122 PHILO'S POLITICS
have found a judge just and equal to all parties, he fell into the hands
of an enemy and accuser. And what is more this did not exasperate him
so much as the mad idea which that stupid beast had fixed in his head,
namely that he was God: he wished, as such, to have himself adored by
all the inhabited world. He had even commanded that they should set
up within the secret oratory of the Temple at Jerusalem a statue bearing
this inscription: Caius, the new Jupiter. Philo, having heard this, was
so astonished and overcome, that, abandoning all human hopes, he
came to say that it was necessary to await divine aid, since that of men
had failed. This dictum did not remain without effect: for some time
afterward (as Josephus recounts at length), that Emperor who was im
pious and wicked, drunken and sordid, a devourer of the people (Em
peror, say I, by title, not in fact), was ta\en out of this world by his
subjects. So divine justice, which has an eye on human affairs, did not
give him the leisure to execute his enterprise. That is the tragedy which
the great power of God allotted to him, that power which cut him off
and hounded him down: as since the creation of the world, such, or
similar, fates have come to those who, having set themselves up as gov
ernors of the gentle and humane ftoc\ of men, instead of good gover
nors have shown themselves tyrants. I shall not hold you with a longer
discourse, my Lord, \nowing well that Philo's life and deeds are well
enough fyiown to you. I have only at the end a word to say to you in
Philo's name: for he begs you very strongly to ma\e a report of a little
verbal request to the council of the King: little, I say, in words, but of
very great consequence, being a matter of the peace and repose of all of
poor France, which is afflicted by evils from on high because of the
execrable blasphemies pronounced daily, on every occasion, against the
honor of God. The request tends to this, that, for the means and reasons
deduced at length in Philo's treatise on the second commandment of
the Decalogue, the Edict of the late magnanimous King Francis, ances
tor of our most illustrious King, against those who ta\e the name of
God in vain, and blaspheme it, be renewed and very strictly enforced.
Philo expects indeed that this request will be granted to him by the
King, as being the justest and most reasonable of all those which one
could present him. There is only one difficulty implicit in the execution
of this. If it should please you, my Lord, to ta\e the trouble—or rather
pleasure (for there is only pleasure in whatever one does for the honor
of God)—to have the magistrates and judges of the provinces com-