Modern apologists for Judaism have been found who, trying to force
science to support their tottering faith, allege that the dietary law
is hygienic. Philo relies on no such treacherous reed. We may not eat,
he says,[165] the flesh of the pig or shell-fish, not because they are
unhealthy, but because they are the sweetest and most delightful of
all food, and for that very reason they are marks of the sensual life.
This and this alone is the true religious justification of the dietary
law.
In this way, by showing how the letter represents the spirit, Philo
fulfils the law; his religion is liberal in thought, conservative in
practice. He sees clearly that to throw off the law and reject
tradition involves in the end chaos and the overthrow of
righteousness. And certain Christian--and other--theologians, if one
may make bold to say so, fail to realize the spirit of Philo, when
they speak of him as a man who approached the light, but was too tied
down by the old traditions to receive the full illumination. Rather is
it true that the Jewish aspiration of "freedom under the law," or
spirit through the letter, is absolutely fundamental in Philo, and
loyalty to the Torah is a guiding principle in his religious outlook.
He asserts it clearly and strikingly, not only in his ethical
commentary on the law, but in his philosophical allegories.
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