at which, according to Josephus,[54] over two million people assembled, must, indeed, have been a striking symbol of the unity of the Jewish race, which was at once national and international; magnificent embassies from Babylon and Persia, from Egypt and Cyrene, from Rome and Greece, even from distant Spain and Gaul, went in procession together through the gate of Xistus up the temple-mount, which was crowned by the golden sanctuary, shining in the full Eastern sun like a sea of light above the town.  Philo describes in detail the form of the edifice that moved the admiration of all who beheld it, and for the Jew, moreover, was invested with the most cherished associations.  Its outer courts consisted of double porticoes of marble columns burnished with gold, then came the inner courts of simple columns, and “within these stood the temple itself, beautiful beyond all possible description, as one may tell even from what is seen in the outer court; for the innermost sanctuary is invisible to every being except the high priest.”  The majesty of the ceremonial within equalled the splendor without.  The high priest, in the words of Ben Sira (xlv), “beautified with comely ornament and girded about with a robe of glory,” seemed a high priest fit for the whole world.  Upon his head the mitre with a crown of gold engraved with holiness, upon his breast the mystic Urim and Thummim and the ephod with its twelve brilliant jewels, upon his tunic golden pomegranates and silver bells, which for the mystic ear pealed the harmony of the world as he moved.  Little wonder that, inspired by the striking gathering and the solemn ritual, Philo regarded the temple as the shrine of the universe,[55] and thought the day was near when all nations should go up there together, to do worship to the One God.

Sparse as are the direct proofs of Philo’s connection with Palestinian Judaism, his account of the temple and its service, apart from the general standpoint of his writings, proves to us that he was a loyal son of his nation, and loved Judaism for its national institutions as well as its great moral sublimity.  His aspiration was to bring home the truths of the religion to the cultured world, and therefore he devised a new expression for the wisdom of his people, and transformed it into a literary system.  Judaism forms the kernel, but Greek philosophy and literature the shell, of his work; for the audience to which he appealed, whether Jewish or Gentile, thought in Greek, and would be moved only by ideas presented in Greek form, and by Greek models he himself was inspired.

Philo’s first ideal of life was to attain to the profoundest knowledge of God so as to be fitted for the mission of interpreting His Word:  and he relates in one of his treatises how he spent his youth and his first manhood in philosophy and the contemplation of the universe.[56] “I feasted with the truly blessed mind, which is the object of all desire (i.e., God), communing continually