Arist. _Met._ Α, 1. 981 b 23. Footnote 23: See Zeller, p. 3, n. 2. Philo applies the term πάτριος φιλοσοφία to the theology of the Essenes and Therapeutai. Footnote 24: On this, see Lang, _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_, vol. ii. p. 135. This method of interpretation may be said to culminate with the Neopythagorean Noumenios, from whom it passed to the Christian Apologists. It is Noumenios who asks, “What is Plato, but Moses speaking Attic?”[25] It seems likely, indeed, that he was thinking of certain marked resemblances between Plato’s _Laws_ and the Levitical Code when he said this—resemblances due to the fact that certain primitive legal ideas are similarly modified in both; but in any case Clement and Eusebios give the remark a far wider application.[26] At the Renaissance, this absurd farrago was revived along with everything else, and certain ideas derived from the _Praeparatio Evangelica_ continued for long to colour accepted views on the subject. Even Cudworth speaks complacently of the ancient “Moschical or Mosaical philosophy” taught by Thales and Pythagoras.[27] It is important to realise the true origin of this deeply-rooted prejudice against the originality of the Greeks. It does not come from modern researches into the beliefs of ancient peoples; for these have disclosed absolutely nothing in the way of evidence for a Phoenician or Egyptian philosophy. It is a mere residuum of the Alexandrian passion for allegory. Footnote 25: Noumenios, fr. 13 (R. P. 624), Τί γάρ ἐστι Πλάτων ἢ Μωυσῆς ἀττικίζων; Footnote 26: Clement (_Strom._ i. p. 8, 5, Stählin) calls Plato ὁ ἐξ Ἑβραίων φιλόσοφος. Footnote 27: We learn from Strabo (xvi. p. 757) that it was Poseidonios who introduced Mochos of Sidon into the history of philosophy. He attributes the atomic theory to him. His identification with Moses, however, is a later _tour de force_. Philon of Byblos published what purported to be a translation of an ancient Phoenician history by Sanchuniathon, which was used by Porphyry and afterwards by Eusebios. How familiar all this became, is shown by the speech of the stranger in the _Vicar of Wakefield_, chap. xiv.