'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