ON THE ETERNITY OF THE WORLD (DE AETERNITATE MUNDI)
INTRODUCTION TO DE AETERNITATE MUNDI
Among the works of Philo this is certainly the one whose genuineness can be most reasonably doubted. It is not mentioned in Eusebius’s list, and the only external evidence for it so far as I know is that it has always been included in the Philonian corpus. The internal evidence, the resemblance to Philo’s style and language, has been dealt with by Cumont, and though certainly strong, particularly when we remember how different the subject-matter is from that of the rest, it is not I think as overwhelming as in the case of the De Vita Contemplativa. In fact while if that work came before us as of unknown authorship I should without hesitation set it down as Philo’s, I should not feel the same certainty about the De Aeternitate.
The belief that the work is non-Philonic rests chiefly I think on the authority of Bernays. My confidence in his judgement is not increased by observing that he says the same of the Quod Omnis Probus and the De Providentia. He does not anywhere formulate his reasons for rejection and one or two of those casually mentioned are trivial. But on p. 45 he notes the phrase ὁρατὸς θεός as one which no orthodox Jew could have used of the Cosmos. Cumont perhaps makes somewhat too light of this objection. For Philo in the body of his work nowhere, I think, speaks of the Cosmos as a God. It is true indeed that he twice at least calls the stars gods and quite often divine beings. Also his chief care seems to be not so much that they should not be called gods as that they should not be recognized as primal or sovereign gods, and perhaps we cannot fairly reason from the numberless heavenly bodies to the Cosmos itself. If regarded as a god at all its godship would be unique and certainly tend to endanger monotheism. It must be admitted that taken by itself this is some argument against the genuineness.
But the most important objection at first sight to the Philonic authorship, though I am not sure that Bernays ever definitely mentions it, lies not in any particular phrase but in the views displayed passim on the question under discussion. Philo in his other works has denounced the doctrine that the world is uncreated and indestructible, in this book he appears to maintain that theory.
My own view is that a distinction should be made between the earlier part up to the first sentence of § 20 and the rest. Up to § 20 the author is no doubt speaking himself. In § 20 he states that out of respect for the divine Cosmos the opinions which maintain that it is uncreated and eternal should take precedence. And from that point we have an account of the various arguments used by the advocates of that opinion, ending with the statement that in the sequel he will give an account of the arguments on the other side. In describing the arguments for the eternity of the Cosmos he puts them forth with such gusto and denounces the opponents so vigorously that at first sight anyone would suppose that he is giving us his own conviction. But it is Philo’s way to reproduce with all his vigour opinions and doctrines which he is really going to controvert later. Observe the misleading way in which the views of the unphilosophical are described in Quod Omn. Prob. 6–10 and the vigorous advocacy of the champions of the senses in Spec. Leg. i. 337–343. So when I read in De Aet. 35 and 49 that some argument must be “clear to everyone” or in § 69 “that the foolish imaginations of the opponents have been refuted” I do not feel sure that Philo might not talk very differently when he gives to each point the opposition which he promises in his final words.
When we turn to the first twenty sections we have the following expressions of the author’s opinions. (1) Nothing is generated from the non-existent and nothing can be destroyed into non-existence. (2) Plato’s statement that the world was created and indestructible is not to be explained away. (3) When Aristotle said that it was uncreated and indestructible he spoke “piously and religiously.” (4) The Cosmos is a God. With the fourth I have dealt already. As to the third, the words that follow show that “piously and religiously” apply to indestructible rather than to uncreated. Philo in his later days would certainly denounce those who put the divine beings in heaven on a level with idols. The second is quite in the spirit of the other writings in which the Timaeus is a sort of Gospel whose meaning is not to be tampered with, and it is quite opposed to the Peripatetic view put forward in § 27, which while citing the Timaeus to show the indestructibility declares that the uncreatedness must be postulated on the general grounds that γένεσις and φθορά are inseparable. As to the first, there are several places where Philo speaks of God and indeed parenthood as creating the existing from the non-existent, e.g. Spec. Leg. ii. 225, but these are merely concessions to popular ideas and could not Philo have pleaded that the αἰσθητὸς κόσμος was created out of the eternal νοητός? In fact it seems to me that judging from the sections in which the author gives us hints of his own view the differences from the opinions expressed in the bulk of Philo’s work are not on the whole vital, and even if this statement is an exaggeration, why should Philo be refused the right of developing his creed as Plato and Aristotle did? On the whole I feel that this objection to the genuineness breaks down and if it does the balance of argument as a whole seems to be in favour of the authenticity.
As to the sections after 20 to the end, if I am right in thinking that the expressions of confidence in the arguments adduced and the denunciation of opponents are rather echoes of the opinions reproduced than the convinced opinions of the author, it might be thought that this shows that all this part is little more than a matter of scissors and paste as Bernay’s commentary sometimes seems to hold. But I do not think this would be a just conclusion. Philo can throw himself with great gusto into retailing arguments with which he does not necessarily agree, but he can at the same time introduce phraseology and illustrations of his own. There is one treatise extant which he tells us he has read and which no doubt he used, that of Ocellus Lucanus. There are passages in the De Aeternitate which can be paralleled with this in substance but with no very close resemblance in language. In the account of Critolaus’s argument in §§ 55–69, while we may suppose that Critolaus spoke with scorn of the Stoic appeal to myths, the length at which this attack is developed and many of the expressions in it savour of Philo himself, and in particular the complaint in § 56 that the myth-makers have used the seduction of metre and rhythm has a close resemblance to a similar complaint in Spec. Leg. i. 28. Also the panegyric on the eternal youthfulness of the earth in §§ 63 f. is very much in the vein of the description of the world’s wonders elsewhere, if we make allowance for the fact that here it is the earth only and not the Cosmos which is extolled. In the concluding thirty-three sections in which he reproduces Theophrastus’s account of the four arguments adduced by the Stoics against the creation of the world and then Theophrastus’s refutation of the same the substance no doubt is what it claims to be, but I cannot help suspecting that the irrelevant story of the elephants in §§ 128, 129, the quotation from Pindar in § 121, the account from the Timaeus of Atlantis in § 141, and perhaps the allusions to the same book at the end belong to Philo and not to Theophrastus.
As I have said in the Preface, the value of the De Aeternitate is to a Philonist very little. It contributes hardly anything to the body of thought which has kept his name famous, but its value for the history of Greek philosophy is surely very considerable. We know apart from him the opinions held by the long series of Greek philosophers on this primal question of how the universe came to be, but very little of the grounds on which their opinions were formed, and hardly anything outside this treatise of the detailed arguments used by disputants on either side. From this point of view it seems strange to me that the work had been so little noticed and that no really complete commentary exists to elucidate it.
The following is an analysis of the treatise.
After stating the duty of invoking God’s blessing on so important a discussion and an acknowledgement that unpurified humanity cannot hope for certainty (1–2) we have to define the terms κόσμος and φθορά. The former is used in three different senses, but that accepted in this book is the Cosmos consisting of heaven and earth and living creatures in or on it; by φθορά we do not understand annihilation in the strict sense, which is impossible, but resolution into a single conformation or “confusion as when things are broken and shattered” (3–6). Three views are held, (a) that of Democritus, Epicurus and most Stoics, that it is created and destructible; (b) Aristotle’s and perhaps before him the Pythagoreans’, that it is uncreated and indestructible (7–12); and (c) Plato’s, though the meaning of his words have been disputed, that it is created and indestructible (13–16), a view attributed by some to Hesiod and also to be found in Genesis (17–19).
Philo considers that the second hypothesis as worthier of the divine Cosmos should take precedence of the first, and the rest of the treatise is occupied in stating the case for this. The first argument is that as destruction is always due to some cause within or without the body destroyed neither of these is possible for the Cosmos (20–27). The second argument is that compound bodies are compounded in an unnatural order and their destruction means that their elements return to their natural order, but the Cosmos is in its natural order (28–34). The third is that everything seeks to preserve its own nature, but the parts of the universe such as vegetable or animal life have not the power to do so; the Universe seeks the same and has the power, for each part when destroyed goes to feed some other part (35–38). The fourth introduces a theological thought; assuming that the destruction of the Cosmos if it is destroyed must be the work of God, it is asked what motive God can have for doing so (39–44). The fifth begins a polemic against the Stoic theory of a periodical conflagration followed by a periodical reconstruction and argues that this involves destruction of the divine heavenly bodies and even of the world’s soul, providence (45–51). The sixth is based on the assumption that time has no beginning or end, and since time is the measurement of the world’s movement that also must have no beginning or end (52–54).
Up to this point the arguments have been ascribed to (presumably) the Peripatetic school in general. We now come to those attributed to particular persons, beginning with Critolaus. His first point is that if the world was created the human race was also, i.e. the original man must have been produced in some other way than by human parentage. This argument, at any rate as represented here, turns mainly into a denunciation of the story of the Spartoi who sprang from the soil fully armed (55–60). It is pointed out that if men were once produced from the earth they would be still, for earth is clearly as prolific as ever (61–64). Other absurdities in the story are noted, with the conclusion that the reproduction of men has gone on from everlasting, that the human race is everlasting and therefore the world of which it is a part (65–69). The second argument attributed to him is put very shortly, namely that the existence of all that exists is caused by the Cosmos and therefore it must be the cause of its own existence (70); also that a created world, according to the analogy of other created things, would be originally imperfect, then grow to perfection and ultimately decline, a view which is denounced as a blasphemy against the perfection of the Cosmos (71–73). Again the three things which cause death to living creatures, disease, age and privation cannot affect the Cosmos (74). The Stoics themselves admit that fate or the chain of causation has neither beginning nor end and why should not the Cosmos considering its nature be put in the same category (75)?
We pass on to the opinions of Stoics, notably Boethus, who did not accept the common Stoic doctrine of conflagration and reconstruction. The argument of §§ 20–27 is restated with the addition that if there is nothing internal or external to destroy the Cosmos, the destruction must be caused by something non-existing and this is unthinkable (76–78). Three possible methods of destruction, dismemberment, destruction of the prevailing quality and amalgamation or “confusion” are declared to be inapplicable to the Cosmos (79–82). Further the doctrine of ἐκπύρωσις implies the inactivity during that period of God, whose perpetual activity as soul of the world is laid down by the Stoics themselves (83–84). This leads to a close examination of the conflagration theory. The elements of fire as we know it are live coal, the flame and the light, and the destruction of the substance of the universe will be the destruction of the last two also, and nothing will remain to make the reconstruction possible (85–88). The Stoics meet this by supposing that some fire will remain at the end of the period, but that is inconsistent with what has just been shown (89–93). Chrysippus has said that the fire is the seed of the new world, but it is living things which produce seed, not those which are destroyed as the world on this theory is supposed to be (94–96). Also seed does not generate by itself, and the sustenance which seed receives from the earth will be absent when the world is resolved into fire (97–99). Things too generated by seed grow larger while the reconstructed Cosmos will occupy less space than the fire which will expand into the void (100–103). To return to more general arguments, everything has its opposite, but when everything is fire the qualities opposite to those of fire will be non-existent (104–105). As other causes of destruction are ruled out the destruction would be caused by God, and this is blasphemy (106). The selection of fire as the sole element into which the Cosmos is resolved contradicts the equality of reciprocation which exists between the elements as they pass from one into each other (107–112). Another conception is then given of the methods through which destruction takes place, namely addition, subtraction, transposition and transmutation, and each of these is declared to be impossible (113–116).
The rest of the treatise is taken up with matter drawn from Theophrastus. Theophrastus had stated at length four points which weighed especially with the Stoics and had also given at length his own answer to each (117). The first of these four points is that if the world had existed from everlasting it would by now have been reduced to a level surface through the action of rain (118–119). The second is that it will not exist for everlasting since the diminution of the sea as shown by the emergence of islands like Delos formerly submerged indicates that the other elements will be gradually destroyed (120–123). The third is directed to proving that it is destructible because all four elements can be shown to be destructible and if so the whole is destructible (124–126). Appended to this is a short disquisition on the “lameness” of fire, which cannot exist without the support of fuel, illustrated with a somewhat irrelevant anecdote about elephants crushing the snakes which suck their blood (127–129). The fourth like the first seeks to prove that the world has not been from everlasting, because if so mankind was from everlasting, whereas the arts which are necessary to human life are known to be comparatively recently invented (130–131). Theophrastus’s answers to these are as follows. The first is met by suggesting that though the mountains suffer loss through the action of rain, this is replaced by new accretions, but still more by a theory that they are originally heaved up by the action of fire and that this same power keeps their main body permanent (132–137). The answer to the second is that the sea is not diminished because the emergence of some islands is compensated by the submersion of others, notably Atlantis (138–142). The third is disposed of as a fallacy since it is only if all the parts of a thing are destroyed at once that we can argue from the destructibility of the parts to that of the whole (143–144). As to the fourth, while it is admitted that the inventors of the arts as we have them are comparatively recent, there have been partial destructions by fire and flood in which the arts perished with the majority of mankind but were subsequently reinvented (145–149). The treatise ends with a promise to give the answers made by the opponents to the several arguments (150).