Philo, Aristobulus and Numenius

He also seems to me to have heard that there are writings containing allegories of the law. If he had read them, he would not have said: “At any rate, the allegories that are thought to have been written about them are far more shameful and absurd than the myths, for they join together, with an astonishing and utterly senseless folly, things that can in no way whatever be fitted together.” He seems to say this about the writings of Philo, or even of men still more ancient, such as the writings of Aristobulus. But I conjecture that Celsus has not read these books, since in many places they seem to me so successful that even the philosophers among the Greeks would be won over by what they say. In them not only is the style carefully worked, but so also are the thoughts, the doctrines, and the use made of what Celsus takes to be myths from the Scriptures.

I know also of Numenius the Pythagorean, a man who expounded Plato far better and who championed the doctrines of the Pythagoreans. In many places in his writings he sets out passages of Moses and the prophets and gives them a figurative interpretation that is not unpersuasive, as in the work called The Hoopoe, and in the books On Numbers and On Place. In the third book On the Good he even sets out a story about Jesus, without saying his name, and interprets it figuratively; whether successfully or not is a question for another time. He also sets out the story about Moses and Jannes and Jambres (Exodus 7:11; 2 Timothy 3:8). We do not take pride in that; but we do welcome him more than Celsus and other Greeks, because out of love of learning he was willing to examine our writings as well, and was moved by them as writings to be read figuratively and not as foolish ones.