in the seventh year let him go free without +payment." And Philo thereon comments:[156] "A second time Moses calls +our fellow-creature brother, to impress upon the master that he has a +tie with his servant, so that he may not neglect him as a stranger. +Nay, but if he follows the direction of the law, he will feel sympathy +with him, and will not be vexed when he is about to liberate him. For +though we call our servants slaves, yet in verity they are only +dependents who serve us in order to have the means of life." This +corresponds with the Talmud dictum, "Whoever buys a Jewish slave buys +a master for himself."[157] Commenting again upon the verse in Exodus +xxi. 6, which says with seeming harshness that a servant who wishes to +stay with his master after the year of emancipation has arrived, shall +be nailed by the ear to a door, he explains that no man should consent +of his own will to be a slave, for we should only be servants of God; +and if a man deliberately rejects freedom for comfort, he should wear +a mark of degradation. The so-called Christian principle of the +dignity of human life and the equality of man, Philo shows to be the +spirit of the Mosaic law, not limited within the confines of one +nation, but valid for the world. Nor is it contained therein as a mere +sentimental aspiration, but it is realized in the institutions of the +Jewish polity. + +Philo looked for the same broad principles in his treatment of the +ceremonial law. The Sabbath day is the central observance, one might +say, the lodestar of the Jewish life, round which the other ceremonies +revolve. The Sabbath is the call to man's higher nature, for it is the +day on which we are bidden to devote ourselves to the Divine power +within us and to seek to know God. "The six days in which the Creator +made the universe are an example to us to work, but the seventh day, +on which He rested, is an example to us to meditate. As on that day +God is said to have looked upon His work, so we, too, should +contemplate the universe thereon, and consider our highest welfare. +Let us never neglect the example of the best life, the combination of +action and thought, but keeping a clear vision of it before our minds, +so far as our human nature will permit, let us liken ourselves to +immortal God by word and deed."[158] High-flown this language may be, +but what Philo wishes to mark is the spiritual value of the Sabbath. +It is not merely a day of rest from workaday toil, but it is a day +upon which we devote all our thoughts to God, and enter into closer +communion with Him, [Hebrew: mnoht 'hba vndba], a repose of love and +devotion. Heine said that on one day of the week the lowliest Jew became +a prince, Philo that he became a philosopher. As in all of Philo's +interpretations of Jewish custom, there is something mystic in his +conception of the Sabbath. For he regards all Divine service and all +prayer as a mystic rite which leads the human soul unto God. In the +special ordinances of the day he finds a spiritual motive. We may not +touch fire, because fire is the seed and beginning of industry.[159] +The servant of the house may not work,[160] because on this day he +shall have a taste of freedom and humanity, and he will work the more +cheerfully during the remaining six days. Some rabbis later, when +numbers of Gentiles had adopted this without the other institutions of +Judaism, claimed the Sabbath as the special heritage of Israel; and in +the book of Jubilees[161] it is said that Israel alone has the right +to observe the Sabbath. Not so Philo, who, desiring to give the day a +value for all, regards it as God's covenant with the whole of +humanity.[162] + +The Sabbath idea is reflected in all the festivals, which have as +their dominating idea man's joyful gratitude to God. Influenced +probably by a mystic fondness for certain numbers, Philo enumerates +ten festivals, as follows:[163] (1) Each day in the year, if we use it +aright--a truly Philonic conception; (2) The Sabbath; (3) The new +moon--then in Alexandria, as in Palestine, a solemn day; (4) The +Passover; (5) The bringing of the first barley ('Omer); (6) The Feast +of Unleavened Bread. These last three are separate aspects of one +celebration, which is divided up so as to produce the holy decad. (7) +Pentecost; (8) New Year; (9) Atonement (to the mystic the Feast of +feasts); (10) Tabernacles. Following his design of revealing in +Judaism a religion of universal validity, Philo points out in all +these festivals a double meaning. On the one hand, they mark God's +providence to His chosen people, shown in some great event of their +history--this is the special meaning for the Israelite--and, on the +other, they indicate God's goodness as revealed in the march of +nature, and thus help to bind man to the universal process. So +Passover is the festival of the spring and a memorial of the creation +([Hebrew: zbr lm'sha br'shit]) as well as the memorial of the great Exodus, +and of our gratitude for the deliverance from the inhospitable land of +Egypt. And those who look for a deeper moral meaning may find in it a +symbol of the passing over from the life of the senses to the life with +God. Similarly, Philo deals with the other festivals,[164] and in their +particular ceremonies he finds symbols which stamp eternal lessons of +history and of morality upon our hearts. The unleavened bread is the +mark of the simple life, the New Year Shofar of the Divine rule of +peace, the Sukkot booth of the equality of all men, and, as he puts it +elsewhere, of man's duty in prosperity to remember the troubles of his +past, so that he may worthily recognize God's goodness. Much of this +may appear trite to us; and the association of the festivals with the +seasons of nature may to some appear a false development of historical +Judaism; nevertheless Philo's treatment of this part of the Torah is +notable. It shows remarkable feeling for the ethical import of the +law, and it establishes the harmony between the Greek and Hebrew +conceptions of the Deity by combining the God of history with the God +of nature in the same festival. The ideas were not unknown to +Palestinian rabbis; Philo, by giving them a Greek dress, opened them +to the world. + +Equally remarkable and equally suggestive is Philo's treatment of the +dietary laws. We have seen that he placed them under the governing +principle of the tenth commandment, "Thou shalt not covet," or, more +broadly, "Thou shalt not have base desires." The dietary laws are at +once a symbol and a discipline of temperance and self-control. We know +that the Greeks, as soon as they had a superficial knowledge of Jewish +observance, jeered at the barbarous and stupid superstition of +refusing to eat pork. Again we are told in the letter of the false +Aristeas that when Ptolemy's ambassadors went to Jerusalem, to summon +learned men to translate the Torah into Greek, Eleazar, the high +priest, instructed them in the deeper moral meaning of the dietary +laws. Further, in the fourth book of the Maccabees--an Alexandrian +sermon upon the Empire of Right Reason--we find an eloquent defence of +these same laws as the precepts of reason which fortify our minds. +Philo, then, is following a tradition, but he improves upon it. +Accepting the Platonic psychology, which divided the soul into reason, +temper (_i.e._, will), and desire, he shows how the aim of the Mosaic +law about food is to control desire and will, so as to make them +subservient to reason. By practicing self-restraint in the two +commonest actions of life--eating and drinking--the Israelite acquires +it in all things. The hard ascetic who would root out bodily desires +errs against human nature, but the wise legislator controls them and +curbs them by precepts, so that they are bent to the higher reason. + +Modern apologists for Judaism have been found who, trying to force +science to support their tottering faith, allege that the dietary law +is hygienic. Philo relies on no such treacherous reed. We may not eat, +he says,[165] the flesh of the pig or shell-fish, not because they are +unhealthy, but because they are the sweetest and most delightful of +all food, and for that very reason they are marks of the sensual life. +This and this alone is the true religious justification of the dietary +law. + +In this way, by showing how the letter represents the spirit, Philo +fulfils the law; his religion is liberal in thought, conservative in +practice. He sees clearly that to throw off the law and reject +tradition involves in the end chaos and the overthrow of +righteousness. And certain Christian--and other--theologians, if one +may make bold to say so, fail to realize the spirit of Philo, when +they speak of him as a man who approached the light, but was too tied +down by the old traditions to receive the full illumination. Rather is +it true that the Jewish aspiration of "freedom under the law," or +spirit through the letter, is absolutely fundamental in Philo, and +loyalty to the Torah is a guiding principle in his religious outlook. +He asserts it clearly and strikingly, not only in his ethical +commentary on the law, but in his philosophical allegories. Both +passages deserve quotation, since they mark the fundamental contrast +between Philo and non-Jewish allegorists of the law. In the first +Philo is commenting upon the command "Thou shalt not add to or take +away from the law" (Deut. xix. 14).[166] He shows first how each of +the virtues is marred by excess in either direction; virtue in fact, +according to the Aristotelian formula, is "a mean." + + "And in the same way, if we add anything great or small to + piety, the queen of virtues, or take anything away, we mar + it and change its form. Addition will engender superstition, + and diminution impiety, and true piety will disappear, which + above all things we should pray for to enlighten our souls: + for it is the cause of the greatest of goods, inducing in us + a knowledge of our conduct towards God, which is a thing + more royal and kingly than any public office or distinction. + Further, Moses lays down another general command, 'Do not + remove the boundary stone of thy neighbor, which thy + ancestors have set up.' This, methinks, does not refer + merely to inheritances and the boundary of land, but it is + ordained with a view to the preservation of ancient customs. + For customs are unwritten laws, the decrees of men of old, + not carved indeed upon pillars and inscribed upon parchment, + but engraved upon the souls of the generations who through + the ages maintain the chosen community. Children should take + over the paternal customs from their parents as part of + their inheritance, for they were reared on them, and lived + on them from their swaddling days, and they should not + neglect them merely because the tradition is not written. + The man who obeys the written laws is not, indeed, worthy of + praise, for he may be constrained thereto by fear of + punishment. But he who holds fast to the unwritten laws + gives proof of a voluntary goodness and is worthy of our + eulogy." + +Clearly he is arguing here for the observance of the oral law, which +later was standardized in the Halakah. + +In the other passage, which occurs in the philosophical book "On the +Migration of Abraham,"[167] he sets forth the reason of the authority +of the law with more argument, and controverts those who would +allegorize away the ordinances. + + "To whom, then, God has granted both to be and to seem good, + he is truly happy and truly renowned. And we must have a + great care for reputation, as a matter of great importance + and of much value, for our social and bodily life. [By + reputation Philo means reputation of being loyal Jews. He is + addressing here an esoteric circle who, if they were lax, + would bring philosophy into disrepute.] And almost all can + secure it, who are well content not to disturb established + customs, but diligently preserve the constitution of their + nation. But there are some who, looking upon the written + laws as symbols of intellectual things, lay great stress on + these, but neglect the former. Such men I would blame for + their shallowness of mind [Greek: euchereia]. For they + ought to give good heed to both--to the accurate + investigation of the unseen meaning, but also to the + blameless observance of the visible letter. But now, as if + they were living by themselves in a desert, and were souls + without bodies, and knew nothing of city or village or house + or intercourse with men, they despise all that seems + valuable to the many, and search for bare and naked truth as + it is in itself. Such people the sacred Scripture teaches to + give good heed to a good reputation, and to abolish none of + those customs which greater and more inspired men than we + instituted in the past. For, because the seventh day teaches + us symbolically concerning the power of the uncreated God, + and the inactivity of the creature, we must not therefore + abolish its ordinances, so as to light a fire, or till the + ground, or bear a burden, or prosecute a lawsuit, or demand + the restoration of a deposit, or exact the repayment of a + loan, or do any other thing, which on week-days is allowed. + Because the festivals are symbols of spiritual joy and of + our gratitude to God, we must not therefore give up the + fixed assemblies at the proper seasons of the year. Nor, + because circumcision symbolizes the excision of all lusts + and passions, and the destruction of the impious opinion + according to which the mind imagines that it is itself + capable of production, must we therefore abolish the law of + fleshly circumcision. We should have to neglect the service + of the temple, and a thousand other things, if we were to + restrict ourselves only to the allegorical or symbolic + sense. That sense resembles the soul, the other sense the + body. Just as we must be careful of the body, as the house + of the soul, so must we give heed to the letter of the + written laws. For only when these are faithfully observed, + will the inner meaning, of which they are the symbols, + become more clearly realized, and, at the same time, the + blame and accusation of the multitude will be avoided."[168] + +Philo's position is, then, that man on the one hand owes loyalty to +his nation, and on the other is not only a creature of spirit, but has +a body and bodily passions. He cannot, therefore, have a religion +which is individual or merely spiritual, but he requires common forms +and ceremonies that can bind him with the rest of the community, and +train his body by good habit to obey his reason. We do not reach the +spirit by denying but by obeying the letter. To the mere formal +observance of the law and the unreasoning custom which blindly follows +the practice of our fathers [Greek: synetheia] Philo is equally +opposed, and he protests, with the earnestness of an Isaiah, against +superstitious sacrifice and against the lip-service of the +materialist.[169] + + "If a man practices ablutions and purifications, but defiles + his mind while he cleanses his body; or if, through his + wealth, he founds a temple at a large outlay and expense; or + if he offers hecatombs and sacrifices oxen without number, + or adorns the shrine with rich ornaments, or gives endless + timber and cunningly wrought work, more precious than silver + or gold--let him none the more be called religious ([Greek: + eusebes]). For he has wandered far from the path of + religion, mistaking ritual for holiness, and attempting to + bribe the Incorruptible, and to flatter Him whom none can + flatter. God welcomes genuine service, and that is the + service of a soul that offers the bare and simple sacrifice + of truth, but from false service, the mere display of + material wealth, he turns away." + +Lot's daughter, born of a pillar of stone, symbolizes this unthinking, +hypertrophied religion; and custom, its mother, which always lags +behind and has no seed of life, is the enemy of truth. The religious +man pursueth righteousness righteously, the superstitious +unrighteously. + +Thus Philo holds the balance between a formless spirituality and an +unspiritual formalism. The end of religious observance is the love of +God, but the love of God requires more than feeling; it must +impregnate life. Dubnow, in his summary of Jewish history, formulates +an epigram, which, like most of its kind, becomes in its conciseness +and pointed antithesis a half-truth. "At Jerusalem," he says, "Judaism +appeared as a system of practical ceremonies; at Alexandria as a +complex of abstract symbols." No doubt it is true that at Jerusalem +the practical side of the law was most prominent, but the spiritual +exaltation to which it should lead was appraised as the true end by +the great rabbis. Witness Hillel, and indeed all the writers of the +gnomic wisdom in the "Ethics of the Fathers." At Alexandria, again, +while the philosophical principle underlying the outward practice was +especially emphasized, the practice itself was loyally observed, and +its value perceived, by those who most thoroughly understood Judaism. +Witness the writings of Philo, the Wisdom of Solomon, and the fourth +book of the Maccabees. The antithesis between letter and spirit, faith +and works, is in truth a false one; and wherever the significance of +Judaism has been fully comprehended, the two aspects of the law have +been inextricably intertwined. As Philo understood the Jewish mission, +it was not merely to diffuse the Jewish God-idea, but quite as much to +diffuse the Jewish attitude to God, the way of life. Abstract ideas, +however lofty, can never be the bond of a religious community, nor can +they be a safeguard for moral conduct. Sooner or later congregations +must submit themselves to some law, be it a law of dogma, or be it a +law of conduct. Antinomianism, the opposition to the law, to which +Paul later gave powerful, even fanatical, expression, was a strong +movement at Alexandria in Philo's day. Preparatory to the spread of +Christianity, numerous sects sprang up there which purported to follow +a spiritual Judaism wherein the law was abrogated because, forsooth, +its symbolism was understood! In the extreme allegorists, whom Philo +attacks for their shallowness, one may discern the prototypes of the +Cainites, Ophites, Melchizedecians, and the rest of the heretical +parties that produced the religious chaos of the next centuries. From +that welter of opinions there at last emerged dogmatic Christianity. +The Christian reformers came to free man from the yoke of the law; but +their successors imposed on the mind the fetters of dogma, and, in +order to check the passions of the body, advocated renunciation and +asceticism. So that not only Judaism as a system of belief, but +Judaism as a system of life was lost in their handiwork. Spirituality +lacking knowledge and allegorism in excess led to this result. In +Philo they are controlled by affection for the Torah, and by a +conviction of the need for national cohesion. + +Philo is loyal to the Jewish tradition not only because he had a deep +feeling for what a modern teacher has called the catholic conscience +and the historical continuity of Judaism, but because his philosophy +was based on a conviction that the Jewish religion was the truest +guide to conduct and righteousness and to the love of God. To him, as +to Plato and Aristotle, the law was the outward register of the moral +ideal; the "word-and-deed symbols" of ceremonial and prayer were +emblems indeed of moral principles, but at the same time they had an +intrinsic value, in that they impressed these principles upon the +mind, and brought belief and action into harmony. "Religion is law, +not philosophy," said Hobbes. With Philo, religion is law _and_ +philosophy. Thus the love of the Torah is of the essence of his +religious thought. As he puts it in the exhortation to his +fellow-ambassadors before Gaius,[170] "to die in defence of it is a +kind of life." In his philosophical Judaism he sought always for the +universal and the spiritual, but so as always to increase the honor of +the law, and not only of the law but of the customs of his ancestors, +thinking with the Psalmist that "the Torah is a tree of life to those +who keep fast hold of her, and those who support her are blessed." + + * * * * * + + + + +V + +PHILO'S THEOLOGY + + +"The most remarkable feature about Judaism," says Darmesteter, "is +that without a philosophical system it had reached a philosophical +conclusion about the government of the world and the nature of +God."[171] The same idea underlies the statement of the Peripatetic +writer Theophrastus (who lived in the latter part of the fourth +century B.C.E.) that the Jews are a people of philosophers,[172] and +the epigram of Heine, that they pray in metaphysics. Intuitively, the +lawgiver and prophets of the Hebrew race had attained a conception of +monotheism to which the greatest of the Greek philosophers had hardly +struggled by reason. The Greeks had started with separate +nature-powers, which they had finally resolved into a supreme +nature-force; the Hebrews had started with the historical God of their +fathers, whom they had universalized into the Creator of the world and +Father of all the human race. Wellhausen has suggested that the +intellectual development of Judaism with its tendency to become a +purified monotheism moved in the same direction towards which Greek +thought tended in its philosophical speculation of the universe. The +difference between the two conceptions of God, however, remained even +in their universalized aspect; the one was an impersonal world-force, +the other a personal God in direct relation with individual man. +Elsewhere than in Judaea, it has been well said, religious development +reaches unity only by sacrificing personality. But the prophets, whose +conception of God was imaginative rather than rational, preserved His +nearness while expanding His sway. Israel, to use Philo's etymology, +is the man who sees God,[173] and his religious genius gave to the +world a personal incorporeal Deity, who is both transcendent and +immanent, personal and yet above human conception. It is unnecessary +to quote evidence of this view of the Godhead in the Bible, and it +would be superfluous to adduce passages from the rabbis, did they not +bear a striking similarity to the words of Philo. God to them is not +only the Creator of the world, but also the Father of the world, the +Governor of the world, the Only One of the world, the Space of the +world, filling it as the soul fills the body.[174] Now, this Jewish +conception of God is dominant in Philo. To him also God is not only +the Creator but the Father of the universe.[175] He is the One and the +All.[176] He is ever at rest, yet he outstrippeth everything, nearest +to everyone, yet far removed, everywhere and nowhere, above and +outside the universe, yet filling creation with Himself.[177] Philo +loves to attach to the Deity these opposite predicates, for in this +way alone can we form for ourselves some conception, however +inadequate, of His Being. Strictly, God is unconditioned, and cannot +be the subject of predication, for all determination involves +negation, and hence in one aspect He is not conceivable nor +describable, nor nameable.[178] Siegfried and Zeller press this +negative attitude to the Deity, and find that there is an inherent +contradiction in Philo's system, which ruins it, in that his God, upon +whom all depends and who is the object of all knowledge, is absolutely +unknowable and unapproachable. But this is to take Philo according to +the strict letter to the neglect of the spirit, and to do that with +one so eloquent and so careless of verbal accuracy is utterly to +misunderstand him. + +The Greek philosophers in their attempt to formulate an exact notion +of the First Being by abstract metaphysics had, indeed, conceived it +in this fashion; and Philo, harmonizing Greek metaphysics and Hebrew +intuition, is drawn at times into a presentation of God which appears +to deny His personality and make of Him an abstraction. What has been +said of Spinoza is true no less of Philo.[179] "The tendency to unity, +to the infinite, to religion, overbalanced itself till, by its mere +excess, it seemed to be changed into its opposite. But this is not his +spirit, only the dead ultimate result of an imperfect logic that +confuses an abstract with a concrete unity." In truth, the moment man +tries to define his conception of God's essence in words, he either +impairs and perverts his idea, or he must use words that do not really +make the idea any clearer than it was unexpressed. Thus in the Hymn of +[Hebrew: ygdl] the writer, versifying the creeds of Maimonides, seeks to +define God: "He is a Unity, but there is no Unity like His; He is +hidden and there is no end to His oneness." But nobody can claim that +this gives any adequate conception of what he means; so, too, Philo, +when he tries to analyze God's being metaphysically, only obscures the +God of his soul, who was the historical God of Israel. + +The Hebraic God, like the Greek First Being, has no qualities, but +unlike the other He has ethical attributes, and it is by these that we +know Him and by these that He is related to the universe and to man. +"Failing to comprehend Him in His essence we must aim at the next best +thing, to comprehend Him as He is manifested to the world."[180] So in +the "Hymn of Unity" it is written, "In images they told of Thee, but +not according to Thy essence! They but likened Thee in accordance with +Thy works."[181] And this is the manner in which Philo conceives Him: +"God's grace and goodness it is which are the causes of creation."[182] +"The just man, seeking the nature of all things, makes this most +excellent discovery, that all things are due to the grace of God." "To +those who ask the origin of creation, one could most easily reply that +it is the goodness and grace of God which He bestowed on the race that +is after His image."[183] "For all that is in the universe and the +universe itself are the gift and bounty and grace of God."[184] Again, +"God is omnipotent; He could make all evil, but He wills only what is +best."[185] "All is due to God's grace, though nothing is worthy of +it;[186] but God looked to His own eternal goodness, and considered +that to do good befitted His own blessed and happy nature." + +Philo's life-aim, as we have seen,[187] was to see God in all things +and all things in God. He is the sole principle of being, exercising +continuous causality; and yet He is always at rest, for His energy is +the expression of His being. "He never ceases to create, for creation +is as proper to Him as it is proper to fire to burn and to snow to +cause cold."[188] Further, to Him all human activity and excellence +are directly due. He fertilizes virtue by sending down the seed from +Heaven,[189] and He brings forth wisdom from the human mind by His own +Divine effluence. "It is the distinctive feature of Jewish thought," +said Spinoza, "never to make account of particular and secondary +causes, but in a spirit of devotion, piety, and godliness to refer all +things directly to the Deity." No Jewish thinker ever applied this +principle more thoroughly than Philo; and it gives an unique color to +his work in the history of ancient philosophy. All our lives are one +unceasing miracle, due to the constant manifestation of God's power; +and the miracles of the Bible are examples of the universal working of +Divine care rather than exceptions from it. + +The dominant feeling behind Greek thought is that man is the measure +of all things: Plato, attacking the standpoint of his nation, had +declared that God is the measure, and Philo repeats his maxim with a +new intensity. It means for him that man's mind is a fragment or +particle of the Divine universal mind, which, however, is impotent +till called into activity by the further Divine gift of inspiration. +Knowledge and happiness, therefore, come not through God, but from +God.[190] "The Divine Word streams down from the fount of wisdom, and +waters the plants of virtuous souls."[191] "To God alone is it fitting +to use the word 'my,'"[192] or, put in another way, man has only the +usufruct and God the ownership of his powers. Pride of intellect is +therefore a deadly sin, because it involves a false, incomplete idea +of God, and true knowledge involves reverence. The ideal of the Greek +sage, the independent reason, is a godless thing, and those in whom a +knowledge of Greek philosophy produces intellectual pride are not +disciples of Divine Wisdom. In a fine passage Philo charges with +hypocrisy those who talk in high-sounding language about the +all-powerful Deity, and yet declare that by their own intellect they +can comprehend the world.[193] This was the attitude not only of the +proud Stoic, but of certain kindred Jewish sects, which were subject +to Greek influences, such as the Gnostics and the Cainites. And upon +them Philo appears to be pouring his wrath when he exclaims: "How have +you the effrontery to go on making and listening to fine professions +about piety and the honor of God, when you have within you, forsooth, +the mind equal to God that comprehends all human things, and can +combine good and evil portions, giving to some a mixed, to others an +unmixed lot? And when anybody accuses you of impiety, you brazenly +declare that you belong to the school of that noble guide and teacher +Cain (_i.e._ insolent reason), who bade you pay honor to the secondary +rather than the primary cause." + +Philo has often been reproached with intellectualism, and excessive +regard to acquired wisdom, and it may be urged that by his allegorical +method he tried to find in the Bible the sanction of two degrees of +religious faith, the higher for the philosopher and the lower for the +ordinary man. At the same time, however, before his God he retains the +childlike simplicity of the most un-Hellenic rabbi, and the perfect +humility of the Hasid. His conviction of the dependence of all upon +God's grace is the perfect corrective of his intellectual +exclusiveness. The idea of God as the unity which comprehends +everything and causes everything is the great Jewish contribution to +thought, and binds our literature together in all its manifestations. +It characterizes and unites the poetical utterance of the Bible +prophets, the pious wisdom of the rabbis, the philosophical systems of +Philo and Maimonides. + +The more sublime and exalted the conception of God, the more +imperative became the need for the thinking Jew to explain how the +perfect infinite Being came into relation with the imperfect finite +world of man and matter. How can the incorporeal God be the founder of +the material universe? How can the infinite mind be present in the +finite thought of man? How can the all-good Power be the creator of +the evil which we see in the material world and of the wickedness that +flourisheth among men? These questions presented themselves to the +Israelite after he had consummated his marvellous religious intuition, +and became the starting-point of a theology which is nascent in the +Wisdom literature of the Bible. Theology is the reasoning about God +which follows always in the footsteps of religious certitude. First, +man by his intuitive reason rises to some idea of the Godhead +satisfying to his emotion; next, by his discursive reason, he +endeavors to justify that idea to his experience in analyzing God's +operations. Renan, disposing sweepingly of a great question, declares +that the Jewish monotheism excluded any true theology. But, in fact, +in Palestine, and still more in Alexandria from the third century +B.C.E., Jewish thought had as one of its constant aims to develop a +theory of the operations of the one God in the world of material +plurality. When the Jews came in contact with the cosmological +mythology of Babylon, their God seemed to soar beyond the reach of +men, and they looked to powers nearer them to bridge the widening +gulf. To some extent this aim engendered a modification in the +religious monotheism, and led to the interposition of intermediate +conceptions between the Inconceivable and man. "The whole angelology," +says Deutsch,[194] "so strikingly simple before the Captivity and so +wonderfully complex after it, owes its quick development in Babylonian +soil to some awe-stricken desire which grows with growing culture, +removing the inconceivable Being further and further from human touch +or knowledge." Speaking generally, it may be said that reflection +about God's relations produced in Palestine the doctrine of angels, in +Alexandria the doctrine of Wisdom and the Logos. At the same time the +Wisdom and the Word were not unknown to the Palestinian Midrash, and +the hierarchies of angels to the Alexandrian, for the suggestion of +the different subordinate powers had been evolved before the two +traditions had become independent. The doctrine of angels never indeed +won recognition from the rabbis, but it was for centuries an element +of popular belief. + +More philosophical than the doctrine of angels was the conception of +different attributes of God [Hebrew: mdot], which were different +manifestations of His activity, to the human mind separable and +distinguishable from each other, though absolutely they were +inseparable aspects of the Godhead. Chief among these were the +attribute of mercy and the attribute of justice, [Hebrew: mdt hrhmim] +and [Hebrew: mdt hdin],[195] by which, according to a Midrash, Adam +was driven from Eden. And these conceptions, though distrusted by the +Synagogue, entered into later parts of the Prayer Book. "Attribute of +Mercy, reveal thyself for us; make our supplication to fall at the feet of +Thy Creator; and on behalf of Thy people beseech for mercy"; thus runs +a fine prayer in the Ne'ilah service of the Day of Atonement, and many +of the other Selihot prove the persistence of this development of +Jewish belief. The theory of Divine attributes was common to Palestine +and Alexandria, and plays, as we shall see, an important part in +Philo's[196] thought; but the distinctive Hellenistic theology is the +hypostasis of the Wisdom and the Word of God. In the Bible itself, and +notably in Proverbs, we find Wisdom personified--the first vague, +poetical suggestion of a Jewish theology. As the Jews came into +contact with Hellenic influence, the tendency to develop the +personification into a power increased, and may be traced through the +first flower of Graeco-Jewish culture, the Wisdom literature. The Greek +philosophers had conceived the First Cause as a ruling Mind, or +universal Reason, and influenced by this conception, yet loyal to +their monotheistic faith, the Jewish writers of the Hellenistic age +spoke of the Wisdom as the minister of God, the power by which He +ruled creation. The apocryphal books of Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom +of Solomon exhibit Wisdom passing from the poetical personification of +the Bible to the separate hypostasis of theology. In the verse of the +Bible sage, "Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her +seven pillars" (Prov. ix. 1), she is the creation of the purely +poetical fancy, but in the Wisdom of Solomon she has become a link +between Heaven and earth, the creation of the theologian's reflection. +"She reacheth from one end of the world to the other with strength, +and ordereth all things graciously. She is settled by God on His +throne, and by her He made the world, by her the righteous were saved. +She watched over the father of the human race, and she delivered +Israel from Egypt." In Ecclesiasticus it is written, "All Wisdom is +from the Lord and is with Him forever. She cometh forth from the mouth +of the Most High, and was created before all things. God having +fashioned her from the beginning placed her over all His works. Then +she covered the earth as a mist, she pitched her tent in high places +and her palace was in a pillar of cloud. She ministered in the +tabernacle, and was established in Zion, in Jerusalem, the beloved +city." In similar strain, in the apocalyptic book of Enoch (xxx), God +says, "On the sixth day I ordered My Wisdom to make man"; and in the +Sibylline Oracles and Aristobulus she appears as the assessor of God +who ruleth over men. + +Parallel with Wisdom, the Word of God was developed into something +between a poetical image and a separate power. Again the development +starts from a Biblical metaphor. "By the word of the Lord were the +heavens created, and all their host by the breath of His mouth" (Ps. +xxxiii). "God of our Fathers and Lord of Mercy, who didst make all +things by Thy word," says the writer of the Wisdom of Solomon. +Inspired again by the phrase of the Psalmist, "He sent His word, and +healed them" (Ps. cvi. 20), he hymns the Divine Logos as the +all-powerful emissary doing God's bidding among men. "It was neither +herb nor emollient that cured Israel in the wilderness (when bitten by +the fiery scorpions), but Thy Logos, O Lord, which heals all things." +Later, when he describes the destruction of the first-born in Egypt, +he rises in a paean to a finer poetical flight: "When tranquil silence +folded all things, and night in her own swiftness was in the midst of +her course, Thy all-powerful Logos leaped from heaven, from his royal +throne, a stern warrior into the midst of the doomed land, bearing as +a sharp sword Thy Divine commandment, and having taken his stand +filled all things with death: and he touched heaven and walked upon +earth." The Jewish poet, rejecting the idea that the perfect God could +descend to earth and slay men, brushes away the anthropomorphism of +the Bible, and summons from his mind this creation mixed of Hebrew +imagination and Greek reason. So, too, Onkelos, wherever activity upon +earth was ascribed to God, wrote, in his translation (Targum) of +Scripture, "the word of the Lord," and for the material hand he +substituted the more abstract might. The same development,[197] under +the names of Memra and (less frequently) of [Hebrew: dbor], shows that +the word-agent of God appealed to certain of the rabbis in their +desire to explain away, on the one hand, expressions in the Bible +which seemed to invest the Deity with corporeal qualities, and, on the +other, so to divide His infinite perfection as to make His presence +immanent upon earth. + +The teachers at Alexandria were above all others induced to develop +the Word into the active power, since they seemed thereby to find in +the Bible a remarkable anticipation of Greek philosophy. The Greek +Logos, by which "the Word" was translated in the Septuagint, meant +also thought and reason, and during the Hellenistic age was the +regular term by which the philosophical schools expressed the +impersonal world-force which governed all things. The Logos idea among +the Jews was a modification of intuitive and naive monotheism; among +the Greeks it was a step upwards, demanded by reason, from polytheism +to a monistic view of the universe. By the first century its +recognition as the ruling power in both the physical and moral +universe had become a point of union in all philosophical schools--the +common stamp of philosophical theology. Between the Semitic +ministerial word uttered by a personal Being and the Greek pantheistic +governing reason, there was probably an early connection, due to +Eastern influences which operated upon the founders of Greek +philosophy, which later schools lost sight of. When the Hebrew +Scriptures were translated, the two coalesced more fruitfully in the +Greek term Logos, and a point of union was provided between the +philosophical and the Jewish theology. Moreover the local Egyptian +influence aided the union, for the god Thoth was also identified with +the Logos, which thus appeared as a religious conception common to all +races, the basis of a universal creed. And besides the world-reason of +the philosophers, another Greek influence no doubt tended to further +the development of the Logos in Jewish thought. One of the most marked +characteristics of the Hellenistic age is the renascence of wonder at +the institutions of human life, and more especially at numbers and +speech. + +Numbers were held to contain the essence of things, and the marvellous +powers of four, seven, and ten received honor from all sects and +schools. Words, too, were regarded almost as a mystic power, distinct +from thought, incorporeal things which made thought real and gave it +expression. The mystical susceptibility of Philo to the power of +numbers has been noticed by every critic and exaggerated by not a few; +his mystical valuation of words and speech, though far more important +in his thought, has been commonly passed over. The analysis which +Greek writers made of the relation between the mental thought, the +sound which utters it, and the mind which thinks it, was invested with +special importance for the Jewish thinker, who transferred it from the +human to the Divine sphere. He applied it to interpret the constant +Biblical phrases "and God said" or "and God spoke," according to +notions in which philosophy and theology are mixed; and propounded a +mystic idealism and a mystic cosmology, in which God's thought or +comprehensive Word becomes the archetype of the visible universe, His +single words the substantive universe and the laws of nature. A +century before Philo, Aristobulus--assuming the genuineness of his +Fragments--wrote:[198] "We must understand the Word of God, not as a +spoken word, but as the establishment of actual things, seeing that we +find throughout the Torah that Moses has declared the whole creation +to be words of God." Philo, following his predecessor, says, "God +speaks not words but things,"[199] and, again, commenting on the first +chapter of Genesis, "God, even as He spake, at the same moment +created."[200] And of human speech he has this pretty conceit a little +before: "Into the mouth there enter food and drink, the perishable +food of a perishable body; out of it issue words, immortal laws of an +immortal soul, by which rational life is guided."[201] If human speech +is "immortal law," much more is the speech of God. His words are ideas +seen by the eye of the soul, not heard by the ear.[202] The ten +commandments given at Sinai were "ideas" of this incorporeal nature, +and the voice that Israel heard was no voice such as men possess, but +the [Hebrew: shkina], the Divine Presence itself, which exalted the +multitude.[203] Philo is here expanding and developing Jewish +tradition. In the "Ethics of the Fathers" (v) we read: "By ten words +was the world created"; and in the pages of the Midrash the [Hebrew: +bt-kol], i.e._, the mystic emanation of the Deity, which revealed itself +after the spirit of prophecy had ceased to be vouchsafed, is credited +with wondrous and varied powers, now revealing the Decalogue, now +performing some miracle, now appearing in a vision to the blessed, now +prophesying the future fate of the race to a pious rabbi. The +fertilizing stream of Greek philosophical idealism nourished the +growth of the Jewish pious imagination, and in the Logos of Philo the +fruit matured. It is idle to try to formulate a single definite notion +of Philo's Logos. For it is the expression of God in all His multiple +and manifold activity, the instrument of creation, the seat of ideas, +the world of thought which God first established as the model of the +visible universe, the guiding providence, the sower of virtue, the +fount of wisdom, described sometimes in religious ecstasy, sometimes +in philosophical metaphysics, sometimes in the spirit of the mystical +poet. Of his last manner let us take a specimen singled out by a +Christian and a Jewish theologian as of surprising beauty. Commenting +on the verse of the Psalmist, "The river of God is filled with water," +Philo declares that it is absurd to call any earthly stream the river +of God. + + "The poet clearly refers to the Divine Logos that is full of + the fountain of wisdom, and is in no part itself empty. Nay, + it is diffused through the universe, and is raised up on + high. In another verse the Psalmist says, 'The course of the + river gladdens the city of God.' And in truth the continuous + rush of the Divine Logos is borne along with eager but + regular onset, and overflows and gladdens all things. In one + sense he calls the world the city of God, for it has + received the 'full cup' of the Divine draught, and has + quaffed a perpetual, eternal joy. But in another sense he + gave this name to the soul of the wise, wherein God is said + to walk as in a city. And who can pour out the sacred + measures of their joy to the blissful soul which holds out + the holy cup, that is its own reason, save the Logos, the + cupbearer of God, the master of the feast? Nor is the Logos + cupbearer only, but it is itself the pure draught, itself + the joy and exultation, itself the pouring forth and the + delight, itself the ambrosial philtre and potion of + bliss."[204] + +Through the luxury of metaphor and imagination one may discern the +underlying thought of the mystic writer, that the Logos is the +effluence of God, either in the whole universe or the individual man, +filling the one as the other with the Divine Shekinah. It is the link +which joins God and man, the ladder of Jacob's dream, which stretches +from Heaven to earth.[205] That man can attain the Divine state by the +help of God's effluence was a cardinal thought of Philo's; this, +indeed, is the form in which he conceives the Messianic hope. God does +not come down to earth incarnate in man's form, but God's active +influence possesses the soul of man, and makes it live with God, and +if man be peculiarly blessed, carries it up to the ineffable Spirit. +Similarly his idea of the Messiah is more spiritual than that of the +popular belief. The ascent of man to God's height, not the descent of +God to man's level, will produce the age of universal peace. + +There are various degrees of the Divine influence, stretching from +complete possession by the Deity Himself to the advent of single +Divine thoughts. These Philo regards as [Greek: logoi], words or +thoughts--for he does not clearly distinguish between the two--and he +resolves the realistic angels of the Bible into this spiritual +conception.[206] Thus he says, "the place" where Jacob alighted and +had the vision (Gen. xxvii. 11) is the symbol of the perfect +contemplation of God; the angels which he saw ascending and descending +are the inferior light of Divine precepts. These thoughts are +continually vouchsafed to all of us, prompting us to noble actions, +comforting us in times of sadness, inspiring lofty ideas. + + "Up and down through the whole soul the Logoi of God move + without end; when they ascend, drawing it up with them, and + severing it from the mortal part, and showing only the + vision of ideal things; but when they descend, not casting + it down, but descending with it from humanity or compassion + towards our race, so as to give assistance and help, in + order that, inspiring what is noble, they may revive the + soul which is borne along on the stream of the body."[207] + +Conversely, the rabbis taught that from each word that proceeded from +the mouth of God an angel was created, as it is said: "By the word of +the Lord the Heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath +of His mouth."[208] + +Apart from these sudden and occasional emanations of the Divine +Spirit, the individual man has within him a permanent Divine Logos by +which he may direct his conduct aright. Viewed in this aspect, the +Logos, _i.e._, the activity of God, is conscience, the Judge in the +soul, which is the true man dwelling within,[209] ruler and king, +judge and arbiter, witness and accuser, correcting and restraining. +Rising to bolder personification, Philo, who loves to present a +spiritual thought in a concrete image, calls it the undefiled high +priest in us.[210] In this power he finds a sure refutation of +skepticism; for in virtue of the Divine voice man may secure moral +certitude: and he finds also a philosophical value for popular +superstition. It was a common notion of the pagans as well as +the Jews of the time that an intermediate order of beings passed +between heaven and earth and brought supernatural aid to men; and also +that a familiar spirit, or Daemon, dwelt within the soul of each man. +The finer spirit of Philo resolves the attendant Daemon and the +messenger-daemons or angels into the spiritual effluences of the one +Deity; save for a few places where he makes a pose of agreement with +popular notions and speaks of winged denizens of Heaven[211] who +descend to earth, he habitually expounds angels as inward revelations +of God. + +As the revelation of God to the individual is a Logos, so, too, is his +revelation to the whole of mankind. It was pointed out in the last +chapter that Philo identified the Torah with the law of nature, and he +did this by regarding it as the Divine Logos. The more perfect +emanation of God is in one view the power by which He directs the +physical creation, in another the perfect law which He set up as the +model of conduct for His highest creatures. The rabbis, indeed, were +prone to glorify the law as the primal creation of God, and the +instrument of all the later creations, [Hebrew: kli hmra shbu gbrao +shmim].[212] They speak of it as the light, the pillar, and the bond +of the universe, the model whereon the architect looked;[213] and Philo +amplifies this simple poetical concept and develops it afresh in the +light of Greek idealistic and cosmical notions,[214] so that the Torah, +as the Logos of God, is equated with the source of all being, wisdom, and +knowledge, with the ideal world which is the archetype of the +material, and with all the law and order of nature. And as the Torah +is the Logos, so also its particular precepts are Logoi. + +It seems difficult to trace the unity among all these different +aspects of the "Word," but in fact they are only different expressions +of the Divine activity in the universe. All these are comprehended in +the Logos, and then again divided out of it, so that it is, as it +were, a crystal prism reflecting the light of the Godhead in a myriad +different ways. One curious illustration of the universal sense in +which Philo understood the Logos is his interpretation of the manna; +it is typical also of his manner of exegesis and his habit of +spiritualizing the material. It is related in Exodus (xvi. 15) that +when the Israelites saw the heavenly food they exclaimed [Hebrew: mn +hu'], "What is it?" and hence the food obtained its name of manna. Now the +Greek Septuagint word for [Hebrew: mn] is [Greek: ti], which means not +only "what" but "anything." Philo sees in the gift of the heavenly +food a symbol of the inspiration of the chosen people by the Divine +Logos, and says that the Logos is rightly called manna, _i.e._, +anything, because it is the "most generic of all things, and that by +which man may be nourished."[215] + +The central thought of Philo's system is that God is immanent in all +His work; but it would seem to him sacrilegious to apply to the +Godhead itself this universal, unceasing activity, and so he develops +the Logos as the most ideal attribute of the Deity, and the sum of all +His immanence and effluence. He preferred the Logos to the older +Wisdom, probably because he could by this conception bring his idea of +God into closer relation with Greek philosophical notions, for already +the Hellenistic world had come spontaneously to revere the cosmical +Logos. Only Philo gave to the expression of their physical and +metaphysical speculation a religious warmth new to it, when he +associated it with the word uttered by the personal God. Philosophy, +theology, and religion were all joined and harmonized in his +conception. + +If we have followed thus far the spirit of Philo aright, the Logos is +only the immanent manifestation of the One God, who is both +transcendental and immanent, metaphorically, not metaphysically, +separate. In other words, it is the complete aspect of God as He +reveals Himself to the world. Above it and including it is the being +or essence of God, seen in Himself, and not in relation to His outward +activity. But it is often suggested that the Logos appears to Philo as +a second God, subordinate, indeed, to the Supreme Being, but yet a +separate personality. It is said, with truth, that he speaks of it as +a person, now calling it king, priest, primal man, the first-born son +of God, even the second God, and identifying it at other times with +some personal being, Melchizedek or Moses, and apostrophizing it as +man's helper, guide, and advocate.[216] Now we have reason to think +that Gnostic sects of Jews, both in Alexandria and in Palestine, were +at this time tending towards the division of the Godhead into separate +powers. The heresy of "Minut," frequently mentioned in the Talmud, +consisted originally, in the opinion of modern scholars, of a Gnostic +ditheism;[217] and during the latter part of the first century and +thereafter we hear of sects in Egypt and Syria which supported similar +theories. Theology here produced its fantastic offspring theosophy, +and the followers of the esoteric wisdom let their speculations carry +them away from the cardinal principle of Judaism. Influenced by +Egyptian speculation, they imagined an incarnation of the Divine +Spirit, and in the mystical thought of the day they adumbrated +theories of virgin birth. + +Now these prototypes of Christian belief had undoubtedly manifested +themselves at Alexandria in Philo's day. His treatises show traces of +them,[218] and the question is whether he countenanced them or tried +to summon the theosophists of his generation back to the true Jewish +conception of God. Certain Christian and philosophical critics of +Philo, for whom the wish was perhaps father to the thought, have found +in Philo's Logos a conception which is at times impersonal, at times +personal, at times an aspect of the One God, and at times a second +independent God. If we take Philo literally, this certainly is the +case. But let it be clearly understood, this interpretation not only +involves Philo in inconsistency, but it utterly ruins and destroys his +religious and philosophical system. It means that the champion of +Jewish monotheism wanders into a vague ditheism. And in view of this, +the modern commentators of Philo, notably Professor Drummond,[219] +have examined his words more carefully and studied them in relation to +their context; and they have shown how, judged in this critical +fashion, the personality of the Logos is only figurative. It is, +indeed, probable that certain extreme passages, where the Logos is +presented most explicitly as a separate Deity, are due to +Christological interpolation. The Church Fathers found in the popular +belief in the Divine Word a remarkable support of the Trinity, and +regarding, as they did, Philo's writings as valuable testimony to the +truth of Christianity, they had every temptation to bring his passages +about the Logos still closer to their ideas. And between the first and +the fifth century, when we first hear from Eusebius of manuscripts of +Philo at the Christian monastery of Caesarea--from which we can trace +our texts in direct line--there was no high standard in dealing with +ancient authorities. It is the Christian teachers who preserved Philo, +and they preserved him not as scholars but as missioners. The best +editors have recognized that our text has been interfered with by +evidenced-making scribes, as where a passage about the new Jerusalem +appears, agreeing almost word for word with the picture of +Revelations. Similarly, not a few passages about the Logos are +probably spurious.[220] + +Yet, even when we have expurgated our text of Philo, there remain, it +will be said, numerous passages where the Logos is spoken of and +apostrophized as a person. This is so, but the conclusion which is +drawn, that the Logos is regarded as a second deity, is unjustifiable. +The Jewish mind from the time of the prophets unto this day has +thought in images and metaphors, and the personification of the Logos +is only the most striking instance of Philo's regular habit of +personifying all abstract ideas. The allegorical habit particularly +conduces to this, for as persons are constantly resolved into ideas, +so ideas come to be naturally represented as persons. There are thus +two steps in Philo's theology, which seem to some extent to counteract +each other; in the first place, he resolves the concrete physical +expressions of the Bible into spiritual ideas, in the second he +portrays those ideas in pictorial language and clothes them in +personifications. The allegorizer requires an allegorist to interpret +him aright. + +Nor must it be forgotten that Philo was preaching spiritual monotheism +not only to Jews, but also to the Hellenic world, for whom it was a +vast bound from their naturalistic polytheism. Zealous as he was for +the pure faith, he realized that mankind could not attain it directly, +but must approach it by conceptions of the One God gradually +increasing in profundity and truth. The Greek thinkers had +approximated closest to the Hebraic God-idea when they conceived one +supreme, immanent reason in the universe; and Philo, in carrying his +audiences beyond this to the transcendent-immanent Being, transformed +the Greek cosmical concept into a Divine power of the One Being. For +the true believer this is the stepping-stone to the perfect idea. "The +Logos," he says, "is the God of us imperfect people, but the true +sages worship the One Being."[221] And, again, "The imperfect have as +their law the holy Logos."[222] And in this sense, it is "intermediate +([Greek: methorios]) between God and man."[223] What such passages +mean is that the separation of the Logos is a stage in man's progress +up to the true idea of God. It is a second-best Deity, so to say, +rather than a second Deity; for those who regard the Logos as God have +no conception at all of the perfect Being of which it is only the +principal attribute. + +The theology of Philo is characterized throughout by a tolerant and +philosophical grasp of the difficulty of pure monotheism, and of the +necessity of a long intellectual searching before the goal can be +attained. To declare the Unity of God is simple enough; to have a real +conception of it is a very different and a very difficult thing. And +Philo's theology has a two-fold aim, in which either part complements +the other. It explains, on the one hand, how God is revealed to the +world through His powers or attributes or modes of activity, and, on +the other, how man can ascend to an ecstatic union with the Real Being +through comprehension of those powers. By the ideal ladder which +brings down God to earth, man can climb again to Heaven. The three +chief rungs of the ladder are the attributes of creation, and of +ruling power, and the Logos. The perfect unity of the Godhead is not, +of course, properly the subject of attributes, but the limited mind of +man so conceives it for its own understanding, and speaks of God's +justice, God's goodness, God's wisdom. These are, to use philosophical +terminology, categories of the religious understanding, which are +finally resolved by the perfect sage in "the synthetic apperception of +Unity." + +Philo follows what may have been a Hebrew tradition in explaining the +two names of God, "Elohim" and "Jehovah," as connoting His two chief +attributes: (1) the creative or beneficent, (2) the ruling or +judicial, or, as it is sometimes called, the law-giving power.[224] +Names, as we know, were always regarded by Philo as profound symbols, +and naturally the names of God are of vital import; and the twofold +expression for the Hebrew Deity, of which the higher critics have made +much destructive use, was noticed by the earliest commentators, but +made the basis by them of a constructive theology. The ruling and the +creative attributes of God are outlined and contained in the highest +mode of all, the Logos, "the reason of God in every phase and form of +it that is discoverable and realizable by man." For by the Logos, God +is both ruler and good.[225] This is the profound interpretation of +the story in Genesis, that "God placed at the east of the garden of +Eden the two Cherubim and a flaming sword, which turned every way to +keep the way of the tree of life" (Gen. iv. 24). The Cherubim are the +symbols of the powers of majesty and goodness; the flaming sword is +the Logos; "because," says our author quaintly, "all thought and +speech are the most mobile and the most ardent (_i.e._, the most +intensive) of things, and especially the thought and speech of the +only Principle."[226] + +To correspond with the descending attributes of God we have the +ascending dispositions of man towards Him, fear, love, and thirdly +their synthesis in loving knowledge. When we are in the first stage of +religion we obey the law in hope of reward or fear of punishment; when +we have progressed higher in thought, we worship God as the good +Creator; when we have ascended one further stage, we surpass both fear +and love in an emotion which combines them, realizing, as Browning +puts it, that "God is law and God is love." In illustration of this +scheme of Philo's we may examine two passages out of his philosophical +commentary. In the first he is commenting upon the appearance of the +three angels to Abraham as he sat outside his tent (Gen. xviii).[227] +And, by the way, it may be remarked that the Midrash commenting on +this passage notes that it begins, "And the Lord appeared unto +Abraham," and then continues, "And he lifted up his eyes and looked, +and, lo, three men stood before him." Hence we may learn that it was +really the one God who appeared to the Patriarch, and that the three +angels were but a vision of his mind. This is the dominant note of +Philo's interpretation, but he as usual elaborates the old Midrash +philosophically. + + "The words," he says, "are symbols of things apprehended by + intelligence alone--the soul receives a triple expression of + one being, of which one is the representative of the actual + existent, and the other two are shadows, as it were, cast + from this. So it happens also in the physical world, for + there often occur two shadows of bodies at rest or in + motion. Let no one suppose, however, that shadow is properly + used in relation to God. It is only a popular use of words + for the clearer understanding of our subject. The reality is + not so, but, as one standing nearest to the truth might say, + the middle one is the Father of the universe, who is called + in Scripture the 'Self-existent'; and those on either side + of Him are the two oldest and chief powers, the Creative and + the Regal. The middle one, then, being attended by the + others as by a bodyguard, presents to the contemplative mind + a mental image or representation now of one and now of + three; of one whenever the soul, being properly purified and + perfectly initiated, rises to the idea which is unmingled + and free from limitation, and requires nothing to complete + it; but of three whenever it has not yet been initiated into + the great mysteries, and still celebrates the lesser rites, + unable to apprehend the Being in itself without + modification, but apprehending it through its modes as + either creating or ruling. This is, as the proverb says, a + second-best course, but yet it partakes of godlike opinion. + But the former does not partake of--for it _is_ itself--the + Godlike opinion, or rather it is truth, which is more + precious than all opinion. + + "Further, there are three classes of human character, to + each of which one of the three conceptions of God has been + assigned. The best class goes with the first, the conception + of the absolute Being; the next goes with the conception of + Him as a Benefactor, in virtue of which He is called God; + the third with the conception of Him as a Ruler, in virtue + of which He is called Lord. The noblest character serves Him + who is in all the purity of His absolute Being; it is + attracted by no other thing or aspect, but is solely and + intently devoted to the honor of the one and only Being; the + second is brought to the knowledge of the Father through His + beneficent power; the third through His regal power." + +In the second passage, which occurs in the treatise on flight from the +world,[228] Philo is allegorizing the law about founding six cities of +refuge (Exodus xxxii). These are but material symbols for the six +stages of the ascent of the mind to the pure God-idea. The chief city, +the metropolis, is the Divine Logos, next come the two powers already +considered, and then three secondary powers, the retributive, the +law-giving, and the prohibitive. "Very beautiful and well-fenced +cities they are, worthy refuges of souls that merit salvation." Each +of these cities is an aspect of the religious mind; when it settles in +the first it obeys the law from fear of punishment and thinks of God +as the Judge; in the second it observes the precepts in hope of reward +and conceives God as the legislator of a fixed code; in the next it is +repentant and throws itself on God's grace, marking the first step of +the spiritual life. Then it ascends in order to the idea of God as the +governor of the universe, and the emotion which the rabbis called +[Hebrew: yrat shmim], the fear of Heaven; and to the idea of God as the +Creator and the universal Providence, which has as its emotional +reflex the love of Heaven, [Hebrew: 'hbt shmim]. + +But even this, which is the highest stage for many men, is not an +adequate conception. Above it is the contemplation of God, apart from +all manifestations in the perceptible world, in His ideal nature, the +Logos, which at once transcends and comprehends the universe. And the +attitude of this man can be best expressed perhaps by Spinoza's +phrase, "the intellectual love of God," _amor intellectualis Dei_. The +worshipper of the Logos has grasped and has harmonized all the +manifestations of the Deity; he sees and honors all things in God; he +comprehends the universe as the perfect manifestation of one good +Being. + +Is this the highest point which man can reach? Many religious +philosophers have held that it is, but Philo, the mystic, yearning to +track out God "beyond the utmost bound of human thought," imagines one +higher condition. The Logos is only the image or the shadow of the +Godhead.[229] Above it is the one perfect reality, the transcendent +Essence. Now, man cannot by any intellectual effort attain knowledge +of the Infinite as He truly is, for this is above thought. But to a +few blessed mortals God of His grace vouchsafes a mystic vision of His +nature. Thus Moses, the perfect hierophant, had this perfect +apprehension, and passed from intellectual love to holy adoration. And +the true philosopher has as the goal of his aspirations the +heaven-sent ecstasy, in which he sees God no longer through His +effects, or in the modes of His activity, but through Himself in His +own essence. The philosopher, when he receives this vision ([Greek: +epopteia]) is possessed by the Shekinah,[230] and, losing +consciousness of his individuality, becomes at one with God. + +So much for Philo's theory of man's upward progress. We may add a word +about his treatment of the problem which troubled thinkers in that +age, and which has harassed theologians ever since, viz., to show how +punishment and evil could be derived from a God who was all-powerful +and all-good. The Gnostics were driven by the difficulty to imagine an +evil world-power, which was in incessant conflict with the Good God: +and popular belief had conjured up a legion of subordinate powers, who +took part in the work of creation and the government of the world. +When Philo is speaking popularly, he accepts this current theology and +speaks also of a punitive power of God[231] ([Greek: dunamis +kolastike]); but not when he is the philosopher. For then, in +perfect faith, he denies the absolute existence of evil. "It is +neither in Paradise nor indeed anywhere whatsoever."[232] Man, +however, by his free will causes evil in the human sphere; and when +God formed in man a rational nature capable of choosing for itself, +moral evil became the necessary contrary of good.[233] Moreover, the +punitive activity of God, though it seems to cause suffering and +misery, is in truth a good, simulating evil, and if men judged the +universal process as a whole, they would find it all good. The +existence of evil involves no derogation from the perfect unity of +God. + +If we have understood correctly Philo's theology, neither Logos, nor +subordinate powers, nor angels, nor demons have an objective +existence; they are mere imaginings of varying incompleteness which +the limited minds of men, "moving in worlds not realized," make for +themselves of the one and only true God. Philo's theology is the +philosophical treatment of Jewish tradition, just as Philo's legal +exegesis is the philosophical treatment of the Torah. While +maintaining and striving to deepen the conception of God's unity, he +aims at expounding to the reason how, on the one hand, that unity is +revealed in the world about us, and how, on the other, we may advance +to its true comprehension. It was, however, unfortunate that Philo +expressed his theology in the current language, which was vague and +inexact, and adapted certain foreign theosophical ideas to Judaism; +hence succeeding generations, paying regard to the pictorial +representation rather than to the principles of his thought, sought +and found in him evidence of theories of Divine government to which +Judaism was pre-eminently opposed. The first chapter of the Fourth +Gospel shows that gradual process of thought which finally made the +Logos doctrine the antithesis of Judaism. In the first verse we have a +thought which might well have been written by Philo himself: "In the +beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was +God." But in the fourteenth verse there is manifest the sharp +cleavage: "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we +beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, +full of grace and truth." There may be a fine spiritual thought +beneath the letter here, but the notion of the Incarnation is not +Jewish, nor philosophical, nor Philonic. Philo's work was made to +serve as the guide of that Christian Gnosticism which, within the next +hundred years, proclaimed that Judaism was the work of an evil God, +and that the essential mission of Jesus--the good Logos--was to +dethrone Jehovah! But though the Logos conception was turned to +non-Jewish and anti-Jewish purposes, it was in Philo the offspring of +a pure and philosophical monotheism. Whatever the later abuse of his +teaching, Philo constructed a theology which, though affected by +foreign influences, was essentially true to Judaism; and more than +that, he was the first to weave the Jewish idea of God into the +world's philosophy. + + * * * * * + + + + +VI + +PHILO AS A PHILOSOPHER + + +Save for a few monographs of no great importance, because of the +absence of original thought, Philo's works form avowedly an exegesis +of the Bible and not a series of philosophical writings. Nor must the +reader expect to find an ordered system of philosophy in his separate +works, much more than in the writings of the rabbis. As Professor +Caird says,[234] "The Hebrew mind is intuitive, imaginative, incapable +of analysis or systematic connection of ideas." Philo's philosophical +conceptions lie scattered up and down his writings, "strung on the +thread of the Bible narrative which determines the sequence of his +thoughts." Nevertheless, though he has not given us explicit treatises +on cosmology, metaphysics, ethics, psychology, etc., and though he was +incapable of close logical thinking, he has treated all these subjects +suggestively and originally in the course of his commentary, and his +readers may gather together what he has dispersed, and find a +co-ordinated body of religious philosophy. However loosely they are +set forth in his treatises, his ideas are closely connected in his +mind. Herein he differs from his Jewish predecessors, for the notion +of the old historians of the Alexandrian movement, that there was a +systematic Jewish philosophy before Philo, does not appear to have +been well-founded. All that Aristeas and Aristobulus and the +Apocryphal authors had done was to assimilate certain philosophemes to +their religious ideas; they had not re-interpreted the whole system of +philosophy from a Jewish point of view or traced an independent +system, or an eclectic doctrine in the Holy Scriptures. This was the +achievement of Philo. His thought is not original in the sense of +presenting a new scheme of philosophy, but it is original in the sense +of giving a fresh interpretation to the philosophical ideas of his age +and environment. He ranges them under a new principle, puts them in a +new light, and combines them in a new synthesis. This again is +characteristic of the Jewish mind. Intent on God, it does not endeavor +to make its own analysis of the universe by independent reasoning, but +it utilizes the systems of other nations and endeavors to harmonize +them with its religious convictions. Hence it is that nearly all +Jewish philosophy appears to be eclectic; its writers have ranged +through the fields of thought of many schools and culled flowers from +each, which they bind together into a crown for their religion. They +do not, with few exceptions, pursue philosophy with the purpose of +widening the borders of secular knowledge; but rather in order to +bring the light of reason to illuminate and clarify faith, to +harmonize Judaism with the general culture of its environment, and to +revivify belief and ceremony with a new interpretation. All this +applies to our worthy, but at the same time he was a philosopher at +heart, because he believed that the knowledge of God came by +contemplation as well as by practice, and, further, because he had a +firm faith in the universalism of Judaism; and he believed that this +universal religion must comprehend all that is highest and truest in +human thought. Like most Jewish philosophers he is synthetic rather +than analytic, believing in intuition and distrusting the discursive +reason, careless of physical science and soaring into religious +metaphysics. Again, like most Jewish philosophers, he is deductive, +starting with a synthesis of all in the Divine Unity, and making no +fresh inductions from phenomena. It has been said that, though Philo +was a philosopher and a Jew, yet Saadia was the first Jewish +philosopher. But Philo's philosophical ideas are in complete harmony +with his Judaism; and if by the criticism it is meant that most of the +content of his works is based upon Greek models, it is true on the +other hand that the spirit which pervades them is essentially Jewish, +and that by the new force which he breathed into it he reformed and +gave a new direction to the Greek philosophy of his age. + +Philo's philosophy is certainly eclectic in some degree, and we find +in it ideas taken from the schools of Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, +and the Stoics. Its fixed point was his theology, and wherever he +finds anything to support this he adapts it to his purpose. He +approached philosophy from a position opposed to that of the Greeks: +they brought a questioning and free mind to the problems of the +universe; he comes full of religious preconceptions. Yet in this lies +his strength as well as his limitation, for he gains thus a point of +certainty and a clear end, which other eclectic systems of the day did +not possess. He welds together all the different elements of his +thought in the heat of his passion for God. His cosmology and his +ontology are a philosophical exposition of the Jewish conception of +God's relation to the universe, his ethics and his psychology of the +Jewish conception of man's relation to God. + +The religious preconceptions of Philo drew him to Plato above all +other philosophers, so that his thought is essentially a religious +development of Platonism. It is not too much to say that Philo's work +has a double function, to interpret the Bible according to Platonic +philosophy and to interpret Plato in the spirit of the Bible. The +agreement was not the artificial production of the commentator, for in +truth Plato was in sympathy with the religious conscience as a whole. +The contrast between Hellenism and Hebraism is true, if we restrict it +to the average mind of the two races. The one is intent on things +secular, the other on God. But the greatest genius of the Hellenic +race, influenced perhaps by contact with Oriental peoples, possessed, +in a remarkable degree, the Hebraic spirit, which is zealous for God +and makes for righteousness. Plato was not only a great philosopher, +but also a great theologian, a great religious reformer, and a great +prophet, the most perfectly developed mind which the world, ancient or +modern, has known. His "Ideas," which are the archetypes of sensible +things, were not only logical concepts but also a kingdom of Heaven +connected with the human individual by the Divine soul. And as he grew +older so his religious feeling intensified, and he translated his +philosophy into theology and positive religion. Platonism, it has been +well said, is a temper as much as a doctrine; it is the spirit that +turns from the earth to Heaven, from creation to God. In his last +work, "The Laws," wherein he designs a theocratic state, which has +striking points of resemblance with the Jewish polity, he says: "The +conclusion of the matter is this, which is the fairest and truest of +all sayings, that for the good man to sacrifice and hold converse with +the Deity by means of prayers and service of every kind is the noblest +thing of all and the most conducive to a happy life, and above all +things fitting."[235] + +This is typical of Plato's attitude towards life in his old age; and +further, his metaphysical system of monistic idealism is the most +remarkable approach to Hebrew monotheism which the Greek world made. +The Patristic writers in the first centuries of the Christian era were +so struck by this Hebraism in the Greek thinker, that they attributed +it to direct borrowing. Aristobulus had written of a translation of +the Pentateuch older than the Septuagint, which Plato was supposed to +have studied. Clement called him the Hebrew philosopher, Origen and +Augustine comment on his agreement with Genesis, and think that when +he was in Egypt he listened to Jeremiah.[236] Eusebius worked out in +detail his correspondences with the Bible. Some early neo-Platonist, +perhaps Numenius, declared that Plato was only the Attic Moses; and in +more modern times the Cambridge Platonists of the sixteenth century +harbored similar ideas, and Nietzsche spoke bitterly of the day when +"Plato went to school with the Jews in Egypt." + +Of Philo, then, we may say, as Montaigne said of himself, that he was +a Platonist before he knew who Plato was. Yet he was the first +Hellenistic Jew who perceived the fundamental harmony between the +philosopher's idealism and Jewish monotheism, and he was the first +important commentator of Plato who developed the religious teaching of +his master into a powerful spiritual force. + +It is true that the seeds of neo-Platonism, _i.e._, the religious +re-interpretation of Platonism under the influence of Eastern thought, +had been sown already; and Philo must have received from his +environment to some extent the mystical version of the master's +system, with its goal of ecstatic union with God, and its tendency to +asceticism as a means thereto. But the earlier products of the +movement had been crude, and had lacked a powerful moving spirit. This +was provided by Philo when he introduced his overmastering conception +of God. The popular saying, "Either Plato Philonizes or Philo +Platonizes"[237] contains a deep truth in its first as well as in its +second part. It not only marks the likeness in style of the two +writers, but it suggests that Philo, on the one hand, made fruitful +the religious germ in Plato's teaching by his Hebraism, and, on the +other, nourished the philosophical seed in Judaism by his Platonism. +Plato's teaching falls into two main classes, the dialectical and the +mythical, and it is with the latter that Philo is in specially close +connection. For in his myths Plato tries to achieve a synthesis by +imaginative flight where he had failed by discursive reason. He +unifies experience by striking intuitions, something in the spirit of +a Hebrew prophet. Moreover his style, as well as his thought, has here +affinity with Jewish modes of thought. As Zeller says, speaking of the +myths: "From the first, in the act of producing his work he thinks in +images. They mark the point where it becomes evident that he cannot be +wholly a philosopher because he is still too much of a poet." And this +is true of all Philo's writings, and to generalize somewhat widely, of +most Jewish philosophy. In "The Timaeus," particularly, Plato, +throughout, is the poet-philosopher, writing imaginative myths, which +present pictorially an idealistic scheme of the universe; and "The +Timaeus" is for Philo, after the Bible, the most authoritative of +books, the source of his chief philosophical ideas. + +The dominant philosophical principle of Plato is what is known as the +Theory of Ideas. He imagined a world of real existences, invisible, +incorporeal, eternal, grasped only by thought, prior to the objects of +the physical universe, and the models or archetypes of them. In "The +Timaeus," which is a system of cosmology at once religious and +metaphysical, the "Ideas" are represented as the thoughts of the one +Supreme Mind, the intermediate powers by which the Supreme Unity, +known as the "Idea of the Good," or "the Creator," evolves the +material universe. Thus the universe is seen as the manifestation of +one Beneficent Spirit, who brings it into existence and rules over it +through His "ideal" thoughts. Philo adopts completely and uncritically +this theory of transcendental ideas in his philosophical exegesis of +the cosmogony in Genesis. "Without an incorporeal archetype God brings +no simple thing to fulfilment."[238] There is an idea of stars, of +grass, of man, of virtue, of music. And the Platonic conception +receives a religious sanction. The ideas are a necessary step between +God and the material universe, and those who deny them throw all +things into confusion.[239] "God would not touch matter Himself, but +He did not grudge a share of His nature to it through His powers, of +which the true name is ideas." We have already noticed[240] how +ingeniously Philo deduces the Theory of Ideas from the Biblical +account of the creation, and associates it with the Hebraic conception +of the ministerial Wisdom and Word. He, however, gives a new direction +to the Platonic theory, owing to his Hebraic conception of God. The +ideas with him are not the thoughts of an impersonal mind, but the +emanations of a personal, volitional Deity. Keeping close to Jewish +tradition, he says that they are the words of the Deity speaking. As +human speech consists of incorporeal ideas, which produce an effect +upon the minds of others, so the Divine speech is a pattern of +incorporeal ideas which impress themselves upon a formless void, and +so create the material world.[241] In this way Philo associates his +cosmology with his theology. The creative "Ideas" are equated +collectively with the Supreme Logos,[242] individually with the Logoi +which represent God's particular activities. Thus the Logos represents +the whole ideal or noetic world, "the kingdom of Heaven"; and it is in +this metaphysical sense that the Logos is the first creation, "the +first-born son of God," prior to the physical universe, which is His +grandson. The whole universe is thus seen as the orderly manifestation +of one principle. Philo, expanding a favorite image of the Haggadah, +illustrates God's creation by the simile of a king founding a city. +"He gets to him an architect, who first designs in his mind the parts +of the perfect city, and then, looking continually to his model, +begins to construct the city of stones and wood. So when God resolved +to found the world-city, He first brought its form into mind, and +using this as a model he completed the visible world."[243] + +The theory of religious idealism is the centre of Philo's philosophy, +and provides the basis of his explanation of the material universe. +Physics, indeed, he considered of small account, because he believed +there could be no certainty in such speculations.[244] His mind was +utterly unscientific; but as a religious philosopher he found it +necessary to give a theory of the creation. Jewish dogma held that the +world had been called into being out of nothing; the Greek +philosophers repudiated such an idea, and held that creation must be +the result of a reasonable process; Aristotle had imagined that matter +was a separately existent principle with mind, and that the world was +eternal; and the Stoics held that matter was the substance of all +things, including the pantheistic power itself: + + "All are but parts of one stupendous whole, + Whose body nature is, and God the soul." + +Philo impugns both these theories,[245] the one because it denies the +creative power of God, the other because it confuses the Creator with +His creation. He looked for a system which should satisfy at once the +Jewish notion that the world was brought out of nothing by the will of +God, and the philosophical concept that God is all reality; and he +found in Plato's idealism a view of the creation which he could +harmonize with the religious view. Plato declared that the material +world had been created out of the _Non-Ens_ ([Greek: me on]) _i.e._, +that which has no real existence. He conceived space and matter as the +mere passive receptacle of form, which is nothing till the form has +given it quality. Though Philo's language is vague, this seems to be +his view when he is speaking philosophically. It is, perhaps, a slight +deviation from the earlier religious standpoint of the Jews, which +looks to a direct and deliberate creation of the world-stuff, rather +than to the informing of space by spirit, and regards the world as +separate from God, and not as a manifestation of His being. But the +more philosophical conception appears likewise in the Wisdom of +Solomon. "For Thine all-powerful hand that created the world out of +formless matter," says the author (xi. 17), establishing before Philo +the compromise between two competing influences in his mind. More +emphatically Philo rejects the notion of creation in time.[246] Time, +he says, came into being after God had made the universe, and has no +meaning for the Divine Ruler, whose life is in the eternal present. + +Summing up, we may say that Philo regards the universe as the image of +the Divine manifestation or evolution in thought produced by His +beneficent will; and this view is true to the religious standpoint of +traditional Judaism in spirit if not in letter. + +In his conception of the human soul, Philo again harmonizes the simple +Jewish notion with the developed Greek psychology by means of the +Platonic idealism. The soul in the Bible is the breath of God; in +Plato it is an Idea incarnate, represented in "The Timaeus" as a +particle of the Supreme Mind. Philo, following the psychology of his +age, divides the soul into a higher and a lower part: (1) the Nous; +(2) the vital functions, which include the senses. He lays all the +stress upon the former, which gives man his kinship with God and the +ideal world, while the other part is the necessary result of its +incarnation in the body. He variously describes the Nous as an +inseparable fragment of the Divine soul, a Divine breath which God +inspires into each body, a reflection, an impression, or an image of +the blessed Logos, sealed with its stamp.[247] Following the Platonic +conception, Philo occasionally speaks of the Divine soul as having a +prenatal existence,[248] holding, as the English poet put it, that + + "The soul that rises with us, our life's star, + Hath had elsewhere its setting + And cometh from afar." + +Here, too, he follows an older Jewish-Hellenistic tradition, which +appears in the Wisdom of Solomon (viii. 19 and 20), where it is +written: "A good soul fell to my lot. Nay rather, being good, I came +into a body undefiled." The Nous is in fact the god within, and it +bears to the microcosm Man the relation which the infinite God bears +to the macrocosm.[249] Indeed, it is the Logos descended from above, +but yearning to return to its true abode. Thus Philo sings its Divine +nature: + + "It is unseen, but sees all things: its essence is unknown, + but it comprehends the essence of all things. And by arts + and sciences it makes for itself many roads and ways, and + traverses sea and land, searching out all things within + them. And it soars aloft on wings, and when it has + investigated the sky and its changes it is borne upwards + towards the aether and the revolutions of the heavens. It + follows the stars in their orbits, and passing the sensible + it yearns for the intelligible world." + +The Nous is the king of the whole organism, the governing and unifying +power, and hence is often called the man himself. The senses, +resembling the powers of God, are only the bodyguard, subordinate +instruments, and inferior modes of the Divine part.[250] So Philo +explains that all our faculties are derived from the Divine principle, +and he draws the moral lesson that our true function is to bend them +all to the Divine service, so as to foster our noblest part. The aim +of the good man is to bring the god within him into union with the God +without, and to this end he must avoid the life of the senses,[251] +which mars the Divine Nous, and may entirely crush it. The Divine +soul, as it had a life before birth, so also has a life after death; +for what is Divine cannot perish. Immortality is man's most splendid +hope. If the Divine Presence fills him with a mystic ecstasy, he has, +indeed, attained it upon this earth, but this bliss is only for the +very blessed sage; and he, too, looks forward to the more lasting union +with the Godhead after this terrestrial life is over.[252] True at +once to the principles of Platonism and Judaism, Philo admits no +anthropomorphic conception of Heaven or of Hell. He is convinced that +there is a life hereafter, and finds in the story of Enoch the +Biblical symbol thereof,[253] but he does not speculate about the +nature of the Divine reward. The pious are taken up to God, he says, and +live forever,[254] communing alone with the Alone.[255] The unrighteous +souls, Philo sometimes suggests, in accordance with current Pythagorean +ideas, are reincarnated according to a system of transmigration within +the human species ([Greek: palengenesia]).[256] Yet the sinner +suffers his full doom on earth. The true Hades is the life of the +wicked man who has not repented, exposed to vengeance, with uncleansed +guilt, obnoxious to every curse.[257] And the Divine punishment is to +live always dying, to endure death deathless and unending, the death +of the soul.[258] + +The Divine Nous constitutes the true nature of man; Philo, however, +insists with almost wearisome repetition, that the god within us has +no power in itself, and depends entirely on the grace and inspiration +of God without for knowledge, virtue, and happiness.[259] The Stoic +dogma, that the wise man is perfectly independent and self-contained +([Greek: autarches]) appears to him as a wicked blasphemy. "Those +who make God the indirect, and the mind the direct cause are guilty of +impiety, for we are the instruments through which particular +activities are developed, but He who gives the impulse to the powers +of the body and the soul is the Creator by whom all things are +moved."[260] All thought-functions, memory, reasoning, intuition, are +referred directly to Divine inspiration, which is in Platonic +terminology the illumination of the mind by the ideas. Thus, finally, +all human activity is referred back to God. + +This guiding principle determines Philo's attitude to knowledge, +involving, as it does, that we only know by Divine inspiration, or, as +he says, by the immanence of the Logoi.[261] The possibility of +knowledge was one of the burning questions of the age, and it was the +failure of the old dogmatic schools to answer it which led to a great +religious movement in Greek philosophy. How can man attain to true +knowledge, it was asked, about the universe, seeing that perceptions +vary with each individual, and of conceptions we have no certain +standard? The old Hebrew attitude to this question is expressed by the +verse of the Psalmist: "The heavens are the heavens of the Lord, but +the earth hath He given to the sons of men" (Psalm cxv), which implies +that man must not try to penetrate the secrets of the universe. Philo +is sufficiently a philosopher to desire knowledge about things Divine +and human, but at the same time he has a complete distrust in the +powers of human sense and human reason. About the physical universe he +is frankly a skeptic,[262] but his religious faith leads him to hold +that God vouchsafes to man some knowledge of Himself and of the proper +way of life, _i.e._, ethics. "Man knows all things in God."[363] Plato +similarly had despaired of knowledge of the physical world, and had +turned to the heavenly ideas as the true object of thought. Moreover, +in his early period, while his theory was still poetical and mystical, +he had conceived that knowledge was made possible in the subject, by +the entrance of "forms," or emanations, from the ideas. This theory +Philo adapts to his Jewish outlook. Like Plato, he turns away from the +physical to the ideal world,[264] and he regards the ideas of wisdom, +virtue, bravery, etc., which are theologically powers of God, as +continually sending forth Logoi, forms or forces (the angels of +popular belief), to inform and enlighten our minds. Throughout, God is +the cause of all knowledge as well as of being, for these effluences +are but an expression of God's activity. In Philo's theory, object and +subject are really one. What can be known are the modes or attributes +of God, which philosophically are "Ideas"; what knows is the emanation +of the Idea, which God sends into the human soul that is prepared to +receive it by pious contemplation. "Through the heavenly Wisdom, +wisdom is seen, for wisdom sees itself." "Through God, God is known, +for He is His own light."[265] + +Thus all knowledge is intuition, and man's function is not so much to +reason as to lead a life of piety and contemplate the Divine work in +the hope of being blessed with inspiration. It would be a mistake, +however, to take Philo's words quite literally. He does not deny the +need of human effort and striving for knowledge; for the Divine +influence is not vouchsafed till we have prepared for it and +consecrated all our faculties to God. But, devout mystic as he is, +he ascribes every consummation to the direct help of the Deity. "The +mind is the cause of nothing, but rather the Deity, who is prior to +mind, generates thought."[266] The Greek philosopher had ascribed the +final synthesis of knowledge to a superhuman force. Philo ascribes to +God all the intermediate steps from sense-perception. It may be +admitted that his passive notion of philosophy involves the +abandonment of the Greek ideal, the eager searching of Plato after +truth. He lived in an age in which, through loss of intellectual +power, man had come to despair of the attainment of knowledge by human +effort, and to rely entirely upon supernatural means, Divine +revelations, visions, and the like. It is consistent with his whole +position that the crown of life is represented, not as an intellectual +state, but as a superhuman ecstasy of the Nous, wherein it is freed +not only from the body but from the rest of the soul, and is, so to +say, led out of itself.[267] He comments on the verse, "And the sun +went down and a deep sleep fell on Abraham" (Gen. xv. 12). "When the +Divine light," he says, "shines upon the mortal soul, the mortal light +sinks, and our reason is driven out at the approach of the Divine +spirit."[268] This is the Alexandrian interpretation of [Hebrew: shkina] +and [Hebrew: nboah], and though it is much affected by Greek mystical +ideas, yet at the same time it is broadly true to the spirit of Jewish +mysticism, as we see it presented in writers of all ages, and as the +Psalmist expressed it, "to abide under the shadow of the Almighty." + +Philo's ethics, like the rest of his philosophy, exhibits the +transfusion of Greek ideas with his Hebrew spirit. The Greek +philosophers had evolved a rational plan of life, while the Jewish +teachers were impregnated with burning ardor for the living God; and +Philo brings the two things together, making ethics dependent on +religion. The Stoics, who were the most powerful school of his day, +regarded as the ideal of goodness life according to unbending reason +and in complete independence of God or man. Philo understands God as a +personal power making for righteousness, and man's excellence, +accordingly, which is likeness to God, is piety and charity.[269] +Above all he insists upon Faith ([Greek: pistis]) and he defines +virtue as a condition of soul which fixes its hopes upon the truly +Existent God. The Stoics also professed to honor faith or confidence +above all things, but the virtue which they meant was reliance upon +man's own powers. Philo's virtue is almost the converse of this. Man +must feel completely dependent upon God, and his proper attitude is +humility and resignation. So only can he receive within his soul the +seed of goodness, and finally the Divine Logos.[270] Yet at the same +time Philo remains loyal to the Jewish ideal of conduct: faith without +works is empty, and, as he puts it, "The true-born goods are faith and +consistency of word and action."[271] + +The attainment of the highest excellence demands severe discipline, +save for those few blessed souls whom God perfects without any effort +on their part. The rest can only secure self-realization by +self-renunciation; they must avoid the bodily passions and bodily +lusts.[272] At times the Divine enthusiasm causes Philo, like many a +Jewish saint and like his master Plato, to scorn all bodily +limitations and recommend "insensibility" ([Greek: apatheia])[273] +by which he means that man should crush his physical desires and +repress his feelings. Not that the good life seems to him to imply +absence of pleasure. On the contrary, it is filled with the purest of +joy, for when man rises to the love of God "in calm of mind, all +passion spent," then and then alone has he tasted true joyousness. The +symbol of this bliss is Isaac ([Hebrew: ytshk]), the laughter of the +soul. + +It was noticed in the second chapter that Philo modified his ethical +ideas during his life. In the earlier period he insists more strongly +on the need of ascetic self-denial, and has almost a horror of the +world. Maturer experience, however, taught him that man is made for +this world, and that a wise use of its goods was a surer path to +happiness and to God than flight from all temptations. In his later +writings, therefore, he exhibits a striking moderation. He reproaches +the ascetics for their "savage enthusiasm,"[274] probably hinting at +the extreme sects of the Essenes and the Therapeutae. "Those who follow +a gentler wisdom seek after God, but at the same time do not despise +human things." + + "Truth will properly blame those who without discrimination + shun all concern with the life of the State, and say that + they despise the acquisition of good repute and pleasure. + They are only making grand pretensions, and they do not + really despise these things. They go about in torn raiment + and with solemn visage, and live the life of penury and + hardship as a bait, to make people believe that they are + lovers of good conduct, temperance, and self-control."[275] + +Philo's aphorism, which follows, "Be drunk in a sober manner," is +characteristic. The Stoic extreme of passionlessness is almost as +false as the Epicurean hedonism, and the mean between them is the +ideal Jewish life, in which godliness and humanity are blended. + +We have now examined the main divisions of Philo's philosophy, and we +see that his metaphysics, cosmology, theory of knowledge, and ethics +are all religious in tone, and all determined in their main lines by +his Jewish outlook. His Hebraism is a seal which stamps all that +enters his mind from Greek sources, and the Bible, spiritually +interpreted, is the canon of all his wisdom. + +There remains one minor aspect of his work which must be briefly +examined, because it has become closely associated with his name. This +is his number-symbolism, by which he ascribes important powers to +certain numbers, so that they are regarded as holy themselves and +sanctifying that to which they are attached. This feature of his +thought is commonly ascribed to Pythagorean influence, which was +strong at Alexandria, and, indeed, throughout the world, at this era. +The exact details of the holiness of four, seven, ten, fifty, etc., +Philo may have borrowed from neo-Pythagorean sources, but the general +tendency was the natural result of his environment and his stage of +thought. It was a feature of the recurring childishness of ideas and +the renascence of wonder at common things which is apparent on many +hands. To have denied the powers of numbers would have seemed as +absurd and eccentric then as to deny the powers of electricity to-day. +And in all ages people have been found to regard numbers mystically as +a link between God and earth, and a means of solving all physical and +metaphysical problems. The Hebrew intellect, primitive as it was, +tended particularly to the reverence of the numerical powers. Witness +the Bible itself, which emphasizes certain numbers; and witness also +the fifth chapter of the Pirke Abot, with its lists ranged under four, +seven, and ten, which is only typical of the rabbinical attitude. +Philo is not original in his views concerning numbers, not above nor +below the loose thinking of his age. He accepts unquestioningly the +potency of seven, because of its marvellous mathematical properties, +ratios, etc., its geometrical efficacy, and because of the seven +periods of life from infancy to old age, of the seven parts of the +body, the seven motions, the seven strings of the lyre, the seven +vowels, and the very name, which is connected with worship ([Greek: +sebasmos]). All this is trifling and trite, but what is of +importance is the use which Philo makes of the sentiment. He converts +it throughout to the support and glorification of Jewish institutions. +Thus, if a man honors seven, he says, he will devote the Sabbath to +meditation and philosophy.[276] Further, as seven is the symbol of +rest and tranquillity, the Sabbath must be a day of perfect rest. Ten +is magnified so as to honor the Decalogue,[277] fifty so as to honor +the Feast of Pentecost. So, too, the Pythagoreans' mathematical +conceptions of God as "the beginning and limit of all things," or, +again, as the principle of equality, are approved by Philo, "because +they breed in the soul the fairest and most nourishing fruit--piety." +In short, Philo's Pythagoreanism only emphasizes his commanding +purpose--to deepen and recommend the Jewish God-idea and the Jewish +method of life. + +Jewish influences throughout are the determining element of Philo's +teaching; they are the dynamic forces working upon the Greek matter +and producing the new Platonism, which constitutes Philo's +contribution to Greek philosophy. It may, indeed, be said that his +Hebraism makes Philo anti-philosophical, because he has no desire or +hope of adding to positive knowledge, but aims only at the calm of the +individual soul in union with its God. The Platonic Theory of Ideas, +metaphysical in origin, plays a very important part in his works, but +it is adapted mystically, and turned from an ideal of the human +intellect to a support of monotheism and piety. Here Philo is at once +the leader and the child of his generation; men were no longer +satisfied with rational systems, but wanted a religious philosophy, +based upon a transcendental principle and a Divine revelation which +could give them some certainty and some positive hope in life. +Doubtless, the strong mystical tendency in Philo destroyed the balance +between the intuitive and the discursive reason which makes the +perfect philosopher. In his overpowering passion for God, he distrusts +overmuch the analytical efforts of the human mind. Nevertheless, his +acquired Hellenism gives his Jewish conceptions a philosophical +impress, and this has made him the model of the school of religious +philosophers. The ministerial "Word" became the "ideal" expression of +God's mind, the governing reason, the world-soul; the angels were +spiritualized as a kingdom of Ideas. Piety received an intellectual as +well as a religious value, and the Mosaic law was raised to a higher +dignity as an ethical code of universal validity. + +A complete harmony between the Hellenic and the Hebraic outlook upon +life was impossible, but Philo at least accomplished a harmony between +Hebraic monotheism and Greek metaphysics. He desired to show that +faith and philosophy were in agreement, and that the imaginative and +reflective conceptions of God and the Divine government were in +unison. And he may be considered to have realized his desire in his +synthesis of Jewish theology and Platonic idealism. He is through and +through a great interpreter, elucidating points of unity between +distinct systems of thought. In him the fusion of cultures, which +began with the Septuagint translation, reached its culmination. It +reached its zenith and straightway the severance began. + +In the next chapter we shall trace Philo's place in Jewish thought; +here we may glance at his place in the development of Greek +philosophy. The fusion between Eastern and Western thought, which he +himself so strikingly illustrates, continued to dominate philosophy +for the next four hundred years; and Plato, who, with his deep +religious spirit, had a broad affinity with the Oriental conception of +the universe, was the supreme philosophical master. All the chief +teachers looked to him for the intellectual basis of their ideas and +read into his works their particular religious beliefs; but they +failed to maintain a true harmony between the two. The cultures of all +countries and races mingled, even as their peoples mingled under the +Roman Empire, but they were so combined as to lose the purity and +individuality of each element. The Eastern Platonists who followed +Philo brought to their interpretation less noble conceptions of the +Godhead, the Gnosticism of Syria, the dualism of Persia, the +impersonal pantheism of India, and the theurgies of Egypt, and +produced strange hybrids of the human mind. The one point of agreement +between them is that they conceive the Supreme God as impersonal and +entirely inactive, "a deified Zero," and endeavor by a system of +emanation to trace the descent of this baffling principle into man and +the universe. Philo was as unfortunate in his philosophical as in his +religious following, who both transformed his poetical metaphors into +fixed and rigid dogmas. His doctrine of the Logos was, on the one +hand, the forerunner of the Trinity of the Church, on the other of the +Trinity of the Alexandrian neo-Platonists. It is difficult, indeed, to +trace with certainty the connection between Philo and the later school +of Alexandrian Platonists, but there appears to be at least one clear +link in the teaching of the Syrian Numenius, who flourished in the +middle of the second century. To him are attributed the two sayings: +"Either Plato Philonizes or Philo Platonizes," and "What is Plato but +the Attic Moses?" Modern scholars have questioned the correctness of +the reference, but be this as it may, it is certain that Numenius used +the Bible as evidence of Platonic doctrines. "We should go back," he +says, in a fragment, "to the actual writings of Plato and call in as +testimony the ideas of the most cultured races; comparing their holy +books and laws we should bring in support the harmonious ideas which +are to be found among the Brahmans and the Jews."[278] Origen tells +us,[279] moreover, that he often introduced excerpts from the books of +Moses and the Prophets, and allegorized them with ingenuity. In one of +the few remains of his writings which have come down to us, we find +him praising the verse in the first chapter of Genesis, "The spirit of +God was upon the waters"; because, as Philo had interpreted +it--following perhaps a rabbinical tradition--water represents the +primal world-stuff. And elsewhere he mentions the efforts of the +Egyptian magicians to frustrate the miracles of Moses, following +Philo's account in his life of the Jewish hero. + +The work of Philo helped to spread a knowledge of the Hebrew +Scriptures far and wide and to give them general authority as a +philosophical book; but it did not succeed in spreading the pure +Hebrew monotheism. The exalted Hebrew idea of God was still too +sublime for the pagan nations, even for their philosophers. The world +in truth was decaying morally and intellectually, and most of all in +powers of imagination; and its hunger for God found expression in +crude and stunted conceptions of His nature. Unable any longer to soar +to Heaven, it sullied the majesty of the Deity, and divided the +Godhead in order to bridge the gap. Numenius represents in philosophy +the Gnostic ideas about God which were widely held by the heretics, +Jewish and Christian, of the second century. He divides the Godhead +into two separate powers: (1) the impersonal Being behind all reality, +free from all activity whatsoever; (2) the Demiurge or active governor +of the universe, who again is subdivided into a transcendent and an +immanent power. + +The teaching of Plotinus, the most famous of the later Alexandrian +neo-Platonists, shows a further step in the development of religious +Platonism. Viewed from its higher side it is an attempt to explain +everything as the emanation of the One. But philosophy in the third +century debased itself in order to support the tottering polytheistic +religion of the pagan world against the modified Hebraic creed, +Christianity, which was fast demolishing its power. Against the +Trinity of the Church the philosophers set up a heavenly Trinity of +so-called reason: the Ineffable One, the Demiurgic Mind, and the World +Soul; and between this Trinity and man they placed intermediate +hierarchies of gods, angels, and demons--in fact, the whole fugitive +army of Greek polytheism thinly disguised. All the vulgar fancies and +superstitions which Philo had intellectualized, these later Eastern +Platonists sought to revive and justify by conceptions of physical +emanation blended of false science and mysticism. They hoped to found +a universal religion by finding room in one system for the deities of +all nations! + +From Plotinus down to Proclus, neo-Platonism became more +unintellectual, more insane, more pagan, and, finally, with its vapid +dreams, it brought the history of Greek philosophy to an inglorious +close. Its finer teachings, however, deeply affected mediaeval +philosophy, and not least the Arab-Jewish school. The theory of +emanations and spiritual hierarchies pervades the writings of Ibn +Ezra, Ibn Gabirol, and Ibn Daud, and thus indirectly provides a +connection between the culture of Alexandrian Judaism and the culture +of Spanish Judaism. The praise of God known as the [Hebrew: ktr mlkot] by +Ibn Gabirol is a splendid example of the Hebraizing of neo-Platonic +doctrines, which, though probably quite independent of his teaching, +recalls constantly the ideas of Philo. + +By his place at the head of the neo-Platonic school Philo enters the +broad stream of the world's philosophical development, but his more +lasting influence was exercised over the religious philosophy of +Christianity. He was the direct master of what is known as the +Patristic school, which sought to combine the intellectual conceptions +of Plato with the religious ideas of the Gospels. Its most celebrated +teachers were Clement and Origen, both of Alexandria, who flourished +in the second century. They resorted largely to allegorical +interpretation, learning from Philo to trace in the Bible principles +of universal thought and profound philosophy; but they used his method +and his lessons to support notions of God and the Logos which were +alien to his spirit. He had possessed pre-eminently the soaring +imagination of poetry, which is the crown of the intellectual and of +the religious mind, and unites them in their highest excellence; but +they bounded their philosophy within the narrow limits of dogma, and +thereby destroyed the harmony between Hebraism and Hellenism which he +had contrived to effect. The controversy of Origen and Celsus began +again the battle between reason and faith, "which was to destroy for +centuries the independence of philosophy and to break the continuity +of civilization." Had Philo really been ploughing the sand, and was an +agreement between faith and reason, between religion and philosophy, +impossible? Can the two finest creations of the mind only be combined +on the terms that one is subordinate, or rather servile, to the other? +In Judaism, if anywhere, the combination should be possible, for +Judaism has as its basis an intuitional conception of God, which is in +harmony with the philosophical conception of the universe, and it has +little dogma besides. The neo-Platonists and the Church Fathers failed +to carry on the ideal of Philo, but it was to be expected that among +his own people, the nation of philosophers, as he had called them, he +would have found true successors. Yet the use made of his work by the +Christians compelled his people to regard him as a betrayer of the law +and to avoid his goal as a treacherous snare. For centuries Greek +philosophy was banned from Jewish thought, and Philo's works are not +mentioned by any Jewish writer. Strangers possessed his inheritance, +and his name alone, "Philo-Judaeus," bore witness to his nationality. +It is an interesting speculation to consider how different might have +been the history, not only of the Jews, but of the world, if the +Hellenistic Judaism of Philo had prevailed in the Roman-Greek world +instead of "the impurer Hellenism of Christianity." When, in the tenth +century, the leaders of Jewish thought broke the bonds of seclusion, +and brought anew to the interpretation of their religion the culture +of the outer world, Greek philosophy became again a powerful +influence, though it was Aristotle rather than Plato whom they +studied. The harmonizing spirit of Philo, which may be accounted part +of the genius of the race, lives on in Saadia, Maimonides, Ibn Ezra, +Ibn Gabirol, and Judah Halevi. But the difference between him and the +Arabic school is marked. They do not inherit his whole object, for +they aimed not at a philosophical Judaism which should be a +world-religion, but at a philosophical Judaism for the more +enlightened Jews alone. Philo's work was the culminating point, +indeed, of a great development in Judaism, produced by the mingling of +the finest products of human reason and human imagination, but it was +particularly the expression of his own commanding genius. He lacked a +true successor, for those who shared his aim did not inherit his +Jewish outlook, and those who shared his Jewish outlook did not +inherit his aim. What is characteristic of and peculiar to Philo is +the combination of the missionary and the philosopher. Living at a +time when the Jewish genius expanded most brilliantly, and when +Judaism exercised its greatest influence, he hoped to make his +religion universal by showing it to be philosophical, and to bring +about by the aid of Plato the ideal of the prophets. + + * * * * * + + + + +VII + +PHILO AND JEWISH TRADITION + + +We have seen from time to time how Philo's interpretation of the Bible +corresponds with Palestinian Jewish tradition; and we must now +consider more in detail the relations of the two schools of Jewish +learning. Until the last century it was commonly supposed that no +close relation existed, and that the Alexandrian and Palestinian +schools were independent and opposed; Scaliger, the greatest scholar +of the seventeenth century, wrote[280] that "Philo was more ignorant +of Hebraic and Aramaic lore than any Gaul or Scythian," and this was +the opinion generally held. The researches of Freudenthal and +Siegfried[281] have shown the falsity of these views; and, most +important of all, Philo refutes them out of his own mouth. He refers +in many different parts of his works[282] to the tradition and the +wisdom of his ancestors, he tells us how on the Sabbath the Jews +studied in their synagogues their special philosophy,[283] and he +commences his "Life of Moses" by declaring that against the false +calumnies of Greek writers he will set forth the true account which he +has learnt from the sacred writings and "from certain elders of his +race." In support of his statement we have the remark of Eusebius, the +Christian historian, and our chief ancient authority for Philo's +work,[284] that he set forth and expounded not only the laws of the +Bible, but many institutions and opinions of his fathers. Apart from +these direct references, the numerous points of correspondence between +Philo's interpretations and those of the Talmud and later Midrash +would compel us to admit a connection between Alexandria and +Jerusalem. + +The break between the two schools did not show itself till after the +time of Philo. Up to the first century of the Christian era the rabbis +encouraged the union of Shem and Japheth--the two good sons of one +parent--and the stream of ideas flowed quite freely between the +teachers in Palestine and the Hellenized colony in Egypt.[285] Hence +the Palestinian Jews, on the one hand, received the first fruits of +this mingling of cultures, and the Alexandrian Jews, on the other, +must have inherited the early tradition of the rabbinical interpreters +embodied in ancient Halakah and Haggadah. By this common heritage, +rather than by any direct borrowing, it seems more reasonable to +account for the correspondence in the two Midrashim. It should be +remembered that until the second century of the common era the mass of +Jewish tradition was a floating and developing body of opinion not +consigned to writing or formalized, but handed down by word of mouth +from teacher to pupil, and preacher to congregation: in this way it +was diffused throughout the mind of the race, indefinitely and, to +some extent, unconsciously shaping its thought. The detailed points of +agreement between Philo and the Talmud and Midrash are not of great +moment in themselves, but they are the signs of a unity of development +and the catholicity of Judaism in the East and West. Doubtless the +development was more national and at the same time more legal in +Judaea, in Alexandria more Hellenistic and philosophical, but there is +a common spiritual bond between the two expressions, pious images, +fancies, similes, interpretations which they share. They are, as it +were, children of one family, and despite the varying influences of +environment they maintain a family resemblance. With the Sibylline +oracles we may compare Daniel and the Psalms of Solomon; with Aristeas +and his fellow-Apologists, Josephus; with the allegorical commentaries +of Philo, the Midrashim. Modern scholars have gone far to prove that +Philo was the expounder of an Hellenic Midrash upon the Bible, in +which were gathered the thoughts and ideas that had been brought to +Egypt by the Jewish settlers, modified, no doubt, by Greek influences, +but still bearing the stamp of their origin. Philo, then, appears in +the direct line of the tradition which from the time of the Great +Synagogue was disseminated through two channels, the schools of +Palestine and the writers of Alexandria. He developed the national +Jewish theology in a literary form, which made it available for the +world, but with him the tradition as a Jewish tradition ends; in its +further Hellenistic development it departed entirely from its original +principles. + +It is natural that the larger number of parallels between Philo and +the rabbis is to be found in the Haggadic portions of Talmudic +teaching, for the Haggadah represents the same spirit as underlies +Philo's work, though in a more peculiarly Jewish form; it is an +allegory, a play of fancy, a tale that points a moral, or illustrates +a question. It had, too, largely the same origin, for it gathered +together the popular discourses given in the synagogue on the +Sabbaths. Yet the relation of Philo to the other domain of the Talmud, +the code of life, or the Halakah, is of great interest; for, as we +have seen,[286] the Alexandrian community had a Sanhedrin of their +own, of which Philo's brother was the president, and he himself +probably a member; and in his exposition of the "Specific Laws" he has +preserved for us the record of certain interpretations of the Jewish +code, which are illuminating as much by their difference from, as by +their agreement with, the practices of Palestine. The general aim of +Philo's exegesis of the law was to show its broad principles of +justice and humanity rather than to formulate its exact detail. It is +true, he makes it an offence[287]--unknown to the rabbis--for +a Jew to be initiated into the Greek mysteries, but usually he is +concerned to recommend the Halakah to the world rather than expand it +for his own community. This is shown in his treatment of the civil as +much as the moral law. The great system of jurisprudence in his day, +with which every code claiming to have universal value had necessarily +to challenge comparison, was Roman Law. That part of it which was +applied throughout the Empire, the _jus gentium_, was regarded as +"written reason." It is probable that contact with Roman jurisprudence +had affected the practical interpretations which the Alexandrian +Sanhedrin put upon the Biblical legislation, and was the cause of some +of their differences from the Palestinian Halakah. In treating the +ethical law, Philo's object was to show its agreement with the +loftiest conceptions of Greek philosophers, and, indeed, its +profounder truth; in treating the civil law of the Bible, his object +likewise was to show its agreement with the highest principles of +jurisprudence and its superiority to pagan codes. If at times he +supports a greater severity than the Palestinian rabbis eventually +allowed, that is where greater severity implies a closer relation to +Roman Law. Thus he has not the horror of capital punishment which the +Jerusalem Sanhedrin exhibited; he would condemn to death the man who +commits wilful homicide, whether by his own hand or by poison;[288] +whereas the other Halakah allows it only in the former case. He who +commits perjury also is to suffer capital punishment.[289] He adds a +law which finds no place in the Palestinian tradition, making the +exposure of children a capital crime.[290] Again, following the text +of the Biblical law literally (see Deut. xxi. 18), he gives power of +life and death to parents over their rebellious children, whereas the +Jewish law demands a trial before a court to make the death sentence +legal. He approves of the _lex talionis_, "an eye for an eye, a tooth +for a tooth," agreeing here, indeed, with the opinion of earlier +rabbis like R. Eliezer (see Baba Kama 84, [Hebrew: 'yn tht 'yn mmsh], +"the law of eye for eye is to be taken literally"), and disagreeing with +the later Halakic interpretation, which says that the law of Moses means +the award of the value of an eye for an eye, etc. + +This is one instance among many of Philo's adoption of the older +tradition, established probably under the Sadducaean predominance, +which was modified in the rabbinical schools of the first and the +second century. Paradoxically, in his exposition of the law, Philo +follows the letter more closely as the expression of justice, while +the later rabbis often allegorize it in order to support their humaner +interpretation. Thus, commenting on the passage in Exodus xxii. 3 +about the law of theft, "If the sun be risen upon him, blood shall be +shed for blood," he, like R. Eliezer, interprets [Hebrew: dbrim kktbm][291] +_i.e._, literally. "If," he says, "the owner catches the thief before +sunrise, he may kill him, but after the sun has risen he must bring him +before the court."[292] This also was the Roman law, but the Halakah +interprets more artificially: "If it were as clear as sunlight that +the thief would not have killed the owner, then the owner may not kill +him." Philo would justify the old law; the rabbis explain it away. On +the other hand, in his treatment of the law relating to slaves, Philo +extends the liberality both of the Bible and the Halakah. He declares +that the slave is to be set free when by his master's violence he loses +an eye or even a tooth.[293] The Bible and the Talmud direct emancipation +only where the slave loses a limb; but Philo writes eloquently of the +humanity of which man is deprived by the loss of sight; and he would +apparently condemn the master who injured his slave more seriously to the +full penalties of the ordinary law.[294] Maimonides, in his exposition of +the law, approves the milder practice,[295] and this suggests that it +had an old tradition behind it. Beautiful is Philo's stray maxim, +"Behave to your servants as you pray that God may behave to you. For +as we hear them, so shall we be heard, and as we regard them, so shall +we be regarded."[296] In his whole treatment of slavery, Philo shows +remarkable enlightenment for his age. He objects, indeed, to the +institution altogether, and he tempers it continually with ideas of +equality. Thus, following the Halakah, he directs the redemption of a +slave seven years after his purchase, and he treats the laws of the +seventh-year rest to the land and of the jubilee as of universal +validity. + +Coming to the more specifically religious laws we find that Philo, +missionary as he is, prohibits altogether marriage with Gentiles,[297] +and that though, in the opinion of certain rabbinic teachers, the +Biblical prohibition extended only to marriage with the Canaanite +tribes, and unions with other Gentiles were permitted.[298] Philo +recognizes how dangerous such unions are for the cause which he had so +dearly at heart, the spreading of Judaism. "Even," says he, "if you +yourself remain true to your religion through the influence of the +excellent instruction of your parents, yet there is no small danger +that your children by such a marriage may be beguiled away by bad +customs to unlearn the true religion of the one only God."[299] +Throughout, Philo is true to the mission of Israel in its highest +sense. That mission is not assimilation, and it is to be brought about +by no easy method of mixing with the surrounding people. It can be +effected only by holding up the Torah in its purity as a light to the +nations, and by offering them examples of life according to the law. + +Of the special ordinances for Sabbaths and festivals Philo mentions +only those consecrated by the Biblical law or ancient tradition, which +probably were the only ones settled in his day. He lays down the +prohibition to kindle fire,[300] to make or return deposits, or to +plead in the law courts on the Sabbath; he speaks of the reading of +the Haggadah and Hallel on the night of Passover, of the bringing of a +barley cake during the 'Omer and of the first fruits to the Temple on +the Feast of Weeks, of the Shofar at New Year, and of the Sukkah, but +not of the Lulab at Tabernacles. It should be remembered that the +Halakah was not consolidated till the second or third century, and in +Philo's time it was in the process of formation by different schools +of rabbis. But the passage quoted in an earlier chapter, about adding +to the law, proves his reverence for the oral law.[301] + +Though his statement of the civil and religious law is of great +interest to the student of Halakic development, Philo's work presents +greater correspondence, on the whole, with the Haggadah, which in a +primitive way draws philosophical and ethical lessons from the Bible +narrative. It is a free interpretation of the Scriptures, the +expression of the individual moralist; it loves to point a moral and +adorn a tale, and in many cases it is in agreement with the +Hellenistic school. To take a few typical examples: An early +interpretation explains the story of the Brazen Serpent, as Philo +does,[302] to mean that as long as Israel are looking upward to the +Father in Heaven they will live, but when they cease to do so they +will die. Another, like him again, finds the motive of the command to +bore the ear of the slave who will not leave his master at the seventh +year of redemption, in the principle that men are God's servants, and +should not voluntarily throw away their precious freedom. So, too, the +Haggadah agrees in numerous points with Philo's stories about the +patriarchs.[303] If one were to go through the Midrashic +interpretations of the Five Books of Moses, he would find in nearly +every section interpretations reminiscent of Philo. In some cases, +however, there are striking contrasts in the two commentaries. Thus +the Midrash[304] tells that the four rivers of Eden symbolize the four +great nations of the old world; to Philo, they represent the four +cardinal virtues established by Greek philosophers. The Palestinian +commentators were prone to see an historical where Philo saw a +philosophical image. + +The question may be asked, Who is the originator and who the borrower +of the common tradition? And it is a question to which chronology can +give no certain answer, and for which dates or records have no +meaning. For the Haggadah was not committed to writing till many +generations had known its influences, and it was not finally compiled +till many generations more had handed it down with continuous +accretions. The Haggadah in fact is part of the permanent spirit of +the race going back to a hoary past, and stretching down "the echoing +grooves of time" to the tradition of Judaism in our own day. The +Hebrew Word means, and the thing is, "what is said": the utterances of +the inspired teacher, some tale, some happy play of fancy, some moral +aphorism, some charming allegory which captivated the hearers, and was +handed down the generations as a precious thought. It is significant +in this regard that the Haggadah is remarkable for the number of +foreign words which it contains, Greek, Persian, and Roman terms +jostling with Hebrew and Aramaic. For while the Halakah was the +production of the Palestinian and Babylonian schools alone, the +Haggadah brought together the harvest of all lands; and scraps of +Greek philosophy found their way to Palestine before the Alexandrian +school developed its systematic allegory. In the Mishnah, the earliest +body of Jewish lore which was definitely formulated and written down, +one section is Haggadic, the passages we know as the "Ethics of the +Fathers." Now, we cannot place the date of this compilation before the +first century,[305] and thus it would seem to be contemporary with +Philo's work, to which it affords numerous parallels. But the great +mass of the Haggadah, the Pesikta, the Mekilta, and the other +Midrashim, were all later compilations, some of them as late as the +fifth and the sixth century. Are we to say, then, that where they +correspond to Philo they show his influence? At first this would +appear the natural conclusion. + +There is a better test of priority, however, than the date of +compilation, the test of the thought itself and its expression. And +judged by this test we see that the Haggadah is the more ancient, the +primal development of the Hebrew mind. The "Sayings of the Fathers" +are typical of the finest and most concentrated wisdom of the +Haggadah, and exhibit thought in its impulsive, unsystematic, gnomic +expression, neither logical nor illogical, because it knows not logic. +Beautiful ethical intuitions and profound guesses at theological truth +abound; anything like a definite system of ethics and theology is not +to be found, whence it is said, "Do not argue with the Haggadah." Even +more so is this the case with the bulk of the Midrash. There, pious +fancy will weave itself around the history and ideals of the people, +and suddenly one comes across a sage reflection or a philosophical +utterance. With Philo it is otherwise. Compared with the Greeks he is +unsystematic, inaccurate, wanting in logic, exuberant in imagination. +Compared with the rabbis he is a formal and accurate philosopher, an +exact and scholarly theologian. The floating poetical ideas of the +Haggadah are woven by him into the fabric of a Jewish philosophy and a +Jewish theology, and knit together with the rational conceptions of +Aristotle's "Metaphysics" and Plato's "Timaeus." We may say, then, +almost with certainty, that Philo derives from the early Jewish +tradition, though at the same time he introduced into that tradition +many an idea taken from the Greek thinkers, which found its way to the +later Palestinian schools of Jamnia and Tiberias, and was recast by +the Hebraic imagination. + +Over and over again we find that he adopts some fancy of his ancestors +and develops it rhetorically and philosophically in his commentary. To +give many examples or references to examples of this feature of +Philo's work is not within the scope of this book, but of his +development of an old Palestinian tradition the following passage may +serve as a typical instance: + + "There is an old story," he writes, "composed by the sages + and handed down by memory from age to age.... They say that, + when God had finished the world, he asked one of the angels + if aught were wanting on land or in sea, in air or in + heaven. The angel answered that all was perfect and + complete. One thing only he desired, speech, to praise God's + works, or to recount, rather than praise, the exceeding + wonderfulness of all things made, even of the smallest and + the least. For the due recital of God's works would be their + most adequate praise, seeing that they needed no addition of + ornament, but possessed in the sincerity of truth the most + perfect eulogy. And the Father approved the angel's words, + and afterwards appeared the race gifted with the muses and + with song. This is the ancient story; and in accord with it, + I say that it is God's peculiar work to do good, and the + creature's work to give Him thanks."[306] + +Now this legend and moral appear in another form in the collection of +Midrash, the Pirke Rabbi Eliezer, which apparently had ancient sources +that have disappeared. There it is told: "When the Holy One, blessed +be He, consulted the Torah as to the completeness of the work of +creation, she answered him: 'Master of the future world, if there be +no host, over whom will the King reign, and if there be no creatures +to praise him, where is the glory of the King?' And the Lord of the +world was pleased with her answer and forthwith He created man."[307] + +The Haggadah is rich also in allegorical speculation, of which there are +traces in the Biblical books themselves. In the book of Micah, for +example, we find that the patriarchs are taken as types of certain +virtues, Abraham of Kindness, [Hebrew: hsd], and Jacob of Truth, +[Hebrew: 'mt] (vii. 20). And when the ideas of the people expanded +philosophically in Palestine and in Alexandria, the profounder +conceptions were attached to Scripture by the device of allegorical +interpretation, and certain rabbis attributed a higher value to the +inner than to the literal meaning. Thus Akiba, who wrote an elaborate +allegorical work upon the Song of Songs,[308] held that the book was the +most profound in the Bible, and Rabbi Judah similarly regarded the book +of Job.[309] The Palestinian allegorists took to themselves a wider +field than the Alexandrian, and looked for the deeper meanings rather in +the Wisdom Literature than in the Pentateuch, which was to them +essentially the Book of the Law, and, therefore, not a fit subject for +Mashal, _i.e._, inner meanings.[310] Hence, their allegorism was more +natural, more real, and truer to the spirit of that which they +interpreted. They allegorized when an allegory was invited, whereas +Philo and his school often forced their philosophical meanings in face +of the clear purport of the text, and without regard to the Hebrew. In +the one case allegory was a genuine development, and might have been +adopted by the original prophet: in the other, it was reconstruction; +and the artificial un-Hebraic character of the Hellenistic commentary +was one of the causes of its disappearance from Jewish tradition. While +the Palestinian allegorists based their continuous philosophical +interpretation upon the Wisdom Books, they, at the same time, looked for +secondary meanings wherever opportunity offered, and found lessons in +letters and teachings in names. An early school of commentators was +actually known as [Hebrew: dorsh rshomot][311] or interpreters of signs, +and their method was by examination of the letters of a word, or by +comparison of different verses, to explore homilies. For instance, the +verse, "And God showed Moses a tree" (Exod. xvi. 26), by which he +sweetened the waters at Marah, symbolized, by a play on the word +[Hebrew: vyvrhu],[312] that God taught Moses the Torah, of which it is +said, "She is a tree of life" (Prov. iii. 18). Another happy example of +this method occurs in the sixth section of the Pirke Abot, where the +names in the itinerary, [Hebrew: mmtna nhlial, vmnhlial bmot] (Numb. +xxi. 19), are invested with a spiritual meaning. Whoever believes in the +Torah, it is written, shall be exalted, as it is said, "From the gift of +the law man attains the heritage of God, and by that heritage he reaches +Heaven." + +In this passage of Palestinian allegorism, it may be noticed that the +Torah is regarded as a spiritual bond between man and God, and as a +sort of intermediary power between them. This feature is almost as +frequent in the Midrash as the Logos-idea in Philo, so that it may be +said that rabbinic theology finds an idealism in the Torah which +corresponds to the idealism of the Philonic Word. It is expressed, no +doubt, naively and fancifully, even playfully, without attempt at +philosophical deductions. It is informed by the same spirit as the +Alexandrian allegory, but it is essentially poetical and impulsive, +and set forth in mythical personification, not in deliberate +metaphysics. The Torah to the rabbis was the embodiment of the Wisdom +which the writer of Proverbs had glorified, and it takes its +prerogatives. God gazes upon the Torah before He creates the +world.[313] The Torah, though the chief, is not, however, the only +object of rabbinic idealism. God and His name, it is said, alone +existed before the world was created,[314] and in a Talmud legend +relating the birth of man, the ideal power is identified with Truth, +which, like the Logos, is pictured as God's own seal. + + "From Heaven to Earth, from Earth once more to Heaven + Shall Truth, with constant interchange, alight + And soar again, an everlasting link + Between the world and Sky." + + (Translation of Emma Lazarus.)[315] + +Correspondingly, Philo identifies the Logos with the name of God and +with Truth. + +Of another piece of Talmudic idealism we catch a trace in Maimonides' +"Guide of the Perplexed,"[316] where he says that the rabbis explained +the designation of God, [Hebrew: lrubb b'rbot] [rendered in the authorized +version, "He who rideth on the heavens" (Ps. lxviii. 4)], to mean that +He dwelt in the highest sphere of heaven amid the eternal ideas of +Justice and Virtue, as it is said: "Justice and Righteousness are the +base of Thy throne" (Ps. lxxxix. 15). These fancies and +interpretations indicate that in Palestine as well as in Alexandria an +idealistic theology and a religious metaphysics were developing at +this period, though in the East it was more imaginative, more Hebraic, +more in the spirit of the old prophets. + +The more serious metaphysical and theological speculation of the +rabbis was embodied in the doctrine of the "Creation," and the +"Chariot," [Hebrew: m'sha br'shit] and [Hebrew: m'sha mrkba], which in +form were commentaries on the early chapters of Genesis and the visions +of Ezekiel. They were reserved for the wisest and most learned, for the +rabbis had always a fear of introducing the student to philosophy until +his knowledge of the law was well established. They held, with Plato, that +metaphysical speculation must be the crown of knowledge, and if treated as +its foundation, before the necessary discipline had been obtained, it +would produce all sorts of wild ideas. Judaism for them was primarily +not a philosophical doctrine but a system of life. The Hellenistic +school was so far false to their standpoint that it laid stress for +the ordinary believer upon the philosophical meaning as well as upon +the law. And as events proved, this led to the neglect of the law and +the dogmatic establishment of speculative theories as the basis of a +new religion. Doubtless the consciousness that the philosophical +development led away from Judaism increased the distrust of the later +rabbis for such speculation, and made them regard esoteric as a milder +term for heretical; but the warning is already given in Ben Sira: "It +is not needful for thee to see the secret things."[317] The Talmud, +indeed, records certain ideas about the powers of God and His relation +to the universe in the names of the great masters; and in these ideas +there are striking resemblances to Philo's conceptions. The Word is +spoken of as an intermediate agency;[318] the finger of God is really +the Word; the angels are sprung from the Words of God: Ben Zoma +declared that the whole work of creation was carried out by the Word, +as it is written, "And God said."[319] But on the other hand there are +passages in which the rabbis oppose the Alexandrian attitude, and +point out in its excessive philosophizing a danger to Judaism, so that +in the end they exclude it. Rabbi Ishmael, we are told, warned his +pupils of the danger of Greek wisdom.[320] Akiba, living at a time +when the Jews were fighting for spiritual as well as for physical life +against the combined forces of the Greeks and Romans, proposed to ban +all the [Hebrew: sfrim hitsonim],[321] and the Gemara argues that among +these were included the Apocryphal works which showed Greek influence. +Again, Elisha ben Abuya, the arch-heretic, is held up to reproach because +he read [Hebrew: sfri minim],[322] under which title Greek Gnostic books +are probably implied. + +At the time when this spirit shows itself, the appearance of heretical +offshoots from Judaism was already pronounced. Heresy was the +aftermath of the combination of Judaism and Hellenism, and if further +disintegration was to be avoided, the seductive Greek influence had to +be discouraged. There is always the danger in a mingling of two +cultures, that each will lose its particular excellence in a compound +which has certain qualities, but not the virtues, of either element. +Compromises may be desirable in political affairs; in affairs of +thought they are perilous. Down to the time of Philo, the fusion of +thought at Alexandria had been beneficial, and had broadened the +Jewish outlook without impairing its strength, but the dissolving +forces of civilization never operated more powerfully than in the +early centuries of the common era, when the intellect of the world was +jaded and weary, and the great movement in culture was a jumbling +together of the ideas of East and West. More especially in the +cosmopolitan towns, Alexandria, Antioch, and Rome, national life, +national culture, and national religion were undermined; and even the +Jew, despite the stronghold of his law and tradition, was caught in +the general vortex of mingling creeds and theologies. Out of this +confusion (which was in one aspect a continuation of the work of +Philo) emerged, first, fantastic Gnostic religious and philosophical +sects, and, finally, the Christian Church, which proved the system +best fitted to survive in the circumstances, but was in essence as +well as in origin a blending of different outlooks, and true to the +cardinal points of neither Hebraism nor Hellenism. The rabbis, with +remarkable intuition, saw that the Hellenistic development of Judaism, +which had vainly striven to make Judaism universal, had ended in +violating its monotheism and abrogating its law; and in that era of +disintegration, denationalization, and decomposition they determined +to keep their heritage pure and inviolate. Judaism by their efforts +was the only national culture which survived, and some sacrifice had +to be made to secure this end. The literary monuments of the +Alexandrian community from the Septuagint translation to the +philosophy of the Christian scholarchs were cut out of Jewish +tradition, and the Babylonian school was ignorant altogether of the +[Hebrew: hkma yonit] (Greek wisdom). When Ben Zoma desired to study the +[Hebrew: sfrim hitsonim], and asked of his teacher at what hour of the +day it was lawful to do so, he received the reply that it was permissible +at an hour which was neither day nor night; for the precept was to study +the Torah by day and night, as it is said, [Hebrew: ] (Josh. i. 8). Bar +Kappara, indeed, a rabbi of the third century, explained Genesis ix. 27, +"God shall enlarge Japheth and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem," to +mean that the words of the Torah shall be recited in the speech of +Japheth (_i.e._, Greek) in the synagogues and schools,[323] but by +most other teachers the union between Shem and Japheth was no longer +encouraged, because Japheth had become degraded and was allied with +the cruel children of Edom (Rome). + +Besides the Talmud and the Midrash we have, in the work of Josephus, +another indication that there was in Philo's own day communication +between Alexandria and Palestine. The Jewish historian marks the +influence of Hellenic ideas in Palestine in fullest measure, and like +Philo he seeks by embellishment to recommend the histories and +Scriptures of his people to the non-Jew and to bring home their +thought to the cultured Roman-Greek world. Thus, in the preface to his +"Antiquities," he notes, as Philo noted in his commentary, that Moses +begins his laws with a philosophical cosmology; he says also that +Moses spoke some things under a fitting allegory, hiding beneath it a +very remarkable philosophical theory. The allegorical commentary which +Josephus declared that he intended to write has not--if it was +written--come down to us, but we have in his writings certain +allegorical valuations of names that agree directly with Philo. Abel +he explains as signifying mourning, Cain, [Hebrew: kin], as selfish +possession. In the priestly garments of Aaron he sees with Philo a +symbol of the universe, which the high priest supported when he +entered the Holy of Holies. And the ritual vessels of the tabernacle +have also their universal significance. + + "If," says the Palestinian Hellenist, "any man do but + consider the fabric of the tabernacle and regard the + vestments of the high priest, he will find that our + legislator was a Divine man, and that we are unjustly + reproached by those who attack us for tribal narrowness. For + if he look upon these things without prejudice, he will find + that each one was made by way of imitation and + representation of the universe. When Moses ordered twelve + loaves to be set on the table, he denoted the years as + distinguished into so many months. By branching out the + candlestick into seven parts, he intimated the seven + divisions of the planets.... The vestments of the high + priest, being made of linen, signified the earth, the blue + color thereof denoted the sky, the pomegranates symbolized + lightning, and the noise of the bells resembled thunder. And + the fashion of the ephod showed that God had made the world + of four elements."[324] + +Let us now listen now to Philo: "The raiment of the priest is +altogether a representation and imitation of the universe, and its +parts are the parts of the other. His tunic is all of blue linen, the +symbol of the sky. [The rabbis had a similar fancy of the Tsitsith +(fringes).] And the flowers embroidered thereon mark the earth, from +which all things flower. And the pomegranates are a symbol of the +water, being skilfully called thus ([Greek: rhoischoi], _i.e._, +flowing fruit) because of their juice, and the bells are the symbols +of the harmony of all the elements."[325] + +It is true that the symbolism of two allegorists is varied, but a +common spirit and aim underlie their interpretations. This is true +alike of their account of the ritualistic and civil law of Moses. +Either, then, there was a common source of Jewish apologetic +literature, or Josephus must have borrowed from Philo. It is +significant that he is the only contemporary of Philo that mentions +him. He speaks of him as a distinguished philosopher, the brother of +the alabarch, and the leader of the embassy to Gaius.[326] He knows +also of the anti-Semitic diatribes of Philo's great enemy Apion, and +two of his extant books are masterly reply to their outpourings. Hence +it is not rash to assume that he knew at least that part of Philo's +work which had a missionary and apologetic purpose--the "Life of +Moses" and the "Hypothetica." He makes no acknowledgment to them, it +is true, but expressions of obligation were not in the fashion of the +time. Plagiarism was held to be no crime, and citation of authorities +in notes or elsewhere was almost unknown in literature--save in the +Talmud,[327] where to tell something in the name of somebody else is a +virtue. But one can hardly doubt that the man who devoted himself to +refuting the lying calumnies of Apion first made himself master of the +classical work of Apion's opponent, which claimed to give to the Greek +world the authoritative account of the Jewish lawgiver and his +legislation. + +What Josephus knew must have been known to other cultured Jews of +Palestine. Yet Philo, save in one doubtful case which will be noticed, +is not mentioned by any Jewish writer between Josephus in the first +and Azariah dei Rossi in the sixteenth century. The compilers of the +Midrashim and the Yalkut, the philosophers of the Dark and Middle +Ages, finally the Cabbalists, are continually reminiscent of his +doctrines, but they do not mention his works or his existence. The +Midrash Tadshe,[328] a tenth century compilation of allegorical +exegesis, contains definite parallels to Philonic passages, especially +in its quotations from an Essene Tannaite, Pin[h.]as ben Jair; but +again the trace of influence is indirect. On the other hand, the +Christian writers from the time of Clement in the second century quote +him freely, make anthologies of his beautiful sayings, and in their +more imaginative moments acclaim him the comrade of Mark and the +friend of Peter. The rise of the Christian Church, which coincided +with the downfall of the nation, caused the rabbis to emphasize the +national character of Judaism in order to preserve the old faith of +their fathers in the critical condition in which exile, persecution, +and assimilation placed it. The first century was a time of feverish +dreams and wild hopes that were not realizable: men had looked for the +coming of the days of universal peace and good-will, and the +Alexandrian Jews in particular hoped for the spreading of Judaism over +the world. The rabbis recognized that this consummation was far away, +and that Judaism must remain particularist for centuries in the hope +of a final universalism. Meantime it must hold fast to the law and, in +default of a national home, strengthen the national religious life in +each Jewish household. They regarded Greek as not only a strange but a +hostile tongue, and the allegorical exegesis of the Bible, which had +led to the whittling away of the law, as a godless wisdom. The +Septuagint translation, which had offered a starting point for +philosophical speculation, was replaced by a new Greek version of the +Old Testament made by Aquila, a proselyte, in the first century. It +gave a baldly literal translation of the Hebrew text, sacrificing form +and even lucidity to a faithful transcript. With unconscious irony the +rabbis, who rejoiced in its truth to the Hebrew, said of Aquila, "Thou +art fairer than the children of men, grace is poured into thy +lips"[329] (Ps. xlv). In truth the work was utterly innocent of +literary grace. A translation of the Bible marked the end, as it had +marked the beginning, of Jewish-Hellenistic literature, but if the +first had suggested the admission, so the other suggested the +rejection of Greek philosophy from the interpretation of Judaism and a +return to the exclusive national standpoint. The rabbinical +appreciation of Aquila's work shows that, while the Jews were in +Palestine, many still required a Greek translation of the Bible; but +when in the third century C.E. the centre of the religion was moved to +Babylon, Greek was forgotten, and the rabbis for a period lost sight +of Greek culture. It is another irony of history that our manuscripts +of Philo go back to an archetype in the library of Caesarea in +Palestine, which Eusebius studied in the fourth century. Philo came to +the land of his fathers in the possession of his people's enemies, and +at a time when he could no longer be understood by his people. + +Philo's works were not translated into Hebrew, and as Greek ceased to +be the language of the cultured, they could not, in their original +form, have influenced later Jewish philosophers. But the Christians, +in their proselytizing activity, had translated them into Latin and +Armenian before the fifth century, and through one of these means they +may possibly have exercised an influence upon the new school of Jewish +philosophy, which, opening with Saadia in the tenth century, blossomed +forth in the Arabic-Spanish epoch. The light of historical research is +beginning to illumine the obscurity of the Dark Ages, and has revealed +traces of an Alexandrian allegorist in the writings of the Persian Jew +Benjamin al-Nehawendi, himself a distinguished allegorizer of the +Bible, who wrote in the ninth century and taught that God created the +world by means of one ministerial angel.[330] Benjamin relates that +the doctrine was held by a Jewish sect known as the Maghariya, which +probably sprang up in the fourth or the fifth century, when sects grew +like mushrooms. The Karaite al-Kirkisani, who wrote fifty years later, +says that the Maghariya sect used in support of their doctrine the +"prolegomena of an Alexandrian sage" who gave certain remarkable +interpretations of the Bible; and in one of Dr. Schechter's Genizah +fragments, which is probably to be ascribed to Kirkisani, there are +contained examples of the Alexandrian's explanations of the Decalogue, +which occur, and occur only, in Philo's treatise on the "Ten +Commandments." + +This connection between Philo and an obscure Jewish sect, or an +obscurer Persian-Jewish writer, may appear far-fetched and not worth +the making. In itself doubtless it is unimportant, but it serves to +keep Philo, however barely, within Jewish tradition. For it shows that +Alexandrian literature, though probably through the medium of a +Mohammedan source, was known to some Jews in the centuries of +transition. It may be that further examination of the great Genizah +collection, which has opened to Jewish scholarship a new world, will +reveal further and stronger ties to unite Philo with his philosophical +successors, of whom the first is Saadia Gaon (892-942 C.E.). Indeed +the main interest of this newly-discovered connection, if it can be +seriously so regarded, is that it suggests the possibility of Saadia's +acquaintance with Philo by means of a translation. That Saadia read +the works upon which Christian theologians relied, is certain; and a +fragment in which he refers to the teaching of Judah the +Alexandrian[331]--also unearthed from the Cairo Genizah--goes some way +to support the suggestion. The passage refers to the connection of the +number "fifty" with the different seasons of the year, and though it +does not tally exactly with any piece of the extant Philo, it is in +the Philonic manner. And Philo, who was surnamed Judaeus by the Church, +would have been re-named by his own people, translating from the +Church writers, [Hebrew: yhuda]. One would the more willingly catch on to +this floating straw, because Saadia was at once a compatriot of Philo, +born in the Fayyum of Egypt, and the first Jew who strove to carry on +his work. He aimed at showing the philosophy of the Torah, and its +harmony with Greek wisdom in particular. Aristotle, who had been +translated into Arabic, had meantime supplanted Plato as the master of +philosophy for theologians, and Saadia's _magnum opus_, [Hebrew: amonot +tsd'ot], is colored throughout by Aristotelian ideas. But the difference +of masters does not obscure the likeness of aim, and, albeit +unconsciously, Saadia renews the task of the Hellenic-Jewish school. + +Saadia's work was carried on and expanded in a great outburst of the +Jewish genius, which showed itself most brilliantly in the +Moorish-Spanish kingdom. The general cultural conditions of Alexandria +in the first century B.C.E. were reproduced in Spain in the tenth +century. Once again the Jews found themselves politically emancipated +amid a sympathetic environment, and again they illumined their +religious tradition with all the culture which their environment could +afford. The mingling of thought gave birth to a great literature, both +creative and critical; to a striking body of lyric poetry; to a +systematic theology, and a religious philosophy. + +While the study of the old Talmudic lore was maintained, the greatest +teachers developed tradition afresh by a philosophical restatement +designed to make it appeal to the mental attitude of the enlightened. +The sermon flourished again, collections of Haggadah (Yalkut) were +made as storehouses of homilies, and metaphysical treatises modelled +upon the works of the schoolmen set forth a philosophical Judaism for +the learned world. It is notable also that these last were not written +in Hebrew or in the Talmudic dialect, but in Arabic, the language of +their cultured environment; for though the missionary spirit was dead, +the controversial activity of the period impelled the Jewish +philosophers to present their ideas in the form used by the +philosophers of the general community. + +It is not only the general conditions of the Arab-Jewish period, but +also the special development of Jewish ideas, which recalls the work +of the Alexandrian school. This was, indeed, to be expected, seeing +that in both cases there was a mingling of Hebraism and Hellenism. In +Spain, however, the Jews acquired Hellenism at second hand, and +through the somewhat distorted medium of Arabic translations or +scholastic misunderstanding, and hence the harmony is neither complete +nor pure. They endeavored to show that the teachings of Aristotle are +implicit in the written and the oral law, but the interpretation is +hardly convincing even in "The Guide of the Perplexed," of Maimonides, +the monumental work which marks the culmination of mediaeval Jewish +philosophy. + +If there is one figure in Jewish tradition with whom Philo challenges +at once comparison and contrast, it is Maimonides, the brightest star +of the Arabic, as he was of the Hellenic, development of the Jewish +religion. Though there is nothing on which to found any direct +influence of the one on the other, the aim, the method, the scope of +their philosophical work are the same, the relation which they hold to +exist between faith and philosophy wellnigh identical. The metaphysics +of the Bible, according to both, is hidden beneath an allegory, and +is meant only for the more learned of the people. To Maimonides the +Bible is not only the standard of all wisdom, but it is "the Divine +anticipation of human discovery." In the words of Hosea, God has +therein "multiplied visions and spoken in similitudes" (xii. 11). The +duty of the Jewish philosopher is to expound these metaphors and +similes; and Maimonides, endeavoring to knit Greek metaphysics closely +with Jewish tradition, propounds a science of allegorical values, +which by exact philological study traces the inner as well as the +outer meaning of the Hebrew words. But differentiated as it is by +greater mastery of the tradition and closer adherence to the Hebrew +text, his method is nearly as artificial and his thought as extraneous +to the text as the method and thought of Philo. The content of their +philosophies is, indeed, strikingly alike, save that the one is a +Platonist, the other an Aristotelian. This involves not so much a +difference of philosophical views as a difference of temper and of +objective. The followers of Plato are mystics, yearning for the love +of God; the followers of Aristotle are rationalists, seeking for the +abstract knowledge of God. Hence in Maimonides there is less soaring +and more argument than in Philo. Everything is deduced, so far as may +be, with exactitude and logical sequence--according to the logic of +the schoolmen--and everything is formalized according to scholastic +principles. But the subjects treated are the same--the nature of God +and His attributes, His relation to the universe and man, the manner +of the creation, and the way of righteousness. + +Maimonides, who is in form more loyal to Jewish tradition, is to a +larger degree than Philo dependent on authority for the philosophical +ideas which he applies to religion. To a great extent this is due to +the spirit of his age, for in the Middle Ages not only was the matter +of thought, but also its form, accepted on authority, and Aristotle +ruled the one as imperiously as the Bible ruled the other. The +differences of form and substance do not, however, obscure the +essential likeness with Philo's interpretation of Judaism. With him +Maimonides holds that the essential nature of God is incognizable.[332] +No positive predication can properly be applied to Him, but we know +Him by His activities in relation to man and the world, _i.e._, by His +attributes or by what Philo called His powers. Maimonides does not +preserve the absolute monarchy of the Divine government, but places +between God and man intermediate beings with subordinate creative +powers--the separate intelligences of the stars, which are identified +with the angels of the Bible.[333] But he maintains inviolate the sole +causality of God and His immanence in the human soul. Maimonides, like +Philo, gives in addition to a metaphysical theology a philosophical +exposition of the law of Moses, which has the same guiding principle +as the books on the "Specific Laws." Moses was the perfect +legislator,[334] whose ordinances are [Hebrew: tsdikim], _i.e._, perfectly +equitable, attaining "the mean"--the Aristotelian conception of +excellence--and identical with the eternal laws of nature.[335] +Numerous details of Maimonides' interpretations agree with those given +in the books on the "Specific Laws." Whether correspondence of thought +is merely an indication of the similar workings of Jewish genius in +similar conditions, or whether it is the effect of an early tradition +common to both, or whether, finally, there was connection, however +indirect, between the two minds, it is now impossible to say. But at +least the philosophy of Maimonides confirms the inner Jewishness of +the philosophy of Philo, and its essential loyalty to Jewish +tradition. + +Not less striking than his correspondence with later Jewish religious +philosophy, though not less indefinite, is the relation of Philo to +the later Jewish mystical and theosophical literature, purporting also +to be a development of hoary tradition, and indeed calling itself +simply the tradition, [Hebrew: kbla]. Between Philo and the Cabbalah it is +as difficult to establish any direct connection as between Philo and +rabbinic Midrash, but the likeness in spirit and the signs of a common +source are equally remarkable. To trace God in all things through +various attributes and emanations, to bring God and man into direct +union, to prove that there is an immanent God within the soul of the +individual, and to show how this may be inspired with the +transcendental Deity--this is common to both. In the earliest times +the mystic doctrine appears to have been a form of Jewish Gnosticism, +speculation about the nature of God and His connection with the world. +It probably embraced the [Hebrew: m'sha br'shit] and the [Hebrew: m'sha +mrkba], though we know not what these exactly contained.[336] But it was +not till the Middle Ages that Jewish mysticism received definite and +separate literary expression, and by that time it was mixed up with a +number of neo-Platonic and magical fancies and foreign theosophies. The +later compilations of this character form what is more regularly known +as the Cabbalah; but, apart from the professions of the later writers, +a continuous train of tradition affirms the existence of secret +teachings in Judaism from the time of the Babylonian captivity. Jewish +mysticism is as much a continuous expression of the spirit of the race +as the Jewish law. We may then without rashness conclude that the +later Cabbalah is a coarser development, for a less enlightened and +less philosophical age, of the Gnostic material which Philo +refashioned in the light of Platonism for the Hellenized community at +Alexandria. Modern scholars have favored the idea that the Essenes +were the first systematizers of and the first practitioners in the +Cabbalah, and have interpreted their name[337] to mean those engaged +in secret things, but the mystic tradition itself is earlier than the +foundation of a special mystic sect. It is part of the heritage from +the Jewish prophets and psalmists and the Babylonian interaction with +Hebraism. + +Philo had large sympathies with the Essenic development of Judaism, and +he speaks at times as though he had joined one of their communities, and +therein had been initiated into the great mysteries and secret +philosophies of the sages. We have noted that he offers his most +precious wisdom to the worthy few alone, "who in all humility practice +genuine piety, free from all false pretence." They, in turn, are to +discourse on these doctrines only to other members of the brotherhood. +"I bid ye, initiated brethren, who listen with chastened ears, receive +these truly sacred mysteries in your inmost souls, and reveal them not +to one of the uninitiated, but laying them up in your hearts, guard them +as a most excellent treasure in which the noblest of possessions is +stored, the knowledge, namely, of the First Cause and of virtue, and +moreover of what they generate."[338] These mysteries, it is not +unlikely, represent according to some scholars the [Hebrew: sod] of the +Talmudical rabbis, which was elaborately developed in the Zohar and +kindred writings. Be this as it may, Philo's religious intensity +expresses the spirit of the Cabbalists, his mystic soaring is the +prototype of their theosophical ecstasies; his persistent declaration +that God encloses the universe, but is Himself not enclosed by anything, +contains the root of their conception of the En Sof ([Hebrew: 'yn +sof]),[339] his Logos-idealism, with its Divine effluences, which are +the true causes of all changes, physical and mental, is companion to +their system of [Hebrew: 'olmim] and [Hebrew: sfirot], emanations and +spheres. His fancies about sex and the struggle between a male and +female principle in all things[340] are a constant theme of their +teachers, and form a special section of their wisdom, [Hebrew: sof +htsrog], the mystery of generation. His conception of the Logos as the +heavenly archetype of the human race, the "Man-himself," is the Platonic +counterpart of their [Hebrew: adm kdmon], or "primal man," who is known +in the ancient allegorizing of the Song of Songs. His number-mysticism +and his speech-idealism reappear more crudely, but not obscurely, in +their ideas of creative letters, of which the cosmogony by the +twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet in the Sefer Yezirah is +typical. Finally, his teachings of ecstasy and Divine possession are +repeated in divers ways in their descriptions of the pious life +([Hebrew: hnanot]). + +Philo, indeed, viewed from the Jewish standpoint, is the Hellenizer +not only of the law but also of the Cabbalah, the philosophical +adapter of the secret traditional wisdom of his ancestors. He brings +it into close relation with Platonism and purifies it; he clears away +its anthropomorphisms and superstitious fantasies, or rather he raises +them into idealistic conceptions and sublime exaltations of the soul. +By his deep knowledge of the intellectual ideas of Greece he refined +the strange compound of lofty imagination and popular fancy, and +raised it to a higher value. Plato and the Cabbalah represent the same +mystic spirit in different degrees of intellectual sublimity and +religious aspiration; Philo endeavored to unite the two +manifestations. He lived in a markedly non-rational age given over to +mystical speculation; and Alexandria especially, by her cosmopolitan +character, "furnished the soil and seed which formed the mystic +philosophy that knew how to blend the wisdom and folly of the +ages."[341] Through the mass of apocalyptic literature that was poured +forth in the first centuries of the common era, through the later +books of the Apocrypha, through the Sefer Yezirah of the ninth and the +Zohar of the thirteenth century, and through the vast literature +inspired by these books, run the ideas that composed Philo's mystic +theology. Philo himself was unknown, but his religious interpretation +of Platonism had entered into the world's thought, and inspired the +mystics of his own race as well as of the Christian world. + +After a thousand years of Latin domination the Renaissance revived the +study of Greek in Western Europe, and to the most cultured of his race +Philo was no longer a sealed book. The first Jewish writer to show an +intimate acquaintance with him and a clear idea of his relation to +Jewish tradition was Azariah dei Rossi, who lived in the sixteenth +century. His "Meor Einayim" dealt largely with the Hellenistic epoch +of Judaism, and its attitude towards it is summed up in the remark +that "all that is good in Philo agrees with our law."[342] He pointed +out many instances of agreement, and some of disagreement, but he +objected in general to the allegorizing of the historical parts of the +Torah and to the absence of the traditional interpretations in Philo's +commentaries. He shared largely the rabbinical attitude and could not +give an independent historical appreciation of Philo's work. That was +not to come for two hundred years more. To Dei Rossi we owe the Jewish +translation of Philo's name, [Hebrew: ydydim 'lksndri].[343] To the outer +world Philo was "the Jew"; to his own people, "the Alexandrian." + +As soon as Greek was reintroduced into the scholarly world, Philo +began to reassert an important influence on theology. One remarkable +school of English mystics and religious philosophers, the Cambridge +Platonists, who wrote during the seventeenth century, founded upon him +their method and also their general attitude to philosophy.[344] They +were Christian neo-Platonists, who looked for spiritual allegories in +the Old and New Testaments, and combined the teachings of Jesus with +the emotional idealism of the Alexandrian interpreters of Plato. They +affirmed enthusiastically God's revelation to the universe and to +individual man through the Logos. Their imitation of Philo's +allegorism serves to mark the important place that he occupied in the +learned world during the seventeenth century; and supports, however +slightly, the suggestion that he influenced, directly or indirectly, +the supreme Jewish philosopher of the age, Baruch de Spinoza. That he +was well known in Holland at the time is shown in divers ways. He is +quoted by the famous jurist Grotius in his book which founded the +science of international law; he is quoted and criticised, as we have +seen, by Scaliger; and curiously enough, his name, "Philo-Judaeus," is +applied by Rembrandt to the portrait of his own father, now in the +Ferdinandeum at Innsbruck. It is tempting to conjecture that there was +a direct connection between the Jewish philosophers of the ancient and +the modern world. Whether it existed or not, there is certainly +kinship in their ideas. Spinoza does actually refer in one place, in +his "Theologico-Political Tractate" (ch. x), to the opinion of +Philo-Judaeus upon the date of Psalm lxxxviii, and there are other +places in the same book, where he almost echoes the words of the +Jewish Platonist; as where he speaks of God's eternal Word being +divinely inscribed in the human mind: "And this is the true original +of God's covenant, stamped with His own seal, namely, the idea of +Himself, as it were, with the image of His Godhead" (iv); or, again, +"The supreme reward for keeping God's Word is that Word itself." +Spinoza knew no Greek, but, master as he was of Christian theology, he +may have studied Philo in a Latin translation, and caught some of his +phrases. With or without influence, he developed, as Philo had done, a +system of philosophy, starting from the Hebrew conception of God and +blending Jewish tradition with scientific metaphysics. The Unity of +God and His sole reality were the fundamental principles of his +thought, as they had been of Philo's. He rejected, indeed, with scorn +the notion that all philosophy must be deduced from the Bible, which +was to him a book of moral and religious worth, but free from all +philosophical doctrine. Theology, the subject of the Bible, according +to him, demands perfect obedience, philosophy perfect knowledge.[345] +Both alike are saving, but the spheres of the two are distinct: and +Moses and the prophets excel in law and imagination, not in reason and +reflection. Hence Spinoza approached the Bible from the critical +standpoint; and, on the other hand, he approached philosophy with a +free mind searching for truth, independent of religious dogmatism, and +he was, therefore, the founder of modern philosophy. None the less his +view of the universe is an intellectual expression of the Hebraic +monotheism, which unites a religious with a scientific monism. He +regards God as the only reality, sees and knows all things in Him, and +deduces all things from His attributes, which are the incomplete +representations that man makes of His true nature; he explains all +thought, all movement, and all that seems material as the working of +His modes; and, finally, he places as the end of man's intellectual +progress and the culmination of his moral life the love of God. In +truth, Jewish philosophy has its unity and its special stamp, no less +than Jewish religion and tradition, from which it receives its +nurture. Thrice it has towered up in a great system: through Philo in +the classical, through Maimonides in the mediaeval, through Spinoza in +the modern world. In the Renaissance of Jewish learning during the +nineteenth century, Philo was at last studied and interpreted by scholars +of his own people. The first modern writer to reveal the philosophy of +Jewish history was Nachman Krochmal (1785-1840), and his posthumous Hebrew +book, "The Guide of the Perplexed of the Time," edited by Zunz, +contained the first critical appreciation of the Hellenistic Jewish +culture by a rabbinic scholar. He knew no Greek, but he studied the +works of German writers, and in his account of Philo gives a summary +of the remarks of the theologian Neander, himself a baptized Jew. In +his own criticism he discerns the weakness and strength of Philo from +the Jewish aspect. "There are," he says, "many strange things in +Philo's exegesis, not only because he draws far-fetched allegories +from the text, but also because he interprets single words without a +sure foundation in Hebrew philology. He uses Scripture as a sort of +clay which he moulds to convey his philosophical ideas. Yet we must be +grateful to him because many of his interpretations are beautiful +ornaments to the text; and we may apply to them what Ibn Ezra said of +the teachings of the Haggadah, 'Some of them are fine silks, others as +heavy as sack-cloth.'" + +Krochmal translated into Hebrew examples of Philo's allegories and +gave parallels and contrasts from the Talmud. The relation between the +Palestinian and the Alexandrian exegesis was more elaborately +considered by a greater master of Hellenistic literature, Zacharias +Frankel (1801-1875), who has been followed by a band of Jewish scholars. +Yearly our understanding of the Alexandrian culture becomes fuller. +Philo, too, has in part been translated into Hebrew. Indirect in the +past, his influence on Jewish thought in the future bids fair to be +direct and increasing. + + * * * * * + + + + +VIII + +THE INFLUENCE OF PHILO + + +The hope which Philo had cherished and worked for was the spreading of +the knowledge of God and the diffusion of the true religion over the +whole world.[346] The end of Jewish national life was approaching, but +rabbis in Palestine and philosophers at Alexandria, unconscious of the +imminent doom, thought that the promise of the prophet was soon to be +fulfilled, and all peoples would go up to worship the one God at the +temple upon Mount Zion, which should be the religious centre of the +world. In Philo's day a universal Judaism seemed possible, a Judaism +true to the Torah as well as to the Unity of God,[347] spread over the +Megalopolis of all peoples; and in the light of this hope Philo +welcomed proselytism. The Jews had a clear mission; they were to be +the light of the world, because they alone of all peoples had +perceived God. Israel ([Hebrew: 'shr'l]), to repeat Philo's etymology, is +the man who beholds God, and through him the other nations were to be +led to the light. The mission of Israel was not a passive service, but +an active preaching of God's word, and an active propagation of God's +law to the Gentile. He must welcome the stranger that came within the +gates.[348] Philo struggled against the separative and exclusive +tendency which characterized a section of his race. He laid stress +upon the valuelessness of birth, and the saving power of God's grace +to the pagan who has come to recognize Him, in language which +Christian commentators call incredible in a Jew, but which was in fact +typical of the common feeling at Alexandria. Appealing to the +Gentiles, Philo declared that "God has special regard for the +proselyte, who is in the class of the weak and humble together with +the widow and orphan[349]; for he may be alienated from his kindred +when he is converted to the honor of the one true God, and abandons +idolatrous, polytheistic worship, but God is all the more his advocate +and helper." And speaking to the Jews he says:[350] "Kinship is not +measured by blood alone when truth is the judge, but by likeness of +conduct and by the pursuit of the same objects." Similarly, in the +Midrash, it is said that proselytes are as dear to God as those who +were born Jews;[351] and, again, that the Torah was given to Israel +for the benefit of all peoples;[352] or[353] that the purpose of +Israel's dispersion was that they might make proselytes. Philo's short +treatise on "Nobility" is an eloquent plea for the equal treatment of +the stranger who joins the true faith; and the author finds in the +Bible narratives support for his thesis, that not good birth but the +virtue of the individual is the true test of merit. Of the +valuelessness of the one, Cain, Ham, and Esau are types; of the +supreme worth of the other, Abraham, who is set up as the model of the +excellent man brought up among idolaters, but led by the Divine +oracle, revealed to his mind, to embrace the true idea of God. If the +founder of the Hebrew nation was himself a convert, then surely there +was a place within the religion for other converts. Remarkable is the +closing note of the book: + + "We should, therefore, blame those who spuriously + appropriate as their own merit what they derive from others, + good birth; and they should justly be regarded as enemies + not only of the Jewish race, but of all mankind; of the + Jewish race, because they engender indifference in their + brethren, so that they despise the righteous life in their + reliance upon their ancestors' virtue; and of the Gentiles, + because they would not allow them their meed of reward even + though they attain to the highest excellence of conduct, + simply because they have not commendable ancestors. I know + not if there could be a more pernicious doctrine than this: + that there is no punishment for the wicked offspring of good + parents, and no reward for the good offspring of evil + parents. The law judges each man upon his own merit, and + does not assign praise or blame according to the virtues of + the forefathers." + +And, again, he writes: "God judges by the fruit of the tree, not by +the root; and in the Divine judgment the proselyte will be raised on +high, and he will have a double distinction, because on earth he +'deserted' to God, and later he receives as his reward a place in +Heaven."[354] + +Unfortunately, the development of missionizing activity, which +followed Philo's epoch, threatening, as it did, the fundamental +principles of Judaism, necessitated the reassertion of its national +character and antagonism to an attitude which sought expansion by +compromise. It is the tragedy of Philo's work that his mission to the +nations was of necessity distrusted by his own race, and that his +appeal for tolerance within the community was turned to a mockery by +the hostility which the converts of the next century showed to the +national ideas. Christian apologists early learned to imitate Philo's +allegorical method, and appropriated it to explain away the laws of +Moses. Within a hundred years of Philo's death, his ideal, at least in +the form in which he had conceived it, had been shattered for ages. +While he was preaching a philosophical Judaism for the world at +Alexandria, Peter and Paul were preaching through the Diaspora an +heretical Judaism for the half-converted Gentiles. The disciples of +Jesus spread his teaching far and wide; but they continually widened +the breach which their Master had himself initiated, and so their work +became, not so much a development of Judaism, as an attack upon it. In +some of its principles, indeed, the message of Jesus was the message +of Philo, emphasizing, as it did, the broad principles of morality and +the need of an inner godliness. But it was fundamentally +differentiated by a doctrine of God and the Messiah which was neither +Jewish nor philosophical, and by the breaking away from the law of +Moses, which cut at the roots of national life. Whatever the moral +worth of the preaching of Jesus, it involved and involves the +overthrow of the Jewish attitude to life and religion, which may be +expressed as the sanctification of ordinary conduct, and as morality +under the national law. To this ideal Philo throughout was true, and +the Christian teachers were essentially opposed, and however much they +approximated to his method and utilized his thought, they were always +strangers to his spirit. Philo's philosophy was in great part a +philosophy of the law; the Patristic school borrowed his allegorizing +method and produced a philosophy of religious dogma! Those who spread +the Christian doctrine among the Hellenized peoples and the +sophisticated communities that dwelt round the Mediterranean found it +necessary to explain and justify it by the metaphysical and ethical +catchwords of the day, and in so doing they took Philo as their model. +They followed both in general and in detail his allegorical +interpretations in their recommendation of the Old Testament to the +more cultured pagans, as the apology of Justin, the commentaries of +Origen, and the philosophical miscellany ([Greek: Stromateis]) of +Clement abundantly show. + +Certain parts of the New Testament itself exhibit the combination of +Hebraism and Hellenism which characterizes the work of Philo. In the +sayings of Jesus we have the Hebraic strain, but in Luke and John and +the Epistles the mingling of cultures. Thus the Apostles seem to some +the successors of Philo, and the Epistles the lineal descendants of +the "Allegories of the Laws." In the Fourth Gospel and the Epistle to +the Hebrews especially the correspondence is striking. But there is, +in fact, despite much that is common, a great gulf between them. The +later missionaries oppose the national religion and the Torah: Philo +was pre-eminently their champion. + +The most commanding of the Apostles, Paul of Tarsus, when he took the +new statement of Judaism out of the region of spirit and tried to +shape it into a definite religion for the world, "forgot the rock from +which he was hewn." As a modern Jewish theologian says,[355] "His +break with the past is violent; Jesus seemed to expand and +spiritualize Judaism; Paul in some senses turns it upside down." His +work may have been necessary to bring home the Word to the heathen, +but it utterly breaks the continuity of development. Paul himself was +little of a philosopher, and those to whom he preached were not +usually philosophical communities such as Philo addressed at +Alexandria, but congregations of half converted, superstitious pagans. +The philosophical exposition of the law was too difficult for them, +while the observance of the law in its strictness demanded too great a +sacrifice. The spiritual teaching of Jesus was dissociated by his +Apostle from its source, and the break with Judaism was deliberate and +complete. The fanatical zest of the missionary dominated him, and he +proclaimed distinctly where the new Hebraism which was offered to the +Gentile should depart from the historic religion of the Jews: "For Christ +is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth,"[356] +he says to the Romans; and to the Galatians: "As many as are of the works +of the law are under the curse."[357] "Christ hath redeemed us from the +curse of the law.... But before faith came, we were kept under the law, +shut up with the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore +the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ that we might be +justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer +under a schoolmaster." Paul's position then--and he is the forerunner +of dogmatic Christianity--involved a rejection of the Torah; and it is +this which above all else constituted his cleavage from both Judaism +and the Philonic presentation of it. + +Philo is commonly regarded as the forerunner of Christian teaching, +and it is doubtless true that he suggested to the Church Fathers parts +of their theology, and represented also the missionary spirit which +inspired the teaching of some Apostles. But it must be clearly +understood that he shared still more the spirit of Hillel, whose maxim +was "to love thy fellow-creatures and draw them near to the Torah," +and that he would have been fundamentally opposed to the new +missionary attitude of Paul. The doctrines of the Epistle to the +Romans, or the Epistle to the Ephesians, are absolutely antipathetic +to the ideal of the "Allegories of the Laws." Paul is allied in +spirit--though his expression is that of the fanatic rather than of +the philosopher--to the extreme allegorist section of philosophical +Jews at Alexandria, attacked by Philo for their shallowness in the +famous passage, quoted from _De Migratione Abrahami_ (ch. 16[358]), +who, because they recognized the spiritual meaning of the law, +rejected its literal commands; because they saw that circumcision +symbolized the abandonment of the sensual life, no longer observed the +ceremony. The same antinomian spirit is shown in the Epistle to the +Galatians by the allegory of the children whom Abraham had by Hagar +the bondwoman and Sarah the free wife: "For there are the two +covenants, the one from the mount of Sinai which gendereth to bondage, +which is Hagar.... But we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of +promise." To Philo the law and the observance of the letter were the +high-road to freedom and the Divine spirit, and, remaining loyal to +the Jewish conception of religion, for all his philosophical outlook, +he said: "The rejection of the [Greek: Nomos] will produce chaos in +our lives." To Paul the law was an obstacle to the spread of religious +truth and a fetter to the spiritual life of the individual. + +It is possible that an extremist section of the Jews pressed the +letter of the law to excess, so as to lose its spirit, but the +opposite excess, into which Paul plunged the new faith, was as narrow. +It involved a glorification of belief, which did not imply any +relation to conduct. Philo had pleaded no less earnestly than the +Apostle for the reliance upon grace and the saving virtue of faith, +but he did not therefore absolve men from the law which made for +righteousness.[359] And lest it be thought that the stress laid upon +faith was peculiar to Hellenizing Judaism, we have only to note such +passages as Dr. Schechter has adduced from the early Midrash on the +rabbinic conception.[360] "Great was the merit of faith which Israel +put in God; for it was by the merit of this faith that the Holy Spirit +came over them, and they said the [Hebrew: shira], (_i.e._, the Song of +Moses) to God, as it is said, 'And they believed in the Lord and His +servant Moses. Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song +unto the Lord.'" Or again[361]--and the passage reminds us still more +strongly of both Philo and Christian Gospel--"Our Father Abraham came +into the possession of this world and the world hereafter only by the +merit of his faith." + +What is new in the Christian position is not the magnifying of faith; +it is the severance of faith from the law and the particular faith +which is magnified. Philo, and the rabbis, too, believed that faith +was the goal of virtue, and the culmination of the moral life; but +faith to them implied the sanctification of the whole of life, the +love of God "shown in obedience to a law of conduct." Paul, however, +hating the law, set up a new faith in the saving power of Jesus and in +certain beliefs about him, which afterwards were crystallized, or +petrified, into merciless dogmas, contrary alike to the Jewish ideas +of God and of life. The new religion, when it was denationalized, +inevitably became ecclesiastical: for as the national regulation of +life was rejected, in order to ensure some kind of uniformity, it had +to bind its members together by definite articles of belief imposed by +a central authority. The true alternative was not between a legal and +a spiritual religion--for every religion must have some external +rule--but between a law of conduct and a law of belief. Philo and the +rabbis chose the former way; Paul and the Church, the latter. +Christian theology, no less than the Christian conception of religion, +exhibits also a complete breach with the Jewish spirit of Philo. In +the Epistles there are, indeed, in many places doctrines of the Logos +in the same images and the same Hebraic metaphors as Philo had worked +into his system; but their purport is entirely changed by association +with new un-Jewish dogmas. Philo, allegorizing,[362] had seen the holy +Word typified in the high priest, and in Melchizedek, the priest of +the Most High; he had called it the son of God and His first-born. +Paul, dogmatizing, exalts Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word, above +Melchizedek and the high priest, and calls on the Hebrews to gain +salvation by faith in the son of God, who died on behalf of the sinful +human race. Philo, in his poetic fancy, speaks of God associating with +the virgin soul and generating therein the Divine offspring of holy +wisdom;[363] the Christian creed-makers enunciated the irrational +dogma of the immaculate conception of Jesus. So, too, the earliest +philosophical exponents of Christianity, Clement of Alexandria, and +Origen, may have derived many of their detailed ideas from Philo, but +they converted--one might rather say perverted--his monotheistic +theology into a dogmatic trinitarianism. They exalted the Logos, to +Philo the "God of the imperfect," and a second-best Deity, to an equal +place with the perfect God. For man, indeed, he was nearer and the +true object of human adoration. And this not only meant a departure +from Judaism; it meant a departure from philosophy. The supreme unity +of the pure reason was sacrificed no less than the unity of the +soaring religious imagination. The one transcendental God became +again, as He had been to the Greek theologians, an inscrutable +impersonal power, who was unknown to man and ruled over the universe +by His begotten son, the Logos. The sublimity of the Hebrew +conception, which combines personality with unity, was lost, and the +harmony of the intellectual and emotional aspirations achieved by +Philo was broken straightway by those who professed to follow him. The +skeleton of his thought was clothed with a body wherein his spirit +could never have dwelt. It was the penalty which Philo paid for +vagueness of expression and luxuriance of words that his works became +the support of doctrines which he had combated, the guide of those who +were opposed to his life's ideal. + +The experience of the Church showed how right was Philo's judgment +when he declared that the rejection of the Torah would produce chaos. +The fourth and fifth centuries exhibit an era of unparalleled disorder +and confusion in the religious world,[364] sect struggling with sect, +creed with creed, churches rising and falling, dogmas set up by +councils and forced upon men's souls at the point of the Roman sword! +And out of this struggling mass of beliefs and fancies, theologies and +superstitions, sects and political forces, there arose a tyrannical, +dogmatic Church which laid far heavier burthens on men's minds than +ever the most ruthless Pharisee of the theologian's imagination had +laid upon their body and spirit. The yoke of the law of Moses, +sanctifying the life, had been broken; the fiat of popes and the +decrees of synods were the saving beliefs which ensured the Kingdom of +Heaven! Was it to this that the allegorizing of the law, the search +for the spirit beneath the letter, the reinterpretation of the holy +law of Moses in the light of philosophical reason, had brought +Judaism? And was the association of Jewish religion with Greek +philosophy one long error? That would be a hard conclusion, if we had +to admit that Judaism cannot stand the test of contact with foreign +culture. But in truth the Hellenistic interpretation of the Bible, so +long as it was genuinely philosophical, remained loyal to Judaism. +Only when it became hardened into dogma, fixed not only as good +doctrine, but as the only saving doctrine, as the tree of life opposed +to the Torah, the tree of death--only then did it become anti-Jewish, +and appear as a bastard offspring of the Hebraic God-idea and Greek +culture. Nor should it be forgotten that the Christian theology and +the Christian conception of religion are a falling away also from the +highest Hellenic ideas; for to Plato as well God was a purely +spiritual unity, and religion "a system of morality based upon a law +of conduct and touched with emotion." In Philo, as we have seen, the +Hebraic and Hellenic conceptions of God touch at their summits in +their noblest expressions; the conceptions of Plato are interfused +with the imagination of the prophets. The Christian theology was a +descent to a commoner Hellenism--or one should rather call it a +commoner syncretism--as well as to an easier, impurer Hebraism. + +It must not be put down to the fault of the Septuagint or the +allegorists or Philo that the Alexandrian development of Judaism led +on to Roman Christianity. It is to be ascribed rather to the infirmity +of human nature, which requires the ideas of its inspired teachers and +peoples to be brought down to the common understanding, and causes the +progress towards universal religion to be a slow growth. The masses of +the Alexandrian Jews in his own day cannot have grasped his teaching; +for Philo, to some degree, lived in a narrow world of philosophical +idealism, and he did not calculate the forces which opposed and made +impossible the spread of his faith in its integrity. He was aiming at +what was and must for long remain unattainable--the establishment +among the peoples of philosophical monotheism. + +No man is a prophet in his own land--or in his own time--and because +Philo has in him much of the prophet, he seems to have failed. But it +is the burden of our mission to sow in tears that we may reap in joy. +And the work of the Alexandrian-Jewish school may be sad from one +aspect of Jewish history, but it is nevertheless one of the dominating +incidents of our religious annals. It did not succeed in bringing over +the world to the pure idea of God, but it did help in undermining +cruder paganism. It brought the nations nearer to God, and it +introduced Hebraism into the thought of the Western peoples. It +marked, therefore, a great step in the religious work of Israel; yet +by the schools of rabbis who felt the hard hand of its offspring upon +their people it was regarded as a long misfortune, to be blotted from +memory. What seemed so ominous to them was that the annihilation of +the nation came at the same time as the cleavage in the religion. +Judaism seemed attacked no less by internal foes than by external +calamity; and was likely to perish altogether or to drift into a lower +conception of God, unless it could find some stalwart defence. Hence +they insisted on the extension of the fence of the law, and abandoned +for centuries the mission of the Jews to the outer world. This was the +true Galut, or exile; not so much the political exclusion from the +land of their fathers, but the enforced exclusion from the mission of +the prophets. Philo is one of the brightest figures of a golden age of +Jewish expansion, which passed away of a sudden, and has never since +returned. In the silver and bronze ages which followed, his place in +Judaism was obscured. But this age of ours, which boasts of its +historical sense, looking back over the centuries and freed from the +bitter dismay of the rabbis, can appraise his true worth and see in +him one who realized for himself all that Judaism and Jewish culture +could and still can be. + +Some Jewish teachers have thought that Philo's work was a failure, +others that it provides a warning rather than an example for later +generations of Jews, proving the mischief of expanding Judaism for the +world. As well one might say that Isaiah's prophecy was a calamity, +because the Christian synoptics used his words as evidences of +Christianity. What is universal in Jewish literature is in the fullest +sense Jewish, and we should beware of renouncing our inheritance because +others have abused and perverted it. Other critics, again, say that +Philo is wearisome and prolix, artificial and sophisticated. There is +certainly some truth in this judgment; but Philo has many beautiful +passages which compensate. Part of his message was for his own +generation and the Alexandrian community, and with the passing away of +the Hellenistic culture, it has lost its attraction. But part of it is +of universal import, and is very pertinent and significant for every +generation of Jews which, enjoying social and intellectual emancipation, +lives amid a foreign culture. Doubtless the position of Philo and the +Alexandrian community was to some extent different from that of the Jews +at any time since the greater Diaspora that followed the destruction of +the temple. They had behind them a national culture and a centre of +Jewish life, religious and social, which was a powerful influence in +civilization and united the Jews in every land. And this gave a +catholicity to their development and a standard for their teaching which +the scattered communities of Jews to-day do not possess. None the less +Philo's ideal of Judaism as religion and life is an ideal for our time +and for all time. Its keynote is that Israel is a holy people, a kingdom +of priests, which has a special function for humanity. And the +performance of this function demands the religious-philosophical +ordering of life. From the negative side Philo stands for the struggle +against Epicureanism, which in other words is the devotion to material +pleasures and sensual enjoyments. In adversity, as he notes, the race is +truest to its ideals, but as soon as the breeze of prosperity has caught +its sails, then it throws overboard all that ennobles life. The hedonist +whom he attacks, like the Epicuros ([Hebrew: 'fikuros]) of the rabbis, +is not the banal thinker of one particular age, but a permanent type in +the history of our people. We seem to spend nearly all our moral +strength in the resistance of persecution, and with tranquillity from +without comes degradation within. Emancipation, which should be but a +means to the realization of the higher life, is taken as an end, and +becomes the grave of idealism. With a reiteration that becomes almost +wearisome, but which is the measure of the need for the warning, Philo +protests against this desecration of life, of liberty, and of Judaism. +His position is, that a free and cultured Jewry must pursue the mission +of Israel alike by the example of the righteous life devoted to the +service of God, and by the preaching of God's revealed word. This is his +"burden of the word of the Lord" to the worldly-wise and the +materialists of civilized Alexandria--and to Jews of other lands. + +From the positive side Philo stands for the spiritual significance of +the religion. Judaism, which lays stress upon the law, the ceremonial, +and the customs of our forefathers, is threatened at times with the +neglect of the inward religion and the hardness of legalism. Not that +the law, when it is understood, kills the spirit or fetters the +feelings, but a formal observance and an unenlightened insistence upon +the letter may crush the soul which good habits should nurture. +Religion at its highest must be the expression of the individual soul +within, not the acceptance of a law from without. Although Philo's +estimate of the Torah is from the historical and philological +standpoint uncritical, in the religious sense it is finely critical +inasmuch as it searches out true values. Philo looks in every +ordinance of the Bible for the spiritual light and conceives the law +as an inspiration of spiritual truth and the guide to God, or, as he +puts it sometimes, "the mystagogue to divine ecstasy." For the crown +of life to him is the saint's union with God. In mysticism religion +and philosophy blend, for mysticism is the philosophical form of +faith. Just as the Torah to Philo has an outward and an inward +meaning, so, too, has the religion of the Torah; and the outward +Judaism is the symbol, the necessary bodily expression of the inward, +even as the words of Moses are the symbol, the suggestive expression +of the deeper truth behind them. Yet mystic and spiritual as he is, +Philo never allows religion to sink into mere spirituality, because he +has a true appreciation and a real love for the law. The Torah is the +foundation of Judaism, and one of the three pillars of the universe, +as the rabbis said; and neither the philosopher nor the mystic in +Philo ever causes him to forget that Judaism is a religion of conduct +as well as of belief, and that the law of righteousness is a law which +must be practiced and show itself in active life. He holds fast, +moreover, to the catholicity of Judaism, which restrains the +individual from abrogating observance till the united conscience of +the race calls for it; unless progress comes in this ordered way, the +reformer will produce chaos. + +Philo is conservative then in practice, but he is pre-eminently +liberal in thought. The perfect example himself of the assimilation of +outside culture, he demands that Judaism shall always seek out the +fullest knowledge, and in the light of the broadest culture of the age +constantly reinterpret its religious ideas and its holy books. Above +all it must be philosophical, for philosophy is "the breath and finer +spirit of all knowledge," and it vivifies the knowledge of God as well +as the knowledge of human things. Without it religion becomes bigoted, +faith obscurantist, and ceremony superstitious. But the Jew does not +merely borrow ideas or accept his philosophy ready-made from his +environment; he interprets it afresh according to his peculiar +God-idea and his conception of God's relation to man, and thereby +makes it a genuine Jewish philosophy, forming in each age a special +Jewish culture. And as religion without philosophy is narrow, so, to +Philo, philosophy without religion is barren; remote from the true +life, and failing in the true purpose of the search for wisdom, which +is to raise man to his highest function. Philosophy, then, is not the +enemy of the Torah: it is its true complement, endowing it with a +deeper meaning and a profounder influence. Thus the saying runs in the +"Ethics of the Fathers," + +[Hebrew: 'm 'yn tora 'yn hkma; 'm 'yn hkma 'yn tora] + +"If there is no Torah, there is no wisdom; if there is no wisdom, +there is no Torah." The thought that study of the law is essential to +Judaism Philo shares with the rabbis, and the Torah is in his eyes +Israel's great heritage, not only her literature but her life. As +Saadia said later,[365] "This nation is only a nation by reason of its +Torah." It is because Philo starts from this conviction that his +mission is so striking, and its results so tragical. The Judaism which +he preached to the pagan world was no food for the soul with the +strength taken out to render it more easily assimilated. He emphasizes +its spiritual import, he shows its harmony, as the age demanded, with +the philosophical and ethical conceptions of the time, but he +steadfastly holds aloft, as the standard of humanity, the law of +Moses. The reign of "one God and one law" seemed to him not a far-off +Divine event, but something near, which every good Jew could bring +nearer. He was oppressed by no craven fear of Jewish distinctiveness; +and the Biblical saying that Israel was a chosen people was real to +him and moved him to action. It meant that Israel was essentially a +religious nation, nearer God, and possessed of the Divine law of life, +and that it had received the Divine bidding to spread the truth about +God to all the world. It was a creed, and more, it was an inspiration +which constantly impelled to effort. It would be difficult to sum up +Philo's message to his people better than by the verses in Deuteronomy +which he, the interpreter of God's Word and the successor of Moses, as +he loved to consider himself, proclaims afresh to his own age, and +beyond it to the congregation of Jacob in all ages, "Keep therefore my +commandments and do them; for this is your wisdom and your +understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these +statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and +understanding people. + +"For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as +the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon Him for? + +"And what nation is there so great that hath statutes and judgments so +righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?" (Deut. +iv. 5-7). + + * * * * * + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + + + The following are the chief works which have been + consulted and are recommended to the student of Philo: + + The standard edition of Philo is still that of Thomas + Mangey, _Philonis Judaei opera quae reperiri potuerunt + omnia._ 1742. Londini. + + A far more accurate and critical edition, which is + provided with introductory essays and notes upon the + sources of Philo, is in course of publication for the + Berlin Academy, by Dr. Leopold Cohn and Dr. Paul Wendland. + The first five volumes have already appeared, and + the remainder may be expected before long. The only + complete edition which contains the Latin text of the + _Quaestiones_ as well as the Greek works is that published + by Tauchnitz in eight volumes; but the text is not reliable. + + There is an English translation of Philo's works in + the Bohn Library (G. Bell & Sons) by C.D. Yonge (4 vols.), + but it is neither accurate nor neat. The same may + he said of the German translation of Jost, but an + admirable German version edited by Dr. L. Cohn is now + appearing, which contains notes of the parallel passages + in rabbinic and patristic literature. + + Works bearing on Philo and his period generally: + + Schuerer, "History of the Jewish People at the Time + of Jesus Christ" (English translation). + + Siegfried, _Philo von Alexandrien als Ausleger der + heiligen Schrift_. + + Zeller, _Geschiehte der Philosophie der Griechen_, + vol. III, sec. 2. + + Drummond, "Philo-Judaeus and the Jewish Alexandrian + School." 2 vols. (London.) + + Herriot, _Philon le Juif_. + + Vacherot, _Ecole d'Alexandrie_, vol. I. + + Eusebius, _Praeparatio Evangelica_, ed. Gifford. + + Freudenthal, J., _Hellenistische Studien_. + + Harnack, "History of Dogma," vol. I. + + Josephus, "Wars of the Jews"; "Antiquities of the Jews." + + Mommsen, Th., "The Roman Provinces." + + Works bearing on the special subjects of the different + chapters: + + I. THE JEWISH COMMUNITY AT ALEXANDRIA + Graetz, "History of the Jews" (Eng. trans.), vol. II. + Swete, "introduction to the Septuagint." + Hirsch, S.A., "The Temple of Onias," in the + Jews' College Jubilee Volume. + Friedlaender, M. (Vienna), _Geschichte der juedischen + Apologetitc_ and _Religioese Bewegungen + der Juden irn Zeitalter von Jesus._ + + II. THE LIFE AND TIMES OF PHILO + Conybeare, edition of _De Vita Contemplativa_. (Oxford.) + Hils, _Les juifs en Rome. Revue des Etudes + Juives_, vols. 8 and 11. + Reinach, Theodor, _Textes d'auteurs grecs et romains + relatifs au Judaisme_. + Brehier et Massebieau, _Essai sur la chronologie + de Philon. Revue de l'Histoire des Religions,_ 1906. + + III. PHILO'S WORKS AND METHOD + Hart, J.H.A., "Philo of Alexandria," Jewish + Quarterly Review, vols. XVII and XVIII. + Massebieau, _Du classement des oeuvres de Philon_. + Cohn, Leopold, _Einteilung und Chronologie der + Schriften Philon_. + + IV. PHILO AND THE TORAH + Treitel, L., _Der Nomos in Philon. Monatsschrift + fuer Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums_, 1905. + + V. PHILO'S THEOLOGY + Montefiore, C., _Florilegium Philonis_, Jewish + Quarterly Review, vol. VIII. + Caird, Ed., "Evolution of Theology in the + Greek Philosophers." + Heinze, _Die Lefire vom Logos_, + Bucher, _Philonische Studien_. + Von Arnim, _Philonische Studien._ + + VI. PHILO AS A PHILOSOPHER + Freudenthal, Max, _Die Erkenntnisstheorie von Philo._ + Bigg, "The Christian neo-Platonists of Alexandria." + Bussell, "The School of Plato." + Stewart, J.A., "The Myths of Plato." + Cuyot, H., _Les reminiscences de Philon chez Plotin_. 1906. + Neumark, _Geschichte der jildischen Philosophie + des Mittelalters_. + + VII. PHILO AND JEWISH TRADITION + Schechter, "Aspects of Rabbinic Theology." + Taylor, "Ethics of the Fathers." + Ritter, Bernhard, _Philo und die Halacha_. Breslau, 1879. + Dei Rossi, "Meor Einayim," ed. Cassel. + Krochmal, "Moreh Nebuchei Hazeman," ed. Zunz. + Frankel, Z., _Ueber den Einfluss der palaestinensischen + Exegese auf die alexandrinische Hermeneutik_. + Epstein, _Le livre des Jubilis, Philon et le Midrasch + Tadsche_, Revue des Etudes Juives, XXI. + Ginzberg, L., "Allegorical Interpretation," in + Jewish Encyclopedia. + Joel, M., _Blicke in die Religionsgeschichte_. + Treitel, L., _Agadah bei Philo. Monatsschrift + fuer Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums_, 1909. + + + + +ABBREVIATIONS USED FOR THE REFERENCES + + +The references to Philo's works are made according to the chapters in +Conn and Wendland's edition, so far as it has appeared. In referring +to the works which they have not edited, I have used the pages of +Mangey'a edition; but I have frequently mentioned the name of the +treatise in which the passage occurs, as well as the page-number. + +I have employed the following abbreviations in the references: + + L.A. I-III Legum Allegoriae. + De Mundi Op. De Mundi Opificio. + De Sacrif. De Sacrifices Abelis. + Quod Det. Quod Deterius Potiori Insidiatur. + De Post. C. De Posteritate Caini. + De Gigant. De Gigantibus. + Quod Deus. Quod Deus Sit Immutabilis. + De Agric. De Agricultura. + De Plant. De Plantatione. + De Ebr. De Ebrietate. + De Confus. De Confusione Linguarum. + De Migr. De Migratione Abrahami. + Quis Rer. Div. Quis Rerum Divinarum Heres. + De Cong. De Congressu Eruditorum Causa. + De Fuga. De Fuga et Inventione. + De Mut. Nom. De Mutatione Nominum. + De Somn. De Somniis. + De Abr. De Vita Abrahami. + De Jos. De Vita Josephi. + De V. Mos. De Vita Mosis. + De Mon. De Monarchia. + De Spec. Leg. De Specialibus Legibus. + De Sac. De Sacerdotum Honoribus et de Victimis. + De Leg. De Legatione ad Gaium. + In Flacc. In Flaccum. + De Decal. De Decalogo. + De Septen. De Septenario. + De Concupisc. De Concupiscentia. + De Just. De Justitia. + De Exsecr. De Exsecrationibus. + Ant. Josephus: Antiquities of the Jews, + tr. by Whiston. + Bell. Jud. Wars of the Jews. + C. Apion. Contra Apionem. + Hist. Ecclesiast. Eusebius: Historia Ecclesiastica. + Praep. Evang. Eusebius: Praeparatio Evangelica. + Photius, Cod. Photius: Codex. + + + + +INDEX + + + Abraham (_see_ Lives of Abraham and Joseph), 83; + model of the excellent man, 244. + + Agrippa (King), Philo's life covers reign of, 45; + Philo in Jerusalem during reign of, 50; + arrives at Alexandria, 65; + advanced to Kingdom of Judea, 69; + intercedes at Rome for his people, 69; + death of, 70. + + Alexander (the Great), a notable figure in Talmud, 13; + settles Jews in Greek colonies, 14; + result of his work, 23. + + Alexander Lysimachus, Alabarch of Delta region, 46; + guardian of Antony's daughter, 46; + restored to honor after imprisonment, 70. + + Alexandria, Jewish community at (_see_ Jewish), 13 ff., 41, 42 f.; + Jewish population of, under Ptolemy I, 15; + meeting-place of civilizations, 14, 48, 95; + centre of Jewish life, 15, 129; + two sections occupied by Jews, 16; + prosperity of Jews in, 21, 22, 32; + anti-Semitic literature and influences in, 22, 62, 67, 74; + Jewish tradition at, 27; + synagogues at, 37; + deputation to Jerusalem from, 41; + rabbis flee to, 42; + Agrippa finds a refuge at, 51, 65; + mystical and ascetic ideas of people at, 55, 59; + philosophical schools at, 63, 90, 92, 94, 140; + development of Judaism in, 77, 255; + Egyptian caste-system adopted at, 16; + Jews of, popularize teachings of Bible, 34; + Jews of, referred to, in Talmud, 42; + Philo forced into Sanhedrin of, 61, 202, 203 f.; + Philo member of, 61; + disintegration of community at, 71; + Zealots flee to, on fall of Jerusalem, 71; + replaced by Babylon as centre of Jewish intellect, 73; + Samaritans in, 106; + antinomian movement in, 130; + prototypes of Christian belief at, 155; + Pythagorean influence at, 188; + national life and culture undermined at (_see_ National), 218. + + Alexandrian, exegesis, characteristic of, 36; + church, departs from Jewish standpoint, 72; + Platonists, connection between Philo and later school of, 192; + schools, relation of, to Palestinian, 199 f., 213; + literature in the Dark and Middle Ages, 225 f. + + _Allegories of the Laws_, an allegorical commentary, 74, 87 f.; + attacks Stoic doctrines, 94; + the _Epistles_, lineal descendants of, 247. + + Angels, doctrine of, in Palestine, 140; + Philo's treatment of, 150-1. + + Antiochus Epiphanes, Palestine passes to, 17. + + Anti-Semitic, party, Flaccus won over by, 65; + literature and influences in Alexandria, 22, 62, 67, 74; + party, punishment of, at Rome, 70. + + Apion, a Stoic leader, 63; + accuses Jews, 63, 67; + Philo's references to, 63, 101; + Josephus' reply to, 65. + + Aquila, new Greek version of Old Testament made by, 224; + rabbis' views of, 224. + + Aristeas, spirit of, glorified in Philo, 77. + + Aristobulus, first allegorist of Alexandria, 38; + his spirit inherited by Philo, 77; + on wisdom, 143; + on the Word of God, 146; + difference between Philo and, 168. + + Artapanus, Jewish apologist, 77. + + Assouan, Aramaic papyri at, 15. + + + Babylon, replaces Alexandria as centre of Jewish intellect, 73; + Greek culture forgotten in, 224. + + Bible, the, Philo's interpretation + and views on, 49, 102, 108 ff.; + Philo reveals spiritual message of, 83; + authority of, challenged at Alexandria, 92; + wisdom personified in, 141, 142. + + + Cabbalah, the, Essenes practitioners in, 233; + Philo as the Hellenizer of, 235. + + Caligula. _See_ Gaius. + + Chaldean, thought, Philo's acquaintance with, 48. + + Christian, monastic communities, 73; + heresy, a severance from main community, 72; + theologians, fail to realize spirit of Philo, 124; + reformers, and the yoke of the law, 130; + teachers preserve Philo's works, 156, 248; + writers quote Philo, 223; + apologists imitate allegorical method, 245. + + Christianity, the movement towards, 28; + rise of, 42; + conflict with Judaism at Alexandria, 72; + Philo's writings regarded as testimony to, 156; + Philo's influence over religious philosophy of, 195. + + Conversion to Judaism, in Egypt and Rome, 32. + + _Courage_, tractate appended to _Life of Moses_, 75. + + _Creation of the World_, description of, 83. + + Croiset, criticism of Philo by, 90. + + + _Decalogue, The_, contents of, 83. + + Derash, Philo a master of, 103. + + _Dreams of the Bible_, classed with Allegories of the Laws, 74. + + Dubnow, on Alexandrian Judaism, 129. + + + Egypt, Alexander's march to, 14; + settlement of Jews in, 14; + connection between Israel and, 14; + visited by Plato, 15, 172; + Diaspora in, after Jeremiah, 15; + a favored home of the Jews, 21; + conversion widespread in (_see_ Rome), 32; + Flaccus, governor of, 65; + Jews of, under same rule as Palestine Jews, 15. + + Egyptian, populace, Philo on, 62; + thought, Philo's acquaintance with, 48. + + _Epistles_, the Pauline, lineal descendants of Allegories of the + Laws, 247; + doctrines of the Logos in, 250. + + Essenes, rise of, 34, 54; + account of, in Philo's works, 78; + type of the philosophical life, 79; + practitioners in the Cabbalah, 233. + + + Flaccus, won over by Anti-Semites, 65; + indifference of, to attacks of Jews, 66; + recall of, 66; + Philo on the persecutions of, 78. + + Frankel Z., writes on Alexandrian-Jewish culture, 241. + + + Gaius (Roman Emperor), comes to the imperial chair, 65; + Jews appeal directly to, 66; + receives Jewish deputation, 67; + death of, 69. + + Greek philosophers, Philo's relation to, 48, 52; + philosophy, Philo's influence on, 49, 191 f.; + colonies, Alexander settles Jews in, 14. + + Greek culture, various branches of, 47; + the chief schools of, 48, 54; + fertilizing influence of ideas of, 58; + and Jewish Scripture, 76; + neglected in Babylon, 224. + + + Haggadah, the, in Philo's works, 202, 207 f.; + antiquity of, 209 f.; + allegorical speculation in, 212. + + Halakah, outcome of devotion to Torah, 99; + Palestinian Jews determine, 105; + observance of oral law standardized in, 126; + relation of Philo to, 202 f.; + differences between Alexandrian Sanhedrin and Palestinian, 203 f.; + codification of, 207. + + Hebrew, language, evidence of Philo's knowledge of, 49; + included in barbarian languages, 97; + Philo's derivations from, 50, 101; + race, the three founders of, 110 f.; + tradition, Philo follows, 159; + mind, Professor Caird on, 167. + + Hellenism, of Palestine, 24, 25; + of Alexandria (_see_ Greek culture), 25; + influence of, in Palestine, 51; + and the interpretation of the Bible, 254; + New Testament, a combination of Hebraism and, 247; + Christian theology a descent to a commoner, 254. + + Hillel, Philo contemporary with, 45; + shows expansion of Hebrew mind, 45; + on chief lesson of Torah, 117, 118; + spirit of, shared by Philo, 249. + + _Humanity_, tractate appended to a _Life of Moses_, 75. + + + Incarnation, notion of, not Jewish, 166. + + Indian, thought, Philo's acquaintance with, 48. + + Isaac, _See Lives of Isaac and Jacob_, 83. + + Israel, Philo's derivation of the name, 50, 138; + God's special providence for, 77; + the mission of, 206, 242. + + Italy, Philo visits, 66. + + + Jacob, _See Lives of Isaac and Jacob_, 83. + + Jeremiah, prophesies in Egypt, 14; + heard by Plato, 15. + + Jerusalem, Alexander's visit to, 14; + Philo, on national centre at, 20, 41, 86; + spiritual headship of, 41; + special synagogues for Alexandrians in, 41; + derivation of name of, 50; + Philo's sojourn at, 50; + downfall of, 71; + Judaism at, 129. + + Jesus, spread of his teaching, 245; + his message compared with that of Philo, 245; + preaching of, effect on Jewish attitude to life, 246; + Paul sets up a new faith in, 251. + + Jewish, community at Alexandria (_see_ Alexandria), 13 ff., 72; + temple at Elephantine, 15; + kingdom reaches its height, 45; + mind, religous conception of, 49, 137, 166; + law and ceremony, elucidation of, 49; + race, symbol of the unity of, 51; + aspiration toward "freedom under the law," 124; + influences, dominant in Philo, 133, 189; + philosophy, eclectic, 168; + philosophy, new school of in Middle Ages, 225 f. + + Joseph (_see Lives of Abraham and Joseph_), 83; + as Egyptian statesman, 23. + + Josephus, on Onias and Dositheus, 18; + inconsistent accounts of Onias temple, 19; + on Egyptian Jews, 20; + account of Herod's temple by, 41; + writes a reply to Apion, 65; + description of Gaius' conduct to Jewish deputation, 68; + on the spreading of Judaism, 115; + indicates communication between schools of Alexandria and Palestine, + 220; + relation to Philo and his works, 222. + + Jowett, on sermons, 90. + + Judaism, genius of, 46, 196; + Philo's exposition of, 52, 74, 78, 81, 84, 105; + Philo protests against desecration of, 258; + mysticism in, 58; + philosophical, 72, 230; + Alexandrian development of, 77, 92; + moral teachings of, 85; + religion of the law, 106, 116, 260; + Josephus on the spreading of, 115; + a religion of universal validity, 121, 169; + at Jerusalem and Alexandria, 129; + catholic conscience of, 130, 131; + Darmesteter on, 132; + Logos doctrine and, 165; + danger of union with Gentiles to, 206; + a national culture, 219; + influences of Jesus and Paul on, 247; + Hellenistic interpretation of the Bible and, 254. + + Judas Maccabaeus, struggles against Hellenizing party, 18. + + Krochmal, Nachman, criticism of Philo, 240. + + + _Life of Moses_, contents of, 75, 79 f.; + an attempt to set monotheism before the world, 80; + tractates appended to, 75. + + _Lives of Abraham and Joseph_, description of, 83. + + _Lives of Isaac and Jacob_, contents of, 83. + + Logos, 143 ff.; + its relation to God's Providence, 143; + meaning of, 144-164, 148; + Aristobulus on, 146; + regarded as the effluence of God, 149; + spoken of as a person, 156; + the soul, an image of, 178; + development of Philo's doctrine of, 192. + + + Maimonides, object of his Moreh, 91; + principles of, 99, 229; + comparison of Philo with, 229 f. + + Mark Antony, Alexander Lysimachus in the confidence of, 46. + + Monastic communities, supposed record of Christian, in Philo, 73. + + Moses, Philo a follower of, 60, 113 f.; + Philo's ideal type, 79 f.; + Philo, as interpreter of his revelation, 104, 106 f. + _See Life of Moses_. + + + National, centre at Jerusalem, Philo on, 20, 41, 86; + life undermined at Rome and Alexandria, 218. + + + Old Testament, Septuagint translation of, 25-30; + Aquila's new Greek version of, 224. + + Onias, leader of army of Egyptian monarch, 18; + successor to high priesthood, 18; + builds temple, 18, 19 f.; + temple of, dismantled, 71; + Jewish writers silent about work of, 19. + + Oral law, observance of, standardized in the Halakah, 126. + + Origen, distinguishes three methods of interpretation, 76; + teacher of Patristic school, 195; imitates Philo, 186. + + + Palestine, struggle for, between Ptolemies and Seleucids, 17; + Hellenism of, compared with that of Athens, 24, 25; + rabbis of, 28; + Philo visits, 50; + effect of Hellenic influence in, 54; + New Moon a solemn day in, 121; + aims of Jewish thought in, 140; + doctrine of angels in, 140. + + Palestinian Jews, under same rule as Egyptian Jews, 15; + rabbis, oral tradition, 34; + development of Jewish culture, 42 f., 200; + Midrash, Philo's acquaintance with, 52; + schools, relation existing between Alexandrian and, 199 f., 203 f., + 213. + + Paul, the most commanding of the apostles, 247; + influence of, compared with that of Jesus, 247; + rejection of the Torah by, 248; + sets up a new faith in Jesus, 251. + + Pentateuch, Samaritan doctrines with reference to, 106. + + Peshat, as a form of interpretation, 103. + + Philo, contemporary with Herod, 45, 50; + family of, 46; + works of 74 ff.; + philosophical training of, 49; + flees from Alexandria, 60; + meeting of Peter and Mark with, 73; + forced into Sanhedrin of Alexandria, 61; + writings of, regarded as testimony to Christianity, 73, 156; + influence of, over Christian religious philosophy, 195, 242 ff.; + relation of, to Greek philosophers, 48, 52; + acquaintance of, with Chaldean and Indian thought, 48; + his interpretation and views of the Bible, 49, 102, 108 ff.; + evidence of his knowledge of Hebrew language, 49; + follows Hebrew tradition, 159, 199 ff.; + compared with Spinoza, 73, 134, 163; + on persecutions of Sejanus and Flaccus, 62, 78; + replies to attacks of stoics, 64, 95; + stoics' view of God compared with that of, 185; + goes to Italy, 66; + refers to Apion, 63, 101; + Josephus' knowledge of the works of, 222; + Christian teachers preserve works of, 156, 247; + relation of, to the Halakah, 202 f.; + comparison of Maimonides with, 229 f.; + doctrine of the Logos (_see_ Logos), 144 ff.; + connection between Saadia and, 226 f.; + the Hellenizer of the Cabbalah, 235; + opposed to missionary attitude of Paul, 249. + + Plato, hears Jeremiah, 15; + Philo's style reminiscent of, 48; + conception of the Law in, 131; + Philo's philosophy compared with that of, 170 ff.; + dominant philosophical principle of, 174; + a mystic, 230; + conception of God in, 254. + + Ptolemies, the: Ptolemy I, increases number of Jewish inhabitants in + Alexandria, 15; + IV, gives Heliopolis to Onias, 16; + admirers of Scriptures, 23. + + + _Questions and Answers to Genesis and Exodus_, now incomplete, 75, 81 f.; + a preliminary study to more elaborate works, 81; + Hebraic in form, 82. + + + _Repentance_, tractate appended to _Life of Moses_, 75. + + Rome, Alexandria second to, 14; + conversion widespread in (_see_ Egypt), 32; + Agrippa an exile from, 51; + power of Jews at, 62; + Jewish struggle with, 220; + Philo's apocryphal meeting with Peter at, 73; + national life and culture undermined at (_see_ National), 218. + + + Saadia, founds new school of Jewish philosophy, 225 f.; + connection between Philo and, 226 f. + + Samaritan, doctrines with reference to Pentateuch, 106; + Jew, story of, 98. + + Sanhedrin, Hillel, president of, 45; + Philo forced into Alexandrian, 61; + duties of members of, 61; + of Alexandrian community, 202; + of Jerusalem and capital punishment, 203; + differences between Palestinian Halakah and Alexandrian, 203 f. + + Sejanus, Tiberius falls under influence of, 62; + Antonia opponent of, 62; + Philo's book on persecution of, 62, 78; + disgrace and death of, 65. + + Septuagint, Hellenistic development marked by, 25; + Philo's version of origin of, 26; + celebrations in honor of, 27; + infusion of Greek philosophic ideas into, 28; + Christianizing influence of, 29; + value of, to the cultured Gentile, 33; + replaced by new Greek version of Old Testament, 224. + + Solomon, Wisdom of, written at Alexandria, 31. + + _Specific Laws, The_, description of, 83; + socialism of Bible emphasized in, 86. + + Spinoza, his ideal of life, 53; + compared with Philo's, 73, 134, 163, 239; + on Jewish thought, 137; + influenced by Philo, 237 ff.; + approaches Bible from critical standpoint, 239. + + Stoics, the chief Anti-Semites, 63; + Philo replies to attacks of, 64, 95; + in conflict with Jews at Alexandria, 94; + beliefs of, 64, 94, 116, 176; + view of God compared with that of Philo, 185. + + Synagogues, + at Alexandria, 16, 37. + + + Tiberius Alexander, + nephew of Philo, 71. + + Tradition, Jewish, + at Alexandria, 27; + Philo and Jewish, 199 ff. + + + Zealots, flight of, + to Alexandria, 71. + + + + * * * * * + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: Comp. Leviticus Rabba 13.] + +[Footnote 2: Comp. Josephus, Ant. IX. 1.] + +[Footnote 3: Sukkah 51^{b}.] + +[Footnote 4: Quoted by Josephus, Ant. XIV. 7.] + +[Footnote 5: Ant. XII. 5, 9, XX. 10.] + +[Footnote 6: Josephus, _Bell. Jud._ VII. 10.] + +[Footnote 7: Comp. the passages in the "Antiquities" above and the +_Bell. Jud._ V. 5.] + +[Footnote 8: Menahot 109, Abodah Zarah 52^{b}.] + +[Footnote 9: _De Leg._ II. 578.] + +[Footnote 10: Comp. _De Mon._ I. 5.] + +[Footnote 11: Dr. Hirseh, in The Jews' College Jubilee Volume, p.39.] + +[Footnote 12: Menahot 119.] + +[Footnote 13: Comp. Ant. XIV. 14-16.] + +[Footnote 14: Ant. XVI. 7.] + +[Footnote 15: Philo, _In Flacc._ 6.] + +[Footnote 16: _C. Apion._ II. 5.] + +[Footnote 17: I have used the word anti-Semite because, though the +hatred at Alexandria was not racial, but national, it has now become +synonymous with Jew-hater generally.] + +[Footnote 18: Quoted in _C. Apion_. I. 22.] + +[Footnote 19: _De V. Mos_. II. 6, 7.] + +[Footnote 20: See p. 22, above.] + +[Footnote 21: Preface to Ecclesiasticus.] + +[Footnote 22: Tract. Soferim I. 7.] + +[Footnote 23: Tanhuma [Hebrew: ki tsha]] + +[Footnote 24: See p. 23, above.] + +[Footnote 25: _Orac. Sib_., ed. Alexandre, III. 8.] + +[Footnote 26: _Ibid._, III. 195.] + +[Footnote 27: Comp. Strabo, Frag. 6, Didot.] + +[Footnote 28: _De Post.C._ 24.] + +[Footnote 29: _De V. Mos_. II. 28.] + +[Footnote 30: Comp. _De Decal_. 20.] + +[Footnote 31: Comp. Yer. Berakot 24c.] + +[Footnote 32: _Praep. Evang_. VIII. 10, XIII. 12.] + +[Footnote 33: Comp. _De Abr_. 15 and 37, _De Jos_. II. 63, _De Spec. +Leg._ III. 32, _De Migr_. 89.] + +[Footnote 34: _Quod Deus_ 11, _De Abr._ 36.] + +[Footnote 35: Comp. Acts of the Apostles VI. 9, and Tosef. Meg. III. +6.] + +[Footnote 36: Yoma 83^{a}.] + +[Footnote 37: _Bell. Jud._ V. 5.] + +[Footnote 38: Comp. Niddah 69^{b}, Sotah 47^{a}.] + +[Footnote 39: "Heroes and Hero-Worship," ch. 3.] + +[Footnote 40: Ant. XIX. 5.] + +[Footnote 41: Photius, _Cod._ 108.] + +[Footnote 42: Comp. _De Confus._ 15.] + +[Footnote 43: Comp. _De Mon._ I. 6.] + +[Footnote 44: Comp. Maimonides, Moreh II, ch. 36.] + +[Footnote 45: _L.A._ I. 135.] + +[Footnote 46: Comp. _De Cong._ 6 ff.] + +[Footnote 47: Comp. Croiset, _Histoire de la litterature grecque_, V, +pp. 425 ff.] + +[Footnote 48: Comp. Mills, "Zoroaster, Philo, and Israel."] + +[Footnote 49: Comp. _Quis Rer. Div._ 43, _De Judice_ II, _De V. Mos._ +II. 4.] + +[Footnote 50: Ritter, _Philon und die Halacha_.] + +[Footnote 51: Comp. _De V. Mos._ I. 1, _In Flacc._ 23 and 33, _De Mut. +Nom._ 39.] + +[Footnote 52: _Praep. Evang._ VIII. v.] + +[Footnote 53: _De Mon._ II. 1-3.] + +[Footnote 54: Comp. _Bell. Jud._ VI. 9. 3.] + +[Footnote 55: Comp. _De V. Mos._ II. 4.] + +[Footnote 56: _De Spec. Leg._ III. 1.] + +[Footnote 57: Comp. _De Migr._ 4, _L.A._ III. 45.] + +[Footnote 58: Comp. Graetz, "History of the Jews" III. 91 ff.] + +[Footnote 59: Comp. _Quod Omnis Probus Liber_ 11 ff.] + +[Footnote 60: The authenticity of this book is elaborately discussed +by Conybeare in his edition of it.] + +[Footnote 61: "Ethics of the Fathers" VI. 4.] + +[Footnote 62: _De Mundi Op._ I. 42.] + +[Footnote 63: Comp. _De Migr._ 6 ff.] + +[Footnote 64: _L.A._ II. 21.] + +[Footnote 65: _De Fuga_ 7 ff.] + +[Footnote 66: Comp. _De Spec. Leg._ II. 260.] + +[Footnote 67: Comp. _De Cherubim_ 9.] + +[Footnote 68: _De Migr._ 7-9.] + +[Footnote 69: II, ch. 36 ff.] + +[Footnote 70: Comp. _De Spec. Leg._ III. 1.] + +[Footnote 71: Massebieau, _Du classement des oeuvres de Philon_.] + +[Footnote 72: _In Flacc._ 5.] + +[Footnote 73: Comp. Th. Reinach, _Textes d'auteurs romains et grecs +relatifs au Judaisme_, pp. 120 ff.] + +[Footnote 74: Comp. _De Confus._, _passim_.] + +[Footnote 75: Josephus, _C. Apion._, Introduction.] + +[Footnote 76: _In Flacc._ 10.] + +[Footnote 77: _De Leg_. 27 and 28.] + +[Footnote 78: Ant. XVIII. 8. 1.] + +[Footnote 79: _De Leg., ad fin_.] + +[Footnote 80: Ant. XIX. 5.] + +[Footnote 81: Frag, preserved by John of Damascus, p. 404.] + +[Footnote 82: Comp. Ant. XX. 5.] + +[Footnote 83: Comp. Massebieau, _op. cit._] + +[Footnote 84: Comp. Bernays, _Ueber die unter Philos Werken stehenden +Schriften [Greek: peri tes aphtharsias Kosmou]_, and Siegfried, art. +"Philo" in the Jewish Encyclopedia.] + +[Footnote 85: _Quod Deus_ 86.] + +[Footnote 86: _Quod Omnis Probus Liber_ 12 ff.] + +[Footnote 87: _De V. Mos._ I. 1.] + +[Footnote 88: _De V. Mos_. II. 5.] + +[Footnote 89: "On Repentance," II.] + +[Footnote 90: Comp. Treitel, _Agadah bei Philo. Monatsschrift_, 1909.] + +[Footnote 91: _De Abr._ 12.] + +[Footnote 92: Comp. Bereshit Rabba 47.] + +[Footnote 93: _De Sac. et Victimis_ 5 and 6.] + +[Footnote 94: _De Mon._ II. 3 ff.] + +[Footnote 95: Comp. Plato, _Rep_. V, _ad fin_.] + +[Footnote 96: _De Exsecr_. II. 587.] + +[Footnote 97: _De Abr._ 3.] + +[Footnote 98: Comp. _L.A._ II. 4.] + +[Footnote 99: _L.A._ I. 1.] + +[Footnote 100: Comp. Freudenthal, _Hellenistische Studien_.] + +[Footnote 101: Croiset, _op. cit._ V, p. 427.] + +[Footnote 102: Comp. _De Cherubim_, _passim_.] + +[Footnote 103: Comp. Zohar III.] + +[Footnote 104: _De Cherubim_, 9 and 14, _De Somn._ 8.] + +[Footnote 105: _De Migr._ 12.] + +[Footnote 106: _De Post. C._ 22.] + +[Footnote 107: Midrash Esther I.] + +[Footnote 108: Comp. _De Sac._ II. 245.] + +[Footnote 109: Comp. _De Migr._ 32.] + +[Footnote 110: Comp. _De Post C_, 11.] + +[Footnote 111: _Quaestiones in Gen._ III. 33.] + +[Footnote 112: _De Cong._ 10.] + +[Footnote 113: Comp. Berakot 51^{b}, _De Agric._ 12, _De Somn._ II. 25.] + +[Footnote 114: _De Confus._ 38.] + +[Footnote 115: _De Mut. Nom._ 8.] + +[Footnote 116: Comp. Bereshit Rabba 64.] + +[Footnote 117: _De Somn._ I. 16 and 17.] + +[Footnote 118: Comp. "Ethics of the Fathers" V. 25.] + +[Footnote 119: Comp. _De Somn._ I. 13.] + +[Footnote 120: _De Mut. Nom._ 9.] + +[Footnote 121: _De Somn._ I. 5.] + +[Footnote 122: Berakot 10^{a}.] + +[Footnote 123: _De Cong._ 12.] + +[Footnote 124: _De Cong._ 14.] + +[Footnote 125: "Theologico-Political Tractate" VII.] + +[Footnote 126: _De Abr._ 19.] + +[Footnote 127: _De Mon._ II. 6.] + +[Footnote 128: Harvard Studies, "Hellenism and Hebraism."] + +[Footnote 129: Comp. Schechter, "Aspects of Rabbinic Theology," p. +119.] + +[Footnote 130: Comp. _De V. Mos._ II. 9 and 10, III. 1.] + +[Footnote 131: _L.A._ I. 2.] + +[Footnote 132: Comp. _De Mundi Op._ 2.] + +[Footnote 133: Comp. p. 85, above.] + +[Footnote 134: Comp. _L.A._ I, _passim_.] + +[Footnote 135: _L.A._ III. 12.] + +[Footnote 136: _De Post. C._ 11.] + +[Footnote 137: _De Abr._ 3 ff.] + +[Footnote 138: _Ibid._ 6-10.] + +[Footnote 139: The LXX renders the verse Gen. iv. 26, which is +translated in the Authorized Version: "Then began men to call upon the +name of the Lord," [Greek: outos elpisen epi ton ton olon patera] +_i.e._, "He hoped in the Father of all."] + +[Footnote 140: _Quod Det._ 38.] + +[Footnote 141: _De Jos._ 21.] + +[Footnote 142: _De Jos._ 22.] + +[Footnote 143: _De Jos._ 42.] + +[Footnote 144: _Hist. Ecclesiast._ II. 18, 1.] + +[Footnote 145: _De V. Mos._ III. 4 ff.] + +[Footnote 146: _De V. Mos._ II. 3.] + +[Footnote 147: _De V. Mos._ II. 5, Josephus, _C. Apion._ II. 37.] + +[Footnote 148: Comp. Horace, Satires I. 4, 138; I. 9, 60.] + +[Footnote 149: Frag. preserved in Josephus, Ant. XIV. 7.] + +[Footnote 150: Comp. Reinach, _op. cit._, p. 262.] + +[Footnote 151: _De V. Mos._ II. 3.] + +[Footnote 152: "Ethics of the Fathers" I. 17.] + +[Footnote 153: _De Fuga_ 6.] + +[Footnote 154: _De Decal._ 12.] + +[Footnote 155: _De Decal._ 23.] + +[Footnote 156: _De Septen._ 9.] + +[Footnote 157: Kiddushin 20^{a}.] + +[Footnote 158: _De Decal._ 20.] + +[Footnote 159: _De Septen._ 7.] + +[Footnote 160: _De Septen._ 6.] + +[Footnote 161: Ch. 2. 31.] + +[Footnote 162: Comp. _De Migr._ 23.] + +[Footnote 163: _De Septen._ 1. 2.] + +[Footnote 164: _De Septen._ 18 ff.] + +[Footnote 165: _De Concupisc._ 1-3.] + +[Footnote 166: Comp. _De Just._ II. 360.] + +[Footnote 167: Ch. 16.] + +[Footnote 168: I have taken this translation and that on the next page +from Mr. Claude Montefiore's _Florilegium Philonis_. Jewish Quarterly +Review, vol. VII.] + +[Footnote 169: Comp. _De Ebr._ 40, and _De Spec. Leg._ II. 414.] + +[Footnote 170: _De Leg._ II. 574.] + +[Footnote 171: _Essais, Les Prophetes d'Israel_.] + +[Footnote 172: Frag. cited by Porphyry, _De Abstinentia_ II. 25.] + +[Footnote 173: _De Cong._ 10.] + +[Footnote 174: Comp. Schechter, "Aspects of Rabbinic Theology," pp. 21 +ff.] + +[Footnote 175: _L.A._ I. 7.] + +[Footnote 176: _L.A._ I. 14.] + +[Footnote 177: _De Confus._ 2, _De Post. C._ 5.] + +[Footnote 178: Comp. _De Somn._ I. 11, _De Mut. Nom._ 4.] + +[Footnote 179: Caird, "Life of Spinoza" II.] + +[Footnote 180: _De Mon._ I. 5.] + +[Footnote 181: Comp. "The Authorised Prayer Book." p. 78.] + +[Footnote 182: _Quod Deus_ 23.] + +[Footnote 183: _De Mundi Op._ 5.] + +[Footnote 184: _L.A._ III. 24.] + +[Footnote 185: _De Somn._ II. 38.] + +[Footnote 186: _L.A._ III. 24.] + +[Footnote 187: See p. 77, above.] + +[Footnote 188: _L.A._ I. 3.] + +[Footnote 189: _De Plant._ 7, _Quod Det._ 31.] + +[Footnote 190: _De Cherubim_ 35.] + +[Footnote 191: _L.A._ II. 70.] + +[Footnote 192: _De Cherubim_ 32, _De Somn._ II, 56.] + +[Footnote 193: _De Post. C._ 11.] + +[Footnote 194: Essay on the Talmud.] + +[Footnote 195: Bereshit Rabba 21, and Yalkut 26.] + +[Footnote 196: Comp. _De Plant._ 30.] + +[Footnote 197: Comp. [H.]agigah 14.] + +[Footnote 198: Quoted by Euseb., _op. cit._ XIII. 8.] + +[Footnote 199: _De Decal._ 11.] + +[Footnote 200: _De Mundi Op._ 24.] + +[Footnote 201: _Ibid._ 20.] + +[Footnote 202: _De Migr._ 9.] + +[Footnote 203: _De Decal._ 11.] + +[Footnote 204: _De Somn._ II. 37.] + +[Footnote 205: _De Somn._ I. 23.] + +[Footnote 206: Comp. _De Somn._ II. 11.] + +[Footnote 207: _De Somn._ I. 22.] + +[Footnote 208: Comp. [H.]agigah 14^{a}.] + +[Footnote 209: _Quod Deus_ 26 and 32.] + +[Footnote 210: _De Confus._ 14.] + +[Footnote 211: _De Gigant._ 2.] + +[Footnote 212: "Ethics of the Fathers" III.] + +[Footnote 213: Comp. Schechter, _op. cit._, "The Law as Personified in +Literature."] + +[Footnote 214: Comp. _L.A._ III. 73, _De Somn._ II. 33.] + +[Footnote 215: _De Cong._ 31.] + +[Footnote 216: _De Confus._ 14, Fragments I, _L.A._ III. 23, _Quis +Rer. Div._ 42, _De Gigant._ 12.] + +[Footnote 217: Comp. Graetz, "Gnosticism and Judaism," pp. 15 ff.] + +[Footnote 218: Comp. _De Cherubim_ 14 and 17, _De Gigant._ 12.] + +[Footnote 219: Drummond, "Philo-Judaeus and the Jewish Hellenistic +School," vol. II.] + +[Footnote 220: _De Somn._ I. 32, _De Confus._ 14, _L.A._ III. 25, _De +V. Mos._ III. 14.] + +[Footnote 221: _L.A._ III. 73.] + +[Footnote 222: _De Sacrif._ 38.] + +[Footnote 223: _Quis Rer. Div._ 42.] + +[Footnote 224: _De Plant._ 21.] + +[Footnote 225: _L.A._ III.] + +[Footnote 226: _De Cherubim_ 9.] + +[Footnote 227: _De Abr._ 24 and 25.] + +[Footnote 228: _De Fuga_ 18.] + +[Footnote 229: _L.A._ II.] + +[Footnote 230: _L.A._ I. 13, II. 15, _Quis Rer. Div._ 53.] + +[Footnote 231: Comp. _De Decal._, _ad fin_.] + +[Footnote 232: _L.A._ I. 20, _De Fuga_ 12.] + +[Footnote 233: _De Mundi Op._ 54, _De Fuga_ 11.] + +[Footnote 234: "The Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers" +VIII.] + +[Footnote 235: Plato, "Laws" 718.] + +[Footnote 236: Comp. Bk. 12 of the _Praep. Evang._] + +[Footnote 237: Quoted by Suidas, _s.v._ Philo.] + +[Footnote 238: _De Mundi Op._ 43.] + +[Footnote 239: _De Victimis_ II. 260-262.] + +[Footnote 240: Comp. p. 81, above.] + +[Footnote 241: _De Sacrif._ 24, _Quod Det._ 24.] + +[Footnote 242: _De Mundi Op._ 24.] + +[Footnote 243: _De Mundi Op._ 4.] + +[Footnote 244: _De Somn._ I. 4.] + +[Footnote 245: _De Victimis_ II. 260.] + +[Footnote 246: _Quod Deus_ 6, _De Post. C._ 5.] + +[Footnote 247: _Quod Det._ 24, _De Mundi Op._ 45 and 51.] + +[Footnote 248: _L.A._ I. 32, _De Confus._ 27.] + +[Footnote 249: _De Mon_. II. 214, _De Mundi Op_. I. 16.] + +[Footnote 250: _De Mundi Op_. 22 and 48, _L.A._ I. 13 and II. 12 ff.] + +[Footnote 251: _De Sacrif._ 32.] + +[Footnote 252: _De Plant._ 9.] + +[Footnote 253: _Quaestiones in Gen._ II. 59.] + +[Footnote 254: _De Fuga_ 6.] + +[Footnote 255: _Quaestiones in Gen._ IV. 140.] + +[Footnote 256: _De Cherubim_ 32.] + +[Footnote 257: _L.A._ I. 15.] + +[Footnote 258: _L.A._ II. 25.] + +[Footnote 259: _L.A._ I. 11 ff., II. 12-14.] + +[Footnote 260: _De Cherubim_ 35.] + +[Footnote 261: _De Somn._ I. 12.] + +[Footnote 262: _De Somn._ I. 4.] + +[Footnote 263: _De Plant._ 7.] + +[Footnote 264: _Quod Det._ 31.] + +[Footnote 265: _De Migr._ 8, _De Spec. Leg._ I. 9.] + +[Footnote 266: _L.A._ I. 13.] + +[Footnote 267: _L.A._ III. 13, 14.] + +[Footnote 268: _Quis Rer. Div._ 53.] + +[Footnote 269: _De Mundi Op._ 54.] + +[Footnote 270: _De Abr._ 31.] + +[Footnote 271: _De Fuga_ 27.] + +[Footnote 272: _L.A._ I. 32, II. 25.] + +[Footnote 273: Comp. _L.A._ III. 45.] + +[Footnote 274: _Quod Det._ 7.] + +[Footnote 275: _De Fuga_ 5 ff.] + +[Footnote 276: _De Mundi Op._ 15, _L.A._ I. 46.] + +[Footnote 277: _De Decal._ 6-8.] + +[Footnote 278: Comp. Euseb., _Praep. Evang._ IX 411A.] + +[Footnote 279: _C. Celsum_ IV. 51.] + +[Footnote 280: _De Sectis Judaicis_ XVIII.] + +[Footnote 281: Comp. Freudenthal, _Hellenistische Studien_, and +Siegfried, _Philo als Ausleger der hieligen Schrift_.] + +[Footnote 282: Comp. _Quis Rer. Div._ XLIII, and Chapter II above.] + +[Footnote 283: _De Mon_. II. 212.] + +[Footnote 284: _Hist. Ecclesiast._ II. iv. 2.] + +[Footnote 285: Comp. Graetz, "History" II. xviii.] + +[Footnote 286: Comp. Chapter I, p. 17, above.] + +[Footnote 287: _De Spec. Leg_. II. 260.] + +[Footnote 288: _De Spec. Leg._ III. 17.] + +[Footnote 289: _Ibid._ II. 6.] + +[Footnote 290: _De Parentibus Colendis_ 56.] + +[Footnote 291: Comp. Sifre Debarim 237.] + +[Footnote 292: _De Spec. Leg._ IV.] + +[Footnote 293: _De Spec. Leg._ III. 36.] + +[Footnote 294: _De Spec. Leg._ III. 33 and 34.] + +[Footnote 295: Moreh Nebukim III, ch. 39.] + +[Footnote 296: _Fragmenta ex Antonio_ II. 672.] + +[Footnote 297: _De Spec. Leg._ III. 5, II. 304, 305.] + +[Footnote 298: Deut. vii. 3, and Abodah Zarah 36^{b}.] + +[Footnote 299: _De Spec. Leg._ III. 5, II. 304.] + +[Footnote 300: _De Septen._ 5 ff.] + +[Footnote 301: See Chapter IV, p. 125, above.] + +[Footnote 302: Mishnah Rosh Hashanah III. 8, and Philo, _De Somn._ II. +11.] + +[Footnote 303: Comp. _Agadah bei Philo_, by Treitel, _Monatsschrift_, +1909.] + +[Footnote 304: Comp. Bereshit Rabba 16, 4.] + +[Footnote 305: Comp. Taylor's edition.] + +[Footnote 306: _De Plant._ 30.] + +[Footnote 307: It is impossible for me to make an adequate +acknowledgment of my debt to Dr. Schechter, President of the Jewish +Theological Seminary of America. But I should say that I have borrowed +freely from his articles on rabbinic theology in the Jewish Quarterly +Review, vols. VI and VII, now included in his "Aspects of Rabbinic +Theology."] + +[Footnote 308: Mishnah Yodayim III. 5.] + +[Footnote 309: Bereshit Rabba 26. 7.] + +[Footnote 310: Comp. Schechter, _op. cit._, Introduction.] + +[Footnote 311: Berakot 24^{b}.] + +[Footnote 312: Mekilta [Hebrew: kshla] I. 1.] + +[Footnote 313: Bereshit Rabba I. 2.] + +[Footnote 314: Pirke R. Eliezer III.] + +[Footnote 315: Comp. Poems, II, p. 25.] + +[Footnote 316: Moreh II, ch. 70.] + +[Footnote 317: Eccles. III. 15.] + +[Footnote 318: [H.]agigah 14 ff., Sanhedrin 37^{a}.] + +[Footnote 319: Bereshit Rabba 4.] + +[Footnote 320: Mena[h.]ot 99.] + +[Footnote 321: Mishnah Sanhedrin II. 1.] + +[Footnote 322: [H.]agigah 15^{b}.] + +[Footnote 323: Bereshit Rabba 36. 8.] + +[Footnote 324: Ant. III. 2.] + +[Footnote 325: _De V. Mos._ II. 12.] + +[Footnote 326: Comp. Ant. XVIII. 8. 1.] + +[Footnote 327: Comp. "Ethics of the Fathers" VI. 6.] + +[Footnote 328: See Epstein, _Philon et le Midrasch Tadsche_, Revue des +Etudes Juives, XXI, p. 80.] + +[Footnote 329: Yer. Meg. I. 71^{c}.] + +[Footnote 330: Comp. an article by Dr. Poznanski in the _Revue des +Etudes Juives_, 1905, _Philo dans l'ancienne litterature judeo-arabe_, +pp. 10 ff.] + +[Footnote 331: Comp. Poznanski, _op. cit._, p. 27.] + +[Footnote 332: Moreh II. ch. 1 ff.] + +[Footnote 333: _Ibid._ 31.] + +[Footnote 334: _Ibid._ 31.] + +[Footnote 335: Moreh III. 43 ff.] + +[Footnote 336: Comp. Ginzberg, art. "Cabbalah," Jewish Encyclopedia.] + +[Footnote 337: Comp. Taylor's "Ethics of the Fathers," ch. 5, notes.] + +[Footnote 338: _De Cherubim_ 12 and 14. Comp. _De Somn._ I. 8.] + +[Footnote 339: Comp. _De Somn._ I. 12.] + +[Footnote 340: Comp. _De Fuga_ 9.] + +[Footnote 341: Comp. Hort, Introduction to Clement's [Greek: +Etromateis].] + +[Footnote 342: Ed. Cassel, pp. 4 and 15^{b}.] + +[Footnote 343: Comp. Imre Binah. Meor Einayim, ch. 30.] + +[Footnote 344: Comp. J.A. Stewart, "Myths of Plato," _ad fin._] + +[Footnote 345: Comp. "Theologico-Political Tractate" XV.] + +[Footnote 346: Comp. _De Humanitate_ II. 395.] + +[Footnote 347: _De V. Mos._ II. 1-5.] + +[Footnote 348: Comp. _De Mon._ II. 6.] + +[Footnote 349: _De Just._ 6.] + +[Footnote 350: Comp. _De Nobilitate_ 6.] + +[Footnote 351: Bamidbar Rabba 8.] + +[Footnote 352: Tan[h.]uma to Debarim.] + +[Footnote 353: Comp. Pesa[h.]im 87^{b}.] + +[Footnote 354: _De Exsecr._ 6. II. 433.] + +[Footnote 355: Comp. Montefiore, Jewish Quarterly Review, VI, p. 428.] + +[Footnote 356: Epistle to the Romans V.] + +[Footnote 357: Epistle to the Galatians III. 10.] + +[Footnote 358: Comp. Chapter IV, above, p. 126.] + +[Footnote 359: _De Abr._ 46.] + +[Footnote 360: Comp. Schechter, _op. cit._, Introduction.] + +[Footnote 361: Comp. Mekilta 33^{a}, ed. Friedmann.] + +[Footnote 362: Comp. _L.A._ III. 26, and Chapter V, above, p. 154.] + +[Footnote 363: _De Cherubim_ 12.] + +[Footnote 364: Comp. Gibbon, "Decline of the Roman Empire," ch. 15.] + +[Footnote 365: [Hebrew: 'monot vd'ot] III.] + + * * * * * + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria, by Norman Bentwich + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PHILO-JUDAEUS OF ALEXANDRIA *** + +***** This file should be named 14657.txt or 14657.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/6/5/14657/ + +Produced by Ted Garvin, jayam, David King, and the PG Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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