Questions and Answers on Genesis
Philo of Alexandria
Book 1 · Section 62
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.
(62) What is the meaning of the distinction here made between a gift and a sacrifice? (Genesis 4:4). The man who slays a sacrifice, after having made a division, pours the blood around the altar and takes the flesh home; but he who offers it as a gift, offers as it should seem the whole to him who accepts it. Therefore, the man who is a lover of self is a distributor, like Cain; but he who is a lover of God is the giver of a free gift, as was Abel.