Jewish  faith  in  revelation  which  is  of  the  very  essence
of  Judaism,  and  the  Greek  freedom  of  speculation
by  which  the  ancient  revelation  of  the  Hebrew  was
reinterpreted  through  the  medium  of  the  prevailing
theory  of  Allegorism  which  was  characteristic  both
of  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  scholars  of  this  age.  The
new  factor  of  Revelation,  which  was  imported  into
the  general  stream  of  Alexandrian  life  through  the
influence  of  the  Jew,  found  a  ready  reception  on  the
part  of  the  Greek,  because,  as  a  result  of  past  ex-
perience, his  mind  was  prepared  for  a  new  and  radical
departure  from  the  previous  philosophical  methods
of  his  race.  The  sceptical  despair,  which  resulted
from  the  failure  to  achieve  a  full  knowledge  of  divine
things  through  the  exercise  of  the  pure  reason,  led
the  mind  of  the  age  to  seek  for  satisfaction  through
other  than  purely  scientific  channels.  That  intense
desire,  which  is  never  absent  from  the  most  serious
and  vivid  life  of  men,  to  '  leap  beyond  the  flaming
ramparts  of  the  world,'  exercised  in  this  age  an
influence  which  made  it  one  of  the  chief  forces  in
human  life.  Any  ladder  by  which  the  soul  could
scale  the  unseen  heights  was  grasped  with  eager
hands,  and  the  old  systems  of  philosophy,  especially
those  which  had  a  religious  colouring,  as  well  as  the
traditional  religious  systems,  began  again  under  new
interpretations  to  renew  their  former  influence.1
But  the  objective  methods  of  the  past  had  in  reality
long  since  exhausted  themselves.  Knowledge  by

1  Zeller,     Philosophic     der     Griechen,    Dritter    Theil,    Zweite
Abtheilung,  S.  70.
