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

8o PHILO'S POLITICS

only the Jewish Law was in Philo's mind a reliable codification of the

law of Nature, the Logos, and even the Mosaic codification, I have

shown, was to him quite inadequate, as a code, for man's higher devel­

opment.^79 All other human systems were to him the product of human

contingency, and so were best to be described as an "addition" to na­

ture,^80 with the plain implication that like any addition to perfection

they were essentially inferior and marring. Laws of men are a super­

fluity (rrepioooc), for that "arrogance" is a superfluity by which deceit

is introduced into what should be an unerring life. By it various civil

laws are introduced, with the result that instead of a universal observ­

ance of "the true standards of right" (TO. aura SiKaia) men follow cus­

tom without once dreaming of "the universal and unchanging

laws of Nature" (ra Koiva TKJC $UO£(JC KCCI aKivyjxa vo|ji|ja).^81 Indeed Philo

states the ideal of a society regimented by natural law usually when he

is protesting against the fact that such regimentation is completely lack­

ing in actual states.

State organization as it appears among the various peoples is an "addition"
to Nature which has sovereign power over all things. For this world is the
Megalopolis, or Great City, and uses a single constitution and a single law,
and this is the Logos of Nature which enjoins what is to be done, and pro­
hibits what is not to be done. But the variously situated states are unlimited
in number and use different constitutions and dissimilar laws; for the differ­
ent states various customs and laws have been invented and enacted in addi­
tion [to the law of Nature]. Now the cause [of such disparity] is the lack of
intermingling and of social life not only between Greeks and barbarians, or
barbarians and Greeks, but also within a single race between people of the
same kin. Men seem to lay the blame [for their lack of intercourse or their
bad laws] where it does not belong, as they point to bad times, failure of
crops, poverty of soil, or to their geographical location by the sea or inland,
or on an island or the mainland, or some other such geographical factor. But
they do not mention the true reason, their greed and faithlessness toward
each other, which lead them, since they are not pleased with the laws of Na­
ture, to decree as "laws" whatever the crowd unites in supposing will be of
public benefit. Thus naturally the individual constitutions are an "addition"
to the one constitution of Nature; for the civic laws are "additions" to the
right reason (op9oc Xoyoc) of Nature, and the politician is an addition to the
man who lives according to Nature.^82

79. See my By Light, Light, Chap. Ill and passim. 80. See above, p. 35.


80. Agr., 43. 82. Jos., 28-31.