Thus Philo holds the balance between a formless spirituality and an unspiritual formalism. The end of religious observance is the love of God, but the love of God requires more than feeling; it must impregnate life. Dubnow, in his summary of Jewish history, formulates an epigram, which, like most of its kind, becomes in its conciseness and pointed antithesis a half-truth. "At Jerusalem," he says, "Judaism appeared as a system of practical ceremonies; at Alexandria as a complex of abstract symbols." No doubt it is true that at Jerusalem the practical side of the law was most prominent, but the spiritual exaltation to which it should lead was appraised as the true end by the great rabbis. Witness Hillel, and indeed all the writers of the gnomic wisdom in the "Ethics of the Fathers." At Alexandria, again, while the philosophical principle underlying the outward practice was especially emphasized, the practice itself was loyally observed, and its value perceived, by those who most thoroughly understood Judaism. Witness the writings of Philo, the Wisdom of Solomon, and the fourth book of the Maccabees. The antithesis between letter and spirit, faith and works, is in truth a false one; and wherever the significance of Judaism has been fully comprehended, the two aspects of the law have been inextricably intertwined. As Philo understood the Jewish mission, it was not merely to diffuse the Jewish God-idea, but quite as much to diffuse the Jewish attitude to God, the way of life. Abstract ideas, however lofty, can never be the bond of a religious community, nor can they be a safeguard for moral conduct. Sooner or later congregations must submit themselves to some law, be it a law of dogma, or be it a law of conduct. Antinomianism, the opposition to the law, to which Paul later gave powerful, even fanatical, expression, was a strong movement at Alexandria in Philo's day. Preparatory to the spread of Christianity, numerous sects sprang up there which purported to follow a spiritual Judaism wherein the law was abrogated because, forsooth, its symbolism was understood! In the extreme allegorists, whom Philo attacks for their shallowness, one may discern the prototypes of the Cainites, Ophites, Melchizedecians, and the rest of the heretical parties that produced the religious chaos of the next centuries. From that welter of opinions there at last emerged dogmatic Christianity. The Christian reformers came to free man from the yoke of the law; but their successors imposed on the mind the fetters of dogma, and, in order to check the passions of the body, advocated renunciation and asceticism. So that not only Judaism as a system of belief, but Judaism as a system of life was lost in their handiwork. Spirituality lacking knowledge and allegorism in excess led to this result. In Philo they are controlled by affection for the Torah, and by a conviction of the need for national cohesion.