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

54 PHILO'S POLITICS

beautifully executed picture, he put his own life of temperance and every vir­

tue, and so converted even those who seemed utterly incorrigible. These, as

the long-standing diseases of their souls abated, upbraided themselves for

what they had done and repented, while they said to themselves: "Where all

this time has this great good been which at first we failed to find? For lo,

when he shines forth, we see as in a mirror our lack of order, and are

ashamed."^41

The saving power of the king as expressed by the Pythagorean frag­
ments is certainly what Philo is here again working into his story. The
reformation the king effects is that of putting the soul that is full of
disorder (aKooyla) into order, just the point of view of Diotogenes who
uses the term KaraKoonaSyjuev for the process. In both Philo and Dio­
togenes the acts (rrpdSeic) of the king are stressed as important parts of
the king's making this reforming impression, while Philo couples with
this his utterances (Aoyoi), like Plutarch and Ecphantus. The offering
of the life (Pioc) of the ruler as essentially the saving force does not
appear in Diotogenes, though he is obviously trying to get at this by
enumerating the aspects of the king's life, his reasonings, plans, way of
soul, activities, and the movements and poses of his body. Cicero, draw­
ing upon the same tradition, does speak of the king's life as being of
peculiar significance, for he says of the ideal ruler:

He embraces in himself all those qualities to which he incites and summons
the citizens, and imposes no law on the people which he does not himself ob­
serve; rather, he presents his life as law to the citizens (suam vitam, ut legem,
praefert suis civibus).*^2

That is, in representing Joseph, the ideal politicus, as a reforming force
in the personal lives of his subjects, Philo is again following conven­
tional hellenistic notions of the ideal king.

Philo continues his vigorous narrative of the dreams and their inter­
pretation. In §106 an interesting detail appears, that when Joseph came
before the king, Pharaoh recognized in him a "token of wisdom"
(SeiYMs oo<)>iac), so that "he will be able with his knowledge to dissipate

the ignorance of the sophists of my court as darkness is dissipated by

41. Jos., 86 f.
    42. De Republica, I, 52. The vision of God has quite the same effect, according to Philo.
    Abraham saw God, now as one, now as three, and was impelled thereby to the twin virtues of
    piety and humanity: QG, iv, 2. The words in Aucher's translation sound strikingly like
    Cicero's: "Ista enim politica suam vitam pro exemplo exhibuit nationi dux atque origo eius
    compertus," etc