Works of Philo of Alexandria

Philo — Works Vol. I, Yonge — Section 8

For as the smallest seal receives imitations of things oi colossal magnitude when engraved upon it, so perchance in some instances the exceeding beauty of the description of the creation of the world as recorded in the Law, overshadowing with its brilliancy the souls of those who happen to meet with it, will be delivered to a more concise record after these facts have been first premised which it would be improper to pass over in silence. II. For some men, admiring the world itself rather than the Creator of the world, have represented it as existing with- out any maker, and eternal ; and as impiously as falsely have represented God as existing in a state of complete inac- tivity, while it would have been right on the other hand to marvel at the might of God as the creator and father of all, and to admire the world in a degree not exceeding the bounds of moderation. ButMoses, who had early reached the very summits of philoso- phy,* and who had learnt from the oracles of God the most nume- rous and important of the principles of nature, was well aware that it is indispensable that in all existing things there must be an active cause, and a passive subject ; and that the active cause is the intellect of the universe, thoroughly unadulterated and thoroughly unmixed, superior to virtue and superior to science, superior even to abstract good or abstract beauty; while the passive subject is something inanimate and incapable of motion by any intrinsic power of its own, but having been set in motion, and fashioned, and endowed with life by the intellect, became transformed into that most perfect work, this world. And those who describe it as being uncreated, do, without being aware of it, cut off the most useful and necessary of all the qualities which tend to produce piety, namely, provi- dence : for reason proves that the father and creator has a care for that which has been created ; for a father is anxious for the life of his children, and a workman aims at the dura- tion of his works, and employs every device imaginable to