Philonis Judaei Paralipomena Armena

solely applying his mind to pure arithmetic, geometry, and the whole of mathematics and philosophy, he gathers and seizes any word or deed, appropriately or inappropriately, into his own contrived ideas¹.

IX. Finally, the crime of greatest moment, or rather the principal one, is that he himself, in the manner of the Cabalists those who practice Jewish mystical tradition, so hides the Hebrew Theology in those things which he treats concerning God and His attributes in arcane secrecy, and stores it as if in more secret inner chambers, that he sometimes mixes errors even with the truth. There will be, for example, the things which Philo offers concerning the essential divine Word. The Orthodox can certainly draw a Catholic sentiment from them; but, if my suspicion does not deceive me, the followers of Arius Arianism, a heresy denying the full divinity of Christ and the unorthodox of the same bran can twist the words to their own sense, and count the uncreated and consubstantial Only-Begotten of the Father among the creatures. Furthermore, in my suspicion, he also favors the Macedonians Those who denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit who babble things contrary to the faith concerning the divine Spirit. Indeed, he holds up a torch to Origen, since the latter also composes commentaries on Genesis that are more allegorical than is right. This will suffice, lest lovers of truth, deceived by the appearance of rightness, should hallucinate. Wise readers will easily—just as Maro Virgil gathered gold from Ennius to adorn his own poems—read from Philo, having rejected the purulent parts, the healthier ones. In such a way, they will enjoy the utility and not be offended by curiosity.

X. Furthermore, since we are distracted and stretched by multiple literal occupations which cause us much trouble, we will be sparing in notes and in attaching fragments. Therefore, we willingly allow more learned men, who are more at leisure, to enrich the Philonian works with better notes and commentaries; and if any fragments remain in the shelves of libraries where they perhaps lie hidden, let them willingly bring them into the light. This, I hope, if I am not mistaken, will happen when they have this Philo of ours in their hands.

XI. I will use the parsimony I mentioned in notes and commentaries, but I will not use it when the occasion will offer itself to speak of St. Ambrose: I have admired him so much for faithfully pressing the footsteps of Philo. For very often, and especially in the book On Noah and the Ark, with the author’s name suppressed, he only [uses] the more wholesome things.

1 St. Augustine against Faustus, Book XII, ch. 39.
"Therefore even the Jews themselves, who deride Christ, whose passion we have acknowledged, do not wish such figures of things, not only spoken but also done, to be seen as preannounced; they are compelled by us to learn what these things signify, which, if they do not concede that they signify something, they do not defend the books of such divine authority from the ignominy of inept fables. A certain Philo saw this, a man most liberally learned, one of them, whose eloquence the Greeks do not doubt to equate to Plato, and

"he tried to interpret some things, not for understanding Christ, in whom he had not believed, but so that it might appear from that how much difference there is whether you refer all things to Christ, for whom they were truly so spoken, or whether, besides Him, you pursue any conjectures with any sharpness of mind; and how much that which the Apostle says avails, 'when you shall have turned to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away.' For, so that I may mention a certain thing of the same Philo, etc." The rest must be cited by us in the course of the Philonian discourses on Genesis.