mination. 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 th