study. [Hebrew: v-nbi' lbb hkma], God's interpreter must have a wise
heart,[44] as the rabbis explained. Philo then considered that the true
understanding of the law required a complete knowledge of general culture,
and that secular philosophy was a necessary preparation for the deeper
mysteries of the Holy Word. "He who is practicing to abide in the city
of perfect virtue, before he can be inscribed as a citizen thereof,
must sojourn with the 'encyclic' sciences, so that through them he may
advance securely to perfect goodness."[45] The "encyclic," or
encyclopædic sciences, to which he refers, are the various branches of
Greek culture, and Philo finds a symbol of their place in life in the
story of Abraham. Abraham is the eternal type of the seeker after God,
and as he first consorted with the foreign woman Hagar and had
offspring by her, and afterwards in his mature age had offspring by
Sarah, so in Philo's interpretation the true philosopher must first
apply himself to outside culture and enlarge his mind with that
training; and when his ideas have thus expanded, he passes on to the
more sublime philosophy of the Divine law, and his mind is fruitful in
lofty thoughts.[46]

As a prelude to the study of Greek philosophy he built up a harmony of
the mind by a study of Greek poetry, rhetoric, music, mathematics, and
the natural sciences. His works bear witness to the thoroughness with
which he imbibed all that was best in Greek literature. His Jewish
predecessors had written in the impure dialect of the Hellenistic
colonies (the [Greek: koinê dialektos]), and had shown little
literary charm; but Philo's style is more graceful than that of any
Greek prose writer since the golden age of the fourth century. Like
his thought, indeed, it is eclectic and not always clear, but full of
reminiscences of the epic and tragic poets on the one hand, and of
Plato on the other,[47] it gives a happy blending of prose and poetry,