창세기 2:4의 제2성전 문헌

[19] “This book is that of the origin of heaven and earth, when it came into being” (Gen. 2:4). (That is to say): “This perfect Reason, moving in accord with the number 7, is the primal origin both of mind ordering itself after the original patterns, and of sense-perception in the domain of mind (if the expression is permissible) ordering itself after those originals.” “Book” is Moses’ name for the Reason of God, in which have been inscribed and engraved the formation of all else.

After speaking of the honour paid by Moses to the number 7, Philo, treating Gen. 2:4 f. as a concluding summary, claims it as a proof that Gen. 1 records a creation of incorporeal ideas. After a disquisition on the subject of fresh water, to which he is led by Gen. 2:6, he goes on to deal with the earth-born man (Gen. 2:7), whom he distinguishes from the man made after God’s image. The being of the former is composite, earthly substance and Divine Breath. Proofs and an illustration are given of his surpassing excellence. The title of “the only world-citizen” is claimed for him, and its significance brought out. His physical excellence can be guessed from the faint traces of it found in his posterity. It is to call out his intelligence that he is required to name the animals. Woman is the occasion of his deterioration.

[65] After this he adds: “This is the book of the creation of heaven and earth, when it was created, in the day in which God made the heaven and the earth” (Gen. 2:4). Now these things were created on the first day, so that the seventh day is referred back to 1, the first and starting-point of all. I have written thus fully with the object of showing the more clearly the opinion which Cain deems it necessary to set up as though he were building a city.