Philo and the Gospel

[Secret Alias]

Philo, also, in the abundance of his compositions on the law of Moses which are in good repute by men of understanding, says in the book which he entitles thus, On the Worse Loving to Attack the Better, that “it is better to make oneself a eunuch than to desirously rage after unlawful sexual unions.” [Origen Commentary Matthew 3]

καὶ Φίλων δέ, ἐν πολλοῖς τῶν εἰς τὸν Μωσέως νόμον συντάξεων αὐτοῦ εὐδοκιμῶν καὶ παρὰ [K355] συνετοῖς ἀνδράσι, φησὶν ἐν βιβλίῳ ᾧ οὕτως ἐπέγραψεν· Περὶ τοῦ τὸ χεῖρον τῷ κρείττονι φιλεῖν ἐπιτίθεσθαι, ὅτι «ἐξευνουχισθῆναι μὲν ἄμεινον ἢ πρὸς συνουσίας ἐκνόμους λυττᾶν»

[DCHindley]

Philo, also, in the abundance of his compositions on the law of Moses which are in good repute by men of understanding, says in the book which he entitles thus, On the Worse Loving to Attack the Better, that “it is better to make oneself a eunuch than to desirously rage after unlawful sexual unions.” [Origen Commentary Matthew 3]

καὶ Φίλων δέ, ἐν πολλοῖς τῶν εἰς τὸν Μωσέως νόμον συντάξεων αὐτοῦ εὐδοκιμῶν καὶ παρὰ [K355] συνετοῖς ἀνδράσι, φησὶν ἐν βιβλίῳ ᾧ οὕτως ἐπέγραψεν· Περὶ τοῦ τὸ χεῖρον τῷ κρείττονι φιλεῖν ἐπιτίθεσθαι, ὅτι «ἐξευνουχισθῆναι μὲν ἄμεινον ἢ πρὸς συνουσίας ἐκνόμους λυττᾶν»

DeYonge translates The Worse are wont to attack the Better, as follows:

XLVIII. (175) On which account it appears to me that all men who are not utterly uneducated would choose to be mutilated and to be come 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. (176) 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.

Wazzure point, SA?