The Works of Philo Judaeus

VII. Moses says also ; " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth:" taking the beginning to be, not as some men think, that which is according to time ; for before the world time had no existence, but was created either simultaneously with it, or after it ; for since time is the interval of the motion of the heavens, there could not have been any such thing as motion before there was anything which could be moved; but it follows of necessity that it received existence subsequently or simultaneously. It therefore follows also of necessity, that time was created either at the same moment with the world, or later than it — and to venture to assert that it is older than the world is absolutely inconsistent with philosophy. But if the beginning spoken of by Moses is not to be looked upon as spoken of according to time, then it may be natural to suppose that it is the beginning according to number that is indicated ; so that, " In the beginning he created," is equivalent to " first of all he created the heaven ;" for it is natural in reality that that should have been the first object created, being both the best of all created things, and being also made of the purest substance, because it was destined to be the most holy abode of the visible Gods who are perceptible by the external senses ; for if the Creator had made everything at the same moment, still those things which were created in beauty would no less have had a regular arrangement, for there is no such thing as beauty in disorder. But order is a due consequence and connection of things precedent and subsequent, if not in the completion of a work, at all events in the intention of the maker ; for it is owing to order that they become accurately defined and stationary, and free from confusion. In the first place therefore, from the model of the world, perceptible only by intellect, the Creator made an incorporeal heaven, and an invisible earth, and the form of air and of empty space : the former of which he called darkness, because the air is black by nature ; and the other he called the abvss, for empty space is very deep and yawning with immense width. Then he created the incorporeal substance of water and of air, and above all he spread light, being the seventh thing made ; and this again was incorporeal, and a model of the sun, perceptible only to intellect, and of all the lightgiving stars, which are destined to stand together in heaven.

IX. Moses is right also when he says, that " darkness was over the face of the abyss." For the air is in a manner spread above the empty space, since having mounted up it entirely fills all that open, and desolate, and empty place, which reaches down to us from the regions below the moon. And after the shining forth of that light, perceptible only to the intellect, which existed before the sun, then its adversary darkness yielded, as God put a wall between them and separated them, well knowing their opposite characters, and the enmity existing between their natures. In order, therefore, that they might not war against one another from being continually brought in contact, so that war would prevail instead of peace, God, turning want of order into order, did not only separate light and darkness, but did also place houndaries in the middle of the space between the two, by which he separated the extremities of each. For if they had approximated they must have produced confusion, preparing for the contest, for the supremacy, with great and unextinguishable rivalry, if boundaries established between them had not separated them and prevented them from clashing together, and these boundaries are evening and morning ; the one of which heralds in the good tidings that the sun is about to rise, gently dissipating the darkness : and evening comes on as the sun sets, receiving gently the collective approach of darkness. And these, I mean morning and evening, must be placed in the class of incorporeal things, perceptible only by the intellect ; for there is absolutely nothing in them which is perceptible by the external senses, but they are entirely ideas, and measures, and forms, and seals, incorporeal as far as regards the generation of other bodies. But when light came, and darkness retreated and yielded to it, and boundaries were set" in the space between the two, namely, evening and morning, then of necessity the measure of time was immediately perfected, which also the Creator called " day," and He called it not " the first day," but " one day ;" and it is spoken of thus, on account of the single nature of the world perceptible only by the intellect, which has a single nature.

XXI. So now when the air and the water had received their appropriate races of animals as an allotment that was c 18 PHTLO JUD^EUS. their due, God again summoned the earth for the creation of that share which still remained : and after the production of plants, the terrestrial animals still remained. And God said, " Let the earth bring forth cattle and beasts, and creeping things of each kind." And the earth did as it was commanded, and immediately sent forth animals differing in their formation and in their strength, and in the injurious or beneficial powers that were implanted in them. And after all He made man. But how he made him I will mention presently, after I have first explained that he adopted the most beautiful connection and train of consequences according to the system of the creation of animals which he had sketched out to himself; for of souls the most sluggish and the most weakly formed has been allotted to the race of fishes ; and the most exquisitely endowed soul, that which is in all respects most excellent, has been given to the race of mankind, and one something between the two to the races of terrestrial animals and those which traverse the air ; for the soul of such creatures is endowed with more acute sensations than the soul of fishes, but is more dull than that of mankind. And it was on this account that of all living creatures God created fishes first, inasmuch as they partake of corporeal substance in a greater degree than they partake of soul, being in a manner animals and not animals, moving soulless things, having a sort of semblance of soul diffused through them for no object beyond that of keeping their bodies alive (just as they say that salt preserves meat), in order that they may not easily be destroyed. And after the fishes, he created winged and terrestrial animals : for these are endowed with a higher degree of sensation, and from their formation show that the properties of their animating principle are of a higher order. But after all the rest, then, as has been said before, he created man, to whom he gave that admirable endowment of mind — the soul, if I may so call it, of the soul, as being like the pupil to the eye ; for those who most accurately investigate the natures of things affirm, that it is the pupil which is the eye of the eye.

XXIV. And he would not err who should raise the question why Moses attributed the creation of man alone not to one creator, as he did that of other animals, but to several. For he introduces the Father of the universe using this language : "Let us make man after our image, and in our likeness." Had he then, shall I say, need of any one whatever to help him, He to whom all things are subject ? Or, when he was making the heaven aud the earth and the sea, was he in need of no one to co-operate with him ; and yet was he unable himself by Ins own power to make man an animal so short-lived and so exposed to the assaults of fate without the assistance of others ? It is plain that the real cause of his so acting is known to God alone, but one which to a reasonable conjecture appears probable and credible, I think I should not conceal ; and it is this. Of existing things, there are some which partake neither of virtue nor of vice ; as for instance, plants and irrational animals ; the one, because they are destitute of soul, and are regulated by a nature void of sense ; and the other, because they are not endowed with mind or reason. But mind and reason may be looked upon as the abode of virtue and vice ; as it is in them that they seem to dwell. Some things again partake of virtue alone, being without any participation in any kind of vice ; as for instance, the stars, for they are said to be animals, and animals endowed with intelligence ; or I might rather say, the mind of each of them is wholly and entirely virtuous, and unsusceptible of every kind of evil. Some things again are of a mixed nature, like man, who is capable of opposite qualities, of wisdom and folly, of temperance and dissoluteness, of courage and cowardice, of justice and injustice, in short of good and evil, of what is honourable and what is disgraceful, of virtue and vice. Now it was a very appropriate task for God the Father of all to create by himself alone, those things which were wholly good, on account of their kindred with himself. And it was not inconsistent with his dignity to create those which were indifferent since they too are devoid of evil, which is hateful to him. To create the beings of a mixed nature, was partly consistent and partly inconsistent with his dignity ; consistent by reason of the more excellent idea which is mingled in them ; inconsistent because of the opposite and worse one. It is on this account that Moses says, at the creation of man alone that God said, " Let us make man," which expression shows an assumption of other beings to himself as assistants. in order that God, the governor of all things, might have all the blameless intentions and actions of man, when he does right attributed to him ; and that his other assistants might bear the imputation of his contrary actions. For it was fitting that the Father should in the eves of his children be free from all imputation of evil ; and vice and energy in accordance with vice are evil. And very beautifully after he had called the whole race " man," did he distinguish between the sexes, saying, that " they were created male and female ;" although all the individuals of the race had not yet assumed their distinctive form ; since the extreme species are contained in the genus, and are beheld, as in a mirror, by those who are able to discern acutely.

II. " And on the sixth day God finished his work which he had made." It would be a sign of great simplicity to think that the world was created in six days, or indeed at all in time ; because all time is only the space of days and nights, and these things the motion of the sun as he passes over the earth and under the earth does necessarily make. But the sun is a portion of heaven, so that one must confess that time Genesis ii. 1. ON THE ALLEGOHIES OF THE SACKED LAW?. 53 is a thing posterior to the world. Therefore it would be correctly said that the world was not created in time, but that time had its existence in consequence of the world. For it is the motion of the heaven that has displayed the nature of time. When, therefore, Moses says. " God completed his works on the sixth day," we must understand that he is speaking not of a number of days, but that he takes six as a perfect number. Since it is the first number which is equal in its parts, in the half, and the third and sixth parts, and since it is produced by the multiplication of two unequal factors, two aud three. And the numbers two and three exceed the incorporeality which exists in the unit ; because the number two is an image of matter being divided into two parts and dissected like matter. And the number three is an image of a solid body, because a solid can be divided according to a threefold division. Not but what it is also akin to the motions of organic animals. For an organic body is naturally capable of motion in six directions, forward, backwards, upwards, downwards, to the right, ar.d to the left. And at all events he desires to show that the races of mortal, and also of all the immortal beings, exist according to their appropriate numbers ; measuring mortal beings, as I have said, by the number six, and the blessed and immortal beings by the number seven. First, therefore, having desisted from the creation of mortal creatures on the seventh day, he began the formation of other and more divine beings.

V. And, in all such matters, it is impossible for the spirit of God to remain and to pass all its time, as the law-giver himself shows. " For," says Moses, " the Lord said, My spirit shall not remain among men for ever, because they are flesh, "f For, at times, it does remain ; but it does not remain for ever and ever among the greater part of us ; for who is so destitute of reason or so lifeless as never, either voluntarily or involuntarily, to conceive a notion of the all good God. For, very often, even over the most polluted and accursed beings, there hovers a sudden appearance of the good, but they are unable to take firm hold of it and to keep it among them ; for, almost immediately, it quits its former place and departs, rejecting those inhabitants who come over to it, aud who live in defiance of law and justice, to whom it never would have come if it had not been for the sake of convicting those who choose what is disgraceful instead of what is good. But the spirit of God is spoken of in one manner as being air flowing upon the earth, bringing a third element in addition Psalm lxxvii. 49. t Genesis vi. 3. to water. In reference to which. Moses says, in his account of the creation of the world, " The spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." Since the air, as it is very light, is raised and borne aloft, having water, as it were, for its foundation ; and, in another manner, unalloyed knowledge is said to be so, which every wise man naturally partakes of. And Moses shows us this, when speaking of the creator and maker of the holy work of the creation, in these words : " And God summoned Bezaleel, and filled him with his Holy Spirit, and with wisdom, and understanding, and knowledge, to be able to devise every work."f So that, what the spirit of God is, is very definitively described in these words.