324) that when Philo went on his visit to Rome he met Saint Peter. Indeed, he stands closer to the Christian church fathers of the third century than to the Talmudic Amoraim of that period; in fact, he is much less "rabbinic" in style than Paul. The quantity of surviving manuscripts (including several papyrus fragments) shows how much he was read. In the fourth and early fifth centuries some of his essays were translated into Latin and Armenian. His only links with Judaism until the sixteenth century, when he is mentioned at length by the Italian rabbi Azariah dei Rossi, are indirect and are with Jewish mysticism.
Despite the large number of his works, almost no information survives about Philo's life. He is nowhere mentioned in the Talmudic corpus. His brother, Alexander, was one of the wealthiest Jews of the world and lent Agrippa I, who was to become king of Judaea, a huge amount of money, according to Josephus's Jewish Antiquities (A.D. 93-94). Judging from his vocabulary and from his quotations from Greek authors, Philo must have had a tremendous literary education, especially in the epic and dramatic poets.
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