 A central problem in Philo’s use of allegory is the nature of the debt he owes to those he calls fusikoi. Since he evokes them regarding the interpretation of some Biblical difficulties, they were most likely Jewish exegetes using Stoic methods in which, at least at that time, etymology played a strong role. For Long (1992), there is a big difference between Stoic “allegory”, based on etymological and, more generally, linguistic bases, and the allegories of Philo. Stoic allegoresis, he says, 