The religious
man pursueth righteousness righteously, the superstitious
unrighteously.
Thus Philo holds the balance between a formless spirituality and an
unspiritual formalism. The end of religious observance is the love of
God, but the love of God requires more than feeling; it must
impregnate life. Dubnow, in his summary of Jewish history, formulates
an epigram, which, like most of its kind, becomes in its conciseness
and pointed antithesis a half-truth. "At Jerusalem," he says, "Judaism
appeared as a system of practical ceremonies; at Alexandria as a
complex of abstract symbols." No doubt it is true that at Jerusalem
the practical side of the law was most prominent, but the spiritual
exaltation to which it should lead was appraised as the true end by
the great rabbis. Witness Hillel, and indeed all the writers of the
gnomic wisdom in the "Ethics of the Fathers." At Alexandria, again,
while the philosophical principle underlying the outward practice was
especially emphasized, the practice itself was loyally observed, and
its value perceived, by those who most thoroughly understood Judaism.
Witness the writings of Philo, the Wisdom of Solomon, and the fourth
book of the Maccabees. The antithesis between letter and spirit, faith
and works, is in truth a false one; and wherever the significance of
Judaism has been fully comprehended, the two aspects of the law have
been inextricably intertwined.
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