powerful attraction for the Hellene; and, when the belief in the old
gods had been shattered, and with the national greatness the liberal
life of the State had passed away, he turned more and more to those
rites which professed to provide healing and rest for the sickening
soul. Many of the Alexandrian Jews must have been initiated into these
Greek mysteries, for Philo introduces into his exegesis of the law of
Moses an ordinance forbidding the practice.[66] He himself advocates a
more spiritual mysticism, and it is a cardinal principle of his
philosophy to treat the human soul as a god within and its absorption
in the universal Godhead as supreme bliss, the end of all endeavor. He
claimed to have attained, himself, to this union, and to have received
direct inspiration. Giving a Greek coloring to the Hebrew notion of
prophecy, "My soul," he says, "is wont to be affected with a Divine
trance and to prophesy about things of which it has no knowledge"[67]....
"Many a time have I come with the intention of writing, and knowing
exactly what I ought to set down, but I have found my mind barren and
fruitless, and I have gone away with nothing done, but at times I have
come empty, and suddenly been full, for ideas were invisibly rained
down upon me from above, so that I was seized by a Divine frenzy, and
was lost to everything, place, people, self, speech, and thought. I
had gotten a stream of interpretation, a gift of light, a clear survey
of things, the clearest that eye can give."[68]

In his "Guide of the Perplexed,"[69] Maimonides describes the various
degrees of the [Hebrew: rua hkdsh], or what we call religious "genius,"
with which man may be blessed. He distinguishes between the man who
possesses it only for his own exaltation, and the man who feels
himself compelled to impart it to others for their happiness. To this
higher order of genius Philo advanced in his maturity. He consciously
regarded himself as a follower of Moses, who was the perfect