The Worse Attacks the Better

Cain lures Abel onto open ground to argue, and Philo asks what an honest mind should do when a clever talker invites it to debate.

by Philo of Alexandria82 passages held

English, a translation held here, and your language

Original title: Quod deterius potiori insidiari soleat
Original language: Ancient Greek

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Overview

Clever speakers who could make any case sound true were a fixture of Greek city life, and Philo builds this treatise around one of them. In Genesis, Cain says to Abel, let us go out to the field, and there kills him. Philo reads the field as the arena of argument and Cain as a sophist, a practised talker who wins by technique rather than truth. Abel knew what was good but had never learned to argue, so he should have refused the invitation. Retreat that enemies call cowardice, Philo says, friends call prudence, and friends are more likely to be right. Moses is his model: sent to face the magicians of Egypt, he protested that he was no speaker and went only once his brother Aaron had been given to him as a mouthpiece. The second half turns the murder inside out. A soul that destroys the love of virtue within it has killed itself, Philo argues, so it is Cain who dies and Abel, whose blood still cries out to God from the ground, who goes on living. Hans Leisegang's translation appeared in 1919, in the German edition of Philo's works begun in Breslau in 1909. His title, like the Greek one, states the rule the story illustrates: the worse is always plotting against the better.

Key concepts

What does the field stand for in The Worse Attacks the Better?

The field is the arena of argument. When Cain says to Abel, let us go out to the field, Philo hears an invitation to debate issued by someone who expects to win it. The open ground is where technique counts for more than truth, which is why a mind that knows the good but has no training in argument is in danger the moment it steps out there.

What is a sophist in Philo's sense?

A sophist is a practised talker who wins by technique rather than truth, someone who can make any case sound convincing. Such speakers were a fixture of Greek city life, and Philo makes Cain their type. The danger he sees is not that the sophist believes falsehoods but that his skill lets him defeat people who hold the truth without being able to argue for it.

What does Abel's blood crying from the ground mean for Philo?

It means that Abel still lives. A voice that cries out to God cannot belong to someone who has ceased to exist, so Philo reads the verse as proof that the soul which loves virtue survives its enemy's attack. What Cain destroyed was only the outward life; the good Abel stood for goes on speaking, and it speaks to God.

What does the title The Worse Attacks the Better mean?

It names a rule, not only an episode: the worse is always plotting against the better. Cain's attack on Abel is one instance of something that happens constantly, between people and within one soul, where the lower impulses scheme against the love of virtue. The treatise's twist is that the plot rebounds, since the worse destroys itself in attacking what it cannot really kill.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

When an Honest Mind Should Decline to Debate

Must a person who knows the good be able to defend it against every clever talker? Philo answers no, and argues that knowing when to retreat is itself a part of wisdom.

Cain says to Abel, let us go out to the field, and there kills him. Philo reads the field as the arena of argument and Cain as a sophist, a practised talker who wins by technique rather than truth. Abel knew what was good but had never learned to argue, so he should have refused. Enemies call such retreat cowardice, friends call it prudence, and friends are more likely to be right. Moses is the model: sent against the magicians of Egypt, he went only once Aaron had been given him as a mouthpiece.

rhetoric
argumentation
education
knowledge
language
practical wisdom
reason
wisdom

Enter a dialogue

Why It Is Cain Who Dies

What does a murderer actually destroy? Philo turns the story inside out: the killer has killed his own soul, and the victim goes on living.

The second half reads the murder as an event inside the soul. A soul that destroys the love of virtue within it has slain itself, so the verse, Philo suggests, could be read as Cain rose up and killed himself. Abel, whose blood still cries out to God from the ground, is the one who lives, because the good he loved cannot be put to death by a rival. The title, like the Greek one, states the rule the story illustrates: the worse is always plotting against the better, and it wounds itself by doing so.

virtue
soul
moral psychology
mind
hope
happiness
external goods
divine providence

Enter a dialogue

Within this work

passages held: 82
distinct concepts: 154
by passages held, corpus-wide: #551

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “moral psychology” and “virtue”.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 25 pairings. 84 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
moral psychology	virtue	7
reason	virtue	5
rhetoric	virtue	5
education	virtue	4
reason	soul	4
soul	virtue	4
allegory	virtue	3
allegory	mind	2
allegory	moral psychology	2
allegory	reason	2
mind	soul	2
moral psychology	soul	2
allegory	education	1
allegory	rhetoric	1
allegory	soul	1
education	mind	1
education	reason	1
education	rhetoric	1
mind	moral psychology	1
mind	rhetoric	1
mind	virtue	1
moral psychology	reason	1
moral psychology	rhetoric	1
reason	rhetoric	1
rhetoric	soul	1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

Against Flaccus (In Flaccum)
Written as a demonstration of divine justice, this account of the Alexandrian riots of 38 CE and of the prefect Philo blamed for them stands with his historical and apologetic works.
EN
Allegorical Interpretation (Legum allegoriae I–III)
The first surviving treatise of the Allegorical Commentary, Philo's long verse-by-verse reading of Genesis, covering its second and third chapters in three books.
EN
Every Good Man Is Free (Quod omnis probus liber sit)
Written in the manner of the Greek schools rather than as commentary on Moses, it is, with On the Eternity of the World, one of Philo's philosophical treatises.
EN
On Abraham (De Abrahamo)
The first of Philo's lives of the patriarchs in the Exposition of the Law, following On the Creation of the World; its companions on Isaac and Jacob are lost, and On Joseph continues the set.
EN
On Cultivation (De agricultura)
Noah the farmer is a subject Philo splits across two treatises; this first one is built on the difference between near-synonyms, and On Planting continues it.
EN
On Dreams (De somniis I–II)
A treatise of the Allegorical Commentary, in two surviving books on the dreams of Jacob, Joseph and Pharaoh's court.
EN
On Drunkenness (De ebrietate)
Of the two books on drunkenness known in antiquity, this is the one that survives; it sits between On Planting and On Sobriety in the Allegorical Commentary's run on Noah and the vine.
EN
On Flight and Finding (De fuga et inventione)
Hagar's flight and the angel who finds her, Genesis 16:6–14, read within the Allegorical Commentary.
EN
On Joseph (De Josepho)
The life of the statesman in Philo's series of patriarch lives within the Exposition of the Law. It follows On Abraham; lives of Isaac and Jacob, now lost, once stood between them.
EN
On Mating with the Preliminary Studies (De congressu eruditionis gratia)
Philo's reading of Genesis 16 as a theory of education, set within the Allegorical Commentary; On Flight and Finding continues Hagar's story.
EN
On Planting (De plantatione)
The second of Philo's two treatises on Noah as farmer, turning from farming in general to the planting of the vineyard.
EN
On Rewards and Punishments (De praemiis et poenis et de exsecrationibus)
The closing treatise of the Exposition of the Law, on the rewards, punishments, blessings and curses the Law sets before its hearers.
EN
On Sobriety (De sobrietate)
A short sequel to On Drunkenness in the Allegorical Commentary, on Noah waking and pronouncing his blessings and curse. Its Greek title names exactly that: what Noah prayed for and cursed once sober.
EN
On the Change of Names (De mutatione nominum)
Genesis 17 and its renamings, from Abram and Sarai to Jacob and Joshua, read in the Allegorical Commentary; it also carries Philo's clearest statement that God has no proper name.
EN
On the Cherubim (De Cherubim)
Two short commentaries joined under one title: the cherubim at Eden's gate, then the birth of Cain. Within the Allegorical Commentary it picks up where the three books of Allegorical Interpretation stop.
EN
On the Confusion of Tongues (De confusione linguarum)
The Tower of Babel in the Allegorical Commentary, opening with a defence of Genesis against critics who likened it to Greek myth.
EN
On the Contemplative Life (De vita contemplativa)
A portrait of the Therapeutae, classed with Philo's historical and apologetic writings; it opens by referring back to his account of the Essenes, the active life to this contemplative one.
EN
On the Creation of the World (De opificio mundi)
The overture to Philo's Exposition of the Law, the series that goes on to lives of the patriarchs and a code of laws. It stands apart as his reading of the creation story in its literal order.
EN
On the Decalogue (De decalogo)
The hinge of the Exposition of the Law, turning from the lives of the patriarchs to the written law.
EN
On the Embassy to Gaius (Legatio ad Gaium)
The companion of Against Flaccus: an eyewitness history of the embassy Philo led to Gaius, and the fullest account he left of his own public life.
EN
On the Eternity of the World (De aeternitate mundi)
Among Philo's philosophical treatises, the one that names the Greek schools and their arguments most openly.
EN
On the Giants and On the Unchangeableness of God (De gigantibus; Quod Deus sit immutabilis)
Two treatises that editions usually separate but that read as one commentary, in the Allegorical Commentary, on the verses of Genesis leading up to the flood.
EN
On the Life of Moses (De vita Mosis I–II)
Philo's biography of Moses in two books, usually counted with the Exposition of the Law though it stands on its own.
EN
On the Migration of Abraham (De migratione Abrahami)
Abraham's call in Genesis 12, read as the soul's migration toward God; in the Allegorical Commentary it follows On the Confusion of Tongues in the order of Genesis.
EN
On the Posterity of Cain (De posteritate Caini)
The last of the Cain treatises in the Allegorical Commentary, following Cain from his exile through his descendants.
EN
On the Sacrifices of Abel and Cain (De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini)
One of the run of treatises on Cain and Abel in the Allegorical Commentary, taking up the brothers' offerings in Genesis 4.
EN
On the Special Laws (De specialibus legibus I–IV)
The largest work in the Exposition of the Law, in four books; it follows On the Decalogue and is followed by On the Virtues.
EN
On the Virtues (De virtutibus)
A pendant to On the Special Laws in the Exposition of the Law, gathering laws under the virtues they train rather than under the Ten Commandments.
EN
The Worse Attacks the Better (Quod deterius potiori insidiari soleat) you are here EN
Who Is the Heir of Divine Things? (Quis rerum divinarum heres sit)
Best known for its long passage on the Logos dividing the world into opposites, this reading of God's covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15 belongs to the Allegorical Commentary.
EN

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