How much more impartial than Celsus is Numenius the Pythagorean, who has
given many proofs of being a very eloquent man, and who has carefully
tested many opinions, and collected together from many sources what had
the appearance of truth; for, in the first book of his treatise _On the
Good_, speaking of those nations who have adopted the opinion that God
is incorporeal, he enumerates the Jews also among those who hold this
view; not showing any reluctance to use even the language of their
prophets in his treatise, and to give it a metaphorical signification.
It is said, moreover, that Hermippus has recorded in his first book, _On
Lawgivers_, that it was from the Jewish people that Pythagoras derived
the philosophy which he introduced among the Greeks. And there is extant
a work by the historian Hecatæus, treating of the Jews, in which so high
a character is bestowed upon that nation for its learning, that
Herennius Philo, in his treatise on the Jews, has doubts, in the first
place, whether it is really the composition of the historian; and says,
in the second place, that if really his, it is probable that he was
carried away by the plausible nature of the Jewish history, and so
yielded his assent to their system.