38 PHILO'S POLITICS
Philo is uncertain about the history of Petronius' interest in Judaism,
but seems sure that Petronius knew the Jewish law and piety, and re
spected them. Vitellius is also represented by Josephus as doing what he
could to give the Jews freedom in observing their law.^67 In view of the
fact that the Jews did keep their legal privileges, it is not surprising
that there were a few influential Romans who were friendly with the
Jews, though Philo implies that they were on the whole quite excep
tional.
The passages thus far discussed have all been from the great Allegory
designed especially for an inner circle of Jewish readers. But "arro
gance" takes us into another passage, one in the Exposition which
seems to me to have been written with gentile, and even Roman, read
ers in mind,^68 and which is again a denunciation of their domination
and mode of living. Moses, says Philo in the passage, could not give
pure law in any existing city because every city is full of untold evils,
evils both social and religious. He continues:
In cities arrogance flourishes, the most subversive of all things, and some
people admire and venerate it, and dignify "empty opinions" with golden
crowns and purple robes, and with a multitude of servants and chariots, in
which the so-called "blessed and happy ones" (oi \zyo\\£vo[ nctKcipioi Kal
euSa(|Jovec) are carried on high. Sometimes mules and horses are harnessed
to the chariots, sometimes human beings, who bear the burden on their necks
and are crushed down in soul even more than in body by such an excess of
insolence (uPpic). Arrogance makes also many other evils, pretentiousness,
pride, and inequality. These are the causes of foreign and civil wars, and they
leave nothing whatever at rest, whether public or private, on land or sea.
What need is there of recalling the sins of these people to each other? For by
"arrogance" even divine things are belittled, though they are esteemed as
worthy of the highest honor. And what sort of honor would there be in the
absence of truth, which is honorable both in name and fact, just as falsehood
is on the contrary dishonorable in nature? And the belittling of divine things
is obvious to those who have keen perception. For they hold sacred a myriad
painted and sculptured forms; they erect temples for them and provide altars
with images and statues, and to images of such a sort, though they are all
inanimate, they vouchsafe honors on a par with the Olympians and the gods.
Such people the sacred Scripture apdy compares to children begotten of a
harlot. For just as such children are registered as having for their fathers all- Antiq., XVIII, 90 f.
68. See my "Philo's Exposition of the Law and his De Vita Mosis," Harvard Theological Re
view, XXVII (1933), 109-125.