ABSTRACT
To complete the indictment of power and government, we are often told that only the corrupted seek power. An early and unfavorable comparison of the politician to the magician has been repeated across the centuries. Philo Judaeus lived at Alexandria during the řirst century of our era, and in a treatise on dreams classifies the art of politics along with that of magic. He compares Joseph's coat of many colors to "the much-variegated web of political affairs" where along with "the smallest possible portion of truth" falsehoods of every shade of plausibility are interwoven. He compares politicians and statesmen to augurs, ventriloquists and sorcerers, "men skillful in juggling and in incantations and in tricks of all kinds, from whose treacherous arts it is very difficult to escape." Philo adds that Moses very naturally represented Joseph's coat as stained with blood, since all statecraft is tainted with wars and bloodshed.
