11 4schott

SCHOTT/FOUNDING PLATONOPOLIS 501
Founding Platonopolis:
The Platonic Politea in
Eusebius, Porphyry, and
Iamblichus
JEREMY M. SCHOTT
This essay begins with an examination of two Neoplatonic biographies,

Porphyrys Life of Pythagoras and Iamblichus On the Pythagorean Life. In
contrast to the traditional picture of Neoplatonic disinterest in classical
political philosophy, engagement with classical Platonic political philosophy
actually forms an important component of these texts. The author then turns
to an examination of Eusebius Praeparatio Evangelica to argue that Eusebius
extensive comparisons of Moses legislation with Platos Laws in Book 12 of
the PE should be evaluated in the context of contemporary Neoplatonic
political thought. Finally, the essay offers some concluding comments on the
timbre such discussions of political philosophy, both Neoplatonic and
Eusebian, would have had in the context of the Roman Empire of the early
fourth century.
In his biography of Plotinus, Porphyry tells the story of his teachers

intention to found a new city: Platonopolis.1 This was to be a city of
philosophers, governed by the Laws of Plato.2 Porphyrys story is per-
plexing for two reasons. First, traditional wisdom supposes Neoplatonists
like Plotinus and Porphyry to have been at best apathetic, and at worst
hostile, to politics. Second, founding a city based on the blueprint provided
1. Portions of this article are revised from a paper presented at the Annual Meeting
of the North American Patristics Society, May 2002. I would like to thank those
whose comments and suggestions helped to improve this piece, especially Elizabeth
Clark, Zlatko Plese, and the two anonymous reviewers for JECS.
2. Porphyry, Vita Plotini 12, P. Henry and H. R. Schwyzer, eds., Plotini Opera vol.
1 (Leiden: Brill, 1951).
Journal of Early Christian Studies 11:4, 501531 2003 The Johns Hopkins University Press
502 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES
by a Platonic dialogue implies a degree of engagement with classical

political philosophy that one cannot normally imagine either Plotinus or
Porphyry undertaking.3 During the two decades after Porphyry wrote
about Platonopolis, Eusebius of Caesarea described another ideal society
in his massive two-volume apologetic Praeparatio/Demonstratio Evan-
gelica (PE/DE hereafter)the Christian church. Eusebius traces the his-
tory of this godly polity, from its origins among the pre-Mosaic patri-
archs to the institutionalized ecclesia of his own day. Unlike his Neoplatonic
contemporaries, Eusebius is widely recognized for his contributions to
political philosophy. All students of late antiquity, of course, know him as
the rst Imperial theologian. As for the classical Platonic tradition of
political speculation, this lay decrepit beside Neoplatonic apathy and
Eusebian Caesaropapism.
This traditional evaluation of the state of political philosophy at the
turn of the fourth century demands serious revision. To this end, I begin
this essay by examining two Neoplatonic biographies, Porphyrys Life of
Pythagoras and Iamblichus On the Pythagorean Life. I hope to demon-
strate that, against the traditional picture of Neoplatonic disinterest in
classical political philosophy, engagement with classical Platonic political
philosophy actually forms an important component of these texts. I will
then move on to an analysis of Eusebius PE as a source of his political
philosophy. While most investigations of Eusebius political thought fo-
cus on the Life of Constantine or the Tricennial Oration, which are
explicitly concerned with the emperor Constantine, the PE offers a rather
different political philosophy. The rst-time reader of the PE is often
struck by Eusebius voluminous, verbatim quotations of primary sources.
In Book 12 of the PE in particular, Eusebius uses this unique method of
composition to engage the political philosophy of Platos Laws and Re-
public. While the political philosophy presented in Book 12 is not a direct
reaction to the Neoplatonic biographies, Eusebius and the Neoplatonists
3. The judgement of A. C. Lloyd is representative of both aspects of this traditional

account: The social or political virtues are low in the ofcial Neoplatonic scale.
Porphyry follows Plotinus in a positive quietism; he cites as an ideal the famous
description in Platos Theaetetus of the unworldly nature of philosophers. Neither he
nor his succesors had anything substantial to say that we know of on the political
writings of Plato or of Aristotle; and we have to wait for the Arabs for a revival of
political philosophy, Introduction to Later Neoplatonism, in The Cambridge
History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1967, rev. 1970), 274.
shared a common context.4 Both the Neoplatonic biographies and Book

12, I will argue, are reections on the possibility of actualizing the consti-
tutions outlined in the Laws and the Republic within the Roman Empire.
Finally, I will conclude by considering what the Neoplatonic Lives and
Eusebius PE can tell us about the points of conuence and divergence
between philosophical, religious, and political discourse in late antiquity.
I. NEOPLATONIC POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY?

Neoplatonism, we have all learned, was otherwordly. Plotinus and his
successors, the usual account runs, were deeply concerned with the soul
and its unication with the One, and therefore had little interest in mat-
ters as mundane as civic life and politics. This evaluation of Neoplatonists
and Neoplatonism has come under scrutiny in recent years. In his histori-
cal studies of late antique philosophers, Garth Fowden has emphasized
the fact that many sources provide evidence for a fair number of politi-
cally active Neoplatonists. From Neoplatonic biographies, especially
Eunapius Lives of the Sophists and Porphyrys Life of Plotinus, it is clear
that Neoplatonic philosophers played active roles in the political life of
late antiquity.5
Despite the evidence for the political lives of Neoplatonists, it has
remained a difcult task to nd examples of political philosophy within
Neoplatonic sources. During the past decade, D. J. OMeara has offered a
4. It is not impossible that Eusebius had read one or more of the Neoplatonic
biographies of Pythagoras, but there is no evidence to support such a claim. The PE,
of course, is a major source of Porphyrian material, including On Philosophy from
Oracles, Against the Christians, the Letter to Anebo, and On Images. Eusebius also
names Porphyry as a source for the Chronicle (GCS 20:125.626). If a complete copy
of Porphyrys Philosophical History was among Eusebius sources, he could have read
Porphyrys Life of Pythagoras, which was originally part of this larger work (E. des
Places, Notice, in Porphyre: Vie de Pythagore et Lettre Marcella [Paris: Bud,
1982], 1011). There is no real evidence for Eusebius reading of Iamblichus. Barnes
draws a parallel between Eusebius General Elementary Introduction and Iamblichus
series of ten Pythagorean texts, among which the On the Pythagorean Life stood
(Constantine and Eusebius [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981], 168).
Barnes admits that there is no sign that [Eusebius] read any of Iamblichus works,
although he must have known of Iamblichus philosophical activity in nearby Syria
(ibid., 183).
5. Garth Fowden, Pagan Philosophers in Late Antique Society: With Special
Reference to Iamblichus and his Followers (D. Phil. thesis, Oxford, 1979), see
especially chs. 6 and 7.
series of articles intended to remedy this blind spot in our knowledge of

Neoplatonic philosophy.6 Iamblichus division of philosophy into theo-
retical, logical, and practical implies, according to OMeara, a
place for political philosophy, which would have been included among
the practical subjects.7 Iamblichus provides evidence for Neoplatonic
political philosophy in chapter 15 of his De communi mathematica scientia.
Here, he states that mathematics permeates all of philosophy, and men-
tions politics explicitly as part of the practical division.8 OMeara has
also looked to fragments of Iamblichus letters for more signs of Neo-
platonic political reection. It appears that Iamblichus was of the opinion
that the political reality of the polis could serve an important function in
the souls progress towards union with the divine. OMeara cites as
evidence Iamblichus letter to Dyscolius: . . . individual advantage is
contained in the whole and the part is saved in the whole, in animals,
cities and other natures.9 A better example comes from the letter to
Asphalius, in which wisdom is described as the governing leader of man
and of the whole order among them, bringing cities, households and
individual ways of life up to the divine model, painting them according to
the best resemblance . . . imitating appropriately the model. Here,
Iamblichus seems to be likening wisdom to Platos artist rulers.10
OMeara has also discussed the ways in which Neoplatonists theorized
about the desirability of political involvement. This included reection on
the philosopher-kings of the Republic who, having escaped the shadow-
world of the cave, are compelled to return and communicate their knowl-
edge via political responsibility.11 OMeara points out that, for all his
6. D. J. OMeara, Vie politique et divinisation dans la philosophie neoplatoni-

cienne, in SOFIHS MAIHTORES: Chercheurs de sagesse. Hommage a Jean Pepin, ed.
M. O. Goulet-Caze et al. (Paris: 1992), 50110; idem, Aspects of Political Philos-
ophy in Iamblichus, in The Divine Iamblichus. Philosopher and Man of Gods, ed.
H. Blumenthal and E. Clark (London: Bristol Classical Press, 1993), 6573; idem,
Conceptions neoplatoniciennes du philosophe-roi, in Images de Platon et lectures
de ses oeuvres, ed. A. Neschke (Louvain: Peeters, 1997); idem, Eveques et
philosophes-rois: philosophie politique neoplatonicienne chez le Pseudo-Denys, in
Denys lAreopagite et sa posterite en Orient et en Occident, ed. Y. De Andia (Paris:
Etudes Augustiniennes, 1996), 7588.
7. OMeara, Aspects of Political Philosophy, 65.
8. Iamblichus, De communi mathematica scientia 56.4ff; see OMeara, Aspects of
Political Philosophy, 66.
9. OMeara, Aspects of Political Philosophy, 67, translating Stobaeus, Antholo-
gium 4.222.7ff.
10. OMeara, Aspects of Political Philosophy, 68, translating Stobaeus, Antholo-
gium 3.201.17ff.
11. Rep. 7.516b520d.
otherworldiness, Plotinus certainly does not nd the life of contempla-

tion and the life of action to be mutually exclusive.12 Once the soul has
contemplated the One, Plotinus asserts, it may choose one of two courses
of action; either to abandon public life, or to facilitate the transcendence
of others through action in the public sphere. As Plotinus explains, Per-
haps also it was because Minos attained this kind of union that he was
said in the story to be the familiar friend of Zeus, and it was in remem-
bering this that he laid down laws in its image, being lled full of lawgiving
by the divine touch.13 The Neoplatonist Hierocles of Alexandria, more-
over, describes the politically active philosopher as being motivated to
filanyrvpa by knowledge of the good.14
The fact remains that neither Plotinus, Porphyry, nor Iamblichus ever
wrote a treatise explicitly dedicated to political philosophy. OMeara,
however, has also suggested looking towards Neoplatonic biographic
literature as providing exempla of lives that are simultaneously contem-
plative and politically active.15 OMeara has given brief attention to Iam-
blichus Life of Pythagoras, but I would like to consider Porphyrys Life
of Pythagoras as well. These Neoplatonic saints lives, as they have
been termed by one recent translator,16 are, like their Christian counter-
parts, multivalent documents, unique vehicles for conveying a variety of
themes. Like Christian hagiography, Neoplatonic biographies provide
model lives for imitation. For Porphyry, and slightly later, for Iamblichus,
the ancient philosopher Pythagoras was a particularly interesting sub-
ject.17 Iamblichus, in fact, conceived of his biography as an introduction
to his philosophical system, placing it as the rst volume in a ten-volume
set of works On Pythagoreanism.18 Porphyrys biography of Pythagoras
is also part of a larger work, a Philosophical History of which only
fragments survive.19 In these lives we nd, of course, a good deal of

13. Plotinus, Ennead 6 9 [9], 7.2026. Text and translation A. H. Armstrong,
Plotinus vol. 6, LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 19661988).
16. Mark Edwards, Neoplatonic Saints: The Lives of Plotinus and Proclus by Their
Students (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000).
17. For an in-depth comparison of Iamblichus and Porphyrys biographies of
Pythagoras see Mark Edwards, Two Images of Pythagoras: Iamblichus and Por-
phyry, in Divine Iamblichus, 15972.
18. Gillian Clark, Introduction, Iamblichus: On the Pythagorean Life (Liverpool,
Liverpool University Press, 1989), ix.
19. These fragments are collected in Porphyrii Philosophi Fragmenta, ed. A. Smith
(Stuttgart: Teubner, 1993), 22048.
attention paid to familiar themes: the education of the budding philoso-

pher, his acquisition of knowledge from the most renowned and arcane
centers in Egypt and Mesopotamia, and the performance of miraculous
deeds.
Alongside all of this, moreover, is rather a lot of political activity.
Pythagoras is portrayed not only as aware of politics and the political
arena, but also as an active, positive contributor to civic life, especially in
the eld of law. In both Porphyrys and Iamblichus narratives, Pythagoras
career is punctuated by his active involvement in the politics of various
communities. As OMeara has recognized, there is nevertheless a certain
ambivalence in both texts as to the desirability and/or efcaciousness of
political involvement for the philosopher.20 Both the gestures towards
political activity and the shying away from it are the result of calculated
allusions to Platos descriptions of the philosopher-king of the Republic
and the lawgiver of the Laws. It is as creative reections on these two
Platonic dialogues that I would like to examine Porphyrys and Iamblichus
texts.
In Samos, Pythagoras rst political encounters are negative. After
returning home to Samos from his studies abroad, Pythagoras decides to
leave because the tyrant Polycrates has assumed power.21 The two biogra-
phers each furnish a slightly different reason for Pythagoras departure:
Iamblichus states that it is because Pythagoras recognized that life under a
tyrant would be an impediment to his purpose and to the love of learn-
ing for which he was eager above all,22 while Porphyry says that
Pythagoras left Samos because tyranny was too strained for a free man
to remain.23 Porphyry also provides an alternative source for this por-
tion of Pythagoras lifeDiogeneswho asserts that Pythagoras felt that
it was inappropriate for one pursuing the philosophical life to live in this
[tyrannical] polity.24 Each of these explanations of Pythagoras expatria-
tion indicates, at least, an acknowledgement that the philosophical life
certainly did not happen in an apolitical vacuum. The Iamblichean
Pythagoras does, in fact, participate in Samian politics. After his initial
ight from tyranny, he returns to Samos, where the elders request that he

21. Iamblichus, V. Pyth., ed. L. Deubner, rev. U. Klein (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1975);
Porphyry, V. Pyth., ed. E. Des Places, Porphyre: vie de Pythagore; Lettre a Marcella
(Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1982).
22. Iambl. V. Pyth. 11.
23. Porph. V. Pyth. 9.
teach publicly, although the public is not very receptive to his efforts.25 He
does not yet abandon civic concerns, but instead visits Crete and Sparta
for the sake of their laws.26 Ultimately, however, Pythagoras emigrates.
Iamblichus gives several possible reasons for this, including dissatisfac-
tion with Samian law, being forced into public ofce, and the unteachability
of the populace.27
Pythagoras conict with his home city, and ultimately his emigration,
indicates an acute awareness of the difculties a philosopher faces in
taking on a public life. In Samos, Pythagoras is made to live out the sort of
negative reception Plato assumed would likely be attendant on a true
philosopher assuming a political life. In the Republic, after stating that
the ideal state should be governed by a philosopher-king who is natu-
rally tted to combine philosophic study with political leadership,28
Platos Socrates goes on to describe the difculties someone so gifted is
likely to experience in trying to put philosophic leadership into practice.
The problem lies in the power of public opinion. While Socrates is a
proponent of rigid social hierarchy, and believes that the wise should rule
the less wise,29 he is aware that the opposite situation is nearly always the
reality. Contemporary scholars, who often nd their research projects
governed by the vicissitudes of the market, may appreciate Socrates
vivid description of the philosopher-turned-sophist, who, after constantly
playing to the crowd, ends up teaching nothing else than the opinions
and beliefs expressed by the public itself.30 Socrates warns that this same
public will try to co-opt the genius of the philosophic ruler by offering
positions of political powermuch as the people of Samos tried to rail-
road Pythagoras into accepting an unwanted political ofce.31
Both Porphyry and Iamblichus agree that Pythagoras found a situation
diametrically opposed to that in Samos upon arriving in his adopted home
of Croton. While the Samians had tried to use Pythagoras genius for their
own gains, Iamblichus records that Croton was precisely the country
having those more well-disposed to learning that he desired to make his
homeland.32 Porphyry, for his part, reports that the Crotonites recognized

28. Plato, Republic, 5.474c. Translation from The Republic of Plato, trans. F. M.
Cornford (London: Oxford University Press, 1945), 181.
29. Ibid.
30. Rep. 6.493a, Cornford, Republic, 200.
31. Rep. 6.494b, Cornford, Republic, 201.
Pythagoras genius, and consequently, that the town elders asked him to
share his knowledge in public lectures.33 Iamblichus provides much more
detail about Pythagoras reception in Italy. Taking Porphyrys remark
about public lectures as his starting point, Iamblichus provides extended
summaries of the speeches themselves. Pythagoras initial speech, to a
group of young men, is heavily concerned with ethical topics. This in-
cludes a long section on the harmony achieved by proper recognition of
social hierarchy,34 the value of self-control,35 and the importance of
education in creating a class of men who appear to attend to the affairs
of the fatherland, not out of impudence, but out of being genuinely
instructed.36 In Iamblichus narrative, it is as a result of the positive
reception of this speech that Pythagoras receives the invitation for his
series of public lectures.37 The result of this request is the polar opposite of
the events in Samos. While Pythagoras efforts there had fallen on deaf
ears, the Crotonites welcome and heed Pythagoras advice. This advice
includes more than a little about politics. In his speech to those presiding
over the polity,38 in particular, Pythagoras teaches about the importance
of concord (mnoia), the establishment of civic religion, and law.39
In both narratives, Croton serves as an example of the possibility of a
polity in which Platos philosopher-king/lawgiver may emerge. In the
Republic, Socrates had asserted that a society congenial to his nature is
a necessary prerequisite for the philosopher-kings success in realizing the
ideal polity.40 For Pythagoras, Croton is just this sort of society. Platos
ideal situation for ideal-polity formation is when circumstance com-
pels a true philosopher . . . to take charge . . . of a state that will submit
to their authority.41 In other words, the ideal is a city, like Croton, which
freely and openly requests and welcomes philosophic governance. This
governance is also corrective: Unlike other reformers, writes Plato, he
will not consent to take in hand either an individual or a state or to draft
laws, until he is given a clean surface to work on or has cleansed it
himself.42 In acting as a willing and obedient audience for Pythagoras
speeches, the Crotonites are certainly an example of the former.

38. Ibid.
41. Rep. 6.499bc, Cornford, Republic, 208.
Pythagoras political contributions to the city-states of southern Italy

and Sicily are much greater than a simple lecture series. Iamblichus credits
him with nothing less than the invention of the whole of political educa-
tion [tw politikw lhw paideaw].43 He also describes a Pythagorean
theory about the best form of government based on the Pythagorean
theorem, which he asserts was appropriated by Plato.44 It is as lawgivers,
however, that Pythagoras and his disciples make their most important
contributions to politics. While the ideal polity of the Republic is gov-
erned in person by a philosopher-king who possesses in a perfect way
everything needed to supervise the state, the Laws presents a slightly
revised, more realistic political model. There, the ideal polity is one in
which those in power (ideally a benevolent dictator, but barring that, a
constitutional kingship or democracy) govern based on the advice of a
sage lawgiver.45 Porphyrys Pythagoras has a similarly high evaluation of
the place of law. For Pythagoras, law is sovereign: Do not knock off a
crown, he admonishes, which means Do not disrespect the laws, for
laws are the crowns of cities.46 In Porphyrys narrative, Pythagoras
audiences received laws and regulations from him just as if they were
divine precepts.47 Pythagoras political involvement is, in fact, quite
active. While he and his students lived in Italy and Sicily, Porphyry tells
us, they found the cities enslaved to one another. . . . He freed them by
instilling the conception of freedom by means of his students in each
city.48 The Pythagoreans also act as lawgivers for these communities
once they have been liberated.49 Towards the end of the narrative, more-
over, Porphyry reiterates Pythagoras legislative success, telling us that
Pythagoras and his disciples were so admired that the cities entrusted
their polities [politeaw] to his followers.50
Iamblichus echoes Porphyrys very high evaluation of Pythagoras po-
litical impact in Magna Graeca. He includes in his encomium a lengthy
section dedicated explicitly to the political activities (tn kat tw
politeaw praxyntvn) of Pythagoras and his followers.51 According to
Iamblichus, some of the Pythagoreans were statesmen [politkoi] and

44. Iambl. V. Pyth. 13031.
45. Plato, Laws 4.710d711a. Translation in Plato: The Laws, tr. T. J. Saunders
(London: Penguin, 1970), 166.
49. Ibid.
rulers [rxkoi].52 Pythagoreans formed a kind of Platonic Guardian

class that watched over the laws and administered some Italian cities.53
Finally, as a result of Pythagorean lawgiving and guardianship, the best
constitutions were to be found in Italy and Sicily.54
These Neoplatonic biographers also agree, however, in their ambiva-
lence about the efcacy and desirability of political activity for philoso-
phers. Despite all of his success in Italy, Pythagoras ends up having to leave
his adopted homeland as the result of conspiracy and revolution. Porphyry
and Iamblichus each recount slightly different versions of this story. None-
theless, all agree that the conspiracy was the result of jealousy over the
political success of Pythagoras and his followers.55 Whatever the causes
and details of the revolt, the net result is the abandonment of Pythagorean
guardianship and lawgiving in Italy. When this happened, Iamblichus
reports, and the cities made no acknowledgement of the suffering that
had occurred, the Pythagoreans stopped their public supervision; this hap-
pened for both reasons: the contempt of the cities . . . and the destruction of
those best t to rule.56 In short, with the lack of a populace willing to be
governed by philosophical rulers, and the murder of most of those rulers,
the conditions for the foundation of ideal polities no longer obtained.
As evidenced by their biographies of Pythagoras, Porphyry and
Iamblichus understood political philosophy and political activity to be an
essential component of the philosophical life. The importance of political
themes in the Lives, moreover, indicates that these Neoplatonists did, in
fact, engage in speculation about political philosophy. This philosophy
seems, essentially, to take the form of reection, in the form of biographi-
cal narratives, on classical Platonic political thought. Porphyry and
Iamblichus still consider the polities of the Republic and the Laws, as well
as the Platonic philosopher-king and lawgiver, to be the ultimate political
ideals. Both are, like Plato, exceptionally skeptical about the possibility of
actualizing such societies given the attitudes of contemporary society.
After being rejected by the cities of Italy, after all, Pythagoras and his
followers end up eeing common human society.57

53. Ibid.
54. Ibid.
55. Porph. V. Pyth. 5457; Iambl. V. Pyth. 24863. See Clark, Iamblichus, 104 n.
24864, for a bibliography of studies on the various accounts of the rebellion.
II. THE PHILONIC AND JOSEPHAN LAWGIVER

APUD EUSEBIUS
It is as Lawgiver,
than to seem by making his actions agree with his laws.62 In addition,
Josephus explicitly compares Moses with Lycurgus, and Mosaic legislation
with that of Sparta and Crete, which, we have seen already, are the two
perennial examples of good constitutions in Platonic political theory.63
The Alexandrian philosopher Philo was even more versant in Platonic
political philosophy than Josephus.64 Philos most developed account of
Moses is, of course, his Life of Moses, written in two books. The rst
book is, according to Philo, a straightforward biography, concerned with
birth, education, and his career as a leader.65 The second book, on
the other hand, is a focused effort to portray Moses as a Platonic states-
man. Philo quotes Republic 5.473d: states can only make progress . . . if
either kings are philosophers or philosophers are kings.66 Moses pos-
sesses both qualities. Not only was Moses both philosopher and king, he
embodied three others, one of which is concerned with law-giving, the
second with the high priests ofce, and the last with prophecy.67 In the
work that follows, Philo systematically applies similar concepts and ter-
minology to Moses. Finally, Philo explicitly claims Moses legislation to
be qualitatively better than that of Plato or any other Greek philosopher
when he refers by allusion to the methodology of the Republic and the
Laws: . . . other legislators, writes Philo, are divided into those who
set out by ordering what should or should not be done, and laying down
penalties for disobedience, and those who, thinking themselves superior,
did not begin with this, but rst founded and established their state as
they conceived it, and then, by framing laws, attached to it the constitu-
tion which they thought most agreeable and suitable to the form in which
they had founded it.68 Like Pythagoras, Moses legislation serves as the
constitution of ideal philosophic communitiesthe Essenes and Thera-
peutaethe lifestyle of which Philo spends some time elaborating in his
Hypothetica and On the Contemplative Life.
Eusebius appropriates Josephus and Philos portrayals of Moses and
the Mosaic polity in Book 8 of the PE. Book 8, along with Books 7 and 9,
62. C. Ap. 2.169, Thackeray, Josephus, 36061 (modied).

63. Lycurgus: C. Ap. 2.225, Thackeray, Josephus, 38285; Sparta and Crete: C.
Ap. 2.17172, Thackeray, Josephus, 36061.
64. The classic study is still E. R. Goodenough, The Politics of Philo Judaeus (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1938).
65. Philo De Vita Mosis 2.1. Text and translation in F. H. Colson, Philo, vol. 6,
LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1935), 451.
66. Philo V. Mosis 2.2, Colson, Philo, 451.
67. Philo V Mosis 2.2, Colson, Philo, 451.
68. Philo V Mosis 2.4950, Colson, Philo, 473.
form a trilogy intended to prove the value of claiming a share in the

Hebrew doctrines.69 In this trilogy, Book 7 is aimed at an apologetic
presentation of the pious doctrines of the ancient Hebrews before
Moses.70 In Book 7, Eusebius makes a critical distinction between He-
brews and Jews. Eusebius describes the Hebrews, or the pre-Mosaic
patriarchs, as practicing a natural monotheism, later to be adopted by the
Christians. The Jews, on the other hand, Eusebius denes as those
ancestors of the Hebrews living under the Torah of Moses. These distinc-
tions will be discussed in more detail in the following section. Book 9, for
its part, is a compilation of Hellenistic and early imperial philosophic and
historical texts which, Eusebius claims, prove that many writers conrm
the truth of biblical history, the excellence of the Hebrew way of life, and
the superlative quality of Hebrew theology.71 Somewhat ironically, Eusebius
draws much of his material from post-Mosaic, Jewish authors, especially
the Hellenistic Jewish historians. In Book 8, Eusebius quotes extensively
from the works of Philo and Josephus just discussed.72 He does so in order
to make the same essential point as his sources; namely, that neither the
lawgiver, Moses, nor his law and polity, are deserving of derision. Rather,
they epitomize the ideals of Platonic political philosophy. The Moses of
Books 7 through 9 of the PE is the Moses of Philo and Josephus. He is the
Platonic lawgiver par excellence, the perfect philosopher-king. While
Eusebius presentation of his argument in the form of harmonized block
quotes is innovative, the argument itself is not. Here, Eusebius collage of
sources is really another version of the philosophical biography prac-
ticed by his Neoplatonic contemporaries, in which the foundation of
polities founded on Platonic/Pythagorean principles is a central topos.
The political aspects of this portion of the PE have tended to receive
more attention than Eusebius discussions of politics later in the same
text.73 This is understandable due to the crucial role these books play in
understanding Eusebius distinction between Hebrews and Jews. In
69. PE 7.1 (SC 215:14446).

70. PE 8.1 1 (SC 369:40).
71. PE 9.1 (SC 369:18890).
72. In PE 8.6, 8.7, and 8.11, Eusebius provides our only extant fragments of
Philos Hypothetica, which seems to have been an apology, similar to that of
Josephus Contra Apionem. In PE 8.8, he quotes a long passage from Josephus,
Contra Apionem (C. Ap. 2.165ff).
73. In the portion of his excellent study of Eusebius usage of the term politeia that
treats the PE, for example, Michael Hollerich focuses almost exclusively on instances
from Books 7, 8, and 9; Eusebius of Caesareas Commentary on Isaiah: Christian
Exegesis in the Age of Constantine (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999), 118 n. 7076.
Book 12 of the PE, however, when Eusebius again turns to political

philosophy, he does something quite different than his Jewish predeces-
sors and his Neoplatonic contemporaries. While Eusebius had explored
the political aspects of Christian interest in Jewish law and history in the
earlier portion of his text using a modied version of the philosophic
life, in Book 12 he turns his attention to a direct engagement with the
Platonic texts that underlie key portions of the philosophic life. It is to
this aspect of Eusebius political philosophy that I would now like to
turn.
III. MOSAIC, PLATONIC, AND

CHRISTIAN POLITYPE 12
Book 12 of the PE lies at the center of another triad, composed of Books

11, 12, and 13. These three books are intended to demonstrate the
agreement in the doctrinal principles of the Greek philosophers with the
sayings of the Hebrews in some way, if not in all ways.74 They are linked
to Books 7, 8, and 9 by Book 10, another collage of citations from Christian
apologists, Josephus, Diodorus, and Porphyry, among others, intended to
prove, chronologically, that the Greek philosophers had known and pla-
giarized the Hebrew Bible.75 In ne, Books 11, 12, and 13 make a detailed
argument for the dependence of Greek philosophy, represented by synec-
doche in the person of Plato,76 on Moses philosophy, contained in the
Bible.
Most investigations of this portion of the PE have focused on this
plagiarism motif.77 Less attention has been paid to the focused interac-
tions with Platonic and Neoplatonic philosophy other than as incidental
to Eusebius historical argument.78 Eusebius begins to prove his elaborate
thesis by claiming that the threefold division of philosophy was in fact
instituted by Moses: While Plato divided all of philosophy into three
parts: physical [fusikn], ethical [yikn] and logical [logikn] . . . you
74. PE 11.proem. (SC 292:52).

75. Ibid.
76. Ibid.
77. See, for example, Daniel Ridings, The Attic Moses: The Dependency Theme in
Some Early Christian Writers (Goteburg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 1995).
78. Important exceptions are Edouard Des Places, Le Platonism dEusebe,
Eusebe de Cesare: La Preparation Evangelique, SC 292, 239391 and Holger
Strutwulf, Die Trinittstheologie und Christologie des Euseb von Caesrea (Gttingen:
Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1999).
will nd this threefold version of instruction among the Hebrews, because

even before Plato was born, they had done philosophy in this very way.79
On behalf of the Greeks, Eusebius cites the Middle Platonist Atticus:
. . . the whole of philosophy is divided in three: into the so-called ethical
topic, the physical, and the logical.80 It is obvious where Eusebius found
his terminology.81 At the beginning of this paper, moreover, we saw that
Eusebius Neoplatonic contemporaries used variations of this same three-
fold division. For Eusebius, as for Porphyry and Iamblichus, this meant
that political philosophy was an integral aspect of the philosophical sys-
tem. Eusebius very clearly delineates his discussions of each of the divi-
sions. Chapters 5 and 6 of Book 11 are dedicated to the dialectic branch
of Hebrew philosophy, while the remainder of Book 11 deals with
Physics.82 Book 13 is also concerned with physics. Book 12, on the
other hand, addresses ethics, and it is in Book 12 that Eusebius pays an
especially great amount of attention to politics.
Since the overarching thesis of Books 11, 12, and 13 is Platos depen-
dence on Moses and the Hebrews, understanding Eusebius engage-
ment with political philosophy means working through his practice of
providing extended block quotations from Platos Republic and Laws, as
well as the Statesman. Although Eusebius says that he is performing a
comparative exercise between Plato and Moses, the bulk of the text is, in
fact, quotation from Platonic sources, with much less direct quotation
from Moses. Eusebius here follows the same practice employed through-
out the PE, glossing a voluminous quotation with a combination of
chapter headings, biblical verses, and his own, brief, commentary.
A few illustrative dissections of Eusebius chapters will be helpful in
understanding his methods in Book 12. Eusebius announces the theme of
chapter 5 in his heading: That only benecial, and not harmful, myths
must be taught to children.83 With this chapter heading, Eusebius in-
tends that the Platonic and Hebrew material that he will compare are,
in essential ways, identical. He rst draws a quote from the Republic on
the necessity of censorship, in which Socrates asserts, It seems that we
must rst supervise the myth-makers, and the good myths they make, we
79. PE 11.1 (SC 292:56).

80. PE 11.2 (SC 292:56).
81. On Eusebius divisions of philosophy see G. Favrelle, Introduction, SC 292,
2930 and Enrico Dal Covolo, La Filosoa Tripartita nella Praeparatio Evangelica
di Eusebio di Cesarea, Rivista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa 3 (1988): 51523.
82. PE 11.5, 6, 7 (SC 292:66, 88).
83. PE 12.5 (SC 307:44).
must approve, but the bad ones, reject.84 Eusebius argues that this posi-
tion was, in fact, a tenet of the Hebrew polity:
These things had been taken care of before Plato by the Hebrews; for they,
having the spirit of God and being discerning, accepted that which was
spoken or written with the help of the holy spirit, and rejected that which
was not just as if they were the words of false prophets. And it was the
custom for parents and nurses to enchant young children with the most
helpful narratives from the holy scriptures, just as if they were a kind of
mythology [tsi muyologaiw] for the preparation of the piety which was
going to accompany them into adulthood.85
This is one of the instances in which Eusebius glosses Platonic material

with only his own commentary, and no complementary scriptural cita-
tion. More often, he attempts to show that a particular Platonic concept
was anticipated by Moses by claiming that it can be found in the Bible. In
chapter 21, What opinions it is necessary that the odes possess,86
Eusebius quotes another Platonic discussion of myth-making and poetry,
this time from the Laws. In this selection, Platos Athenian Stranger
advocates compelling poets to say that a good man, because he is tem-
perate and just, is happy and blessed . . . but that an unjust man is
miserable and lives wretchedly.87 To locate the Hebrew origins of this
Platonic concept, Eusebius looks to the Psalms.
It happens that these things are not far off from the Psalms of David which,
anticipating [Plato], he had composed by divine inspiration, teaching who is
truly blessed and who is the opposite. For this is how the book by him
begins, saying Blessed is the man who does not live according to the advice
of the impious, and the like, which Plato alters saying that it is necessary
that the poets say that the good man, because he is temperate and just, is
happy and blessed, but if a man is wealthy but unjust, he is miserable. This
is the very thing which David himself proffered via the Psalms, saying, If
your wealth increases, do not place it in your heart, and also, Do not fear
when a man becomes rich, nor when the splendor of his house is increased.
And at your leisure you may nd each of the sayings of the philosopher [i.e.
Plato] verbatim throughout the whole sacred book of the Psalms.88
84. PE 12.5 (SC 307:44); cf. Rep. 2. 377a12ff. In the case of Platonic texts quoted
by Eusebius I have translated the material as it appears in the PE. Eusebius is, in fact,
very faithful to his sources. I provide cross references to the Platonic originals for
those who wish to make their own comparisons.
85. PE 12.5 (SC 307:46).
86. PE 12.21 (SC 307:98).
87. PE 12.21 (SC 307:98); cf. Laws 2.660e.
88. PE 12.21 (SC 307:102).
Throughout Book 12, Eusebius is interested in nding the sources of

Platonic thought in the Pentateuch. In chapter 25, That drinking wine is
not permitted to all, he quotes from a digression in the Laws on the
permissibility of alcohol for symposia. Alcohol is allowed if symposia are
well-regulated and lawful.89 Of course, there are restrictions: soldiers
should not drink in camp, neither should slaves, nor city ofcials when in
ofce, nor anyone taking part in a council.90 Eusebius nds a Mosaic
precedent for the exclusion of wine to civic ofcials in the Levitical laws
pertaining to priests: Moses precedes [Plato], legislating that the priests
must not have tasted wine when performing their religious duties saying,
And the Lord spoke to Aaron saying, You will not drink any wine or
fermented beverage, neither you nor your sons with you, at the time when
you enter the tent of witness, or when you approach the altar.91 He
buttresses this passage from Leviticus with another from Numbers: A
man or woman, who takes an oath of purity to the Lord will swear off
wine and strong drink.92 Finally, he adds New Testament alcohol
material from the rst epistle to Timothy (Use a little wine for your
stomach and your chronic ailments)93 to the Penteteuchal evidence.
This complex juxtapositioning of chapter headings, Platonic texts, scrip-
tural quotations, and Eusebius own commentary serves his stated purpose
of demonstrating the dependency of Plato on Moses and the Hebrews.
Nevertheless, while this is certainly one of Eusebius main aims, it is not the
only function of this labyrinthine mode of argument. Rather, Eusebius
clearly wishes to claim that the Bible, and by extension the Christian
constitution, belong to the same genre of political-philosophical litera-
ture as Platos Republic and Laws. This is evident in the manner in which
Eusebius organizes Book 12, and is particularly explicit in the way he opens
it. After stating that he is continuing his project from the previous book, he
quotes one of the opening exchanges of dialogue in the Laws.94 Socrates,
discussing the appropriateness of engaging in legal discussions decides that
If your legal system is even moderately well-constructed, one of the best
among the laws must be that no young person investigate what is right or
wrong in the laws. . . . But if an old man contemplate your laws, he must
engage in such a discussion with a ruler and someone equal in age, when no
89. PE 12.25 (SC 307:110).

90. PE 12.25 (SC 307:110).
91. PE 12.25 (SC 307:112).
92. PE 12.25 (SC 307:11214).
93. PE 12.25 (SC 307:114).
94. PE 12.1 (SC 307:34); cf. Laws 1.634de.
young person is present.95 Eusebius spiritualizes the Platonic passage,

nding Hebrew antecedents in Isaiah 7.9 (If you will not believe, surely
you will not understand) and in Psalm 125.1 (I believed, and therefore I
spoke).96 As we have seen in the previous examples, this is Eusebius way
of proving Greek plagiarism. On the other hand, the authority of Plato
helps Eusebius to make a secondary apologetic point, namely, that Chris-
tians do not simply accept things on blind faith. This was a stock criti-
cism used by anti-Christian polemicists, including Celsus and Porphyry.97
Eusebius uses the synthesis of Platonic and biblical material to explain the
hierarchical character of Christian faith and knowledge: . . . for those
seeking admittance and not having full status, like infants in respect to their
souls, the initiation into the divine scriptures is revealed in a more simple
manner. . . . But those who have a more advanced status and are old and
gray in respect to their minds, can be trusted to go deep and ponder the
mind of the sayings [ton non tn legomnvn].98 But there is a third aim
here as well. By beginning Book 12 with a direct quotation of the
prolegomena to in-depth political dialogue in the Laws, Eusebius an-
nounces that the discussion to follow in subsequent chapters will be a
similar discussion of political theory. Consequently, we are dealing with
three works of political theory or three constitutions in Book 12: the
Platonic Republic/Laws, the Mosaic Law/Bible, and Eusebius own Book
12 itself.
Eusebius addresses nearly the full range of topics common in Platos
political dialogues. Good, classical political theorizing, Eusebius acknowl-
edges in chapter 15, begins, after a prolegomena of course, with a narra-
tive of the origins of human society.
When Moses had set down legislation for humans, he thought it necessary
to recount the ancient history of the deluge and the life of men after it in
the preambles [prooimoiw]. Then, he told of the polity [politean] of the
ancient god-beloved men of the Hebrews and of the [polity] of those shown
to be in error, supposing that the history of these things went hand-in-hand
with that which he had legislated.99
The Platonic passage that Eusebius chooses to quote as a parallel is the

myth of earliest human development in the Laws, one of several similar
95. PE 12.1 (SC 307:36).

96. PE 12.1 (SC 307:36).
97. See Celsus comments apud Origen, Contra Celsum 1.9; Porphyry apud
Eusebius, PE 1.3.
98. PE 12.1 (SC 307:36).
99. PE 12.15 (SC 307:78).
100. Laws 3.677a1ff.
accounts in the dialogues.100 Claiming that Platonic myths of human

origins were plagiarisms of Genesis was an apologetic commonplace.
Eusebius, though, goes beyond this. His hidden intertext in the passage
just quoted is Platos discussion in the Laws of the necessity for preambles
for legal codes. In the Laws, the Athenian Stranger argues that a good law
must have two components: the law per se, and a preface. This preface
is a persuasive appeal to the citizens natural sense of virtue, and is
intended to encourage a natural adherence to the law itself. The Athe-
nian Stranger feels that it is better to rst try to lead with the carrot,
rather than the stick.101 Moses, then, anticipated Platos formula.
Education is an essential component of the Platonic polity, and Eusebius,
too, includes a number of important chapters on the form and function of
education (paidea). Book 12 of the PE contains Eusebius (and Platos)
most succinct denition of education. Eusebius heads the chapter That it
is necessary to consider only that which leads to virtue as education, not
that which leads to money-making and making a living.102 He follows
this with a Platonic denition of education from the Laws: nurturing
concerning pleasure and pain, so as to hate what it is necessary to hate,
from the beginning to the end, and to love what it is necessary to love.103
Eusebius nds the same rubric in the Psalms and Proverbs, for example Ps
34.1112: Come children, listen to me: I will teach you fear of the Lord.
. . . Stop your tongue from evil, and your lips from uttering deceit. Turn
away from evil, and do good.104 The passages dealing with the censor-
ship of poets and mythmakers discussed earlier are likewise part of Eusebius
(and Platos) philosophy of education.105 Eusebius also claims that Plato
agrees with Moses in admitting women to education, asserting that . . .
our law admits all kinds; not only of men, but also of women, not only of
free people and slaves, but also of barbarians and Greeks, into the educa-
tion and philosophy concerning god.106 This is another good example of
Eusebius using the same material to make multiple apologetic arguments.
On the one hand, Eusebius is claiming that the Christian community
adheres to Platonic ideals. At the same time, he is able to deect well
known polemical character assassination leveled against Christianity
on the basis of its wide-ranging (and therefore suspect) membership.107
101. Laws 4.722b723b, Saunders, Laws, 18486; see also 5.726a734e, Saunders,
Laws, 188200, for the Athenian Strangers theoretical preamble.
102. PE 12.18 (SC 307:88).
103. PE 12.18 (SC 307:90).
104. PE 12.18 (SC 307:92); cf. Ps 34.1112.
105. See also PE 12.2024 (SC 307:96110).
106. PE 12.32 (SC 307:13842); cf. Rep. 5.455aff.
107. See, for example, Celsus apud Origen, Contra Celsum 3.55.
Leadership and leaders are two further prominent topics in Platonic

political philosophy which also occupy an important place in Book 12. In
the Republic, Plato asserts that leadership and the assumption of commu-
nal responsibility that comes with it, is not something that citizens are
usually willing to accept.108 In Chapter 9, Eusebius takes these portions of
the Platonic dialogue as derived from Moses initial doubt about his
call in Exodus 4.13.109 As one reads more of the leadership material
in Book 12, however, it becomes clear that Eusebius thinks that it is the
Hebrew religious hierarchy and, in his own day, the Christian religious
hierarchy, that best exemplify the qualities of the Platonic ruling class.
It is in the Republic that Plato famously describes the truly just person,
by quoting Aeschylus, as one wishing not to seem good, but to be.110
Whether a person is truly worthy of holding the higher places in the social
hierarchy cannot be discerned, Plato argues, from the honors and re-
wards he or she has received. In fact, the truly just person must be
willing to be subjected to the staunchest humiliation, including being
subjected to the most terrible tortures. Such, Eusebius claims in chapter
10, is precisely that which has been endured by Hebrew and Christian
leaders. Quoting Hebrews, he asserts that the just people and prophets
among the Hebrews experienced the same tortures Plato had described.
Such was also the experience of the apostles of our savior, who were
mocked and martyred.111
This parallelism between the experiences of Old and New Testament
leaders is prevalent throughout Book 12. Another good example of this
can be found in chapter 16. In the Laws, the Athenian Stranger claims
that the Lawgivers legislation will guide citizens to the realization of the
highest virtues. His code is given greater authority by being grounded in a
dependent, hierarchical relationship to the divine. The Lawgiver will also
establish guardians, who will guide the populace in following the laws
and achieving virtue.112 To prove that the idea of the dependence of virtue
on a divine referent is actually a scriptural concept, Eusebius rst looks to
the New Testament, quoting Mt 6.33: First seek the kingdom and justice,
and these things will be given to you.113 As for the notion of guardians,
Eusebius claims that Moses had instituted the same concept: He ap-
108. PE 12.9 (SC 307:6264); cf. Rep. 1.346e3347a6.

109. PE 12.9 (SC 307:6264).
110. PE 12.10 (SC 307:64); cf. Rep. 2.361b5ff.
111. PE 12.10 (SC 307:66).
112. PE 12.16 (SC 307:8286); cf. Rep. 1.631aff.
113. PE 12.16 (SC 307:86).
points as rulers [rxontaw] and guardians [flakaw] those who are con-
secrated to god, as the scriptures teach, just men, who despise arro-
gance.114 In chapter 29, Eusebius turns to the necessity of asceticism for
political leaders. Here he presents his biblical material rst:
Concerning one who eagerly does philosophy the scriptures of the Hebrews
say, It is good for a man to take up the yoke when in his youth; he will sit
alone and will maintain silence because he has taken this upon himself,
and concerning the godly prophets, it says that they spent their time, in
deserts, mountains, and caves, having thought only for god.115
Eusebius juxtaposes these scriptural ascetic imperatives with Platos dis-

cussion in the Theaetetus of the necessity for good leaders to avoid the
negative inuences of a corrupt society. Good leaders, the Socrates of the
Theaetetus claims, . . . do not know the way into the agora, nor where
the court or city council chamber is, or any other public assembly. They
neither see nor hear any laws or legal decisions, whether spoken or writ-
ten.116 Eusebius argument here is again double- or even triple-edged. On
one side, there is an intra-Christian apologetic argument here. The allu-
sion to Christian asceticism in this chapter is obvious, and the authority of
Plato buttresses Eusebius scriptural arguments for a scriptural ascetic
imperative. At the same time, Eusebius may be trying to deect non-
Christian criticism of ascetic behavior as antisocial or politically irrespon-
sible. We can see such arguments being made by Celsus.117 But there is a
]TJ-2c8cj1-evel1Pla4 Tw(and concbutt.squdectents fly perood leadhip;But thts ets, isW
would assert that one cannot blame a misbehaving herd of goats that
lacks the guidance of a shepherd, nor censure a rulerless state, Eusebius
pleads that one cannot fault the religious constitution of the true Chris-
tian polity on the basis of a few lawless heretics.118
What, then, is the total effect of Book 12? Looking at the rather short
chapter 26 helps in answering this question. Unlike the other chapters,
chapter 26 consists solely of a quotation from Plato, and is worth quoting
in full.
Now if it is the case that necessity forces people advanced in philosophy to
care for a city, either in a far-away place or a distant time, or now in some
barbarian land, far from our sight, or if such a situation will ever occur, we
would be ready to dispute the idea that the aforementioned polity has, does,
and will exist whenever the Muse herself has power over a city. For it is not
impossible for this to happen, nor do we speak of impossibilities.119
To understand what Eusebius means by this quotation, one must rst

consider its place in Platos political philosophy. An older line of scholar-
ship ascribes such statements in the Republic to a youthful, idealistic
exuberance, which one can observe fading into an older, wiser, more
realistic approach to politics in the Laws. While there is consensus that
the Republic is an earlier work than the Laws, most scholars would
describe the relationship between the two works as complementary.120
Plato understood that he was dealing with an ideal polity in the Republic,
and intended the model presented therein to be taken as paradigmatic.
Yet, as M. Schoeld puts it, . . . at the same time it stresses that the point
of a paradigm is just thatto be something we can aim at and approxi-
mate to, even if the condition of success in the enterprise . . . is itself an
exceedingly remote possibility.121 The Laws, on the other hand, presents
the best possible polity that may be implemented in practice. In the Laws,
the Athenian Stranger describes the difference between the ideal (paradig-
matic) and second best (practical) constitutions.
It may be that gods or a number of the children of gods inhabit this [i.e.
ideal] kind of state: if so, the life they live there, observing these rules, is a
118. PE 12.33 (SC 307:14244).

119. PE 12.26 (SC 307:114); cf. Rep. 6.499c8d5.
120. See especially Andr Laks, Legislation and Deimurgy: On the Relationship
between Platos Republic and Laws, Classical Antiquity 9 (1990): 20929; see also
the helpful summary of scholarship on the problem of the relationship of the Republic
and Laws by Malcolm Schoeld, Saving the City: Philosopher Kings and Other
Classical Paradigms (London: Routledge, 1999), 3337.
121. Schoeld, Saving the City, 35.
happy one indeed. And so men need look no further for their ideal: they
should keep this state in view and try to nd the one that most nearly
resembles it.122
The Laws, with its attention to the nitty-gritty details of legislation,

attempts to describe the polity that best approximates the ideal polity
elaborated in the Republic.123
It is difcult, however, to discern what Eusebius intends by his quota-
tion of Republic 6.499. Does he claim that the constitution laid out by
Moses in the Bible is paradigmatic like that in the Republic, or merely
the best possible polity, like that presented in the Laws? Book 12 is
structurally similar to the Laws in that it moves from more theoretical
discussions about the nature of the Lawgiver, virtue, and leadership to
more practical concerns over the specics of legislation.124 Eusebius
even closes Book 12 by importing Platos railings against atheism from
the penultimate book of the Laws.125 It is unlikely that Eusebius simply
did not have access to Platos statement about the relationship between
ideal and practical constitutions in Laws 739. The sheer volume and
accuracy of his citations indicate access to a complete Platonic corpus.126
It is not all that difcult to nd reasons why Laws 739 might have been
distasteful to Eusebius, or the secretaries aiding in the excerpting pro-
cess.127 The reference to cities of gods and children of gods has obvious
polytheistic connotations, but might also have seemed too close a parallel
to the union of the sons of God and the daughters of men in Genesis
6.14. I think, however, that the situation is more complex than either of
these solutions suggests. Eusebius claims about the relationship between
the Platonic constitutions and the Bible must be understood in relation to
his philosophy of history.
Eusebius famously differentiates between Hebrews and Jews.128
122. Laws 5.739d4e9, Saunders, Laws, 208.

123. Schoeld, Saving the City, 36.
124. PE 12.36 (family law); 12.37 (slavery); 12.38 (land); 12.39 (punishments);
12.40 (theft); 12.41 (manslaughter); 12.42 (manslaughter committed by an animal);
12.47 (twelve divisions for the community); 12.48 (where a city should be built).
125. PE 12.5152 (SC 307:186234).
126. Eusebius likely owed his library of Platonic material to Origen, K. Mras,
Vorwort, GCS 43.1, lvii.
127. K. Mras describes the project of citation in the PE as impossible to imagine
without the aid of amanuenses. He sets the scene of the PEs composition: Eus. sitzt
auf seiner kaydra, umgeben von seinen dikonoi, die zugleich notrioi (taxugrfoi)
sind, in der bischoichen Bibliothek von Caesarea, Vorwort, GCS 43.1, lviii.
128. For detailed treatments of this important aspect of Eusebius historiographic
project see Jean Sirinelli, Les Vues Historiques DEusbe de Csare (Dakar: Univer-
The former, comprising the pre-Mosaic patriarchs, are the predecessors of

the Christians. In the Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius says that they may
be described as Christians in fact, if not in name.129 In the PE, Eusebius
elaborates, ascribing a natural monotheism to the Hebrews, which he
characterizes as a free and unrestrained form of piety, governed by a life
according to nature.130 The Law of Moses marks a critical divergence in
history, however. The longer the Hebrews were captive in Egypt, the more
they were inuenced by the polytheistic customs of their captorsthey
came to forget the virtue of their fathers, and their lives were turned to be
like unto those of the Egyptians, so that their mode of life seemed to differ
in no way from the Egyptians.131 Eusebius describes the Mosaic Law as a
stop-gap measure, necessary to curb the erring children of the Hebrews.132
The promulgation of the Law marked the beginning of the Jewish pol-
ity (t Ioudavn polteuma).133 While the Hebrews adhered to a univer-
sal, natural monotheism, the Jews, and their Law, are ethnically specic.134
It is tempting to see the difference between the ideal polity of the
Republic and the practical polity of the Laws in Eusebius distinction
between the Hebrews and the Jews. The polity described in the Republic,
like the life according to nature of the Hebrews, is one in which there
should be no need for excessive legislation.135 The Jewish polity, too,
could be read as the practical compliment to the ideal Hebrew polity.
Eusebius even describes the Jewish polity as holding second place in
piety after the rst [i.e. the Hebrew polity].136
On closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that Eusebius distinc-
tions are not as clear as Platos. The Republic makes it quite clear that the
sit de Dakar, 1961), 14263; Jorg Ulrich, Euseb von Caesarea und die Juden: Studien
zur Rolle der Juden in der Theologie des Eusebius von Caesarea (Berlin: De Gruyter,
1998), 57131; see 123 for an interesting diagram of Eusebius schema; Aryeh
Kofsky, Eusebius of Caesarea Against Paganism (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 1028.
129. HE 1.4.5.
130. PE 7.6 (SC 215:170).
131. PE 7.8 (SC 215:196).
132. PE 7.8 (SC 215:198): Moses offered a Law harmonious with the disposi-
tions of those who listened, for, on account of their stupidity, they were not striving
after their ancestral virtue.
133. PE 7.8 (SC 215:198).
134. PE 8.1 (SC 369:4042).
135. Compare Rep 4.425d, There will be no need to dictate to those who are
good and fair. They will soon nd out for themselves what regulations are needed,
Cornford, Republic, 116, and PE 7.6 (SC 215:170), The Hebrews required no law
governing them, because of their extreme freedom of their souls from passions.
136. PE 8.1 (SC 369:40).
polity presented by Socrates is ideal, worthy of reection and emulation,

but a paradigm nonetheless. Eusebius, on the other hand, clearly believes
that the Hebrew polity was both ideal and an historical reality. More than
that, he asserts that the Biblethe Mosaic constitutionhas preserved
this ideal polity, which is being realized in his own day in the Christian
church. Besides curbing the wayward Jews, the Law served to preserve
the primitive monotheism of the Hebrews, for Moses supposed no other
teaching to be appropriate to the laws pertaining to piety, than the theol-
ogy handed down to him from his ancestors.137 Yet, the ideal constitu-
tion is not to be found only in the ve books of Moses. In Book 12,
Eusebius intends a comparison between the Bible, in its entirety, and
Plato. This is clear in PE 12.52. After quoting a long passage from the
Laws and elaborating parallels from the Psalms, Isaiah, and Wisdom,
Eusebius states that all of Plato can be found in the doctrines of the
Hebrews, and claries, And by doctrines of the Hebrews I mean not
only the oracles of Moses, but also those of all the other godly men after
Moses, whether prophets or apostles of our savior, whose consent in
doctrines must fairly render them worthy of one and the same title.138
The constitution to be found in scripture is that of Moses, yet it is
simultaneously one that has been articulated and rearticulated by other
Hebrews (the prophets, David, Solomon, et al.) who lived among the
Jewish polity. Moreover, the Christian polity of Eusebius own time is
modeled after the biblical constitution, yet is perfected by another law-
giverJesus. In the DE, Eusebius describes Jesus as author and intro-
ducer of a legislation new and salutary for all humanity, but qualies the
novelty of this legislation, so that he did not in any way break Moses
enactments, but rather crowned them, and was their fulllment, and then
passed on to the institution of Gospel law.139
To return to Eusebius quotation of Republic 6.499: what polity is he
claiming as the realization of the paradigm presented by Socrates? That of
the pre-Mosaic Hebrews? That of the fourth-century Christian church?
To answer this, we must keep in mind that, while the main apologetic
thrust of Book 12 is against the Greek philosophical tradition, there is an
equally important apologetic attitude towards Judaism that runs through-
out the PE/DE. In his classic work Verus Israel, M. Simon outlines three
main strategies used by early Christians to explain their relationship to
137. PE 7.9 (SC 215:200).

138. PE 12.52 (SC 307:234).
139. Demonstratio Evangelica 1.7. Translation in W. J. Ferrar, The Proof of the
Gospel (New York: Macmillan, 1920), 43.
Judaism. One could posit an outright discontinuity between Judaism and

Christianity, claim a logical, linear development in which spiritual
nomism replaced corporeal legalism, or claim that Christianity was the
original, natural religion.140 Christians often employed more than one of
these approaches, even in the same work, and Eusebius deploys a synthe-
sis of the second and third methods in the PE/DE. This ambivalent
attitude towards Judaism and Jewish literature permits Eusebius to have
things both waysthe Bible records the legislative minutiae of a second-
rate, ethnically specic legal code for errant Jews, but simultaneously
offers a paradigmatic constitution. Eusebius argues for the rejection of
that in the Law which is ethnically specic, or to use Eusebius own
terminology, those portions of the Law that it was not possible for the
nations outside of Judaea to keep.141 At the same time, as I have shown
in my investigation of Book 12 of the PE, Eusebius could take a quite
positive attitude towards biblical laws as law when demonstrating the
relationship between biblical and Platonic constitutions. This includes,
moreover, positive uses of the Law, the Torah of Moses, as I have shown
that Eusebius draws positive parallels between Platonic legislation and
specic proscriptions and prescriptions in Exodus, Leviticus, and Num-
bers.142 Ultimately, Eusebius gives prominence to Republic 6.499 because
while the Greeks, like Socrates, merely conjectured about the realization
of the ideal polity, Eusebius was certain of its existence, both historically
among the Hebrews, and presently in the fourth-century Christian church.
The Bible, including the Torah, is the textual equivalent of Platos politi-
cal literature, while the Christian church and the Hebrew polity are living
paradigms.
I have now examined two different developments of classical political
philosophy in the late third and early fourth centuries: that of Neoplatonic
hagiographic literature, and Eusebius unique interactions with Platonic
political dialogues. Classical Greek political philosophy, as the Republic
and the Laws bear witness, had the Greek polis of the fourth century
b.c.e. as its referent. Eusebius, Porphyry, and Iamblichus, however, lived
in the Roman Empire of the late third and early fourth centuries c.e. In
140. Marcel Simon, Verus Israel (2nd ed., Paris: E. de Buccard, 1964), 92111, see
also the helpful summary by Michael Hollerich, Eusebius, 13233.
141. DE 1.7, Ferrar, Proof, 44.
142. Besides the instances previously discussed, see also PE 12.17 (education)
[Deut 6.67]; PE 12.36 (honor of parents) [Lev 19.3, Ex 20.12]; PE 12.37 (slavery)
[Ex 21.2]; PE 12.38 (borders) [Deut 5.9]; PE 12.40 (theft) [Ex 21.37, 22.1]; PE 12.42
(injury received from animals) [Ex 21.28].
the nal section of this paper, I would like to turn to a consideration of

what the political philosophy of Neoplatonic Lives and Eusebius PE
would have had in their Roman Imperial context.
IV. CONCLUSIONS: NEOPLATONIC AND CHRISTIAN

POLITICAL DISCOURSE IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE
We may now return to Porphyrys account of Plotinus Platonopolis with

which this paper began. Once we recognize that Neoplatonic biographies
were vehicles for speculative political philosophy, as we have seen is the
case with Porphyrys and Iamblichus lives of Pythagoras, the Platonopolis
story seems much less enigmatic. Porphyrys goal was not to provide an
objective account of his masters life, but rather to use that life protreptically,
as a model of the ideal philosophic life. The foundation of the ideal polity
was, I have demonstrated, a topic that the ideal philosopher must con-
sider. Porphyry, in fact, imagines Plotinus imagining the ideal city in terms
of the models presented in the Pythagrorean lives. The city was to be
founded in southern Italy, as a restoration of a certain city of philoso-
phers, which was said to have existed in Campania.143 In other words,
Porphyry claims that Plotinus intent was to reestablish one of the
Pythagorean cities of the Pythagorean biographies.
Pythagoras founded ideal polities in the remotest antiquity, however.
Porphyry was acutely aware of Platonopolis Roman imperial Sitz im
Leben. Plotinus city would be founded much like any Roman colony,
with the approval and patronage of the reigning Roman emperor. The
venture would have succeeded, for Plotinus reportedly enjoyed the favor
of the emperor Galienus. Nevertheless, Porphyry informs us that inuen-
tial courtiers thwarted the plan.144 Like the rebellious inhabitants of Italy
who had ousted the Pythagoreans in the biographies, imperial authorities
may be more or less inclined to allow the colonization of imperial space
by a philosophical polity.
Neoplatonic biographies, then, present the philosophical life as subject
to the vicissitudes of political reality. Ideally, the philosopher should
contemplate the possibility of the Platonic politea. This political phi-
losophy is classical, however, in that it is the polis that remains its
subject. The empire, nevertheless, must be accounted for. In his telling of
the failure of Platonopolis, Porphyry recognizes that the philosophical
143. Porph. V. Pl. 12; translation in Edwards, Neoplatonic Saints, 2223.

144. Ibid.
colonia must be founded within imperial space. Consequently, Porphyry

is at best, realistic, and at worst, quite negative, in his opinion of the
possibility of actualizing a philosophical polity. Like the model city pre-
sented in the Republic, Platonopolis is a paradigm worth contemplating,
but nonetheless remains something it is easier . . . to wish for . . . than to
have any hope of seeing realized.145
As was demonstrated in the preceding section, Eusebius Christian
church, the godly polity, is also a Platonopolis, a polity founded
upon a political philosophy grounded in Platonic political speculation.
There also, we saw that, unlike the cities imagined by the Neoplatonists,
the paradigmatic model Eusebius nds in the Bible is one that is, in his
estimation, a living reality. For all of Eusebius reection on Platonic
material in the PE, it is his Life of Constantine and Praise of Constantine,
in which he applies many of the ideas of Hellenistic kingship to style
Constantine as a Christian emperor, that continue to be of the greatest
interest to scholars.146 Raffaele Farinas Limpero e limperatore cristiano
in Eusebio di Cesarea is an exception to this rule. Yet, although he
considers material from the PE/DE as important for a full picture of
Eusebius political cogitations, Farina ignores chronology, assuming, as
his title suggests, that everything Eusebius says about politics is directly
and primarily concerned with the empire and the emperor.147
More recently, Michael Hollerich has made an important contribution
to a fuller and more nuanced understanding of Eusebius political phi-
losophy by pointing out the importance of its contextuality.148 Hollerich
points out that in certain literary contexts, like the panegyrical Life,
Eusebius political discourse may, indeed, have the emperor and his em-
pire as their direct and unambiguous referents, as the standards of pan-
egyric would demand.149 Eusebius, though, he would contend, was rst
and foremost a Christian bishop and apologist. By focusing too intensely
on Eusebius explicitly political texts, like the Life and the Tricennial
145. Thomas More, Utopia. Yale Edition of the Complete Works of St. Thomas
More (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964).
146. For a brief but thorough survey of the state of scholarship on Eusebius
portrayals of Constantine see A. Cameron and S. Hall, Introduction, Eusebius: Life
of Constantine, tr. A. Cameron and S. Hall (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999), 3439.
147. Raffaele Farina, Limpero e limperatore cristiano in Eusebio di Cesarea: la
prima teologia politica del cristianismo (Zurich: Pas Verlag, 1966).
148. Michael Hollerich, Religion and Politics in the Writings of Eusebius of
Caesarea: Reassessing the First Court Theologian, CH 59 (1990), 30925; idem.,
Eusebius, esp. 18896.
149. Hollerich, Eusebius, 202.
Oration, scholars tend, in Hollerichs estimation, to lose sight of the fact

that much of the bishops interest in politics was theological and
ecclesiastical.150
There is much to recommend reading the political philosophy of the
PE/DE in the same way. We have seen how much of Eusebius reection
on the godly polityespecially in Book 12 of the PEis concerned
with ecclesiastical discipline and hierarchy. Moreover, paying closer at-
tention to chronology makes it far less clear that Eusebius had his theo-
logical crosshairs locked on Constantine while working on the PE/DE.
The two volumes, composed simultaneously, were begun sometime im-
mediately before or immediately after the cessation of persecution in 313.
Yet Eusebius completed this grand apologetic project slightly before
Constantines denitive victory over Licinius and his ascension to sole
rule. While working on the text, moreover, Eusebius would have wit-
nessed the renewal of persecution under Licinius.151 In short, Eusebius
grand project was written and completed when the success of Constantine
and the Constantinian revolution was in no sense a fait accompli.
Developing the work of T. D. Barnes and Gerhard Ruhbach, Hollerich
styles Eusebius as an heir of Melitos and Origens apologetic reections
on the Roman Empire, rather than as a Constantinian political propagan-
dist.152 Melito of Sardis, fragments of whose late second-century apology
are preserved only in Eusebius HE, may have been the rst to posit a
direct correlation between the rise of Christianity and the rise of Augus-
tus.153 Origen, in Against Celsus, developed a strand of the apologetic
tradition that understood the empire, with the peace, unity, and ease of
transportation and communication that it engendered, as a divinely sanc-
tioned aid for the universal spread of Christianity.154 Hollerich argues that
150. Hollerich, Religion and Politics, 313, expands upon the argument of an
unpublished dissertation by Gerhard Ruhbach, Apologetik und Geschichte: Unter-
suchungen zur Theologie Eusebs von Caesarea (Dissertation, Heidelberg University,
1962); idem., Eusebius, 196.
151. For the chronology of Eusebius composition of the PE/DE I agree in the main
with T. D. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 7172. Barnes stresses that the
composition was written while the ofcial imperial attitude towards Christians was
still quite ambivalent, especially in the East.
152. Hollerich, Eusebius, 19394; 2013. H. A. Drake points out that the
synchrony of the Roman Empire and the Christian church is a theme that runs
through Eusebiuss works, literally from rst to last, but Drake quickly moves to a
discussion of Constantines place in Eusebius political thought, Constantine and the
Bishops (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 36367.
153. Melito apud HE 4.26.711.
154. Origen, Contra Celsum 2.30; Hollerich, Eusebius, 190.
Eusebius takes this argument one step further. Of the Roman Empire
Eusebius states:
And no one could deny that the synchronizing of this [i.e. universal Roman
rule] with the beginning of the teaching about our Savior is of Gods
arrangement, if he considered the difculty of the disciples taking their
journey, had the nations been at variance one with another, and not mixing
together because of varieties of government. But when these were abolished,
they could accomplish their projects quite fearlessly and safely, since the
Supreme God had smoothed the way before them, and subdued the spirit of
the more superstitious citizens under the fear of a strong central
government. For consider, how if there had been no force available to
hinder those who in the power of polytheistic error were contending with
Christian education, that you would have long ago seen civil revolutions,
and extraordinary bitter persecutions and wars, if the superstitious had had
the power to do as they willed with them.155
The italicized portion of this passage is Eusebius expansion of Origens

ideas. For Eusebius, the empire does not simply contribute to the conve-
nience of proselytism, but is conceived of as an active ally.156 Thus, the
church, the godly polity of the PE/DE, with its Platonic constitution,
outlined in PE 12, seems to bear a relationship to the Roman Empire
analogous to that of Platonopolis. To return to the comparison of Eusebius
with Porphyry and Iamblichus then, the church, the godly polity, is an
entity that colonizes imperial space but is at the same time distinct from it.
Eusebius church differs from Platonopolis only in its universality and
practicalityit inhabits the whole of the empire and enjoys a favorable
relationship with imperial authority.
This is not, however, a fully accurate casting of the situation. In argu-
ing, correctly, that Eusebius political thought needs to be considered
apart from Constantine, Hollerich overstates the distinction between the
religious discourses of ecclesiology, apologetics, and exegesis, and po-
litical discourse. While scholars will almost universally point to the
crasis of the political and the religious in the ancient world, Hollerich
asserts that we should be wary of reading it into Christian sources.157
This leads Hollerich, unfortunately, to import an Enlightenment distinc-
tion between a religious and political sphere into Eusebius writings.
Yet, that Eusebius does politics in apologetic and exegetical contexts,
religious genres, as opposed to a political genre like the Life of
155. DE 3.7, Ferrar, Proof, 161 (italics added).

156. Hollerich, Eusebius, 191.
157. Hollerich, Religion and Politics, 312.
Constantine, does not mean that his discourse is not political. In particu-
lar, it does not exclude his apologetics and exegesis from analysis as
politicalor even imperialdiscourses.158 As he clearly argues in PE 12,
Eusebius church is, after all, a Platonic polity with a constitution that
includes laws, guardians, rulers, and a censored educational system, among
other things. It is Platonopolis writ large within the Roman Empire.
Consequently, when Eusebius argues for the universal validity of this
polity, and for the universal spread and validity of the godly polity, far
from being a- or supra-political, his arguments are in fact highly imperial.
The godly polity of the PE does not take up residence in the Roman
Empire like water passively lling a neutral vessel. Colonization is an
active process. Neither does Eusebius religious discourse live a life
insulated from the political. Eusebius apologetics may be compared
with the discursive structures described by Edward Said in his Orientalism.
Works like the PE may not bear a direct, one-to-one relationship with
obvious sites of imperial power, but Eusebius Christian Republic is an
ecumenical (okoumenikw) polity, realizable because of exchange and con-
tact with that power.159 We can and should talk about Eusebius without
talking about Constantine, but his discourse is imperial nonetheless.
Jeremy M. Schott is a doctoral candidate in the Graduate Program in

Religion at Duke University
158. Hollerich does not make this argument explicitly, but his conclusions lead in
this direction, Eusebius, 2023.
159. Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1994), 12.

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SCHOTT/FOUNDING PLATONOPOLIS 501

This essay begins with an examination of two Neoplatonic biographies,

In his biography of Plotinus, Porphyry tells the story of his teachers

by a Platonic dialogue implies a degree of engagement with classical

3. The judgement of A. C. Lloyd is representative of both aspects of this traditional

shared a common context.4 Both the Neoplatonic biographies and Book

I. NEOPLATONIC POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY?

series of articles intended to remedy this blind spot in our knowledge of

6. D. J. OMeara, Vie politique et divinisation dans la philosophie neoplatoni-

otherworldiness, Plotinus certainly does not nd the life of contempla-

12. OMeara, Aspects of Political Philosophy, 69.

attention paid to familiar themes: the education of the budding philoso-

20. OMeara, Aspects of Political Philosophy, 7071.

25. Iambl. V. Pyth. 20.

33. Porph. V. Pyth. 18.

Pythagoras political contributions to the city-states of southern Italy

43. Iambl. V. Pyth. 130.

rulers [rxkoi].52 Pythagoreans formed a kind of Platonic Guardian

52. Iambl. V. Pyth. 129.

II. THE PHILONIC AND JOSEPHAN LAWGIVER

62. C. Ap. 2.169, Thackeray, Josephus, 36061 (modied).

form a trilogy intended to prove the value of claiming a share in the

69. PE 7.1 (SC 215:14446).

Book 12 of the PE, however, when Eusebius again turns to political

III. MOSAIC, PLATONIC, AND

Book 12 of the PE lies at the center of another triad, composed of Books

74. PE 11.proem. (SC 292:52).

will nd this threefold version of instruction among the Hebrews, because

79. PE 11.1 (SC 292:56).

This is one of the instances in which Eusebius glosses Platonic material

Throughout Book 12, Eusebius is interested in nding the sources of

89. PE 12.25 (SC 307:110).

young person is present.95 Eusebius spiritualizes the Platonic passage,

The Platonic passage that Eusebius chooses to quote as a parallel is the

95. PE 12.1 (SC 307:36).

accounts in the dialogues.100 Claiming that Platonic myths of human

Leadership and leaders are two further prominent topics in Platonic

108. PE 12.9 (SC 307:6264); cf. Rep. 1.346e3347a6.

Eusebius juxtaposes these scriptural ascetic imperatives with Platos dis-

To understand what Eusebius means by this quotation, one must rst

118. PE 12.33 (SC 307:14244).

The Laws, with its attention to the nitty-gritty details of legislation,

122. Laws 5.739d4e9, Saunders, Laws, 208.

The former, comprising the pre-Mosaic patriarchs, are the predecessors of

polity presented by Socrates is ideal, worthy of reection and emulation,

137. PE 7.9 (SC 215:200).

Judaism. One could posit an outright discontinuity between Judaism and

the nal section of this paper, I would like to turn to a consideration of

IV. CONCLUSIONS: NEOPLATONIC AND CHRISTIAN

We may now return to Porphyrys account of Plotinus Platonopolis with

143. Porph. V. Pl. 12; translation in Edwards, Neoplatonic Saints, 2223.

colonia must be founded within imperial space. Consequently, Porphyry

Oration, scholars tend, in Hollerichs estimation, to lose sight of the fact

The italicized portion of this passage is Eusebius expansion of Origens

155. DE 3.7, Ferrar, Proof, 161 (italics added).

Jeremy M. Schott is a doctoral candidate in the Graduate Program in

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