Three treatises by perhaps the most important representative of Hellenistic Jewish literature during the imperial period of Rome.

The first part of the extensive introduction presents the life and work of Philo, while examining the complex cultural relationships between Hellenism and Judaism in Alexandria, Egypt.

The second part of the introduction is dedicated to the presentation of two significant Jewish sects of the time, the Jewish Therapists in Egypt and the Essenes by the Dead Sea, and establishes a connection between the asceticism characteristic of the two groups and the later Christian monasticism.

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