Those, then, who aimed
at the spread of Jewish monotheism were impelled to draw out a
philosophical meaning, a universal value from the Books of Moses.
Nowadays the Bible is the holy book of so much of the civilized world
that it is somewhat difficult for us to form a proper conception of
what it was to the civilized world before the Christian era. We have
to imagine a state of culture in which it was only the Book of books
to one small nation, while to others it was at best a curious record
of ancient times, just as the Code of Hammurabi or the Egyptian Book
of Life is to us. The Alexandrian Jews were the first to popularize
its teachings, to bring Jewish religion into line with the thought of
the Greek world. It was to this end that they founded a particular
form of Midrash--the allegorical interpretation, which is largely a
distinctive product of the Alexandrian age. The Palestinian rabbis of
the time were on the one hand developing by dialectic discussion the
oral tradition into a vast system of religious ritual and legal
jurisprudence; on the other, weaving around the law, by way of
adornment to it, a variegated fabric of philosophy, fable, allegory,
and legend. Simultaneously the Alexandrian preachers--they were never
quite the same as the rabbis--were emphasizing for the outer world as
well as their own people the spiritual side of the religion,
elaborating a theology that should satisfy the reason, and seeking to
establish the harmony of Greek philosophy with Jewish monotheism and
the Mosaic legislation.
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