Aramaic lore than any Gaul or Scythian," and this was
the opinion generally held. The researches of Freudenthal and
Siegfried[281] have shown the falsity of these views; and, most
important of all, Philo refutes them out of his own mouth. He refers
in many different parts of his works[282] to the tradition and the
wisdom of his ancestors, he tells us how on the Sabbath the Jews
studied in their synagogues their special philosophy,[283] and he
commences his "Life of Moses" by declaring that against the false
calumnies of Greek writers he will set forth the true account which he
has learnt from the sacred writings and "from certain elders of his
race." In support of his statement we have the remark of Eusebius, the
Christian historian, and our chief ancient authority for Philo's
work,[284] that he set forth and expounded not only the laws of the
Bible, but many institutions and opinions of his fathers. Apart from
these direct references, the numerous points of correspondence between
Philo's interpretations and those of the Talmud and later Midrash
would compel us to admit a connection between Alexandria and
Jerusalem.

The break between the two schools did not show itself till after the
time of Philo. Up to the first century of the Christian era the rabbis
encouraged the union of Shem and Japheth--the two good sons of one
parent--and the stream of ideas flowed quite freely between the
teachers in Palestine and the Hellenized colony in Egypt.[285] Hence
the Palestinian Jews, on the one hand, received the first fruits of
this mingling of cultures, and the Alexandrian Jews, on the other,
must have inherited the early tradition of the rabbinical interpreters
embodied in ancient Halakah and Haggadah. By this common heritage,
rather than by any direct borrowing, it seems more reasonable to
account for the correspondence in the two Midrashim. It should be
remembered that until the second century of the common era the mass of
Jewish tradition was a floating and developing body of opinion not
consigned to writing or formalized, but handed down by word of mouth
from teacher to pupil, and preacher to congregation: in this way it
was diffused throughout the mind of the race, indefinitely and, to
some extent, unconsciously shaping its thought. The detailed points of
agreement between Philo and the Talmud and Midrash are not of great
moment in themselves, but they are the signs of a unity of development
and the catholicity of Judaism