it with all the bitterness that it must have caused his wounded dignity. The backdrop was the garden of Maecenas in the proximity of Rome. The ambassadors prostrated themselves before the Emperor. Gnashing his teeth, the Emperor responded: “Are not you those people, enemies of the gods who scorn me and prefer the cult of your nameless God to my cult?” At this he directed a blasphemy at them. Isidore, who headed the Egyptian delegation, lavishing divine titles upon the Emperor, embarked upon fanatical accusations. The Jews exclaimed that they offered sacrifices for the Emperor upon his accession. “You have offered sacrifices for me, but to another. What do your sacrifices matter to me, if they are not directed to me?” answered Caligula.
At the same time, the Emperor continued to visit the villa followed by the unfortunate Jews amid the jokes of the courtiers. After having given orders to the architects, the Emperor turned abruptly to Philo and his companions and asked, “Why do you not eat pork?” This joke provoked general mirth. At the end he asked them to explain their political organization. The Jews began their explanation. But the emperor did not listen and discussed the slabs of rock salt to be placed in the windows. He ended with a less harsh comment: “These imbeciles are more to be pitied than to be blamed.”
Philo does not mention his personal role in this audience. But Josephus, who gave us another version, emphasizes it. The text is important, because it is contemporary testimony about Philo. Josephus first emphasizes the accusations made by Apion, who was part of the pagan delegation. Philo assigns the chief role to Isidore. But this does not seem to indicate that there were two audiences. Joseph was especially interested in Apion, against whom he wrote. It was normal for him to underline Apion’s role. Philo, by contrast, seems to be more hostile to Isidore.
Accordingly, Josephus writes:
Many of these severe things were said by Apion, by which he hoped to provoke Gaius to anger at the Jews, as he was likely to be. Philo, the principal of the Jewish embassage, a man eminent on all accounts, brother to Alexander the Alabarch, and one not unskillful in philosophy, was ready to betake himself to make his defense against the accusations; but Gaius prohibited him and bid him begone; he was also in such a rage, that it openly appeared he was about to do them some very great mischief. So Philo, being thus affronted, went out, and said to those Jews who were about him, that they should be of good courage, since Gaius’s words indeed showed anger at them in words, but in reality had already set God against himself (Antiquities of the Jews, XVIII, 8, 1).27
The fact remained that the mission was headed toward failure. Philo was overwhelmed, so much that, as one can detect in his narrative, he wondered whether he had been clumsy. In any case, he risked having the burden of the failure fall upon him (Legum Allegoriae, 46, 369). Their last friends abandoned the Jews, seeing their disgrace. The plight was going to get still worse. Indeed, Caligula ordered the arrest of Philo’s brother, Alexander the Alabarch, who was part of the delegation. Alexander was a close friend of Agrippa. The latter had everything to fear.
Then things took a dramatic turn. On January 24, 41, the tribune Chaereas assassinated Caligula. It was a moment of danger. Convoked by the Consuls, the Senate proclaimed the reestablishment of the Republic. The army hailed Caligula’s uncle Claudius as emperor. In these circumstances, Agrippa would play a decisive role. It is he who discovered the Emperor’s body. To win time he placed it on a bed and declared that the Emperor was still breathing. Then he sought out Claudius and offered his services. He went to the Senate and declared his republican sympathies but asked that Claudius be given their adherence. Sensing that the Senate hesitated, he returned to Claudius and convinced him to proclaim himself Emperor.
At this instant, Agrippa is the leading personality of the Empire. His prestige was at its height. A decree was proposed to the senate to restore the kingdom of his grandfather Herod the Great to him, that is to say, to add Samaria and Judea to what he already possessed. Soon he entered his new capital Jerusalem in triumph. There he met a new problem, Christianity. His grandfather had the Holy Innocents massacred. His uncle had John the Baptist beheaded and sent Jesus back to Pilate with mockery. In 44 Agrippa would have Peter arrested and James beheaded. The Acts of the Apostles describes Agrippa’s death, which took place at Caesarea shortly afterwards.
But in January 41 he was at the peak of his glory. His prestige reflected back upon his friends. Alexander was liberated. Was Alexander, furthermore, not the steward of the possessions of Antonia, mother of the new Emperor? Alexander shared Agrippa’s triumph. The connections between the two families became closer through a marriage that constitutes a singular historical nexus. Agrippa gave his daughter Berenice to Mark, the son of Alexander (Antiquities of the Jews, XIX 5). Berenice was then thirteen. She enters history with this marriage. It must not have lasted long. Mark having died, she would marry her uncle, Herod of Chalcis. This marriage also must have been brief. At twenty, Berenice was a widow, and would share her kingdom with her brother Herod Agrippa II. The Acts of the Apostles will show her presiding with him over a tribunal that judges St. Paul (Acts 25–26). Then she was to meet Titus.28
So Berenice inhabits worlds that we are unaccustomed to combine, Paul’s mission, the Empire of the Caesars, Alexandrian Judaism. It is odd for us to think that during that early part of 41, Philo frequently saw the young Jewish princess who was going to become his niece. His situation was now completely reversed. Yesterday the butt of sarcasm at Gaius’s court, he became an important figure on the morrow. He must have frequented the highest Roman society. He was part of the Emperor’s inner circle. We know well enough that the pious rabbi was a humanist and man of the world to perceive that he found himself perfectly at ease in the new situation.
We have a possible testimony proceeding from the pagan world of Philo’s presence in Rome at this date. The treatise On the Sublime, so praised by seventeenth century French writers, is well known. This treatise is attributed to the third century rhetorician Longinus. But it has been demonstrated that it was written earlier. Careful studies, in particular those of the great philologist Eduard Norden, have made it possible to demonstrate that it was written in the first century. Certain indicators, among others, praise for the republican regime, even let it be precisely dated in the year A.D. 41.29
Now, this treatise contains the first allusion by a pagan author to the Bible. Indeed, a quote from Genesis 9:9 is found in it. The task is to find out through whom the author knew the Book of the Hebrews. At the end of the work, Pseudo-Longinus reports that a philosopher recently questioned him, asking how it happens that in a period so rich in talent, there were so few “natural geniuses.” Does not that genius need a climate of freedom and does not tyranny hinder the blooming of genius? Norden has shown that these ideas literally reproduce those of Philo (De Ebrietate, 198).
The Treatise on the Sublime seems to be very much in the context of the situation of spring 41: it is the period of discussion about the return of the Republic after the excesses of Gaius’s tyranny. These questions were discussed in intellectual circles at Rome. Philo was a visible presence in these circles. It is possible that the author of the Treatise discussed this with him and that he reports Philo’s teaching to us. So, at the time, Philo was in relations with the highest spheres of political and intellectual life. Perhaps in the midst of this worldly life, he felt nostalgia for the desert of Lake Mareotis and for its monks. At any rate, here, we mark the zenith of Philo’s career.
It is clear that in these conditions the diplomatic mission must have been completely successful. Moreover, at Alexandria itself the situation had turned around. When they learned of Gaius’s death, the Jews had hastened to take up arms—which certainly proves that they possessed some, despite Philo’s protestations—and, in their turn, they set about massacring Egyptians and Greeks. Claudius intervened with a series of decrees in which he guaranteed the Jews their rights while inviting both sides to live in peace henceforth. It is certain that Agrippa and Philo inspired these texts. Indeed, they represent the very object
