Note 122 — Chapter XXXVIII · TIMÆUS AND KRITIAS.
Reading edition
The learned work of Gfrörer — Philo und die Jüdisch-Alexandrin. Theosophie — illustrates well this coalescence of Platonism with the Pentateuch in the minds of the Hellenising Jews at Alexandria. “Aristobulus maintained, 150 years earlier than Philo, that not only the oldest Grecian poets, Homer, Hesiod, Orpheus, &c., but also the most celebrated thinkers, especially Plato, had acquired all their wisdom from a very old translation of the Pentateuch” (Gfrörer, i. p. 308, also ii. 111-118). The first form of Grecian philosophy which found favour among the Alexandrine Jews was the Platonic:— “since a Jew could not fail to be pleased — besides the magnificent style and high moral tone — with a certain likeness between the Oriental Kosmogonies and the Timæus, the favourite treatise of all Theosophists,” see p. 72. Compare the same work, pp. 78-80-167-184-314.
Philo calls Sokrates ἀνὴρ παρὰ Μωϋσεῖ τὰ προτέλεια τῆς σοφίας ἀναδιδαχθείς: he refers to the terminology of the Platonic Timæus (Gfrörer, 308-327-328).
Eusebius (Præp. Ev. ix. 6, xi. 10), citing Aristobulus and Numenius, says Τί γὰρ ἔστι Πλάτων, ἢ Μωϋσὴς ἀττικίζων; Compare also the same work, xi. 16-25-29, and xiii. 18, where the harmony between Plato and Moses, and the preference of the author for Plato over other Greek philosophers, are earnestly declared.
See also Vacherot, Histoire Critique de l’École d’Alexandrie, vol. i. pp. 110-163-319-335.