ews had a clear mission; they were to be
the light of the world, because they alone of all peoples had
perceived God. Israel ([Hebrew: 'shr'l]), to repeat Philo's etymology, is
the man who beholds God, and through him the other nations were to be
led to the light. The mission of Israel was not a passive service, but
an active preaching of God's word, and an active propagation of God's
law to the Gentile. He must welcome the stranger that came within the
gates.[348] Philo struggled against the separative and exclusive
tendency which characterized a section of his race. He laid stress
upon the valuelessness of birth, and the saving power of God's grace
to the pagan who has come to recognize Him, in language which
Christian commentators call incredible in a Jew, but which was in fact
typical of the common feeling at Alexandria. Appealing to the
Gentiles, Philo declared that "God has special regard for the
proselyte, who is in the class of the weak and humble together with
the widow and orphan[349]; for he may be alienated from his kindred
when he is converted to the honor of the one true God, and abandons
idolatrous, polytheistic worship, but God is all the more his advocate
and helper." And speaking to the Jews he says:[350] "Kinship is not
measured by blood alone when truth is the judge, but by likeness of
conduct and by the pursuit of the same objects." Similarly, in the
Midrash, it is said that proselytes are as dear to God as those who
were born Jews;[351] and, again, that the Torah was given to Israel
for the benefit of all peoples;[352] or[353] that the purpose of
Israel's dispersion was that they might make proselytes. Philo's short
treatise on "Nobility" is an eloquent plea for the equal treatment of
the stranger who joins the true faith; and the author finds in the
Bible narratives support for his thesis, that not good birth but the
virtue of the individual is the true test of merit. Of the
valuelessness of the one, Cain, Ham, and Esau are types; of the
supreme worth of the other, Abraham, who is set up as the model of the
excellent man brought up among idolaters, but led by the Divine
oracle, revealed to his mind, to embrace the true idea of God. If the
founder of the Hebrew nation was himself a convert, then surely there
was a place within the religion for other converts. Remarkable is the
closing note of the book:

"We should, therefore, blame those who spuriously
appropriate as their own merit what