e taken
place in the year 40 C.E., we can fix the general chronology of his
life and works. He speaks of himself as an old man in relating it, so
that his birth may be safely placed at about 20 B.C.E. The first part
of his life therefore was passed during the tranquil era in which
Augustus and Tiberius were reorganizing the Roman Empire after a
half-century of war; but he was fated to see more troublesome times
for his people, when the emperor Gaius, for a miserable eight years,
harassed the world with his mad escapades. In the riots which ensued
upon the attempt to deprive the Jews of their religious freedom his
brother the alabarch was imprisoned;[40] and he himself was called
upon to champion the Alexandrian community in its hour of need.
Although the ascent of the stupid but honest Claudius dispelled
immediate danger from the Jews and brought them a temporary increase
of favor in Alexandria as well as in Palestine, Philo did not return
entirely to the contemplative life which he loved; and throughout the
latter portion of his life he was the public defender as well as the
teacher of his people. He probably died before the reign of Nero,
between 50 and 60 C.E. In Jewish history his life covered the reigns
of King Herod, his sons, and King Agrippa, when the Jewish kingdom
reached its height of outward magnificence; and it extended probably
up to the ill-omened conversion of Judaea into a Roman province under
the rule of a procurator. It is noteworthy also that Philo was partly
contemporary with Hillel, who came from Babylon to Jerusalem in 30
B.C.E., and according to the accepted tradition was president of the
Sanhedrin till his death in 10 C.E. In this epoch Judaism, by contact
with external forces, was thoroughly self-conscious, and the world was
most receptive of its teaching; hence it spread itself far and wide,
and at the same time reached its greatest spiritual intensity. Hillel
and Philo show the splendid expansion of the Hebrew mind. In the
history of most races national greatness and national genius appear
together. The two grandest expressions of Jewish genius immediately
preceded the national downfall. For the genius of Judaism is
religious, and temporal power is not one of the conditions of its
development.

Philo belonged to the most distinguished Jewish family of
Alexandria,[41] and according to Jerome and Photius, the ancient
authorities for his life, was of the priestly rank; his brother
Alexander Ly