s 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 enthusia