TESTIMONIES OF MOST HOLY

MEN CONCERNING PHILO THE JEW.

EUSEBIUS, ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY,

Book Two.

In the times of Gaius Caesar, Philo was of great renown among many; a man indeed who easily obtained the foremost place, not only among our own people, but also among the Gentiles who excelled in the elegance of humane learning and more refined literature. Moreover, he traced his lineage from the ancient stock of the Hebrews; and he was considered in no way inferior to those men who, placed in the highest ranks of honors at Alexandria, had acquired great splendor. Furthermore, it is clearly evident to all how much and how great an effort he devoted to divine and ancestral teachings. Moreover, it is not necessary for me to say what sort of man and how excellent he was in the studies of philosophy and the knowledge of the liberal arts; especially since, having imitated the form of the Platonic and Pythagorean discipline with more ardent zeal, he is declared to have surpassed all the men of his memory and age.

And again he speaks of him thus: Philo, indeed, copious in words, rich in thoughts, profound in explaining the divine scriptures and raising himself to the sublime, wove together a varied and manifold interpretation of the sacred word. And a little later: It has been handed down to memory that he set out for Rome during the reign of Gaius, and that he later recited—during the reign of Claudius—before the entire Senate a book he had composed concerning the impiety and wickedness of Gaius (which he entitled, quite wittily and dissemblingly, On Virtues). Wherefore the Romans so greatly admired not only that work, but also others published by him, that they judged them worthy to be deposited in their own library as if they were monuments.

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AUGUSTINE, AGAINST FAUSTUS THE MANI-

chaean, Book 12, Chapter 2.

"A certain Philo," he says, "saw this, a man most learned in the liberal arts, one of those whose eloquence the Greeks do not hesitate to equal with that of Plato."

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JEROME, IN THE CATALOGUE OF

Ecclesiastical Writers.

Philo the Jew, an Alexandrian by nation, of the priestly race: he is placed by us among the ecclesiastical writers for the reason that, writing a book concerning the first church of the evangelist Mark at Alexandria, he was engaged in the praise of our people; recording that they were present not only there, but also in many provinces, and calling their dwellings monasteries. From which it appears that the first church of those believing in Christ was such as monks now strive and desire to be, so that nothing is anyone's own, no one is poor, patrimonies are divided among the needy, and time is devoted to prayer and psalms, as well as to doctrine and continence; such as Luke reports the first believers in Jerusalem to have been. They say that he was in peril at Rome under Gaius Caligula, whither he had been sent as an envoy of his nation. When he had come a second time to Claudius, it is said that he spoke in the same city with the apostle Peter and enjoyed his friendship, and for this reason he also adorned the followers of the church of Mark, the disciple of Peter, at Alexandria with praises. There exist of him distinguished and innumerable works: On the five books of Moses; one book On the confusion of tongues; one book On nature and discovery; one book On those things which we pray for and testify by sense; one book On instruction; one book On the heir of divine things; one book On the division of equals and contraries; one book On the three virtues; one book On why the names of certain people were changed in the scriptures; two books On covenants; one book On the life of a wise man; one book On giants; five books That dreams are sent by God; five books of Questions and Solutions on Exodus; four books On the tabernacle and the Decalogue; as well as...