Questions and Answers on Genesis
Philo of Alexandria
Book 3 · Section 29
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.
(29) What is the meaning of the answer, "I am fleeing from the face of Sarah, my mistress?" (#Ge 16:8). It is reasonable to praise a sincere disposition, and to think it friendly to truth. And moreover it is reasonable now to admit the veracity of a mind which confesses what it has suffered; for she says, "I am fleeing from the face," that is to say, I have recoiled at the outward appearance of wisdom and virtue; since, beholding its royal and imperial presence, she trembled, not being able to endure to look upon its majesty and sublimity, but rather thinking it an object of avoidance; for there are some people who do not turn from virtue from any hatred of it, but from a reverential modesty, looking upon themselves as unworthy to live with such a mistress.