112 PHILO'S POLITICS
cepted all his statements about the ideal king and applied them to
Moses and Abraham with a literalness with which Ecphantus himself
probably never applied them to anyone; who went on to center his re
ligious loyalties and experience in Moses as Ecphantus never dreamed
of doing in any ruler; and who yet insisted that what he was doing did
not break his monotheism, while he would rather die than practise
polytheism by sacrificing to the emperor with Ecphantus.
Frankly, Ecphantus' perplexity is quite my own, for in spite of the
statements and sincerity of both Philo and the later Christians I cannot
see any more than the Romans how monotheism was at all the issue.
For if they defined monotheism as belief that there was only one Being
above men to whom men might direct their devotions, then in practice
neither Philo nor the Christians were monotheists. If their monotheism
meant that they admitted only a single supreme deity, along with
whom were lesser divine beings, angels, "more divine men" on earth or
in heaven, then they were monotheists as Ecphantus himself was a
monotheist; and if their worship included veneration to the lesser di
vine beings, then their worship was, in essence if not in form, that of
Ecphantus.
Modern psychology has taught us that when human logic breaks
down as Philo's logic has done, we must look for some motive or emo
tion which has invaded the problem from outside the ideas being dis
cussed. Actually, it seems to me, the arbitrary point at which the process
of hellenization stopped for the Jews was not arbitrary at all, but had
several definite causes.
First there was the real, if irrational, feeling, with Jews as later with
Christians, that a dead saint is more holy than a living one, and hence
that after death he can be recognized as "more divine" in a way impos
sible during his life. The term "divine Sage" of pagan speculation was
likewise applied, if to any individual at all, to men safely removed by
centuries from curious scrutiny. So Philo might well have talked about
Abraham and Moses in language which he had to contradict for his
contemporaries. This is a consideration which may have affected his at
titude toward the emperor, but other considerations seem to me more
important.
Secondly, Philo's deepest religious instincts were involved in this re
fusal to put Gaius, or even Augustus, really on a level with the Jewish
Patriarchs. To do so would have been to abandon the last stronghold of