Notwithstanding his apparent narrowness of view and rigid seripturalism, Philo was far from limiting his sympathies to the Jewish nation. The man who conformed to the Law was, he conceived, a citizen of the world. He himself attended the theatre as well as lectures on philosophy, and was a shrewd observer of the habits and emotions of men. But philosophy could not satisfy him ; for, owing to the difficulty of its problems, it was broken up into conflicting schools, and, while he found in all the great sects certain elements of Divine truth, he took the teaching of Moses with him as a clue to guide him amidst their contending thoughts. He was not, however, content with carrying the great monotheistic faith and noble moral principles of Judaism into the disputes of the lecture-room ; he believed that Moses had anti- cipated the philosophers, and that the sublimest speculations of Greece lay embedded in the Pen- tateuch. But how was it possible to find the philosophy of Plato or of the Stoics in the simple tales of Conecia? By the method of allegorical interpretation, which had already been applied by some of the philosophers, and especially by the Stoics, to the ancient mythology, and which Philo
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seriously adopted in order to rescue the wisdom of Scripture. If anything in the venerated records appeared on the surface to be childish and absurd ; if any statement was made which appeared dero- gatory to God; if there was something contra- dictory, or a representation which was contrary to known fact,—any of these cases was in itself an indication of some hidden meaning which was worthy of a Divine author; and so a method of exegesis which must seem to us false and arbitrary grew out of the exigencies of the time, and was reduced to a kind of rule among the interpreters of Scripture. The rules which are followed by Philo are carefully classified by Siegfried in the above-mentioned work (p. 168 ff.) ; and it is evident that allegorical interpretation, however absurd and fantastic it must appear to us, was not left wholly to individual caprice, but followed certain definite lines which were considered as established among the students of allegory. Several of these canons, though differently applied, are found in the Hag- gadic interpretation of Palestine; but this con- nexion may be due less to Philo’s knowledge of Rabbinical methods than to the general tendencies of thought which characterized the age. While thus holding that almost everything in the Penta- teuch was related allegorically, Philo did not reject the literal meaning of that which seemed intrin- sically credible or reasonable ; and he insists that the ceremonial laws, though possessing a spiritual significance, must be observed according to the letter. Many things, however, especially anthro- pomorphic expressions, could be understood only allegorically ; and here we may observe that no distinction is drawn between allegorical and simply figurative language. Philo’s mode of treatment, being that of a commentator rather than a thinker, leaves no room for a systematic exposition of the problems of philosophy, and his theory of the universe must be gathered and pieced together from an immense number of unconnected passages. His style, though flowing and ornate, is often tedious, and the modern reader grows weary of interpretations which destroy the living beauty of the original text, and make the patriarchs the puppets of Alexandrian speculation. Yet the patient student may find many a golden saying, and perceive that Philo’s rambling disquisitions are bound to one another by a thread of coherent thought.
From what has been already said, it is evident that for a proper understanding of Philo some knowledge of Greek philosophy, especially of the Platonic doctrine of ideas and of the’ Stoical doctrine of the Logos, must be presupposed. This the reader must necessarily seek elsewhere. The Old Testament, too, prepared the way both for the main problem of philosophy and for the special mode of solving it. The problem may be thus stated: How was the transcendent and infinite Spirit to be brought into connexion with the material universe and with the souls of men? An answer was partly suggested by the doctrine of angels, and by the poetical personification of Wisdom, while ‘the word of the Lord,’ frequently translated éyos, furnished the very expression which Heraclitus and the Stoics had selected to denote the all-pervasive reason of the cosmos, and so provided a scriptural basis for the specula- tions of the thinker.
2. The origin and nature of philosophy, — According to Philo, philosophy originated in the contemplation of the cosmos, especially of the orderly movements of the heavens; but, as this suggested problems which seemed to him insoluble, he turned to the study of human nature, which permitted a closer and more fruitful examination, Thus he was led to the universal Mind, to Him
who alone is real Being. Philosophy, accordingly, concerned itself with the whole nature of things, visible and invisible, and with the regulation of conduct, its end being wisdom, which consisted in the knowledge of Divine and human things and their causes. The incentive to it was found in the hope of blessedness (evda:uovla). Before enter- ing on so serious a pursuit, it was necessary to have a good moral and intellectual education, and to master the preparatory or ‘ encyclical* studies— grammar, geometry, and rhetoric. Philosophy itself had been divided into physics, ethics, and logic. Of these Philo assigns the lowest place to logic, and entertains a very poor opinion of physics or cosmology, as presenting nothing higher than fruitless conjecture. To ethics, which includes theology, or the knowledge of God, is assigned the highest and only worthy position.