intellectual things, and had materially interfered with his range of thought; but he consoled himself with the knowledge that in undisturbed hours he was still able to lift his mind to noble objects. Philo's philosophical researches not only furnished food for his intellect, but helped to inspire him with true nobility of character, developing in him a nature that regarded all acts of human folly, vulgarity, and vice as so many enigmas which he could not solve. His wife, who was justly proud of him, emulated him in the simplicity of her life. When asked by some of her brilliantly attired friends why she, who was so rich, should disdain to wear gold ornaments, she is said to have answered, "The virtue of the husband is adornment enough for the wife." Philo's contemporaries were never weary of praising his style; so forcibly indeed did it remind them of Plato's beautiful diction that they would observe, "Plato writes like Philo, or Philo like Plato." Philo's principal aim was to harmonize the spirit of Judaism with that of the philosophy of the age, or, more rightly speaking, to show that Judaism is the truest philosophy. And this was not merely to be an intellectual exercise, but to him it was a sacred mission. He was so completely absorbed in these ideas that, as he relates of himself, he often fell into trances, when he fancied that revelations were vouchsafed to him which he could not have grasped at ordinary times. This was the man who was to present himself before the emperor, as the representative of the Alexandrian Judæan community. The heathen Alexandrians also sent a deputation, headed by Apion, to which also belonged the venom-tongued Isidorus. Not only were the envoys concerned with the privileges of the community they represented, but they were pledged to raise their voices against the cruel persecution of their race. For the first time in history were Judaism and Paganism confronted in the lists, each of them being represented by men of Greek culture and learning. Had the two forms of faith and civilization been judged by their exponents, the decision for Judaism would not have been doubtful. Philo, dignified and earnest, seemed in himself to embody faithful search after truth, and the purest moral idealism; whilst Apion, frivolous and sarcastic, was the very incarnation of smooth-tongued vainglory, and bore the stamp of the vanity and self-conceit of fallen Greece. But the outcome of this contest remains doubtful. Caligula was too passionate a partisan to be a just umpire. He hated the Judæans because they would not recognize and worship him as their deity, and his hatred was fanned by two contemptible creatures, whom he had dragged from the mire and had attached to himself--the Egyptian Helicon and Apelles of Ascalon.