Questions and Answers on Genesis
Philo of Alexandria
Book 2 · Section 61
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.
(61) What is the meaning of the expression, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed?" (#Ge 9:6). There is no excess in this declaration, but rather an indication of a still more formidable denunciation, because he says, "He himself shall be poured out like blood who pours out blood." For that which is poured out flows forth and is lost, so that it has no longer any power or substance. And by this he shadows forth the fact that the souls of those who perpetrate unworthy actions imitate the mortal body in its corruption, as far as corruption is accustomed to come upon individuals; for the body is then dissolved into those parts of which it was composed, returning into its proper elements. But the miserable soul, labouring under distresses, is borne hither and thither by the overflow of a lascivious life; and the very evils which have grown up along with it are accustomed to suffer the same overflow, in the manner of the parts of the limbs.