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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: but it seems to me, as to Philo, to be a fair, perhaps a necessary,
corollary from the Genetic Philosophy, both of Moses and of Solomon.
But in one thing he was unfair; namely, in his allegorising. But unfair
to whom? To Socrates and Plato, I believe, as much as to Moses and to
Samuel. For what is the part of the old Jewish books which he
evaporates away into mere mystic symbols of the private experiences of
the devout philosopher? Its practical everyday histories, which deal
with the common human facts of family and national life, of man's
outward and physical labour and craft. These to him have no meaning,
except an allegoric one. But has he thrown them away for the sake of
getting a step nearer to Socrates, or Plato, or Aristotle? Surely not.
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