In his numerous essays on the Torah, Philo tried to demonstrate that the God of Judaism was very like the God of Plato and that the stories of Genesis are not mere amusing diversions but hide profound philosophical truths. This allegorical approach to Scripture was developed even further by Origen, Ambrose, and other fathers of the church, but its first great exponent was Philo, and its origins reach back to Alexandrian Jewry of the third century BCE.
