The frequent resemblances which we find between him and Philo, those excellent maxims about the love of God, charity, rest in God,[2] which are like an echo between the Gospel and the writings of the illustrious Alexandrian thinker, proceed from the common tendencies which the wants of the time inspired in all elevated minds.
[Footnote 1: The _Therapeutae_ of Philo are a branch of the Essenes.
Their name appears to be but a Greek translation of that of the _Essenes_ ([Greek: Essaioi], _asaya_, "doctors").

Cf.

Philo, _De Vita Contempl._, init.] [Footnote 2: See especially the treatises _Quis Rerum Divinarum Haeres Sit_ and _De Philanthropia_ of Philo.] Happily for him, he was also ignorant of the strange scholasticism which was taught at Jerusalem, and which was soon to constitute the Talmud.

If some Pharisees had already brought it into Galilee, he did not associate with them, and when, later, he encountered this silly casuistry, it only inspired him with disgust.

We may suppose, however, that the principles of Hillel were not unknown to him.