The allegories indeed are
only in form a commentary on the Bible; in one aspect they are a
history of the human soul, which, if they had been completed, would
have traced the upward progress from Adam to Moses. It is not to be
expected, however, that Philo should adhere closely to any plan in the
allegories. Theology, metaphysics, and ethics have as large a part in
the medley of philosophical ideas as the story of the soul. His
Hebraic mind, even when fortified by the mastery of philosophy, was
unable to present its ideas systematically; it passed from subject to
subject, weaving the whole together only by the thread of a continuous
commentary upon Genesis. Parts of the work are missing, it is true,
which adds to the seeming want of plan; and--greatest loss of all--the
first part, which gave the philosophical account of the first chapter
of Genesis, the first six days of creation, referred to as "The
Hexameron" [Greek: to Hexemeron], has disappeared.[98] Here must
have been the general introduction to the allegories, wherein Philo
declared his purpose and his method of exposition. The first treatise
that we possess starts abruptly with a comment on the first verse of
the second chapter, "'And the heaven and earth and all their world
were completed.' Moses has previously related the creation of the mind
and sense, and now he proceeds to describe their perfection.
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