Questions and Answers on Genesis
Philo of Alexandria
Book 3 · Section 60
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.
(60) Why does he say, But I will set up my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bring forth about this time in the succeeding year? (#Ge 17:21). As in men's wills some persons are set down as heirs, and some are entered as worthy of gifts which they are to receive from the heirs, so also in the divine testament that man is set down as the heir who is by nature a worthy disciple of God being adorned with all perfect virtues; but he who is introduced by learning, and is made subject to the law of wisdom, and partakes in encyclical instruction, is not at all an heir, but only a receiver of gifts gratuitously given. But it is said with great wisdom and propriety that his mother shall bring forth Isaac in the succeeding year, since this birth unto life does not belong to the present time, but to another great and holy time; and that which is divine rejoices in excessive abundance, and is by no means like the nations of this world.