This is looking a little further ahead to events yet to be related. By that time the followers of the two religions had become people of two different races: Judaism followed almost exclusively by Jews who were Semites; Christianity by Aryans, Greeks, Romans and other Europeans. This racial distinction became the final barrier which completely separated them. NOTE. _Aryans and Semites_: Not all Semites are Jews, for example the Arabians; nor are all Aryans Christians p. e. the Persians. Religious and racial lines are no longer identical. _Theme for discussion_: Why did most heathen converts to Judaism ultimately become Christian? CHAPTER XVII. PHILO-JUDEUS. We are now ready to consider one to whom frequent reference has been made--the greatest of the Alexandrian Jewish missionary philosophers, styled the "noblest Judean of his age"--Philo-Judeus. He was born in Alexandria of good family, about 15 B. C., just when Herod was ruling and Hillel was teaching in Jerusalem. His brother, Alexander, was given the influential post of farmer of taxes. Both received the best education the times afforded in literature, music, mathematics and natural science. Philo early showed a taste for literature in general, and philosophy in particular. His circumstances enabled him to devote himself to a literary life, for which he was peculiarly gifted. He showed his warm interest in the cause of his people in his journey to Rome as one of the ambassadors to plead before the mad Emperor Caligula (to be told in the next chapter). Of this whole incident he himself gives a graphic account in his chronicles of the Jewish events of his time. His Bible Commentary. A many-sided genius, he was the best exponent of that Hellenistic school that sought to harmonize the revealed religion of the Torah with the conclusions of Greek philosophy. He was thoroughly versed in both. His works, as those of all this school, were written in Greek. While the form may be that of Plato, the spirit is that of the prophets. In his commentary on Scripture, following the allegorical method already referred to, he treats all the incidents in Genesis, for example, as symbolic of human development and moral truths underlying the historic facts on the surface. He did not, however, go to the extreme of neglecting Jewish observance on the strength of metaphoric interpretation. Indeed, he even rebuked those who did. He writes "just as we must be careful of the body as the house of the soul, so must we give heed to the letter of the written laws. For only when these are faithfully observed, will the inner meaning of which they are the symbols become more clearly realized." But he warningly adds "If a man practice ablutions and purifications, but defiles his mind while he cleanses his body ... let him none the more be called religious."