Page:Philochristus, Abbott, 1878.djvu/78

70 he were one of the foremost Jews in Alexandria (and there were nigh unto a hundred myriads of our countrymen in the city and the country round about) and kinsman also to Alexander the Alabarch, whose wealth was known to all, yet were there no signs of luxury, nor of pride in his house, nor in his furniture nor in his clothing: and his wife also wore a plain and simple garment without plaiting of the hair, or painting, or adornment with gold and precious stones; and in all the house there was naught whereat the strictest Pharisee could have been offended.

Philo received us courteously; and when I had opened to him at large all my doubts, he replied fully to them. I cannot at this time set down exactly all that we spake together; but this was the substance. First, I said that I was loath to be as one of the backsliders among my countrymen, who in effect gave up the Law, deriding it as a heap of fables; yet on the other hand, I confessed that after much study of the Law I had not been able to attain to righteousness nor peace. Thereto Philo made answer that he was not one of them that rejected the Law of Israel; for he diligently observed it, believing that it contained all knowledge and all wisdom; "and," said he, "I consider that Moses was the greatest and most perfect of men, and that he attained unto the very pinnacle of wisdom. But as for the wisdom of the Greeks, it is but as a handmaid in respect of our wisdom; even as the slave Hagar was, in respect of her mistress and queen, Sarah." "Notwithstanding," added he, "when I speak of our Scriptures, I mean that there are two interpretations of every Scripture. There is first the outer meaning, which is as it were the body; but there is, next, the inner spiritual meaning, which is, as it were, the soul. Thus, for example, when thou readest that Eve was made out of the