9781422277744

legislators have permitted their governments to be under monarchies,” the Jewish historian Josephus wrote in Against Apion , “others put them under oligarchies, and others under a republican form; but our legislator [Moses] . . . ordained our government to be what, by a strained expression, may be termed a theocracy, by ascribing the authority and the power to God.” Josephus was trying to explain (and defend) Judaism to a Roman audience. Theocracy stood outside his readers’ frame of reference. In the classical world, governments were categorized according to terms set forth by the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BCE ). Aristotle identified three forms of government (government by one person, government by a few people, and government by many people). Each of these forms had a pure and a corrupted variation, for a total of six possible govern- ment types. Thus, government by one person could be a monarchy (in which a virtuous king governs for the benefit of all of society) or a tyranny (an individual ruling for his own gain). Government by a few could be aristocracy (rule by the best, in the interest of all) or oligarchy (rule by the rich and well born, for their own gain). Government by many could be a polity, or constitutional republic (with citizens taking turns governing, for the benefit of all) or a democracy (in which all citizens voted directly, which Aristotle thought would lead to the masses of poor people acting for their own gain). In every case, the key factor was the person or persons exercising gov- erning power, the actual rulers. In the theocracy Josephus described—a theocracy that would have existed perhaps 1,500 years before his time—the governing power lay with God, who

Rule by God

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