De Aeternitate Mundi

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.

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 felicitously 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 ...... [*](There is supposed to be a very large hiatus here. ) 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. 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 consequence 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 (κόσμος), for if this thing which we see is correctly and appropriately called the world (κόσμος), [*](Philo is playing here on the two meanings of the word κόσμος, which signifies both "order " and " the world." ) being arranged and adorned (κεκοσμημένος) 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."

But Critolaus, a man who devoted himself very much to literature, and a lover of the Peripatetic philosophy, agreeing 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 κόσμος, which signifies both "order " and " the world." )

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 necessary 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 generation 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 completely 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 and 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 lessening; 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

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 diminution, 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.