--- title: "On the Principle that the Worse is accustomed to be always plotting against the Better" author: "Philo of Alexandria" translator: "C. D. Yonge" languages: [en] shelf: "Second Temple" section: 14 of 14 url: https://scriptura.si/works/philo-tlg005-yonge-ogl/14/ cite: "Philo of Alexandria, tr. C. D. Yonge, On the Principle that the Worse is accustomed to be always plotting against the Better, section 14. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/philo-tlg005-yonge-ogl/14/" --- # On the Principle that the Worse is accustomed to be always plotting against the Better *Philo of Alexandria, tr. C. D. Yonge* ## 14. Section 169 Source: https://scriptura.si/works/philo-tlg005-yonge-ogl/14/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/philo-tlg005-yonge-ogl/14/#p-N [¶0] Now these seven senses are unpolluted and pure in the soul of the wise man, and here also they are found worthy of honour. But in that of the foolish man they are impure and polluted, and as I said before, punished, that is, they are worthy of punishment and chastisement. ### Section 170 [¶2] At all events, when the Creator determined to purify the earth by means of water, and that the soul should receive purification of all its unspeakable offences, having washed off and effaced its pollutions after the fashion of a holy purification, he recommended him who was found to be a just man, who was not borne away by the violence of the deluge, to enter into the ark, that is to say, into the vessel containing the soul, namely, the body, and to lead into it "seven of all clean beasts, male and female," Genesis vii. 2. thinking it proper that virtuous reason should employ all the pure parts of the irrational portion of man. ### Section 171 [¶4] And this injunction which the lawgiver laid down, is of necessity applicable to all wise men; for they have their sense of sight purified, their sense of hearing thoroughly Genesis vii. 2. examined, and so on with all the rest of their outward senses. Accordingly, they have the faculty of speech free from all spot or stain, and their appetites which prompt them to indulge the passions in a state of due subjection to the law. ### Section 172 [¶6] And every one of the seven outward senses is in one respect male, and in another, female. For when they are stationary, or when it is in motion, they are stationary while quiescent in sleep, and they are in motion while they are energising in their waking state; and the one in accordance with habit and tranquillity, as being subject to passion, is called the female; and the one which exists according to motion and energy, as one that is only conceived in action, is called the male. ### Section 173 [¶8] Thus, in the wise man, the seven senses appear to be pure; and on the contrary in the wicked man, they appear to be all liable to punishment. For how great a multitude of things do we imagine to be each day wrongly represented by our eyes, which go over to colours and shapes, and to things which it is not lawful to see? And how so great a multitude of things suffer similar treatment from the ears which follow all kinds of sounds? How many too are misrepresented by the organs of smelling and of taste, and by flavours and vapours, and other things led on according to innumerable variations? ### Section 174 [¶10] I say nothing of that multitude of persons whom the unrestrainable impetuosity of an unbridled tongue has destroyed, or the incurable violence which leads man on to carnal connections with intemperate appetite. Cities are full, and all the earth from one side to the other, is full of these evils, in consequence of which, continual and unceasing and terrible wars are set on foot among men, even in times of peace, both publicly and privately. ### Section 175 [¶12] On which account it appears to me that all men who are not utterly uneducated would choose to be mutilated and to become blind, rather than to see what is not fitting to be seen, to become deaf rather than to hear pernicious discourses, and to have their tongues cut out if that were the only way to prevent their speaking things, which ought not to be spoken. ### Section 176 [¶14] At all events, they say that some wise men, when they have been tortured on the wheel to make them betray secrets which are not worthy to be divulged, have bitten out their tongues, and so have inflicted on their torturers a more grievous torture than they themselves were suffering, as they could not learn from them what they desired; and it is better to be made an eunuch than to be hurried into wickedness by the fury of the illicit passions: for all these things, as they overwhelm the soul in pernicious calamities, are deservedly followed by extreme punishments. ### Section 177 [¶16] Moses says in the next passage that the Lord God set a mark upon Cain in order to prevent any one who found him from slaying him; but what this mark is, he has not shown, although he is in the habit of explaining the nature of everything by a sign, as he does in the affairs of Egypt, where God changed his rod into a serpent, and withered the hand of Moses till it became like snow, and turned the river into blood. ### Section 178 [¶18] Or may we not suppose that this mark was set upon Cain to prevent his being slain, as a token that he would never be destroyed? For he has never once mentioned his death in the whole of the law, showing enigmatically that, like that fabulous monster Scylla, so also folly is an undying evil, which never entirely perishes, and yet which as to its capability of dying receives all time, and is never wholly free from death. And I would that the opposite event might happen, that all evils might be utterly eradicated, and might endure total destruction; but as it is they are constantly budding forth, and inflict an incurable disease on all who are once infected by them.