Philo: On the Posterity of Cain and His Exile

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

Section XLIX

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

XLIX. (170) Therefore the mind having generated the foundation of good [...]

Edition commentary

{71}

Edition commentary

{there is again an hiatus in the text here. Mangey conjectures diagoµgeµs, "way of life," to be the word which has fallen out.}

and the primary principle of virtue, namely Seth, or irrigation, boasts with an honourable and holy boast; for she says, "God has raised up to me another seed, instead of Abel whom Cain Slew,"

Edition commentary

{72}

Edition commentary

{genesis 4:25.}

for it has been said with great exactness and neatness, that no single divine seed ever falls to the ground, but that they all rise up from the things of earth, and leave them, and are borne upwards to heaven; (171) but the seeds which are sown by mortals, whether for the generation of animals or of plants, do not all come to perfection; but we must be content if more are not wasted than those which remain above; and God sows nothing in our souls which is incomplete; but his seed is all so seasonable and so perfect that every one of them is at once borne forward to produce abundance of its appropriate fruit.