"He was," said Croiset, the historian of Greek literature, "the first Greek prose writer who could speak to God and of God to man with the ardent piety and reverence of the Jewish prophets."[101] It is a serious misconception to imagine that Philo's philosophical allegories were meant for the general body of Alexandrian Jews. He frequently[102] declares that he is speaking to a specially initiated sect, and warns his hearers not to divulge his teaching. The notion of an esoteric doctrine for the aristocracy of intellect had become a fixed idea in the Greek schools for three centuries, ever since the days of Aristotle; and whether through Greek influence or otherwise it had been generally adopted by the Jewish teachers. The rabbis of the Talmud derived from the first chapters of Genesis the inner mystery of the law, which was cognizable only by the sage; and the same idea is found in later Jewish tradition, which, expounding Paradise ([Hebrew: prds]) as four stages of interpretation, each marked by a letter of the word, Peshat, Remez, Derash, and Sod ([Hebrew: sod]),[103] regarded the last as the final reward of the devoted seeker after God, as it is said in the Psalms, "The secret of the Lord is for those who fear Him." Jewish religious philosophers have in all ages designed their work for a select few. The Halakah, or way of life, is the fit study of the many. So Maimonides wrote his Moreh only for those who already were masters of the law. And Philo likewise at Alexandria taught an esoteric doctrine to an esoteric circle, which alone was fitted to receive the profoundest theology.[104] The allegories of the law do not take the place of the law itself, nor of its ethical ordinances. They are additional to the other exegesis and distinct, destined only for the man of learning. And as we shall see, he asserts emphatically in the midst of his allegories[105] that the perception of the philosophical value does not release man from the practice itself. The wise man even as the fool must obey the law.