Questions and Answers on Genesis
Philo of Alexandria
Book 2 · Section 37
About this work
Questions and answers interpreting passages in Genesis, combining literal explanation with allegory. The surviving text is fragmentary and does not represent the complete original work.
- Author
- Philo of Alexandria
- Date
- First century AD; dates vary by treatise
- Genre
- Commentary
- Textual language
- Greek
- Translator
- C. D. Yonge
- Translation / Edition
- C. D. Yonge translation, first published 1854.
(37) Why does he speak here in an incorrect manner, "Till the water was dried up from the earth;" when it was not the water which was dried up from the earth, but the earth which was dried from the water? (#Ge 8:7). He uses this expression in an allegorical sense, indicating by the fall of the waters the immensity of vices, by which when saturated and vigorous the soul is corrupted, but when they are dried up and withered, it is preserved; for then they cannot inflict any mischief upon it, since they are become impotent and dead.