22 PHILO'S POLITICS
those who regard it as unmixed. The people who speak of the good in
the restricted sense associate it exclusively with reason, so far as man is
concerned; the others speak of the good as though it applied also to the
soul, the body, and to external circumstances. The latter is clearly the
point of view of both Plato^3 and Aristotle,^4 and while it will appear
later that Philo vacillated between the two conceptions of the good, in
this present connection he insists that it ought to be restricted to its
idealistic meaning. For in contrasting Isaac and Joseph he is anxious to
contrast the man engaged in political affairs, the politicus, with the
spiritually minded person, and for this the distinction between those
who live only for metaphysical realities, and those who, confusing
values, live also for material things, is an excellent one for his purpose.
Isaac is the ideal man of single purpose, and Joseph is the type of "much
mixed and mingled opinion" (ttoAumiy^c Kai K£Kpa[\LVY\ §6£a),s for
though Joseph is not totally devoid of higher interests he places value
upon "unreasoning sensation" (to aXoyov aloS^occjc) as well as upon
metaphysical perfection. He also has a love of bodily pleasure and
"empty opinion" (h KZVY\ §6£a), by asserting which he destroys "equal
ity."^6 This is the sort of man, the politicus, the meaning of whose dream
Philo goes on to expound.
Joseph's first dream had to do with the sheaves. Joseph had a sheaf,
likewise each of his brothers. These are explained as representing the
affairs of life by which a man supports his household.^7 But while all the
ten brothers represent various virtuous traits of character, Benjamin rep
resents mere pretense,^8 and Joseph himself represents again "empty
opinion," a phrase which by its frequent repetition will gradually gain
significance. To make clear the person to whom he is referring by his
treatment of Joseph Philo suddenly leaps ahead of his story, temporarily
forgets the sheaves, and says that this is the man who is appointed
Lmrponoc "or governor of all Egypt," the place second in honor to the
king ((3aoiAeuc).^9 No such title is given Joseph in Genesis, and the use
- Laws, 728ft^7 ff.; Philebus, 66c f. The idea is already apparent in the Gorgias, 4770 ff., and
Taylor (Plato, 115, n.) seems right in inferring that it is pre-Academic. - Health and a measure of material prosperity are of course included with virtue of the soul
as goods, though on a lower plane, in the Aristotelian fttog teXsiog; Eth. Nic, 1098^ 12 ff. - Som., ii, 15. This passage seems to me to go back to some standard Jewish allegory, familiar
to Philo's readers, where the JtoixCA.O£ /ITCOV of Joseph was explained in terms of the specious
attraction of JtoixiAia in the democratic state as described in Plato, Repub., 557^: IJAOLTIOV
JtoixiA.ov; cf. 561 e. The coat of Joseph is not mentioned here, but is throughout being taken as
the symbol of Joseph's character. - Ibid., 16. 7. Ibid., 31. 8. Ibid., 42. 9. Ibid., 43.