Philo of Alexandria

English

He says that 'in the beginning God made the heaven and the earth', taking the beginning not, as some think, the one according to time; for there was no time before the world, but it either came into being together with it or after it. For since time is the interval of the world's motion, and there could be no motion earlier than the thing moved, but it must necessarily be constituted either later or at the same time, it is necessary that time too came to be either of the same age as the world or younger than it; and to dare to declare it older is unphilosophical. But if the beginning taken here is not the one according to time, it would be reasonable that the one according to number is signified, so that 'in the beginning he made' is equivalent to 'he made the heaven first'. For it is indeed reasonable that it should come first into being, being the best of the things that have come to be and set fast out of the purest of the substance, because it was to be the most holy house of the manifest and perceptible gods.

Draft English (Claude), awaiting Wilson · cc-by

Greek

Philo, De opificio mundi 26-27 (Cohn-Wendland i. 8) · first1k-greek

Notes

The whole Latin argument of this crux, stated once in Alexandria before any of them and by a man none of them read. The beginning of Gen 1:1 is not temporal, and the reason is exactly the one Augustine, Bede, Rabanus and Rupert each reach for: time is the interval of the world's motion, there can be no motion before the thing moved, so time is the world's coeval or its junior, and to make it older is unphilosophical. Then Philo does what the Latin bench does not do: having ruled out the temporal beginning, he asks what other kind of beginning there is, and answers a beginning according to number. In the beginning he made is equivalent to he made the heaven first. That is the reading Ambrose and Bruno will call primum omnium, arrived at by elimination rather than by piety. The tail of the passage is the reason it could never have travelled as it stands: the heaven is the best of things made because it was to be the most holy house of the manifest and perceptible gods, the stars. Chalcidius, who read Philo and is the one Latin here who knew him, is also the only Latin on this daf who reproduces the argument in this shape, and he too drops the gods.

Threads

• → parallel · Origen
  The two oldest witnesses on this daf say the same thing about the same word, and the one who is Greek, Jewish and Alexandrian says it first. Philo: the beginning is taken not, as some think, according to time. Origen, in Rufinus's Latin: he does not say here any temporal beginning. Both are in Alexandria; Origen's library held Philo; and yet nothing in the homily names him, and Origen's positive answer, that the beginning is the Saviour, is one Philo could not have given. The negative half is shared and the positive half is not.
• → parallel · Rabanus Maurus
  The identical proof, eight hundred years apart, with no possible channel. Rabanus at Fulda: time is from this world, not before the world. Philo at Alexandria: time is the interval of the world's motion, and there could be no motion before the thing moved, so time is the world's coeval or younger. Rabanus has the conclusion as an axiom he inherited through Bede from Augustine; Philo has it as an argument in three steps with a premiss drawn from the Timaeus. The Latin bench holds this position for eight centuries without once being able to say where it comes from.
• → parallel · Ambrose
  Ambrose's Hexaemeron is substantially Philo's De opificio and rarely says so, which makes every agreement between them a question rather than a fact. Here the agreement is on the point Ambrose most cares about: that the world has a beginning, against those who make it eternal. Philo's route is the argument from motion and time; Ambrose's is that the world is visible and what is visible has come to be. That second argument is also Philo's, at section 12, which is not built here. Where Ambrose has the doctrine, the possibility of a channel is real; where he has the argument in Philo's order, it is more than a possibility.