l stand-point
from the former of these races as to be often classed under the same
head. This is the school of Hellenizing Jews, in which there is built up
on the foundation of the traditional faith of the Hebrew race, to the
truth and authority of which they always held, a superstructure of
philosophical speculation which follows closely the models afforded them
by Greek thought. To effect a reconciliation between these two elements
it was necessary for them to resort to the allegorical interpretation of
the ancient inspired history of the race, and hence to the Oriental mind
that wished to engage in speculative thought it was naturally Platonic
and Pythagorean, rather than Aristotelian, methods that were most
attractive.

The chief and probably the earliest developed example of this
combination of Oriental and Occidental thought is found in the writings
of Philo Judaeus.[24] To him the powers of man seemed to be wholly
unreliable and delusive, and only the special grace of God enables one
to perceive any truth--"{Autos theos arche kai pege technon kai epistemon
anomologetai}." To approach God one must flee from one's self--"{ei gar
zeteis theon exelthousa apo sautes anazetei}." Neither reason nor any other
function of the soul can conduct us to God, nor can we attain to a
conception of Him as the supreme cause of all by regarding the manifold
perfections and powers of nature, for such a process can give us only
shadows. It is only by a "superior faculty" which is a grace of God that
one can attain some idea of the divine, but even by this means we arrive
at only negative knowledge--we can know only what God is not.[25] Yet in
spite of all this Philo uses quite an elaborate teleological argument
drawn from the order in the world.[26] This inconsistency, which, as
Erdmann remarks,[27] may be explained by the fact that Philo makes God
only the orderer of the world, and, furthermore, interposes an
intermediate being, the famous Philonian Logos, we have thought it worth
while to mention in this place, as it forms a connecting link between
the Greek philosophers and the Alexandrian Fathers, and foreshadows, in
some degree, the direction in which their thought was to be led.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] D. L., I, 16; II, 6.

[3] Ritter and Preller, 123. Translated by Burnet; _Early Greek
Philosophy_, p. 283, 4.

[4] _Metaphysics_, I, 4.

[5] The "one god, the greatest among gods and men" of Xenophanes has led
men to call him the