The Politics of Philo Judaeus: Practice and Theory, with a General Bibliography of Philo

KINGSHIP 99

subject to death, and so must share in it [obedience]. But if anyone anywhere

were so composed within himself that he was more divine than is true of

other animate beings, he would have had no need whatever of obedience.^69

Here it is plain that the divinity or semi-divinity of the king was for
Pythagoreans a concept with definite religious and mystic possibilities.
But they had no notion of identifying the king with supreme deity. The
king could and should be for the people a saving link to God, showing
them a much larger share of divine nature than was given to any private
citizens.
Philo has statements in which he seems to go quite as far as Ecphan-
tus in recognizing the king's divine nature. Melchizedek, he says, can
be the great combination of king, priest, and Logos, "for he has the
Really Existent as his portion, and thinks about Him in a way that is
high, exalted, and sublime."^70 An ideal king he speaks of as one in
whom Sophia was long a guest, if not a permanent resident,^71 which
would be but another form of expressing the Pythagorean notion that
the king was incarnate Logos or animate law (VOMOC lytyvxoc). Philo's
attitude is best summarized in a fragment preserved by Antony:

In his material substance (ouo(a) the king is just the same as any man, but in
the authority of his rank he is like the God of all. For there is nothing
upon earth more exalted than he. Since he is a mortal, he must not vaunt
himself; since he is a god he must not give way to anger. For if he is honored
as being an image of God, yet he is at the same time fashioned from the dust
of the earth, from which he should learn simplicity to all.^72

In this Philo has almost accepted the full measure of royal divinity as
described by Ecphantus, and has gone as far probably as most intelli­
gent pagans of his day went. The distinction is carefully being made,

69. Stobaeus, Anthol., IV, vi, 22 (ed. Wachsmuth et Hense, IV, pp. 244 f,). Several lines of
    this are quoted by Clemens Alexandrinus as from Eurysus the Pythagoraean: Stromata, V, v, 29,
    1 f. (ed. Stahlin, II, p. 344, 11. 19 ff.). This quotation by Clemens is extremely important since
    it shows first that the idea was current among Pythagoreans in general, and second that the
    material was current at least as early as the second or early third centuries.


70. LA, iii, 82. 71. Plant., 169.


71. Melissa, Ser. CIV; Mangey, II, 673. This is one of the many fragments which Harris
    (Fragments, 106) for some reason "thought it not worth while to print." The fragment reads:
    Tfj ILIEV ovaia laoc; TOV Jtavrdc; dv&QC&Jtov 6 paoaA-svc;, xfj e^ovcria 8s TOV dgtconaxoc;
    o'noiog iaxi T(j) Ijtl jidvrcov flscjj owe %%ei VOLQ IJII vfjc; avxov W 1 NIA.6TSQOV. %Q9\ XOLWV
    xal cbc; ihrriTdv sjtaiQscrfrai, xal obc; ftsdv dpYi^saftai. si ya.Q xal slxovt ftstxxi
    xsxiu/nxai, 6Xka xal x6vsi xoixfi crufirte'jtknxxai, bi' lis £x8i8d0X6xai xi\v JIQOC; jtdvrag
    djtA.6TTlTa. OvcrCa, which I have translated "material substance' obviously is used in that
    Stoic sense of the word here.