In his monumental study of Philo of Alexandria (1947), Harry A. Wolfson argued that the philosophical method developed by Philo, in which Greek philosophy and Scripture are combined, served as the model for Christian, Jewish and Islamic thinkers until the time of Spinoza. This book, through an examination of the thought of Philo, Maimonides and Aquinas, confirms Wolfson’s thesis. There are two fundamental claims made in the book: 1) that Philo of Alexandria did, indeed, establish the method for philosophy that would survive for at least 1500 years. 2) that this same method was utilized by Moses Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas. When the reader understands these two points he or she will understand that Philo’s philosophy shaped the history of Western philosophy until the seventeenth century.

"Though a long millennium separates them, after opening with Philo, the heart of the book is dedicated to a comparison of Thomas Aquinas and Moses Maimonides in which Cortest uncovers a subtle genealogy that begins with Philo: how to read the Bible allegorically and do so through the lenses of Plato and Aristotle. All three thinkers ask: what is the role of religion in the establishment of politics and law, was the world created, what is God and does he shape world events? Rather than retrace the obvious, Philo’s Heirs encourages us to tease out the subterranean influences that animate the big questions of the western philosophic tradition and to think broadly, across large time periods and geographies, to answer these questions in our own day." - New Books Network