Note (return) — Chapter II

3. Neither Philo's philosophy of religion, nor the mode of thought from which it springs, exercised any appreciable influence on the first generation of believers in Christ.118 But its practical ground-thoughts, though in different degrees, must have found admission very early into the Jewish Christian circles of the Diaspora, and through them to Gentile Christian circles also. Philo's philosophy of religion became operative among Christian teachers from the beginning of the second century,119 and at a later period actually obtained the significance of a standard of Christian theology, Philo gaining a place among Christian writers. The systems of Valentinus and Origen presuppose that of Philo. It can no longer, however, be shewn with certainty how far the direct influence of Philo reached, as the development of religious ideas in the second century took a direction which necessarily led to views similar to those which Philo had anticipated (see § 6, and the whole following account).