Still closer is the approximation to later speculation which we find
in Philo, who was a contemporary of St. Paul. Philo and his Therapeutæ
were genuine mystics of the monastic type. Many of them, however, had
not been monks all their life, but were retired men of business, who
wished to spend their old age in contemplation, as many still do in
India. They were, of course, not Christians, but Hellenised Jews,
though Eusebius, Jerome, and the Middle Ages generally thought that
they were Christians, and were well pleased to find monks in the first
century.[112]

Philo's object is to reconcile religion and philosophy--in other
words, Moses and Plato.[113] His method[114] is to make Platonism a
development of Mosaism, and Mosaism an implicit Platonism. The claims
of orthodoxy are satisfied by saying, rather audaciously, "All this is
Moses' doctrine, not mine." His chief instrument in this difficult
task is allegorism, which in his hands is a bad specimen of that
pseudo-science which has done so much to darken counsel in biblical
exegesis. His speculative system, however, is exceedingly interesting.

God, according to Philo, is unqualified and pure Being, but _not_
superessential. He is emphatically [Greek: ho ôn], the "I am," and the
most _general_ ([Greek: to genikôtaton]) of existences. At the same
time He is without qualities ([Greek: apoios]), and ineffable
([Greek: arrêtos]). In His inmost nature He is inaccessible; as it
was said to Moses, "Thou shalt see what is behind Me, but My face
shall not be seen." It is best to contemplate God in silence, since we
can compare Him to nothing that we know. All our knowledge of God is
really God dwelling in us. He has breathed into us something of His
nature, and is thus the archetype of what is highest in ourselves. He
who is truly inspired "may with good reason be called God." This