lect, primitive as it was,
tended particularly to the reverence of the numerical powers. Witness
the Bible itself, which emphasizes certain numbers; and witness also
the fifth chapter of the Pirke Abot, with its lists ranged under four,
seven, and ten, which is only typical of the rabbinical attitude.
Philo is not original in his views concerning numbers, not above nor
below the loose thinking of his age. He accepts unquestioningly the
potency of seven, because of its marvellous mathematical properties,
ratios, etc., its geometrical efficacy, and because of the seven
periods of life from infancy to old age, of the seven parts of the
body, the seven motions, the seven strings of the lyre, the seven
vowels, and the very name, which is connected with worship ([Greek:
sebasmos]). All this is trifling and trite, but what is of
importance is the use which Philo makes of the sentiment. He converts
it throughout to the support and glorification of Jewish institutions.
Thus, if a man honors seven, he says, he will devote the Sabbath to
meditation and philosophy.[276] Further, as seven is the symbol of
rest and tranquillity, the Sabbath must be a day of perfect rest. Ten
is magnified so as to honor the Decalogue,[277] fifty so as to honor
the Feast of Pentecost. So, too, the Pythagoreans' mathematical
conceptions of God as "the beginning and limit of all things," or,
again, as the principle of equality, are approved by Philo, "because
they breed in the soul the fairest and most nourishing fruit--piety."
In short, Philo's Pythagoreanism only emphasizes his commanding
purpose--to deepen and recommend the Jewish God-idea and the Jewish
method of life.

Jewish influences throughout are the determining element of Philo's
teaching; they are the dynamic forces working upon the Greek matter
and producing the new Platonism, which constitutes Philo's
contribution to Greek philosophy. It may, indeed, be said that his
Hebraism makes Philo anti-philosophical, because he has no desire or
hope of adding to positive knowledge, but aims only at the calm of the
individual soul in union with its God. The Platonic Theory of Ideas,
metaphysical in origin, plays a very important part in his works, but
it is adapted mystically, and turned from an ideal of the human
intellect to a support of monotheism and piety. Here Philo is at once
the leader and the child of his generation; men were no longer
satisfied with rational systems, but wanted a religious