III. And there are three different opinions on the subject which we are at present discussing. Since some persons affirm that the world is eternal, and uncreated, and not liable to any destruction; while others, on the contrary, say that it has been created and is destructible. There are also others who take a portion of each of these two opinions, agreeing with the last-mentioned sect that it has been created, but with the former class that it is indestructible; and thus they have left behind them a mixed opinion, thinking that it is at the same time created and imperishable.
However, Democritus and Epicurus, and the principal number of the Stoic philosophers, affirm both the creation and the destructibility of the world, though they do not all speak in similar senses; for some give a sketch of many worlds, the generation of which they attribute to the concourse and combi- nation of atoms, and their destruction they impute to the dissolution and breaking up of the combined particles.
But the Stoics speak of one world only, and affirm that God is the cause of its creation, but that the cause of its cor- ruption is no longer God, but the power of invincible, un- wearied fire, which pervades all existing things, in the long periods of time dissolving everything into itself, while from it again a regeneration of the world takes place through the providence of the Creator. And according to these men there may be one world spoken of as eternal and another as destruc- tible, destructible in reference to its present arrangement, and eternal as to the conflagration which takes place, since it is rendered immortal by regenerations and periodical revolutions which never cease.
But Aristotle, with a knowledge as to which I know not to what degree I may call it holy and pious, affirmed that the world was uncreated and indestructible, and he accused those who maintained a contrary opinion of terrible impiety, for thinking that so great a visible God was in no respect different from things made with hands, though he contains within him- self the sun, and the moon, and all the rest of the planets and fixed stars, and, in fact, the whole of the divine nature; and he said in a cavilling and reproachful tone, that formerly he had feared for his house lest it should be overthrown by violent gales, or extraordinary storms, or by lapse of time, or through the want of the proper care requisite to preserve it, 24 PHILO JUDiEUS.
but that now he had a much greater fear hanging over him in consequence of those men who by their reasonings went to destroy the whole world. But some say that it was not Aristotle who invented this doctrine, but some of the Py- thagoreans; but I have met with a work of Ocellus, a Luca- nian by birth, entitled, "A Treatise on the Nature of the Universe," in which he has not only asserted that the world is indestructible, but he has even endeavoured to prove it so by demonstrative proofs.
IV. But some say that the world has been proved by Plato in the Tiinaeus to be both uncreated and indestructible, in the account of that divine assembly in which the younger gods are addressed by the eldest and the governor of them all in the following terms;* " 0 ye gods of gods, those works of which I am the father and the creator are indissoluble as long as I choose that they shall be so. Now everything which has been bound together is capable of being dissolved, but it is the part of an evil ruler to dissolve that which has been well combined and arranged, and which is in good condition. Wherefore, since you also have been created, you are not of necessity immortal or utterly indissoluble; nevertheless you shall not be dissolved, nor shall you be exposed to the fate of death, in- asmuch as you have my will to keep you united, which is a still greater and more powerful bond than those by which you were bound together when you were first created."
But some persons interpret Plato's words sophistically, and think that he affirms that the world was created, not inas- much as it has had a beginning of creation, but inasmuch as if it had been created it could not possibly have existed in any other manner than that in which it actually does exist as has been described, or else because it is in its creation and change that the parts are seen. But the forementioned opinion is better and truer, not only because throughout the whole treatise he affirms that the Creator of the gods is also the father and creator and maker of everything, and that the world is a most beautiful work of his and his offspring, being an imita- tion visible to the outward senses of an archetypal model appreciable only by the intellect, comprehending 'in itself as many objects of the outward senses as the model does objects * Timaeus, p. IQ.
ON THE INCORRUPTIBILITY OF TEE WORLD. 25 of the intellect, since it is a most perfect impression of a most perfect model, and is addressed to the outward sense as the other is to the intellect.* But also because Aristotle bears witness to this fact in the case of Plato, who, from his great reverence for philosophy, would never have spoken falsely, and also because no one can possibly be more to be credited in the case of a teacher than his pupil, especially when the pupil is such a man as this who did not apply himself to instruction lightly with an indifference easily satisfied, but who even endeavoured to surpass all the discoveries of former men, and did actually devise some novel- ties and enrich every part of philosophy with some most important discoveries.
V. But some persons think that the father of the Platonic theory was the poet Hesiod, as they conceive that the world is spoken of by him as created and indestructible; as created, when he says, — " First did Chaos rule; Then the broad-chested earth was brought to light, Foundation firm and lasting for whatever Exists among mankind;"f and as indestructible, because he has given no hint of its dis- solution or destruction.
Now Chaos was conceived by Aristotle to be a place, because it is absolutely necessary that a place to receive them must be in existence before bodies. But some of the Stoics think that it is water, imagining that its name has been derived from effusion.;}; But however that may be, it is exceedingly plain that the world is spoken of by Hesiod as having been created: and a very long time before him Moses, the lawgiver of the Jews, had said in his sacred volumes that the world was both created and indestructible, and the number of the books is five. The first of which he entitled Genesis, in which he begins in the following manner: " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth; and the earth was invisible and without form." Then proceeding onwards he relates in the following verses, that days and nights, and seasons, and years, and the sun and moon, which showed the nature of the measurement * There is probably some corruption in the text here.
f Hesiod, Theogon 116.
+ Xvffif, as if chaos were derived from vew, " to pour."
26 PHILO JUD^EUS.
of time, were created, which, having received an immortal portion in common with the whole heaven, continue for ever indestructible.
But we must place those arguments first which make out the world to be uncreated and indestructible, because of our respect for that which is visible, employing an appropriate commencement. To all things which are liable to destruction there are two causes of that destruction, one being internal and the other external; therefore you may find iron, and brass, and all other substances of v that kind destroyed by themselves when rust, like a creeping disease, overruns and devours them; and by external causes when, if a house or a city is burnt, they also are consumed in tho conflagration, being melted by the violent impetuosity of the fire.
A similar end also befalls animals, partly when they are sick of diseases arising internally, and partly when they are destroyed by external causes, being sacrificed, or stoned, or burnt, or when they endure an unclean death by hanging.
And if the world also is destroyed, then it must of necessity be so either by some external cause, or else by some one of the powers which exist within itself; and both these alter natives are impossible, for there is nothing whatever outside of the world, since all things are brought together in order to make it complete and full, for it is in this way that it will be one, and whole, and free from old age; it will be one, because if anything were left outside of it, then another world might be created resembling that which exists now; and whole, because the whole of its essence is expended on itself; and exempt from old age and from all disease, since those bodies which are liable to be destroyed by disease or old age are violently overthrown by external causes, such as heat, and cold, and other contrary qualities, no power of which is able to escape so as to surround and attack the world, all those being entirely enclosed within, without any part whatever being separated from the rest.
But if indeed there is any external thing it must by all means be a vacuum, or else a nature absolutely impossible, which it would be impossible should either suffer or do any- thing. And again, it will also not be dissolved by any cause existing within itself; first of all because, if it were, then the part would be greater and more powerful than the ON THE INCORRUPTIBILITY OF THE WORLD. 27 whole, which is the greatest possible absurdity, for the world, enjoying an unsurpassable power, influences all its parts, and is not itself influenced or moved by any one of them; in the second place because, since there are two causes of corruption, the one being internal and the other external, those things which are competent to admit the one must also by all means be liable to the other; and a proof of this may be found in oxen, and horses, and men, and other animals of similar kinds, because it is their nature to be destroyed by the sword, or to be liable to die by disease; for it is difficult, or I might rather say impossible, to find anything which, being by nature at the mercy of some external cause perceptible by the intellect, will still not be liable to corruption...by itself when the world was not.
For that which has no existence is not put in motion, but it has been shown already that time is an interval of the motion of the world. It follows, therefore, of necessity, that each of these things must have subsisted from all eternity, without receiving any beginning of generation, and being in conse- quence not liable to any corruption. Perhaps some quibbling Stoic will say that time is admitted to be an interval of the motion of the world, but not of that world only which is arranged and adorned by itself, but also of that one which is conceived of in connection with the conflagration which has been spoken of; to whom we must reply, — " My good man, you, misapplying words, call what is disorderliness and a want of arrangement order (xoV/aos), for if this thing which we see is correctly and appropriately called the world (xoV^aog),* being arranged and adorned (Mxotfiri/tevog) as we see it by man, by the perfection of his skill, then any one would be surely correct in calling the change which is wrought in it by fire a want of order."
VI. But Critolaus, a man who devoted himself very much to literature, and a lover of the Peripatetic philosophy, agree- ing with the doctrine of the eternity of the world, used the following arguments to prove it: "If the world was created, then it follows of necessity that the earth was created also; and if the earth was created, then beyond all question the human race was so too. But man was not created, since he subsists * Philo is playing here on the two meanings of the word ic6<r/xo£, which signifies both M order " and " the world."
28 PHILO JUMUS.
of an everlasting race, as shall be proved, therefore the world is eternal."
But I must now proceed to examine the argument which I postponed just now, if indeed things that are so evident stand in need of any demonstration; but, indeed, proofs are neces- sary on account of the inventors of fables who, filling all life with their falsehoods, have utterly driven truth out of the land, and have not merely banished it from cities and houses, but have even deprived each separate individual of that most valuable possession, and, for the purpose of alluring his sight, have invented metres and rhythm as a bait and a snare, by which they cajole the ears of fools, just as ugly and shapeless courtesans allure the eyes by necklaces and spurious ornaments in the absence of all genuine beauty, for they say that the genera- tion of mankind by means of one another is a more recent work of nature, but that the more original and ancient mode of their birth is out of the earth, since she both is and is considered the mother of all men. And they say that those men who are celebrated among the Greeks as having sprung from seed were produced and grew up as trees do now, being perfect and com- pletely armed sons of the earth. But that this is a mere fiction of fable it is easy to see from many circumstances.
For the very moment that the first man was born there was a necessity for his receiving growth in accordance with the previously defined measures ana numbers of time, for nature has arranged the different ages as certain steps along which man in a manner ascends and descends; he ascends while he is growing, and he descends at the period when he is lessen- ing; and the boundary of the uppermost steps is the prime of life at which when a man has arrived he no longer makes any further advance; but as runners who run the diaulos turn back again upon the same path which they have already travelled, so too does man retrace his steps, giving back in the weakness of old age what he has received from vigorous youth; but to fancy that any one has ever been born absolutely perfect is the part of those who are ignorant of the laws of nature, which are unchangeable ordinances.
For our minds, being vitiated by the contagion of the mortal body which is united to them, are very naturally liable to changes and alterations, but the works of the nature of the universe are unalterable, since she has dominion over all ON THE INCORRUPTIBILITY OF THE WORLD. 29 things, and by means of the stability of whatever desires she has once established she preserves the definitions which have been originally fixed in an unchangeable state. If then she had originally thought it proper that men should be born perfect, now also man would still be born in a perfect state, without ever being an infant, or a boy, or a youth, but he would at once be a man, and perhaps he would be altogether exempt from old age and from death, for that thing which has no increase must also of necessity be exempt from all diminu- tion, for up to the prime of a man's life all his changes tend towards increase, but from that period up to old age and death they exist with a gradual diminution; and it is natural to suppose that he who has no share in the former must also be free from the subsequent changes.
And what is there that can hinder men from shooting up now out of the ground like plants, as they say that they did in former times? For the earth has not yet grown old so as to appear to have become barren by reason of the lapse of time, but it remains in the same condition as before, being always young, because it is a fourth part of the universe, and for the sake of ensuring the duration of the universe it is bound not to decay, because its kindred elements, water, air, and fire, all remain for ever exempt from old age. And there is a visible proof of the uninterrupted and everlasting vigour of the earth in the plants which spring from it, for being purified, either by the overflowing of rivers, as they say that Egypt is, or by annual rains, by such irrigation it refreshes and recruits its exhausted powers, and then, having rested for a while, it recovers its natural powers to the full extent of its original vigour, and then it begins again with a repetition of the pro- duction of similar things to those which it produced before to supply abundant food to every description of animal.
VII. In reference to which fact it appears to me that the poets were very felicitous in the appellation which they gave to the earth when they called it Pandora, inasmuch as it gives all things,* both such as are required for use and such as serve to pleasure and to enjoyment, and that not to some only but to all animals which enjoy life. Accordingly, if any one, when the spring was in its prime, should be borne on wings and raised aloft, and look down from his height upon the 30 PHILO JUDjEUS.
mountain and champaign country, and see the one abounding in rich grass, and verdant, producing herbage, and fodder, and barley, and wheat, and innumerable other kinds of crops such as are grown from seed which the husbandmen have strown, and which the season of the year affords of its own accord, and the other overshadowed with branches and leaves by which the trees are adorned, and very full of fruits (not only such as are suitable for food, but also of such as are able to heal suffering, for the fruit of the olive relieves the fatigue of the body, and that of the vine, when drunk in moderation, relaxes the excessive pains of the soul), and rich also in the fragrant airs which are borne around from flowers, and the indescriba- ble peculiarities of the various flowers which are diversified by divine skill.
And then, if he turns aside his eyes from those trees which admit of cultivation, and beholds in their turn poplars, and cedars, and pines, and ashes, and the lofty oaks, and the dense and unceasing masses of all the other wild trees which over- shadow the most numerous and the greatest of the mountains, and the greater part of the border country wherever there is any deep soil, he will then know that the vigour of the earth, which is always young, is unremitting, unsubdued, and un- wearied.
So that since it is in no degree deprived of any portion of its former strength, if it had ever done so before, it would be bringing forth men now also, for two most forcible reasons, one in order that it might not quit the classification belonging to it, especially in the sowing and production of that most excellent of all the creatures which dwell upon the earth, the ruler of all, man, and secondly for the sake of giving assist- ance to women, who after they have conceived are for about ten months weighed down with the most severe pains, and when they are about to bring forth do very often die in the very pains of labour.
Is it not then altogether a terrible piece of stupidity to imagine that the earth contains any womb calculated for the production of men? for the womb is the place which vivifies the animal, being as some one has called it the workshop of nature, in which it fashions nothing but animals; but it is not a portion of the earth, but of a female animal, carefully fashioned so as to be adapted for the production of living creatures, since ON THE INCORRUPTIBILITY OF THE WORLD. 31 otherwise it would be necessary for us to attribute breasts to the earth as to a woman, when it produces men and they are born, so that when first born they may have appropriate food.
But there is no river nor fountain in the whole habitable world which is said ever to have produced milk instead of water; and in addition to this, as it is necessary that a child just born must be fed on milk, so also must he avail himself of the protection of clothing on account of the injury which ensues from cold or heat to children while they are being reared, on which account nurses and mothers, to whom the care of infants when just born is of necessity committed, wrap them up in swaddling cJothes; but if they were produced out of the earth, how would it be possible that, being left com- pletely naked, they would not be at once destroyed either by the coldness of the air on the one hand, or the burning heat of the sun on the other? for when great cold or great heat gets the mastery, it produces diseases and corruptions.
But after the inventors of fables once began to neglect the truth they then ventured to add to their monstrous stories the fiction that those men who sprung from seed were born also in complete armour; for what smith, or what new Vulcan, was there under the earth so skilful as in a moment to prepare so many suits of armour? and what experience had creatures just born to enable them to use their weapons? for man is a very peaceful animal, nature having given to him reason as his especial honour, by means of which he charms and tames the savage passions. It would have been much better instead of arms to give him a heralds wand, a symbol of agreement and peace suitable to a reasonable nature, in order that he might so proclaim peace instead of war to all men everywhere.
VIII. We have now then discussed at sufficient length the nonsense in opposition to truth which is uttered by those who build up falsehood and fables. But we must be well assured that men have from all eternity sprung from other men in constant succession, the man implanting the seed in the woman as in a field, and the woman receiving the seed so as to preserve it, and nature by her unseen operations fashioning everything, and each separate part of the body and of the soul, and giving to the whole race of mankind that which each 82 PHILO JUDjEUS.
individual separately is unable to receive, namely, the prin- ciple of immortality; for though the individual members are continually perishing, yet the race remains undying as a truly divine work. But if man, who is but a small portion of the universe, is eternal, then certainly the world itself must have been uncreated so as to be imperishable.
IX. But Critolaus, in arguing in support of his opinion, brought forward an argument of this kind, — " That which is the cause to man of his being in health is itself free from disease, and, in like manner, the cause of his keeping awake must, itself be sleepless; and if this is the case, that which is the cause of his existing for ever must itself also be everlast- ing." Now the cause of man's existing for ever is the world, since it is so to all other things whatever; therefore the world also is immortal. Nevertheless, this point also is worthy of one consideration: that everything which is born must by all means at the beginning be imperfect, but as time advances he must increase till he arrives at complete perfection, so that if the world was born it was at one time (that I may use the ex- pressions appropriate to the ages of men) a mere infant, and subsequently increasing in periods of years and lapse of time, it at last and with great difficulty arrived at perfection, for of necessity the period at which that which of all things has the longest existence must be late.
But if any one fancies that the world has ever really been subjected to such changes as these, it is time that he should learn that he has been under the influence of incurable mad- ness, for it is plain that if that is the case not only will its bodily appearance be increased, but its mind also will receive growth, since they who attribute liability to perish to it con- ceive it to be a rational creature. Therefore, just like a man, it will be devoid of reason at the commencement of its exist- ence, but endowed with reason at the age when it is in its prime, which it is impious not only to say, but even to think, for how can we imagine the most perfect visible circumference which surrounds us, and which contains within itself so many individual inhabitants, is not always perfect both in soul and body, being exempt from all those evils in which everything which has been born and which is perishable is implicated?
X. And in addition to this he says, that there are three causes of death to living animals, besides the external causes ON THE INCORRUPTIBILITY OF THE WORLD. 33 which may affect them, namely, disease, old age, and want, by no one of which is the world liable to be attacked or sub- dued, for that it is composed of entire elements, since there is no part of them which is left out or which remains at liberty, so that any violence can be offered to it, and it also is superior to those powers from which diseases arise; and they yielding keep the world free from all disease, and free from old age, and in a state of the most perfect self-sufficiency as to all its requirements, and without need of anything, since there is nothing wanting to it which can possibly contribute to it* durability, and wholly exempt from all successions and alter- nations of fulness and emptiness, which animals being subject to by reason of their unregulated insatiability, bring upon themselves death instead of life, or, to speak more accurately, a life which is more pitiable than any destruction.
Moreover, if we saw that there was no such thing as any eternal nature to be seen, those who assert the liability of the world to destruction would not appear to be so guilty of dis- paraging the world without any excuse, since they would have no example whatever of anything being everlasting; but since fate, according to the doctrine of those who have investigated the principles of natural philosophy most accurately, is a thing without any beginning and without any end, connecting all the causes of everything, as to leave no break and no interrup- tion, why may we not in like manner also affirm of the nature of the world that it subsists for a great length of time, being, as it were, an arrangement of what is otherwise in no order, a harmouy of what is otherwise wholly destitute of such har- mony, an agreement of what is otherwise without agreement, a union of things previously separated, a condition of stocks and stones, a nature of things growing from seed and of trees, a life of all animals, the mind and reason of men, and the most perfect virtue of virtuous men?
But if the nature of the world is uncreated and indestruc- tible, then it is plain that the world is held together and powerfully preserved by an everlasting indissoluble chain. But some of those who used to hold a different opinion, being overpowered by truth, have changed their doctrine; for beauty has a power which is very attractive, and the truth is beyond all things beautiful, as falsehood on the contrary is enormously . VOL. IV. D 34 PHILO JUDJEUS.
ugly; therefore Boethus, and Posidonius, and Pana3tius, men of great learning in the Stoic doctrines, as if seized with a sudden inspiration, abandoning all the stories about conflagra- tions and regeneration, have come over to the more divine doctrine of the incorruptibility of the world; and it is said also that Diogenes, when he was very young, agreed entirely with those authors Since, therefore, the arrangement of the world is such as I have endeavoured to describe it, so that there is no part what- ever left out, so as for any force to be applied, it has now been proved that the world will not be destroyed by any external thing, because in fact nothing whatever external has been left at all; nor will it be destroyed by anything in itself on account of the proof which has already been considered and stated, according to which that which was obnoxious to the power of one of those causes was also naturally susceptible of the infl uence of the other.
XI. And there are testimonies also in the Tiraaeus to the fact of the world being exempt from disease and not liable to destruction, such as these: " Accordingly, of the four ele- ments the constitution of the world receives each in all its integrity; for he who compounded it made it to consist of the whole of fire, and the whole of water, and the whole of air, and the whole of earth, not leaving any portion or any power of any one of them outside, from the following intentions: — in the first place, in order that the whole might be as far as possible a perfect animal made up of perfect parts. And besides all these things, he ordained that it should be one, in- asmuch as there is nothing left out of which another similar world could be composed. Moreover, he willed that it should be exempt from old age, and free from all disease, considering that those things which in the body are hot or cold, or which have mighty powers, if standing all around and falling upon it unseasonably, would be likely to dissolve it, and, by intro- ducing diseases and old age, cause it to decay and perish. For this cause, and because of this reason, Cod made the whole universe to consist of entire and perfect elements, and exempt from oTd age and free from disease."