Philonis Judaei Opera Omnia (Vol. 8)

PHIL. IUD. ON PROV. BOOK I. §. 20—22.

Plato says this in the Timaeus original: "Tim. p. 38": Timaeus, a dialogue by Plato regarding the origin of the universe: "Was time not made with the heavens? Therefore, they were born together, and together they shall be dissolved, if ever any dissolution of them comes."

§. 21. And a little before, he indicated his opinion concerning the creation (of the world), saying: "We must inquire first of all concerning that which it is necessary to consider first in all things (of life): whether, indeed, (the world) has always been, having no principle of creation, or whether it was made, beginning from a certain principle? It was made: because it is visible and tangible and has a body; and all things of this kind are sensible: but sensible things, which are perceived by the senses, appear to have been made and produced." (And then): "And they said the creation of the sensible world is a (sensible) argument for the intellectual world." Therefore he says: "Since these things are so, it is altogether necessary that this world be an image of something." At the same time calling this an indication of the creator and showing that this sensible world was made: so that God was always the maker of intelligible things, and He who gave a principle to sensible things so that they might exist. The world, according to Plato, is a certain harmony of heaven and earth and those natures which are in it, consisting of fire, earth, water, and air, as well as of gods, demons, humans, animals, plants, and matter.

§. 22. Plato knows that these things were made by God; and that matter, lacking adornment in itself, came forth into the world with the adornment itself; for these were the first causes, whence the world also was. Since even the lawgiver of the Jews, Moses, said that water, darkness, and chaos existed before the world.