ght, and Philo's works are not
mentioned by any Jewish writer. Strangers possessed his inheritance,
and his name alone, "Philo-Judaeus," bore witness to his nationality.
It is an interesting speculation to consider how different might have
been the history, not only of the Jews, but of the world, if the
Hellenistic Judaism of Philo had prevailed in the Roman-Greek world
instead of "the impurer Hellenism of Christianity." When, in the tenth
century, the leaders of Jewish thought broke the bonds of seclusion,
and brought anew to the interpretation of their religion the culture
of the outer world, Greek philosophy became again a powerful
influence, though it was Aristotle rather than Plato whom they
studied. The harmonizing spirit of Philo, which may be accounted part
of the genius of the race, lives on in Saadia, Maimonides, Ibn Ezra,
Ibn Gabirol, and Judah Halevi. But the difference between him and the
Arabic school is marked. They do not inherit his whole object, for
they aimed not at a philosophical Judaism which should be a
world-religion, but at a philosophical Judaism for the more
enlightened Jews alone. Philo's work was the culminating point,
indeed, of a great development in Judaism, produced by the mingling of
the finest products of human reason and human imagination, but it was
particularly the expression of his own commanding genius. He lacked a
true successor, for those who shared his aim did not inherit his
Jewish outlook, and those who shared his Jewish outlook did not
inherit his aim. What is characteristic of and peculiar to Philo is
the combination of the missionary and the philosopher. Living at a
time when the Jewish genius expanded most brilliantly, and when
Judaism exercised its greatest influence, he hoped to make his
religion universal by showing it to be philosophical, and to bring
about by the aid of Plato the ideal of the prophets.

* * * * *

VII

PHILO AND JEWISH TRADITION

We have seen from time to time how Philo's interpretation of the Bible
corresponds with Palestinian Jewish tradition; and we must now
consider more in detail the relations of the two schools of Jewish
learning. Until the last century it was commonly supposed that no
close relation existed, and that the Alexandrian and Palestinian
schools were independent and opposed; Scaliger, the greatest scholar
of the seventeenth century, wrote[280] that "Philo was more ignorant
of Hebraic and