STATESMAN AND PHILOSOPHER 75Those who follow the statutary law alone, he goes on to explain, are
apt to be led into idolatry and superficial philosophy, and thereby lose
the finer qualities of the soul. Here is the politicus of Philo's other pas
sages. Those who follow the law of nature alone do indeed qualify
themselves as priests among men by slaying the brother, the body, and
their neighbors, human society; they slay as well their immediate fami
lies, that is their tendency to form opinions on the basis of probability.^55
Such action will be thought by God to be worthy of unreckoned praise
and reward.^56 Here are the people of ascetic life whom we have been
meeting; they are highly praised, but are none the less inferior to those
who are obedient to both parents as Philo himself was trying to be. For
it would seem that those who obey both laws are no less pleasing to
God than those who obey the father only, while there is advantage in
obeying the mother also, since one who does so is bound to be an object
of love not only to God but also to men, because such a person is moti
vated by social-mindedness (Koivuvia) as well as by piety.^57 For the ideal
man, the sage, is one who can function fully and freely in the realms of
piety, natural science, and moral philosophy, both in theory and prac
tice, which latter implies politics and legislation.^58 And yet this same
sage is but an alien resident (MSTOIKOC) in mortal affairs, and he prop
erly contemns, inwardly flees from, the life and city of the passions.^59
In another passage^60 the figure of the father and mother is developed
more briefly, but with the same conclusion that those who attend to
either practical or divine affairs exclusively are half perfect in virtue
(yjjjiTeAetc T/)V apeTiqv) while only those are complete (O\6K\Y\PO) who
are distinguished in both.^61
This I take to be Philo's real attitude. For the politicus in its usual
sense, the man who centers his life in social problems, Philo had little
respect. True, he was better than a man with no spiritual or social sense
- Ebr., 70. 56. Ibid., 74. 57. Ibid., 84.
- Ibid., 91 f. 59. Ibid., 100 ff. 60. Deed., 107-110.
- Heinemann, Philos Wer\e (Bibliography no. 492), V, 35, n. 4, has shown that this pas
sage is quite akin to rabbinic interpretation of Prov. viii, 1: "My son, hear the instructions of
thy father and forsake not the laws of thy mother." In the rabbinic explanation (T. Sanh. 102a)
the father is God, the mother the community of Israel, and so the whole means loyalty to both
religion and popular customs. Heinemann thinks that the rabbinic tradition was the source of
Philo's interpretation, though he thinks that Philo did not have it from Palestinian teachers di-
recdy. The framework of the figure, the laws of the father and of the mother, must go back to
this verse, with or without Palestinian suggestion; but the content of Philo's distinction is defi
nitely Greek, very much in harmony with two fragments ascribed to Archytas (Fragments 14
and 15 in Mullach, Fragmenta Philosophorum Graecorum, I, 559). It would seem to be a
Pythagorean distinction set forth in terms of the scriptural metaphor.