The first precept of the Philonic scheme enjoins monolatry, the second expresses God’s spiritual and transcendental nature.

In ancestral sciotheism, and in this monolatry, the ethical code, often of a very high order, comes into closer relation with the theological creed.

Thus was established a monolatry which was practically monotheism, though a theory of absolute monotheism was never formulated by the pre-Christian Jews.