Philo Judæus was born about 25 B.C.. His family, of a sacerdotal line, was one of the most powerful of the populous Jewish colony of Alexandria. The following is a quote from one of his famous works, Questions and Answers on Genesis. It is indicative of a strain of racist interpretation regarding the "nature" of black Africans as related to the infamous curse of Ham in the book of Genesis which provided the backdrop for religious justification of the enslavement of Africans.
"81) Why the eldest son of Ham is Chus. (#Ge 10:6). The sacred historian has here produced a word most completely in accordance with nature, saying that Chus was the elder son of evil, Chus being the dissolved and loose nature of the earth, for the earth, when dense and fertile, and moist, is full of herbs, and hills, and trees, and is well arranged for the production of different fruits; but when dissolved and reduced to dust and dry, it is unfruitful and barren; and besides it is tossed about in the air, when it is raised from the ground by the wind, by its dust making the air all alive. Such as this is the first origin and the first shoots of evil being destitute of the generation of good pursuits, and the cause of barrenness to the soul and to all its parts.
(82) Why was Chus the father of Nimrod, who began to be a giant and a hunter before the Lord: on which account they said, "Like Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord?" (#Ge 10:
. The father in this case, having a nature truly dissolute, does not at all keep fast the spiritual bond of the soul, nor of nature, nor of consistency of manners, but rather like a giant born of the earth, prefers earthly to heavenly things, and thus appears to verify the ancient fable of the giants and Titans; for in truth he who is an emulator of earthly and corruptible things is always engaged in a conflict with heavenly and admirable natures, raising up earth as a bulwark against heaven; and those things which are below are adverse to those which are above. On which account there is much propriety in the expression, he was a giant against God, which thus declares the opposition of such beings to the deity; for a wicked man is nothing else than an enemy, contending against God: on which account it has become a proverb that every one who sins greatly ought to be referred to him as the original and chief of sinners, being spoken of "as a second Nimrod." Therefore his very name is an indication of his character, for it is interpreted Aethiopian, and his art is that of hunting, both of which things are detestable: an Aethiopian because unmitigated wickedness has no participation in light, but imitates night and darkness: and the practice of the huntsman is as much as possible at variance with rational nature, for he who lives among wild beasts wishes to live the life of a beast, and to be equal to the brutes in the vices of wickedness."
http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/text/philo/book42.html 
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