Allegorical Interpretation
Philo of Alexandria
Book 3 · Section 161
About this work
An allegorical reading of Genesis in which Adam, Eve, and the garden become figures for the mind, the senses, and moral life. Philo brings Jewish scriptural interpretation into conversation with Greek philosophy.
- Author
- Philo of Alexandria
- Date
- First century AD; dates vary by treatise
- Genre
- Theological Treatise
- Textual language
- Greek
- Translator
- C. D. Yonge
- Translation / Edition
- C. D. Yonge translation, first published 1854.
LV. (161) But the expression, "And dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life," is also used with great propriety. For the pleasures which are derived from the food of the body are all earthly. And may we not reasonably speak thus? There are two several parts of which we consist, the soul and the body; now the body is made of earth, but the soul consists of air, being a fragment of the Divinity, for "God breathed into man's face the breath of life, and man became a living Soul." It is therefore quite consistent with reason to say that the body which was fashioned out of the earth has nourishment which the earth gives forth akin to the matter of which it is composed; but the soul, inasmuch as it is a portion of the ethereal nature, is supported by nourishment which is ethereal and divine, for it is nourished on knowledge, and not on meat or drink, which the body requires.