The Politics of Philo Judaeus: Practice and Theory, with a General Bibliography of Philo

72 PHILO'S POLITICS

For though these are distinguished from each other by all their natural prop­

erties, the politician brings them together and combines them into one, and

claims that he can demonstrate that each is in need of each, all in need of

all, and that the perfect and complete good is made up of the aggregate re­

sulting from getting them all together, while the individual constituents of

this sum, although they are parts and elements of goods, are not themselves

fully goods. The politician's argument is that just as neither fire, nor earth,

nor any of the four elements from which the universe has been created is the

cosmos, which is made up of a collection and mixture of these elements into

a single entity, so in the same way happiness is not to be found in external

goods, nor in bodily states, nor in the psychic realm, separately and taken

apart each by itself. Each of them has the character of being a part or element

of the good, but the good itself is an aggregate of them all together.^36

In contrast to Joseph who holds this erroneous opinion are the brothers

who are aware of the real nature of the good, namely that "only that

which is noble is good" (MOVOV TO KGCAOV ayaSov), which is the peculiar

property of the soul as soul. They recognize that the so-called bodily

goods are goods only in name.^37 The mind which enters into the holies

of the divine mind is in contrast to the ordinary human mind, which,

even when occupied with the noblest human concerns (including spe­

cifically statutary laws, Ta Geoei vonipa), is moving always on the level

of "opinion."^38

That is, for practical purposes and from the social point of view, it is

true that the good life involves health, wealth, and external peace, as

well as spiritual maturity. On this level moves the politician. In contrast

Philo esteems the man of the higher level, for whom the good is "pe­

culiar to the soul qua soul" (tSiov \|>ux?i< uc ^uxvjc).^39 He speaks with

approval of a person who can flee from household, fatherland, kinsmen,

and friends,^40 and says that the most undeniable proof of perfection is

for a man to be a fugitive to God, having abandoned all concern for the

things of creation.^41 For love of God and love of the world cannot co­
exist within a single person any more than light and darkness can min­
gle.^42 The passage has the absoluteness of the "house divided against

36. Det., 7, 8. 37. Ibid., 9. 38. LA, iii, 126.


37. The man concerned with political affairs is in Mig., 160 \ieaoq between Pharaoh, who
    typifies the realm of the body, and Jacob, who typifies ra xatd tyv%r\v. The same contrast ap­
    pears in QG, iv, 47, where the vita operativa is described as partaking of both good and evil,
    the good of the vita contemplativa, and the bad of the vita condecens.


38. Praem., 17; cf. Agr., 65. 41. Sacr., 120.


39. Fragment from John Damasc, Sacr. Parall., p. 370 b (ap. Mang. II, 651).