Allegorical Interpretation
Philo of Alexandria
Book 3 · Section 36
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.
XI. (36) And it is in reference to this that the Holy Scripture curses "any one who has placed in any secret place any carved thing, or any thing made of cast metal, the work of the hands of an Artist." For why, O mind, do you store and treasure up within yourself depraved opinions, that God is a being of such and such qualities, (he who has no distinctive qualities) like a carved work; or that he who is imperishable is perishable like images that are cast in the foundry; and why do you not rather bring them forward openly that you may learn what is right from men who practise the truth? For you think that you are endowed with some great skill because you have devised absurd opinions imposing upon you by an appearance of probability, in opposition to the truth: but in reality you are proved to be destitute of skill, in as much as you are unwilling to be healed of that terrible disease of the soul, ignorance.