, is a moot
point. But their general purport is clear: they were an apologetic
presentation of Jewish life, written to show the falsity of
anti-Semitic calumnies. The Jews are good citizens and their manner of
life is humanitarian. The Essene sect is a living proof of Jewish
practical socialism and practical philosophy, the Therapeutae show the
Jewish zeal for the contemplative life.

Next we come to Philo's philosophical monographs, which are not, as
one might expect, the work of his mature thought, but rather the
exercises of youth. Dissertations or declamations upon hackneyed
subjects were part of the regular course of the university student at
Alexandria, and Philo prepared himself for his Jewish philosophy by
composing in the approved style essays upon "Providence," "The Liberty
of the Good," and "The Slavery of the Wicked," etc. What chiefly
distinguishes them above other collections of commonplaces is the
appeal to the Bible for types of goodness, and here again the Essenes
figure as the type of the philosophical life.[86] The writer, while
still engaged in the studies of the Greek university, is feeling his
way towards his system of universal Mosaism.

This he expounds confidently and enthusiastically in his "Life of
Moses." Philo in this book is not any longer the apt pupil of Greek
philosophers, nor the eloquent defender of the Jewish-Alexandrian
community against lying detractors. He preaches a mission to the whole
world, and he lays before it his gospel of monotheism and humanity.
Each Greek school has its ideal type, its Socrates, Diogenes, or
Pythagoras; but Philo places above them all "the most perfect man that
ever lived, Moses, the legislator of the Jews,[87] as some hold, but
according to others the interpreter of the sacred laws, and the
greatest of men in every way." And above all the ethical systems of
the day he sets the law of life that God revealed to His greatest
prophet: "The laws of the Greek legislators are continually subject to
change; the laws of Moses alone remain steady, unmoved, unshaken,
stamped as it were with the seal of nature herself, from the day when
they were written to the present day, and will so remain for all time
so long as the world endures. Not only the Jews but all other peoples
who care for righteousness adopt them.... Let all men follow this code
and the age of universal peace will come about, the kingdom of God on
earth will be established."[88] Nor is the Greek to