PHILO’S ATTRACTIVE ETHICS ON THE “RELIGIOUS MARKET” OF ANCIENT ALEXANDRIA

Trade is one of the catalysts of religious formation, transformation and cross-cultural exchange. economic trade builds on and builds up contacts and interaction between individuals and/or groups. Such interaction, for example, along ancient trade routes, also forms the basis of metaphorical trade as we can see when we look at various processes of intra- and inter-religious dynamics between East and West: religious “commodities” are exchanged—“offered,” “negotiated” and “bought”—when they are perceived as attractive.¹ In this article we will look at one aspect of religious attraction: the Jewish religious-ethical way of life as it is presented by the Jewish