Works of Philo of Alexandria

Philo — Works Vol. I, Yonge — Section 64

XLVI. After this, Moses says that " God made man, having taken clay from the earth, and he breathed into his face the breath of life." And by this expression he shows most clearly that there is a vast difference between man as generated now, and the first man who was made according to the image of God. For man as formed now is perceptible to the external senses, partaking of qualities, consisting of body and soul, man or woman, by nature mortal. But man, made according to the image of God, was an idea, or a genus, or a seal, perceptible only by the intellect, incorporeal, neither male tnor female, imperishable by nature. But he asserts that the formation of the individual man, perceptible by the external senses is a composition of earthy substance, and divine spirit. 40 PHILO JUD.EUS. clay, and fashioning the human form out of it ; but that the soul proceeds from no created thing at all, but from the Father and Ruler of all things. For when he uses the expression, " he breathed into," &c, he means nothing else than the divine spirit proceeding from that happy and blessed nature, sent to take up its habitation here on earth, for the advantage of our race, in order that, even if man is mortal according to that portion of him which is visible, he may at all events be immortal according to that portion which is invisible ; and for this reason, one may properly say that man is on the boundaries of a better and an immortal nature, partaking of each as far as it is ne- cessary for him ; and that he was born at the same time, both mortal and the immortal. Mortal as to his body, but immortal as to his intellect.