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 Plat