---
title: "The Special Laws — Books I–IV"
author: "Philo of Alexandria"
translator: "C. D. Yonge"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Second Temple"
section: 58 of 80
url: https://scriptura.si/works/philo-tlg024-yonge-ogl/58/
cite: "Philo of Alexandria, tr. C. D. Yonge, The Special Laws — Books I–IV, section 58. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/philo-tlg024-yonge-ogl/58/"
---

# The Special Laws — Books I–IV

*Philo of Alexandria, tr. C. D. Yonge*

## 58. Section 3.170

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/philo-tlg024-yonge-ogl/58/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/philo-tlg024-yonge-ogl/58/#p-N

[¶0] for there are two kinds of states, the greater and the smaller. And the larger ones are called really cities; but the smaller ones are called houses. And the superintendence and management of these is allotted to the two sexes separately; the men having the government of the greater, which government is called a polity; and the women that of the smaller, which is called oeconomy.

### Section 3.171

[¶2] Therefore let no woman busy herself about those things which are beyond the province of oeconomy, but let her cultivate solitude, and not be seen to be going about like a woman who walks the streets in the sight of other men, except when it is necessary for her to go to the temple, if she has any proper regard for herself; and even then let her not go at noon when the market is full, but after the greater part of the people have returned home; like a well-born woman, a real and true citizen, performing her vows and her sacrifices in tranquillity, so as to avert evils and to receive blessings.

### Section 3.172

[¶4] But when men are abusing one another or fighting, for women to venture to run out under pretence of assisting or defending them, is a blameable action and one of no slight shamelessness, since even, in the times of war and of military expeditions, and of dangers to their whole native land, the law does not choose that they should be enrolled as its defenders; looking at what is becoming, which it thinks desirable to preserve unchangeable at all times and in all places, thinking that this very thing is of itself better than victory, or than freedom, or than any kind of success and prosperity.

### Section 3.173

[¶6] Moreover, if any woman, hearing that her husband is being assaulted, being out of her affection for him carried away by love for her husband, should yield to the feelings which overpower her and rush forth to aid him, still let her not be so audacious as to behave like a man, outrunning the nature of a woman; Deuteronomy xxv. 11. but even while aiding him let her continue a woman. For it would be a very terrible thing if a woman, being desirous to deliver her husband from an insult, should expose herself to insult, by exhibiting human life as full of shamelessness and liable to great reproaches for her incurable boldness;

### Section 3.174

[¶8] for shall a woman utter abuse in the marketplace and give vent to unlawful language? and if another man uses foul language, will not she stop her ears and run away? But as it is now, some women are advanced to such a pitch of shamelessness as not only, though they are women, to give vent to intemperate language and abuse among a crowd of men, but even to strike men and insult them, with hands practised rather in works of the loom and spinning than in blows and assaults, like competitors in the pancratium or wrestlers. And other things, indeed, may be tolerable, and what any one might easily bear, but that is a shocking thing if a woman were to proceed to such a degree of boldness as to seize hold of the genitals of one of the men quarrelling.

### Section 3.175

[¶10] For let not such a woman be let go on the ground that she appears to have done this action in order to assist her own husband; but let her be impeached and suffer the punishment due to her excessive audacity, so that if she should ever be inclined to commit the same offence again she may not have an opportunity of doing so; and other women, also, who might be inclined to be precipitate, may be taught by fear to be moderate and to restrain themselves. And let the punishment be the cutting off of the hand which has touched what it ought not to have touched.

### Section 3.176

[¶12] And it is fitting to praise those who have been the judges and managers of the gymnastic games, who have kept women from the spectacle, in order that they might not be thrown among naked men and so mar the approved coinage of their modesty, neglecting the ordinances of nature, which she has appointed for each section of our race; for neither is it right for men to mix with women when they have laid aside their garments, but each of the sexes ought to avoid the sight of Deuteronomy xxv. 11. the other when they are naked, in accordance with the promptings of nature.

### Section 3.177

[¶14] Well, then, of those things of which we are to abstain from the sight, are not the hands much more to be blamed for the touch? For the eyes, being wholly at freedom, are nevertheless often constrained so as to see things which they do not wish to see; but the hands are ranked among those parts which are completely under subjection, and obey our commands, and are subservient to us.

### Section 3.178

[¶16] And this is the cause which is often mentioned by many people. But I have heard another also, alleged by persons of high character, who look upon the greater part of the injunctions contained in the law as plain symbols of obscure meanings, and expressed intimations of what may not be expressed. And this other reason alleged is as follows. There are two kinds of soul, much as there are two sexes among human relations; the one a masculine soul, belonging to men; the other a female soul, as found in women. The masculine soul is that which devotes itself to God alone, as the Father and Creator of the universe and the cause of all things that exist; but the female soul is that which depends upon all the things which are created, and as such are liable to destruction, and which puts forth, as it were, the hand of its power in order that in a blind sort of way it may lay hold of whatever comes across it, clinging to a generation which admits of an innumerable quantity of changes and variations, when it ought rather to cleave to the unchangeable, blessed, and thrice happy divine nature.

### Section 3.179

[¶18] Very naturally, therefore, the law commands Deuteronomy xxv. 12. that the executioner should cut off the hand of the woman which has laid hold of what it should not, speaking figuratively, and intimating not that the body shall be mutilated, being deprived of its most important part, but rather that it is proper to extirpate all the ungodly reasonings of the soul, using all things which are created as a stepping-stone; for the things which the woman is forbidden to take hold of are the symbols of procreation and generation.

### Section 3.180

[¶20] And, moreover, keeping up a consistent regard to nature, I will also say this, that the unit is the image of the first cause, and the number two of the divisible matter that is worked upon. Deuteronomy xxv. 12. Whoever, therefore, receives the number two, honouring it above the unit, must be taught to know that he is, in so doing, approving of the matter more than of God. On which account the law has thought fit to cut off this apprehension of the soul as if it were a hand; for there can be no greater impiety than to ascribe the power of the agent to that which is passive.

### Section 3.181

[¶22] And any one may here fitly blame those who appoint that punishments, in nowise corresponding to the offences, are to be inflicted on the offenders, imposing pecuniary penalties for assaults, or stigma and infamy for wounds and mutilations, or a banishment beyond the borders of the land for intentional murders, and everlasting exile or imprisonment for thefts; for irregularity and inequality are enemies to a constitution which is eager for the truth.

### Section 3.182

[¶24] And our law, being the interpreter and teacher of equality, commands that offenders should undergo a punishment similar to the offence which they have committed; that, for instance, they should suffer punishment in their property if they have injured their neighbour in his property; in their persons, if they have injured him in his body, or in his limbs, or the organs of his outward senses; and, if their evil designs have extended to his life, then the law commands that the punishment should affect the life of the malefactor. For to exact a different and wholly unequal punishment which has no connection with or resemblance to the offence, but which is wholly at variance with it in all its characteristics, is the conduct of those who violate the laws rather than of those who would establish them.