ARISTOBULUS of ALEXANDRIA. - Hellenistic Jewish philosopher, who seems to have lived in Alexandria at the time of Ptolemy IV Philometor (181-145 B.C.), to whom he dedicated his work, a lengthy commentary on the Pentateuch.
From the few fragments that have come down to us and from what the ancients say, especially Clement of Alexandria, it appears that A. anticipated Philo, inaugurating a wholly allegorical interpretation of the Bible, which he skillfully employed, sometimes forcing the biblical text, to demonstrate a perfect homogeneity of teaching with Greek philosophy. A shared with Philo the idea, also held by some Christian apologists, that Greek thought derived from Hebrew wisdom. He asserted that, before the Septuagint, there existed a Greek translation of the Bible, used by the most eminent poets (Orpheus, Homer, Linus, Hesiod) and Hellenic philosophers (Pythagoras, Socrates, Platonists); and he cited, for this purpose, verses or passages, largely spurious and fabricated, from such ancient writers. Problematic is the identification, made by Clement of Alexandria (Stromata, V, 14, 97), of this A. with the one in 2 Macc. 1:10.