Abraham’s Return to His Ancestors

Philo

Questions and Answers on Genesis 3.11

First Half of 1st Century

What is the meaning of: But you shall go to your fathers in peace, being nourished in a fair old age (Genesis 15:15)?

He here clearly indicates the incorruptibility of the soul: when it transfers itself out of the abode of the mortal body and returns as it were to the metropolis of its native country, from which it originally emigrated into the body. Since to say to a dead man, “You shalt go to your fathers,” what else is this but to propose to him and set before him a second existence apart from the body as far as it is proper for the soul of the wise man to dwell by itself?

Translated by C. D. Yonge.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 2: Emerging Judaism.

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