2 PHILO'S POLITICS
Heinemann,^2 have alike despaired of attaching any importance to his
political statements. Yet the fact remains that Philo, who could have
executed his commission at Rome, must have known men and Romans
in a masterful way. The a priori assumption must be that he was a man
who might mean a good deal when he refers to the state and to poli
ticians.
From the point of view of political philosophy three attempts have
been made to determine Philo's ideas. Pantasopulos^3 attacked the prob
lem of the two laws, natural and positive, to explain the nature of each
and the interrelation of the two. His last chapter opens up the problem
of the state. But the study is quite inadequate for the subject. The au
thor has isolated a number of interesting passages, identified them as
Stoic or Pythagorean with tolerable correctness, but since he did not
himself go on with the subject he can be said to have done little more
than open it.
Geiger's^4 work is likewise that of a beginner, and similarly is useful
chiefly as a collection of passages. In spite of Brehier's brilliant correla
tion of Philo's remarks on kingship with the Neo-Pythagorean frag
ments, Geiger is so convinced that all of Philo's philosophy is drawn
from Stoicism that he thinks Philo can be taken as a text for doctrines
of the middle-Stoa.^5 The task to which he set himself still remains to be
done.
Tracy^6 has been much less ambitious as a beginner. Starting out from
my own previous suggestions^7 he has been the first to study the two po-
- See especially his Philons griechische und judische Bildung (hereafter abbreviated as Phi-
Ions Bildung), Breslau, 1932. An interesting example of Heinemann's general approach is the
section in this work on the King (pp. 184-202), where he gives an instructive analysis of the
Greek as contrasted with the Hebraic elements in Philo. Heinemann treats Philo from the point
of view of his "sources," on the implicit assumption that Philo's direct source for one notion
was Plato, for another was the Neo-Pythagoreans, etc., treating these always as literary sources.
He therefore concludes (p. 202): "Schon dies erste Bild aus seiner Darstellung des Profanrechts
veranschaulicht lehrreich, wie vorsichtig man mit dem Versuche sein muss, aus seinen Angaben
auf die praktische Durchfiihrbarkeit, geschweige auf die tatsachliche Durchfuhrung seiner Ideale
zu schliessen." Philo is still for Heinemann only "the first theologian" and "evidence of the reli
gious tendencies" of the day (p. 5). - Die Lehre vom natiirlichen und positiven Rechte bei Philo Judaeus (Diss.), Miinchen, 1893.
- Philon von Alexandreia als sozialer Denver, Stuttgart, 1932 (Tubinger Beitrdge zur Alter-
tumswissenschajt, XIV). - A single example: Geiger (p. 5) quotes the Platonic-Neo-Pythagorean account of creation
in Opif., 146, and Spec., iii, 207, in which the human vovg is Jtpog &QXETVJTOV I8eav, TOY
dvooT&TO) Xoyov, TVJtoofteig, and comments that Philo, in telling of creation, "sich in der Ter-
minologie ganz an die Stoa anlehnt." - Philo Judaeus and the Roman Principate (Diss.), Williamsport, Penna., 1933.
- In "Philo and Public Life," Journal of Egyptian Archeology, XII (1926), 77-79, and in
Jurisprudence.