Politics is surely one of the most underestimated aspects of Philo of Alexandria's thought.Footnote 1 Especially On Joseph – a biographical-allegorical treatise explicitly focusing on the biblical figure of Joseph, the eleventh son of Jacob, as an example of the statesman – has long been neglected or misinterpreted as an expression of Philo's critique of the Roman prefect of Egypt.Footnote 2 This relative neglect would by itself be sufficient to claim that O.’s monograph, a revised version of her Marburg dissertation, is a very welcome contribution to the study of Philo. O.’s book is remarkable for its lucid, insightful and multifocal analysis of On Joseph and of what is usually considered its negative counterpart, the second book of the allegorical treatise On Dreams.
O.’s strengths are threefold. First, she recognises that Philo's political thought cannot be interpreted exhaustively unless one takes into consideration three factors: (1) the Jewish (and Rabbinic) exegetical tradition and Philo's relationship to this tradition; (2) the socio-political context in which Philo lived and operated; (3) the Hellenistic ideology of power. Second, she plausibly argues that On Joseph and On Dreams 2 not only present Philo's opinion on the ideal statesman, but also enable the reader to gain a better understanding of Philo's view on politics in general. Third, she deliberately prefers not to solve the discrepancies between On Joseph and On Dreams 2 artificially. Rather, she considers the blatant opposition between their depictions of the statesman to be a deliberate choice of Philo and stresses that in On Joseph too Philo offers at times an ambiguous picture of the statesman.Footnote 3
This last point invites further discussion, since a combination of the ambiguous depiction of On Joseph with the unequivocally negative description in On Dreams 2 might be a more fruitful approach to Philo's understanding of politics. O. seems, thus, to have too positive a view of Joseph as the ideal statesman within On Joseph. Indeed, one of the book's main claims is that On Joseph offers a juxtaposition of the virtuous, rightly educated statesman, represented by Joseph, and the tyrannical nature represented by his brothers and the wife of Potiphar, the captain of the palace guard. Although I tend to agree with the conclusion, i.e. that the ideal statesman is in perennial danger of being overthrown and is eventually bound to fail in his duties, I think that some of O.’s arguments would benefit from a deeper scrutiny, as the following examples undertake to show.
O. rightly points out that Philo's allegorical explanation of Joseph's name as ‘addition to the Lord’ (Jos. 28–31) should be interpreted in political terms (pp. 112–36). Philo stresses that existing constitutions represent additions to natural law, which he identifies with God's rule. However, Philo's perspective is not only political: while actual constitutions are additions to the natural constitution, and actual laws are additions to natural law, the statesman is an addition to life according to nature (προσθήκη δέ ἐστι πολιτικὸς ἀνὴρ τοῦ βιοῦντος κατὰ ϕύσιν). But this does not necessarily imply, as O. claims, that the statesman is an addition to nature as far as his duty consists of issuing new laws (p. 132). Rather Philo's observation could be related to the treatise's beginning, where the life of the statesman is described as the fourth type of life after that of the wise by learning, that of the wise by nature and that of the wise by practice. Philo's characterisation of Joseph as ‘addition to the Lord’ consequently has moral implications, and – as Goodenough argued – implies a contrast between the statesman and the (truly) wise man. In this regard Philo's highly negative interpretation of Joseph's name as ‘addition’ in On Dreams 2.48–64 (that O. analyses on pp. 137–44) might cast light on his views on actual politics as an ‘inferior’, maybe even despicable, way of life rather than just offer a counterpart to his picture of the ideal statesman.
Another passage worthy of further examination is O.’s analysis of Philo's allegory of the objects that Pharaoh gives Joseph, after he has been nominated governor of Egypt, as symbols of his power. Joseph is allowed to ride the Pharaoh's second chariot, and Philo comments that this privilege represents the intermediate position of the statesman between a king, who in turn is a metaphor for the people, and a private man. More specifically the second chariot represents the zenith of the statesman's career, since he is ‘raised on high both by the affairs he handles and the multitude around him, especially when everything great and small goes as he would have it, when nothing blows against or opposes (him), but as in a fair voyage when all is safely steered by God’ (transl. Colson, modified) (Jos. 148: ὑπό τε τῶν πραγμάτων καὶ τῶν ὄχλων εἰς ὕψος αἰρόμενος, καὶ μάλισθ᾿ ὅταν κατὰ νοῦν ἕκαστα μικρὰ καὶ μεγάλα χωρῇ, μηδενὸς ἀντιπνέοντος μηδ᾿ ἀντιστατοῦντος, ἀλλ᾿ ὡς ἐν εὐπλοίᾳ πάντων σωτηρίως ὑπὸ θεοῦ κυβερνωμένων). O. claims that Philo here shifts the political responsibility to God and consequently frees the statesman from his dependency on the people and contingency (p. 281). However, this interpretation is based on a misconstruction of the Greek text in O.’s translation (‘Er wird … von den Angelegenheiten und der Volksmenge in die Luft gehoben, und in den meisten Fällen wirkt niemand entgegen und unternimmt einen Aufstand, wenn jedes – Großes wie Kleines – vernunftgemäß vonstatten geht, sondern alles wie bei einer guten Schifffahrt von Gott heilvoll gesteuert wird’ [p. 280]). In fact the passage means quite the opposite: as long as the people profit from his activity, the statesman will be honoured, as if God himself would steer the ship of the state.
More generally O.’s analysis misses the importance of the contrast between Joseph and Moses, who – being at once philosopher, king, law-giver, high priest and prophet (Moys. 2.2) – truly represents the ideal statesman. In this regard the book would have profited from L.H. Feldman, Philo's Portrayal of Moses in the Context of Ancient Judaism (2007). This is, however, less a criticism than a confirmation of how stimulating and challenging this book is.
Some minor points also deserve mention. O. seems to be unaware of some recent publications on ancient allegory, for example G.R. Boys-Stones (ed.), Metaphor, Allegory, and the Classical Tradition: Ancient Thought and Modern Revisions (2003); I. Ramelli, G. Lucchetta, Allegoria. Vol. 1: L'età classica (2004). It is quite surprising to read that pre-Augustan Rome had a democratic constitution (p. 88). Undeniably the Roman Republic had some democratic elements but, as we can assume on the basis of Polybius’ analysis, it was considered a mixed constitution. One of the few typos is worth mentioning: at p. 271 Philo's œuvre is quite oddly labelled Corpus Philonem instead of (correctly) Corpus Philonicum.
