It is true that the symbolism of two allegorists is varied, but a common spirit and aim underlie their interpretations.  This is true alike of their account of the ritualistic and civil law of Moses.  Either, then, there was a common source of Jewish apologetic literature, or Josephus must have borrowed from Philo.  It is significant that he is the only contemporary of Philo that mentions him.  He speaks of him as a distinguished philosopher, the brother of the alabarch, and the leader of the embassy to Gaius.[326] He knows also of the anti-Semitic diatribes of Philo’s great enemy Apion, and two of his extant books are masterly reply to their outpourings.  Hence it is not rash to assume that he knew at least that part of Philo’s work which had a missionary and apologetic purpose—­the “Life of Moses” and the “Hypothetica.”  He makes no acknowledgment to them, it is true, but expressions of obligation were not in the fashion of the time.  Plagiarism was held to be no crime, and citation of authorities in notes or elsewhere was almost unknown in literature—­save in the Talmud,[327] where to tell something in the name of somebody else is a virtue.  But one can hardly doubt that the man who devoted himself to refuting the lying calumnies of Apion first made himself master of the classical work of Apion’s opponent, which claimed to give to the Greek world the authoritative account of the Jewish lawgiver and his legislation.

What Josephus knew must have been known to other cultured Jews of Palestine.  Yet Philo, save in one doubtful case which will be noticed, is not mentioned by any Jewish writer between Josephus in the first and Azariah dei Rossi in the sixteenth century.  The compilers of the Midrashim and the Yalkut, the philosophers of the Dark and Middle Ages, finally the Cabbalists, are continually reminiscent of his doctrines, but they do not mention his works or his existence.  The Midrash Tadshe,[328] a tenth century compilation of allegorical exegesis, contains definite parallels to Philonic passages, especially in its quotations from an Essene Tannaite, Pin[h.]as ben Jair; but again the trace of influence is indirect.  On the other hand, the Christian writers from the time of Clement in the second century quote him freely, make anthologies of his beautiful sayings, and in their more imaginative moments acclaim him the comrade of Mark and the friend of Peter.  The rise of the Christian Church, which coincided with the downfall of the nation, caused the rabbis to emphasize the national character of Judaism in order to preserve the old faith of their fathers in the critical condition in which exile, persecution, and assimilation placed it.  The first century was a time of feverish dreams and wild hopes that were not realizable:  men had looked for the coming of the days of universal peace and good-will, and the Alexandrian Jews in particular hoped for the spreading of Judaism over the world.  The rabbis recognized that this consummation was far away, and that Judaism