Let this be taken as a testimony delivered by Plato to the imperishable nature of the world. Its uncreated character follows from the truth of natural philosophy; for dissolution ON THE INCORRUPTIBILITY OP THE WORLD. 35 must of necessity attend everything which is born, and incor- ruptibility must inevitably belong to everything which is un- born; since the poet who wrote the following iambic verse, " All that is born must surely die," * appears to have spoken very correctly when he asserted this connection of destructibility with birth.
The argument may be stated in a different way as follows. All compound things which are destroyed are dissolved into the elements of which they were compounded; accordingly, dissolution is nothing else but a return of everything to its original constituent parts; just as, on the contrary, composition is that which compels the things combined to come together in a manner contrary to their nature; and indeed, this appears to be the most exact truth; for men are composed of the four elements which together make up the wrhole of the universe, the heaven, the earth, the air, and fire, borrowing a few parts of each in a manner at first sight hardly consistent with nature. But the things which are thus combined together are necessarily deprived of a motion in accordance with nature; for instance, warmth is deprived of its upward motion, and coldness of its downward tendency, the earthy and somewhat weighty substance being lightened and assuming the higher place, which the most earth-like of our 'own parts, the head, has obtained in us. But of all bonds, that is the worst which is forged by violence, and which, being violent, is also short- lived; for it is speedily broken by those who are bound in it, since they become restive from their desire for a motion in ac- cordance with nature, to which they hasten; for as the tragic poet says,f — "And for things sprung from earth, they must Return unto their parent dust, While those from heavenly seed which rise Are borne uplifted to the skies. Nought that has once existed dies, Though often what has been combined Before, we separated find, Invested with another form."
And this law and ordinance is established with reference to * Timajus, p. 32.
f A fragment from the Chrysippus of Euripides. D 2 38 PHILO JUDjEUS.
everything which is destroyed, that wherever composite things are existing in combination they are thrown into disorder instead of into the order in accordance with nature, which they previously enjoyed, and they are removed to situations opposite to those in which they were previously placed, so that they seem in a manner to be sojourners; and when they are dis- solved again, then they return to the appropriate parts allotted to them by nature.
XII. But since the world has no participation in that irregu- larity which exists in the things which I have just been men- tioning, let us stop awhile and consider this point.
If the world were liable to corruption and destruction, it follows of necessity that all its parts would at present be arranged in a position not in accordance with nature: but it is impious even to imagine such a thing as this; for all the parts of the world have received the most excellent position possible, and an arrangement of the purest symmetry and harmony; so that each individual part, being content with its place as a native country to it, does not seek any change for the better. On this account it is that the most central position of all has been assigned to the earth, to which all things belonging to it adhere, and to which they descend again even if you throw them into the air: and this is a proof that their place is in accordance with nature; for wherever anything is borne with- out any violence, and where it then remains firm and stationary, that is clearly its natural place. And then, in the second place, water was poured over the earth, and air and fire have gone from the central to the upper part, air having received for its portion the region which is on the borders between air and fire, and fire having received the highest place of all: on which account, if you light a torch and press it down towards the ground, nevertheless the flame will still turn in a contrary direction, and lightening itself in accordance with the natural motion of fire, will rise upwards: if, then, motion con- trary to nature is the cause of corruptibility and destruction in the case of other animals, but if in the case of the world every one of its parts is arranged in complete accordance with nature, having had appropriate positions allotted to each of them, then surely the world must most justly be pronounced incorruptible and imperishable.
Moreover this point is manifest to every one, that every ON THE INCORRUPTIBILITY OF THE WORLD. 37 nature is desirous to keep and preserve, and if it were possible to make immortal, everything of which it is the nature; the nature of trees, for instance, desires to preserve trees, and the nature of animals desires to preserve each individual animal. But particular nature is of necessity unable to conduct what it belongs to to eternity; for want, or heat, or cold, or innu- merable other ordinary circumstances, when they affect parti- cular things, shake them and dissolve the bond which previ- ously held them together, and at last break them to pieces; but if nothing resembling any of these things were lying in wait outside, then in that case nature itself, as far as it is possible, would preserve everything both great and small free from old age.
It follows therefore of necessity, that the nature of the world must desire the durability of the universe; for it is not worse than particular natures, so that it should run away and desert its proper duties, and attempt to produce disease instead of health, and corruption and destruction instead of complete safety, since,* " High over all she lifts her beauteous face, And towers above her nymphs with heavenly grace, Fair as they all appear."
But if this be true, then the world cannot be capable of destruction. Why so? Because the nature which holds it together is itself invincible by reason of its exceeding strength and power, by which it gets the mastery over every thing else which might be likely to injure it; wherefore Plato has well said:f — " For nothing ever departed from it, nor did anything ever come to it from any quarter; for that was not possible; for there was nothing in existence which could come; for since it supplies itself with nutriment out of its own con- sumption, it also does everything and suffers everything in itself and by itself, and is compounded with the most consum- mate art. For he who created it thought that it would be better if wholly self-sufficient, than if in continual need of accessories from other quarters."
XIII. However, this argument also is a most demonstra- tive one, on which I know that vast numbers of philosophers * Homer, Odyssey vi. 107, where the lines quoted are applied to Latona among her nymphs. f Timaeus, p. 33.
38 PHILO JUD^EUS.
pride themselves as one most accurately worked out, and altogether irresistible; for they inquire what reason there is for God's destroying the world. For if he destroys it at all he must do so either with the intention of never making a world again, or with the object of creating a second fresh one; now the former idea is inconsistent with the character of God; for it is proper to change disorder into order, and not order into disorder; in the second place, it is so because it would give rise to repentance, which is an affliction and a disease of the soul.
For he ought either never to have created a world at all, or else, if he judged that it was a fitting employment for him, he ought to have been pleased with it after it was made. But the second reason deserves no superficial examination; for if he were intending to make another world instead of that which exists at present, then of necessity this second world that would be made, in that case, would be either worse than, or similar to, or better than the first; everyone of which ideas is inadmissible; for if the new world is to be worse than the former, then the maker must be also worse: but all the works of God are without blemish, beyond all reproach and wholly faultless, inasmuch as they are wrought with the most consum- mate skill and knowledge; for as the proverb says; — " For e'en a woman's wisdom's not so coarse As to despiso the good and choose the worse." But it is consistent with the character of, and becoming to God to give form to what is shapeless, and to invest what is most ugly with admirable beauty.
Again, if the new world is to be exactly like the old one, then the maker is only wasting his labour, and differs in no respect from infant children who, very often while playing on the sea shore raise up little mounds of sand, and then pull them down again with their hands and destroy them; for it would have been much better than making another world exactly like the former, neither to take anything from, nor to add anything to, nor to change either for the better or for the worse, what existed originally, but to let it remain just as it was.
If, on the other hand, he is about to make a world better than the former one, then the maker too must be better than the maker of the former world, so that when he made the ON THE iri CORRUPTIBILITY OF THE WORLD. 30 former world he was inferior both in his skill and in his intel- lect, which it is impious even to imagine, for God is at all times equal and similar to himself, being neither capable of any relaxation which can make him worse, nor of any extension which can make him better. Men, indeed, do admit of such inequalitias in either direction, being naturally liable to alter either for the better or for the worse, and continually admitting of increase, and advance, and improvement, and everything contrary to these states; and besides this, the works of us who are but mortal men may very appropriately be perishable, but the works of the immortal must in all consistency and reason be likewise imperishable, for it is natural that what is made should resemble the nature of the maker.
XIV. And, indeed, this I imagine is evident to every one, that if the earth were to be destroyed, then all land animals of every kind must also perish with it; and if the water were destroyed, all aquatic animals must perish; and in like manner if the air and fire were to be destroyed, all the animals which traverse the air or which are born in the fire must come to an end at the same time. Therefore, on the same principle, if the heaven is destroyed, the sun and moon will also be destroyed, and all the other planets likewise will be destroyed, and all the fixed stars, and all that host of gods visible to the outward senses which was formerly considered so happy; and to imagine this is nothing else than to fancy the gods them- selves in a process of destruction, for this is equivalent to considering men immortal. A nd yet in a comparison between different objects devoid of honour, if you were to consider the matter, you would find it more consistent with probability to look on men as immortal than to believe that the gods are perishable, since it might happen through the grace of God, for it is not improbable that a mortal might receive immor- tality, but it is impossible for gods to lose their immortality even if the sophistries of mankind should run on to ever such a degree of wicked insanity.
And, moreover, those persons who allege conflagrations and regenerations of the world, think and confess that the stars are gods, which nevertheless they are not ashamed to destroy as far as their arguments go; for they are bound to prove them to be either red hot pieces of iron, as some do affirm, who argue about the whole of the heaven as if it were a prison, 40 PHILO JUD^EUS.
talking utter nonsense, or else to look upon them as divine and godlike natures, and then to attribute to them that immor- tality which belongs to gods.
But as it is, they have wandered so far from true doctrine, that without being aware of it they have attributed corrupti- bility and perishableness to providence (and that is the soul of the world) by the inconsistent principles which they advocate. Therefore Chrysippus, the most celebrated philosopher of that sect, in his treatise about Increase, utters some such prodigious assertions as these, and after he has prefaced his doctrines with the assertion that it is impossible for two makers of a species to exist in the same substance, he proceeds, " Let it be granted for the sake of argument and speculation that there is one person entire and sound, and another wanting one foot from his birth, and that the sound man is called Dion and the cripple Theon, and afterwards that Dion also loses one of his feet, then if the question were asked which had been spoiled, it would be more natural to say this of Theon;" but this is the assertion of one who delights in paradox rather than in truth, for how could it be said that he who had suffered no mutilation whatever, namely Theon, was taken off, and that Dion, who had lost a foot, was not injured? Very appropriately, he will reply, for Dion, who had had his foot cut off, falls back upon the original imperfection of Theon, and there cannot be two specific differences in the same subject, therefore it follows of necessity that Dion must remain, and that Theon must be taken off.
" So are we slain by arrows winged With our own feathers," * as the tragic poet says. For any one, copying the form of this argument and adapting it to the entire world, may prove in the clearest manner that providence itself is liable to corrup- tion. Consider the matter thus: let the world be the subject of our argument, as Dion was just now, for it is perfect, and let the soul of the world take the place of Theon, who was * From the Myrmidons of ^Eschylus. The passage is evidently the original of the stanza in Waller's Ode to a Lady Singing — "That eagle's fate and mine are one, Who on the shaft that made him die, Espied a feather of his own, Wherewith he wont to soar so high."
ON THE INCORRUPTIBILITY OF THE WORLD. 41 imperfect, since a part is less than the whole; and as the foot was cut off from Dion, so also let everything which resembles a body be cut off from the world; therefore it is necessary to say that the world has not been destroyed though its body has been taken away, just as Dion was not destroyed by having his foot cut off, but the soul of the world it is that has perished, like Theon, who suffered no artificial mutilation, for the world also receded to a lesser substance when all of it that resembled a body was taken away. And the soul was destroyed because there could not be two. specific differences affecting the same subject. But it is impiety to say that providence perishes, and since it is imperishable it follows of necessity that the world also must be imperishable.
XV. However, time also affords a very great argument in favour of the eternity of the world, for if time is uncreated, then it follows of necessity that the world also must be uncreated. Why so? Because, as the great Plato says, it is days, and nights, and months, and the periods of years which have shown time, and it is surely impossible that time can exist without the motion of the sun, and the rotary progress of the whole heaven. So that it has been defined very felici- tously by those who are in the habit of giving definitions of things, that time is the interval of the motion of the world, and since this is a sound definition, then the world must be co-eval with time and also the cause of its existence.
And it is the most absurd of all ideas to fancy that there ever was a time when the world did not exist, for its nature is without any beginning and without any end, since these very expressions, " there was," " when," " formerly," all indicate time; and keeping to this view, then, according to the theory of the conflagration* he at a late period of his life entertained doubts and withheld any positive opinion; for it does not belong to "youth, but to old age, to see clearly things of solemn importance which it is desirable to understand, and especially as to matters which it is not the outer sense, which is irrational and deceitful, that determines, but the pure and unalloyed intellect.
XVI. But Boethus adduces the most convincing arguments, which we shall proceed to mention immediately; for if, says he, the world was created and is liable to destruction, then some- * There is supposed to be a very large hiatus here.
42 PHILO JUD^EUS.
thing will be made out of nothing, which appears to be most absurd even to the Stoics. Why so? Because it is not possible to discover any cause of destruction either within or without, which will destroy the world. For on the outside there is nothing except perhaps a vacuum, inasmuch as all the elements in their integrity are collected and contained within it, and within there is no imperfection so great as to be the cause of dissolution to so great a thing.
Again, if it is destroyed without any cause, then it is plain that from something which has no existence will arise the engendering of destruction, which is an idea quite inadmissible by reason; and, indeed, they say that there are altogether three generic manners of corruption, one which arises from division, another which proceeds from a destruction of the distinctive quality which holds the thing together, and the third from confusion; therefore the things which consist of a union of separate members, such as flocks of goats, herds of oxen, choruses, armies; or, again, bodies which are com- pounded of limbs joined together, are dissolved by disjunction and separation. But wax, when stamped with a new impres- sion, or softened before being remodelled so as to present a new and different appearance, is corrupted by a destruction of the distinctive quality which previously held it together. Other things are corrupted by confusion, as the medicine which the physicians call tetrapharmacon, for the powers of the drugs brought together and combined were destroyed in such a manner as to produce one perfect medicine of especial virtue.
By which, then, of these modes of corruption is it becoming to say that the world is destroyed? By that which is caused by separation? No, for it is not compounded of separate members so that its different parts can be dispersed, nor of portions joined together so that they can be dissolved; nor is it united together in a similar manner to our own bodies, for they have the seeds of decay in themselves, and they are subject to influence of a great variety of things by which they are at times injured; but the power of the world is invincible, since by its great superiority to other things it has dominion over everything.
Is it then destroyed by a complete destruction of its dis- tinctive qualities? This again is impossible, for there remains, as the adversaries affirm, a quality of arrangement which by ON THE INCORRUPTIBILITY OF THE WORLD. 43 the process of conflagration is only diminished to a lesser sub- 8tance...Is it destroyed then by confusion? Away with such an idea, for in that case it would be necessary to confess that the corruption of a body can be reduced to a state of nonexistence. Why so? Because if each of the particular elements were destroyed separately, it would be possible for it to become changed into another; but if they are altogether destroyed at one and the same moment by confusion, then it would be necessary to imagine what is absolutely impossible.
Again, besides these arguments, if all things, say they, were destroyed by fire, then what will God have to do during all that time, except absolutely nothing? And is it not reasonable to say so? For at present, he overlooks and presides over everything, and regulates everything like a genuine father, and if one is to say the truth, he guides and directs everything, sitting as it were by the side of the sun, and moon, and the other planets, and fixed stars, and also by the air, and the other parts of the world, and he co-operates with them in everything which can conduce to the durability of the universe and to its blameless management, in accordance with right reason. But if everything is destroyed, then he will have an existence which will be rendered absolutely miserable, by in- activity and irremediable want of employment; than which what idea can be more absurd? I hesitate to add, what it would be impious to say, that death will ensue to God if absolute inactivity falls to his lot; for if you take away the perpetual motion of the soul, then you will beyond all question also destroy the soul itself. And the soul of the world, in the opinion of those who maintain the opposite doctrine, is God.
XVII. Is it not however worth while to examine this question, in what manner there can be a regeneration of all those things which have been destroyed by fire, and resolved into fire? for when their substance has been wholly destroyed by the fire, it follows of necessity that the fire itself must also be extinguished as no longer having any nourishment. Therefore, as long as it remained the seminal principle of arrangement was likewise preserved, but when it is destroyed that principle is destroyed with it. But it would be impious, and an impiety of double dye, not only to attribute destruction to the world, but also to take away the possibility of its regeneration; as if God delighted in disorder, and irregularity, and all kinds of evil 44 PHILO JUDiEUS.
tilings. But we must examine this question more accurately, in the following manner.
There are three species in fire; the coal, and the flame, and the light. Now coal is the fire in its earthy substance, which, like a sort of spiritual habit, couches and lies hid in a sort of cavern, pervading it all to its very extremities. And the flame is that part which, being raised on high, is lifted up from its fuel. And the light is that which is emitted from the flame, so as to co-operate with the eyes, in order to enable them to comprehend what is seen. And the flame occupies the middle position between the coal and the light; for when it is extin- guished it ends in coal, and when it is kindled it excites the light, which, being deprived of its burning power, blazes. If therefore, we affirm that the world is dissolved by conflagration, it would not be coal, because, in that case there will be a great deal of the earthy substance left behind, in which also fire must necessarily be contained. But we must agree, that none of the other bodies subsist any longer, but that earth, and water, and air, are all dissolved into unmixed fire. Nor, again, would it become flame; for that can only exist in connexion with nourishment; and, if nothing is left behind, being de- prived of all nourishment it will immediately be extinguished.
It follows from all this, that it cannot become light either; for light by itself has no substance at all, but flows from the things before mentioned, coal and flame, not in a great degree from the coal, but very much from the flame; for it is diffused over a very great space indeed. But if, as has been already proved, those things had no existence from the conflagration of all things, then there could not be any light either. For the abundant, and vast, and extensive brilliancy of mid-day, when the sun proceeds under the earth, is at once caused to disappear by night, especially if it be a moonless night. Therefore the world is not destroyed by fire, but is indestructible. And if it should be destroyed by fire, there could not be another created.
XVIII. On which account some of the Stoics also, being gifted with a more acute discernment, and perceiving that they would infallibly be convicted, thought it well to be beforehand in preparing assistance as it were for a defunct proposition. But what they prepared was of no use; for, since fire is the cause of all motion, and since motion is the beginning of generation, for it is impossible that anything whatever should ON THE INCORRUPTIBILITY OF THE WORLD. 45 be generated without motion, they said that before the new world began to be formed, when it was beginning to be fashioned, the whole fire would not be extinguished in that conflagration; that they affirmed that some would still remain, but yet only a small portion. For they were exceedingly cautious, lest if it should be wholly extinguished, the conse- quence would be that everything would remain motionless and devoid of ornament, inasmuch as the cause of motion would no longer be in any existence. But all these ideas are the invention of quibblers, who employ all their artifices in opposition to the truth. Why so? Because it is impossible, as has been proved already, that the world, after it has been destroyed by conflagration, should become similar to coal, inas- much as there is a vast quantity of earthy substance left in which the fire must of necessity lie in ambush. And perhaps too the conflagration could not prevail in every quarter, if the heaviest and most invincible of the elements, namely the earth, still remains, without being dissolved; but it must of necessity change, either into flame or into light: into flame, as Cleanthes thought; into light, as Chrysippus conceived. But if it becomes flame, then, when it approaches extinction, it will be