The Secret Vault presents: The Christian and Pagan Creeds Collated. Rev. Robert Taylor, A. B. & M. R. C. S.
Of Philo, or as he is commonly called, Philo-Judaeus -Philo the Jew; whom Eusebius thus largely quotes; it becomes of supreme importance that we should be able to ascertain the age in which he wrote, and who and what he was; since his treatise on "the Contemplate life" or Monkery, is a demonstration, than which history could not possibly have a stronger, that the monastic institution was in full reign at and before his time.
Philo-Judaeus was a native of Alexandria, of a priest's family, and brother to the Alabarch, or chief Jewish magistrate in that city. He was sent at the head of an embassy from the Egyptian Jews, to the Emperor Caius Caligula, 39AD. and has left an interesting recital of it, usually printed in Josephus. He also wrote a defence of the Jews against Flaccus, then President of Egypt; yet extant. He was eminently versed in the Platonic philosophy, of which both his style and his opinions partake. -His works consist chiefly of allegorical expositions of the Old Testament. [LN., Philo of Alexandria, or Philo Judaeus, was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher, around 20BC. To 50AD.]
Eusebius places his time in the reign of Cais Claudius, the immediate successor of the Emperor Tiberius, and says of him, that he was a man not only superior to the most of our own religion, but by far the most renowned of all the followers of profane knowledge: [Eccl. Hist. lib. 2 c, 4.] and that he was by lineal descent a Hebrew, and not inferior to any in rank at Alexandria; but by following the platonic and Pythagorean philosophy, he surpassed all the learned men of his time.
Eusebius is anxious to have it believed, that Philo was in such sense "one of Jews," as to have been to all intents and purposes a Christian: and intimates that "it was reported that Philo had met and conversed with St. Peter, at Rome, in the reign of Claudius." [Lib. 2 to 15.]
But alas, Philo has been insensible, or ungrateful, for the honours with which he was so distinguished, and though he has so accurately described the discipline of a religious community, of which he was himself a member:
1. Having parishes, 2. Churches, 3. Bishops, priests, and deacons; 4. Observing the grand festivals of Christianity; 5. Pretending to have had apostolic founders;
6. Practising the very manners that distinguished the immediate apostles of Christ; 7. Using scriptures which they believed to be divinely inspired,
8. And which Eusebius himself believed to be none other than the substance of our gospels;
9. And the self-same allegorical method of interpreting those scriptures, which has since obtained among Christians;
10. And the self-same manner and order of performing public worship;
11. And having 'missionary stations or colonies - of their community established in Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi, Colosse, and Thessalonica; precisely such, and in such circumstances, as those addressed by St. Paul, in his respective epistles to the Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians; and
12. Answering to every circumstance described of the state and discipline of the first community of Christians, to the very letter; 13. And all this, as nothing new in Philo's time, but of then long-established notoriety and venerable antiquity: yet Philo, who wrote before Josephus, and gave this particular description of Egyptian monkery, when Jesus Christ, if such a person had ever existed, was not above ten years of age, and at least fifty years, before the existence of any Christian writing whatever, has never once thrown out the remotest hint, that he had ever heard of the existence of Christ, of Christianity, or of Christians.
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Next Chapter 10, Corollaries.