s mother, which always lags
behind and has no seed of life, is the enemy of truth. The religious
man pursueth righteousness righteously, the superstitious
unrighteously.

Thus Philo holds the balance between a formless spirituality and an
unspiritual formalism. The end of religious observance is the love of
God, but the love of God requires more than feeling; it must
impregnate life. Dubnow, in his summary of Jewish history, formulates
an epigram, which, like most of its kind, becomes in its conciseness
and pointed antithesis a half-truth. "At Jerusalem," he says, "Judaism
appeared as a system of practical ceremonies; at Alexandria as a
complex of abstract symbols." No doubt it is true that at Jerusalem
the practical side of the law was most prominent, but the spiritual
exaltation to which it should lead was appraised as the true end by
the great rabbis. Witness Hillel, and indeed all the writers of the
gnomic wisdom in the "Ethics of the Fathers." At Alexandria, again,
while the philosophical principle underlying the outward practice was
especially emphasized, the practice itself was loyally observed, and
its value perceived, by those who most thoroughly understood Judaism.
Witness the writings of Philo, the Wisdom of Solomon, and the fourth
book of the Maccabees. The antithesis between letter and spirit, faith
and works, is in truth a false one; and wherever the significance of
Judaism has been fully comprehended, the two aspects of the law have
been inextricably intertwined. As Philo understood the Jewish mission,
it was not merely to diffuse the Jewish God-idea, but quite as much to
diffuse the Jewish attitude to God, the way of life. Abstract ideas,
however lofty, can never be the bond of a religious community, nor can
they be a safeguard for moral conduct. Sooner or later congregations
must submit themselves to some law, be it a law of dogma, or be it a
law of conduct. Antinomianism, the opposition to the law, to which
Paul later gave powerful, even fanatical, expression, was a strong
movement at Alexandria in Philo's day. Preparatory to the spread of
Christianity, numerous sects sprang up there which purported to follow
a spiritual Judaism wherein the law was abrogated because, forsooth,
its symbolism was understood! In the extreme allegorists, whom Philo
attacks for their shallowness, one may discern the prototypes of the
Cainites, Ophites, Melchizedecians, and the rest of the heretical
parties that produced th