Chapter XIII. Philo Concerning God, and That the Earth Was Created

[PHILO] [1] ‘FOR some who admired the world itself more than its Maker represented it as being uncreated and eternal, bringing a false and impious charge of great inactivity against God; whereas they ought on the contrary to have been struck with admiration of His powers as Creator and Father, instead of extolling the world beyond the bounds of moderation.

‘But Moses having early attained to the very summit of philosophy, and having been taught by divine oracles the many most binding laws of nature, knew of course that in existing things there must necessarily be both an active cause, and passive principle: and that the active cause, the mind of the universe, is most pure and unmixed, superior to science, and superior to absolute goodness and absolute beauty; while the passive principle is without life, and incapable of self-movement, but having been moved, and newly fashioned, and animated by the mind, has changed this world into the most perfect work: those therefore who assert that it is uncreated have unconsciously cut away the most beneficial and indispensable of the inducements to piety, that is, Providence.

‘For reason proves that the Father and Creator should care for that which He has made. For a human father aims at the preservation of his offspring, and an artificer of the works which he has made, and wards off by all means whatever is hurtful, but longs to provide in every way all that is useful and profitable; whereas towards that which he has not made there is no feeling of appropriation in him who has not made it.

‘Thus it is an undesirable and unprofitable doctrine to maintain that there is anarchy in this world, as in a city, as though it had neither the ephor, nor arbitrator, nor judge, by whom lawfully all things should be administered and superintended.

‘But that great man Moses deemed that the uncreated was most alien from the visible, since all that can be perceived by the senses is subject to generation and to changes, never remaining in the same conditions: he therefore attributed eternity to that which is invisible and only perceived by the mind, as being a brotherly and kindred quality, while to the sensible he assigned “creation” (γένεσιν) as its proper denomination.

‘Since therefore this world is visible and sensible, it must necessarily be also created; wherefore it was not beside the mark that he described its creation with a noble description of the nature of God.’

This then is what he has said on the subject of the world haying been created. And the same author in his treatise On Providencestates some very vigorous arguments on the question of the universe being administered by Providence, setting out first the objections of the atheists, and answering them in order. And since most of these, though they may appear to be rather long, are nevertheless necessary, I will set them forth in a concise form. He arranges the discussion in the following manner: