had gotten a stream of interpretation, a gift of light, a clear survey
of things, the clearest that eye can give."[68]

In his "Guide of the Perplexed,"[69] Maimonides describes the various
degrees of the [Hebrew: rua hkdsh], or what we call religious "genius,"
with which man may be blessed. He distinguishes between the man who
possesses it only for his own exaltation, and the man who feels
himself compelled to impart it to others for their happiness. To this
higher order of genius Philo advanced in his maturity. He consciously
regarded himself as a follower of Moses, who was the perfect
interpreter of God's thought. So he, though in a lesser degree, was an
inspired interpreter, a hierophant (as he expressed it in the language
of the Greek mystics) who expounded the Divine Word to his own
generation by the gift of the Divine wisdom. When he had fled from
Alexandria, to secure virtue by contemplation, he had as his final
goal the attainment of the true knowledge of God, and as he advanced
in age, he advanced in decision and authority. He was conscious of his
philosophic grasp of the Torah, and the diffidence with which he
allegorized in his early works gave place to a serene confidence that
he had a lesson for his own and for future generations. Hoping for the
time when Judaism should be a world-religion, he spoke his message for
Jew and Gentile. We can imagine him preaching on Sabbaths to the great
congregation which filled the synagogue at Alexandria, and on other
days of the week expounding his philosophical ideas to a smaller
circle which he collected around him.

Essentially, then, he was a philosopher and a teacher, but he was
called upon to play a part in the world of action. Following the
passage already quoted, wherein Philo speaks of the blessings of the
life of contemplation that he had led in the past,[70] he goes on to
relate how that "envy, the most grievous of all evils, attacked me,
and threw me into the vast sea of public affairs, in which I am still
tossed about without being able to make my way out." A French
scholar[71] conjectures that this is only a metaphorical way of saying
that he was forced into some public office, probably, a seat in the
Alexandrian Sanhedrin; and he ascribes the language to the bitter
disappointment of one who was devoted to philosophical pursuits and
found himself diverted from them. Philo's language points rather to
duties which he was compelled to undertake less congenial