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Philo: Allegorical Interpretation, III

C. D. Yonge (1854–1855) · Translated text with edition notes

Section LXVII

Read in this edition: source locators and uncertainty marks are retained. Square brackets can mark gaps or editorial interventions; headings and supplied subtitles belong to the edition. Coverage and cautions

LXVII. (188) And the expression, "He shall watch thy head, and thou shalt watch his Heel,"

Edition commentary

{93}

Edition commentary

{#ge 3:15.}

is, as to its language, a barbarism, but, as to the meaning which is conveyed by it, a correct expression. Why so? It ought to be expressed with respect to the woman: but the woman is not he, but she. What, then, are we to say? From his discourse about the woman he has digressed to her seed and her beginning. Now the beginning of the outward sense is the mind. But the mind is masculine, in respect of which one may say, he, his, and so on. Very correctly, therefore, does God here say to pleasure, that the mind shall watch your principal and predominant doctrine, and you shall watch the traces of the mind itself, and the foundations of the things which are pleasing to it, to which the heel has very naturally been likened.