Be kind .. (cont.)

It's Monday morning here in Norway; getting back from my weekend, I found this letter from Stephen Gøranson, in my google mailbox:"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."
"This quotation (or a variant) is often attributed either to Philo or Plato,though I've never seen a specific citation.

For what it's worth, here's the closest thing I found by searching JSTOR. In The Biblical World (retitled the next year as The Journal of Religion) v. 54 n. 6 (1920) page 606 Ozora S. Davis, in an article on preaching quoted II Peter 1:57 and then commented on each phrase, including:
"_brotherly kindness_--Everyone is fighting a hard battle"."
Thanks for this info, Stephen! This 'Philo Apocryphon' (as Jim Davila called it), is to be found on several webpages, always attributed to Philo, but with no further references given.

The whole story reminds me of something that happened several years ago, when I had just started on a three year scholarship period. A local pastor asked me what I was going to study, and I said 'Philo of Alexandria'.
"Oh, one of the church fathers, the pastor exclaimed.

...I didn't explain to her that she was wrong. After all, who is Philo! :-)