History of the Jews (Vol. 1-6). Graetz Heinrich
and their God shall reign forever.
"Then will the upright one stand firmly before his oppressors. They will be troubled with great fear; they will be amazed at his glorious salvation, and repenting they will say, 'This was he whom we had in derision, and of whom we made a laughing-stock. Ignorantly we accounted his life madness, and his end to be without honor. And now he is numbered among the children of God and his lot is among the saints. We strayed from the way of truth, and the light of righteousness did not shine for us.' Israel was the instrument through which God gave the world the undying light of the law. In all things did the Lord magnify His people and glorify them; He abandoned them not, but assisted them in every time and place." (Book of Wisdom.)
Like the Babylonian Isaiah, the Alexandrian-Judæan sage contemplated his ideal in Israel, of whom a noble mission was required, and who would hereafter shine in glory.
Whilst the Alexandrian Judæans were absorbed in Grecian literature and philosophy, and were using that melodious language as a weapon against paganism and the immorality it fostered, they were carried beyond the object they had in view. Their desire was to make Judaism acceptable to the cultivated Greeks, but in following out that design it was, in some degree, lost to themselves. Greek conceptions had so completely taken possession of their thoughts that at last they came to find in the teachings of Judaism the current speculations of the Greeks. The faith that they had inherited was, however, still dear to them, and they managed, through sophistical means, to deceive themselves into a belief of the genuineness of their exposition. The Holy Scripture could not, indeed, always offer apposite passages to the prevailing philosophy, but the Judæan-Alexandrian authors knew how to help themselves out of that difficulty. They followed the example of Greek writers, who found their own views of the world in the poems of Homer, or put them there, and to accomplish that feat, employed a peculiar kind of sophistical word-pictures. Thus the Judæan thinkers of that period, in their interpretations of the Holy Scriptures, had recourse to allegory, and instead of the plain, natural meaning of a work, often gave it a different and seemingly higher import. Starting with the assumption that the Scriptures cannot always receive a literal explanation without the divine glory's being tarnished and many biblical characters being degraded, they resorted to the arts of allegory and metaphor. This method became so general that even the masses lost all pleasure in the simple stories of the Holy Scriptures, and took more delight in artificial explanations than in the plain lessons and sublime laws of their sacred books. The pious men, who were wont to explain the Scriptures on the Sabbath, were obliged, in compliance with the taste of the time, to allegorize both the history and the lessons contained in them. One result of this method was the indifference that manifested itself among the cultivated Judæans of Alexandria to the practice of the religion of their fathers. Allegory undermined the ramparts that fenced the Law. If the latter was only the garment in which philosophical ideas were robed, if the Sabbath was merely intended to record the power of uncreated divinity, and the rite of circumcision was only meant to show the necessity of placing a curb on the passions, it would be sufficient to understand and adopt the ideas underlying those forms. Of what use would be the practice of the latter? From indifference to the practice of the laws to the desertion of Judaism itself there was only one step, and thus can be explained the apostasy to paganism of some Judæans who were unable to withstand the difficulties and constant pressure they had to encounter. It was also among the Alexandrian Judæans that the conflict between science and faith first appeared.
The indifference towards Judaism was combated, indeed, by many who had not wholly given themselves up to Greek culture. Philo, the greatest genius which Alexandrian Judaism produced, opposed the lukewarm spirit and the feelings of contempt which had grown up against the practice of the Law. In his elevated and inspired diction he urged the obligation of adhering to the letter of the Law, and induced his co-religionists to regard it again with love and reverence. Philo indeed shared some of the errors and prejudices of his contemporaries, but with his clear intelligence, he soared above the mists which enthroned them. He likewise made exaggerated use of the allegorical method employed by his predecessors, and agreed with them in applying it to the entire Pentateuch, or at least to the greater part of its history and laws. To carry out this metaphorical line of scriptural interpretation he devised symbolic numbers, explained Hebrew by Greek words, and from one and the same sentence deduced different and opposite conclusions. To Philo allegorical exposition became almost a necessity. Had he not already found it in use, he would doubtless have invented it.
He wished to give the sanction of Holy Writ to the great thoughts which were partly the productions of his own rich mind, partly adopted from the philosophical schools of the Academy, the Stoics and the Neo-Pythagoreans. Sharing, and indeed, surpassing in perversity the allegorical explanations he found in vogue, he departed from them just in that essential point which told against the necessity of the practice of the Law, and in that lay his chief importance. He expresses himself with decision and force against those who, satisfied with the spiritual meaning contained in the Law, are indifferent to the Law itself. He calls them superficial and thoughtless, acting as though they lived in a desert, or as incorporeal beings who knew neither of town nor village nor dwelling, or who, in fact, entertained no intercourse with human beings, despising what is dear to mankind, and seeking only abstract spiritual truths. The holy word, however, while teaching us to seek out diligently the deepest spiritual meaning of the Law, does not cancel our obligation of adhering to customs introduced by inspired men who were in all things infinitely greater than ourselves. Shall we, because we know the spiritual meaning of the Sabbath, neglect its prescribed observance? "Shall we," he exclaims, "make use of fire on the Sabbath, till the ground, carry burdens, plead in courts of justice, enforce the payment of debts, and, in fact, transact all our usual daily business? Shall we, because a festival symbolizes the peace of the soul, and is intended as an expression of gratitude to God, cease to observe the festival itself? Or shall we give up the rite of circumcision now that we are acquainted with its symbolic significance? In that case we should likewise renounce our reverence for the sanctity of the Temple and abandon many religious observances. But, on the contrary, both the inner truth contained in the Law, and the Law itself, should be equally prized—the one as the soul, the other as the body. Just as we take care of the body, looking upon it as the habitation of the soul, so also should we value the letter of the Law. By strict observance of the Law we shall attain a clearer insight into its deepest meaning, and shall likewise escape the remarks and reproaches of the people."
It is in the Hebrew Scriptures, according to Philo, that the most profound wisdom is contained. All that is taught by the sublimest philosophy the Judæans found in their precepts and customs—the knowledge of the eternal God, the vanity of idols, and the universal laws of humanity and kindness. "Is not the highest honor due," he exclaims, "to those laws which teach the rich to share their wealth with the needy, which console the poor by enabling them to look forward to the time when they will no longer beg at the rich man's door, but will have recovered their alienated property; for, at the opening of the seventh year, prosperity would return again to the widow and the orphan, and would restore to well-being those whom fortune had disinherited?"
In opposition to the abuse hurled against Judaism by a Lysimachus and an Apion, Philo brings forward the spirit of humanity which breathes through the Judæan Law, and which affects even the treatment of animals and plants. "And yet, though Judaism is founded in truth on love, these miserable sycophants accuse it of misanthropy and egotism." In order to ensure a better comprehension of the Judæan ethics by the cynics and lawbreakers of his own race, as also by the Greeks, who had only a false conception of Judaism, Philo arranged his writings so that they should form a kind of philosophical commentary on the Pentateuch, with the further object that the truths of Judaism might be brought within the province of philosophy.
But if, on the one hand, Philo stood firmly on Judæan ground, on the other he was no less imbued with the dogmas of the Grecian schools, which ran counter to the former, and he seems to have been equally swayed by the spirit of Judaism and that of Greece. Vainly he attempted to bring the contradictory ideas into harmony. They were so completely opposed from their very inception that they could not be reconciled. To solve the difficulty between the conflicting views of a creating God and a perfect deity who does not come into contact with matter, Philo's system takes a middle course. God created first the spiritual world of ideas, which were not merely the archetypes of all future creations, but