---
title: "On the Unchangeableness of God"
author: "Philo of Alexandria"
translator: "C. D. Yonge"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Second Temple"
section: 7 of 15
url: https://scriptura.si/works/philo-tlg008-yonge-ogl/7/
cite: "Philo of Alexandria, tr. C. D. Yonge, On the Unchangeableness of God, section 7. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/philo-tlg008-yonge-ogl/7/"
---

# On the Unchangeableness of God

*Philo of Alexandria, tr. C. D. Yonge*

## 7. Section 78

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/philo-tlg008-yonge-ogl/7/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/philo-tlg008-yonge-ogl/7/#p-N

[¶0] Do you think that you would be unable to look at the unmodified light of the sun? If you were to try to do so, your sight would be extinguished by the brilliancy of his rays, and be wholly blinded by a close approach to that luminary, before it could perceive anything, and yet the sun is only one of the works of God, a portion of the heaven, a fragment of compressed aether, but you are nevertheless able to gaze upon those uncreated powers which exist around him, and emit the most dazzling light, without any veil or modification.

### Section 79

[¶2] As, therefore, the sun extends his rays from heaven to the boundaries of the earth, tempering and dissolving the exceeding violence of the heat that is in them by cool air, for he mixes his rays with that, in order that that portion of them which gives light being separated from that portion which gives heat, he may remit somewhat of his power of burning, Psalm c. 1. Psalm lxxv. 9. but retain the power by which he gives light, and so be received with welcome, when meeting that kindred and friendly light which is situated in the eyes of man; for the meeting of these two lights in the same place, coming from an opposite direction, and the reception of the one by the other, is what causes that comprehension which we arrive at by our faculty of sight: but what mortal could possibly receive in this manner the knowledge, and wisdom, and prudence, and justice, and all the other virtues of God, in an unalloyed state? The whole heaven, the whole world, could not do so.

### Section 80

[¶4] Therefore the Creator, knowing the way in which he exceeded in all things that were most excellent, and the inherent natural weakness of created beings, even though they boast loudly, does not think either to benefit them or to chastise them to the extremity of his power, but only as far as he sees that those who are to be the objects of his benefits or of his chastisements have power to receive either.

### Section 81

[¶6] If, then, we are able to drink of and to enjoy a gentle and moderate mixture of his powers, we might receive sufficient happiness therefrom, than which the race of man ought not to seek to receive any more complete enjoyment. We have now explained what the mixed and unmixed powers and what those really supreme faculties are which exist in the living God alone.

### Section 82

[¶8] And similar to what has been previously said, is that passage which occurs in another place, "God spake once, and twice I have also heard the same." Paalm lxi. 12. The expression "once" resembles the unmixed power, for the unmixed power is the unit, and the unit is the unmixed power; but the "twice" resembles the mixed power, for neither one nor the other is a simple thing, inasmuch as it admits of combination or of division.

### Section 83

[¶10] God, therefore, utters unmixed units: for the word which he utters is not a beating of the air, being absolutely mingled with nothing else whatever, but it is incorporeal and naked, in no respect different from the unit. But we hear by the number two;

### Section 84

[¶12] for the breath being sent from the dominant part of us through the artery called the trachea, is formed in the mouth by the tongue, as by a kind of workman, and being borne outward, and mingled with its kindred air, and having struck it thus harmoniously, completes the mixture of the two Paalm lxi. 12. powers; for that which sounds together by a combination of different noises is at first adapted to a divisible duad, having one sharp and one flat tone:

### Section 85

[¶14] very beautifully, therefore, did he oppose one just reason to the multitude of unjust reasons, less indeed in number, but superior in power, in order that the worse of the two might not, like a weight put in a scale, weigh down the other; but that, by the power of the weight of the better one in the opposite scale it might have its lightness detected, and so be weakened.

### Section 86

[¶16] But what is the meaning of the sentence, "Noah found grace in the sight of the Lord God?" Let us now consider this: for those who find anything, some are finding what they formerly had and have lost; and some are discovering what they never had before, and now possess for the first time. Accordingly, those men who occupy themselves with the investigation of appropriate names, are accustomed to call the latter kind finding (εὕρεσις), and the former kind re-finding (ἀνεύρεσις).

### Section 87

[¶18] Of the former species we have a conspicuous example afforded us in the injunctions given about the great vow. Numbers vi. 2. Now a vow is a request for good things from God; and the spirit of the great vow is to believe that God himself is the cause of good things from himself, without anyone else ever co-operating with him, of the things which may appear to be beneficial, neither the earth as fruitful, nor the rain as helping to promote the growth of seeds and plants, nor the air as calculated to nourish man, nor agriculture as the cause of production, nor the skill of the physician as the cause of health, nor marriage as the cause of the procreation of children:

### Section 88

[¶20] for all these things receive changes and alterations through the power of God, to such a degree and in such a way as often to have effects contrary to their usual ones. Moses, therefore says, that this man is "holy who nourishes the hair of his head;" the meaning of which is, that he is holy who promotes the growth in the principal portion of himself of the principal shoots of the doctrines of virtue, and who in a manner prides himself and takes delight in these doctrines:

### Section 89

[¶22] but sometimes he loses them, a sort of whirlwind, as it were, suddenly darting down upon the soul, and carrying off everything that was good out of it; and this whirlwind is an involuntary change, which pollutes the mind in a moment, which Moses calls death. Numbers vi. 9.

### Section 90

[¶24] But nevertheless, when he has afterwards Numbers vi. 2. Numbers vi. 9. got rid of this and become purified, he recovers and recollects again, what for a time, he had forgotten, and finds what he had lost, so that the days of his former change are not included in the computation, either because such change is a matter which cannot be reduced to calculation, inasmuch as it is inconsistent with right reason and has no partnership with prudence, or because it does not deserve to be taken into calculation; "for of such things," some ancient writer says, "there is no account nor calculation taken." Alluding probably to Theocritus here, who says Αμμες δ’ οὕτε λόγου τίνος ἄξιοι οὐδ’, ἀρίθμητοι.—xiv.17.