---
title: "On the Incorruptibility of the World"
author: "Philo of Alexandria"
translator: "C. D. Yonge"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Second Temple"
section: 4 of 12
url: https://scriptura.si/works/philo-tlg029-yonge-ogl/4/
cite: "Philo of Alexandria, tr. C. D. Yonge, On the Incorruptibility of the World, section 4. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/philo-tlg029-yonge-ogl/4/"
---

# On the Incorruptibility of the World

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

## 4. Section 39

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/philo-tlg029-yonge-ogl/4/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/philo-tlg029-yonge-ogl/4/#p-N

[¶0] However, this argument also is a most demonstrative one, on which I know that vast numbers of philosophers Homer, Odyssey vi. 107, where the lines quoted are applied to Latona among her nymphs. Timaeus, p. 33. pride themselves as one most accurately worked out, and altogether irresistible; for they inquire what reason there is for God’s destroying the world. For if he destroys it at all he must do so either with the intention of never making a world again, or with the object of creating a second fresh one;

### Section 40

[¶2] now the former idea is inconsistent with the character of God; for it is proper to change disorder into order, and not order into disorder; in the second place, it is so because it would give rise to repentance, which is an affliction and a disease of the soul. For he ought either never to have created a world at all, or else, if he judged that it was a fitting employment for him, he ought to have been pleased with it after it was made.

### Section 41

[¶4] But the second reason deserves no superficial examination; for if he were intending to make another world instead of that which exists at present, then of necessity this second world that would be made, in that case, would be either worse than, or similar to, or better than the first; everyone of which ideas is inadmissible; for if the new world is to be worse than the former, then the maker must be also worse: but all the works of God are without blemish, beyond all reproach and wholly faultless, inasmuch as they are wrought with the most consummate skill and knowledge; for as the proverb says; — "For e’en a woman’s wisdom’s not so coarse As to despise the good and choose the worse." But it is consistent with the character of, and becoming to God to give form to what is shapeless, and to invest what is most ugly with admirable beauty.

### Section 42

[¶6] Again, if the new world is to be exactly like the old one, then the maker is only wasting his labour, and differs in no respect from infant children who, very often while playing on the sea shore raise up little mounds of sand, and then pull them down again with their hands and destroy them; for it would have been much better than making another world exactly like the former, neither to take anything from, nor to add anything to, nor to change either for the better or for the worse, what existed originally, but to let it remain just as it was.

### Section 43

[¶8] If, on the other hand, he is about to make a world better than the former one, then the maker too must be better than the maker of the former world, so that when he made the former world he was inferior both in his skill and in his intellect, which it is impious even to imagine, for God is at all times equal and similar to himself, being neither capable of any relaxation which can make him worse, nor of any extension which can make him better. Men, indeed, do admit of such inequalities in either direction, being naturally liable to alter either for the better or for the worse, and continually admitting of increase, and advance, and improvement, and everything contrary to these states;

### Section 44

[¶10] and besides this, the works of us who are but mortal men may very appropriately be perishable, but the works of the immortal must in all consistency and reason be likewise imperishable, for it is natural that what is made should resemble the nature of the maker.

### Section 45

[¶12] And, indeed, this I imagine is evident to every one, that if the earth were to be destroyed, then all land animals of every kind must also perish with it; and if the water were destroyed, all aquatic animals must perish; and in like manner if the air and fire were to be destroyed, all the animals which traverse the air or which are born in the fire must come to an end at the same time.

### Section 46

[¶14] Therefore, on the same principle, if the heaven is destroyed, the sun and moon will also be destroyed, and all the other planets likewise will be destroyed, and all the fixed stars, and all that host of gods visible to the outward senses which was formerly considered so happy; and to imagine this is nothing else than to fancy the gods themselves in a process of destruction, for this is equivalent to considering men immortal. And yet in a comparison between different objects devoid of honour, if you were to consider the matter, you would find it more consistent with probability to look on men as immortal than to believe that the gods are perishable, since it might happen through the grace of God, for it is not improbable that a mortal might receive immortality, but it is impossible for gods to lose their immortality even if the sophistries of mankind should run on to ever such a degree of wicked insanity.

### Section 47

[¶16] And, moreover, those persons who allege conflagrations and regenerations of the world, think and confess that the stars are gods, which nevertheless they are not ashamed to destroy as far as their arguments go; for they are bound to prove them to be either red hot pieces of iron, as some do affirm, who argue about the whole of the heaven as if it were a prison, talking utter nonsense, or else to look upon them as divine and godlike natures, and then to attribute to them that immortality which belongs to gods. But as it is, they have wandered so far from true doctrine, that without being aware of it they have attributed corruptibility and perishableness to providence (and that is the soul of the world) by the inconsistent principles which they advocate.

### Section 48

[¶18] Therefore Chrysippus, the most celebrated philosopher of that sect, in his treatise about Increase, utters some such prodigious assertions as these, and after he has prefaced his doctrines with the assertion that it is impossible for two makers of a species to exist in the same substance, he proceeds, "Let it be granted for the sake of argument and speculation that there is one person entire and sound, and another wanting one foot from his birth, and that the sound man is called Dion and the cripple Theon, and afterwards that Dion also loses one of his feet, then if the question were asked which had been spoiled, it would be more natural to say this of Theon;" but this is the assertion of one who delights in paradox rather than in truth,

### Section 49

[¶20] for how could it be said that he who had suffered no mutilation whatever, namely Theon, was taken off, and that Dion, who had lost a foot, was not injured? Very appropriately, he will reply, for Dion, who had had his foot cut off, falls back upon the original imperfection of Theon, and there cannot be two specific differences in the same subject, therefore it follows of necessity that Dion must remain, and that Theon must be taken off— "So are we slain by arrows winged With our own feathers," From the Myrmidons of AEschylus. The passage is evidently the original of the stanza in Waller’s Ode to a Lady " That eagle’s fate and mine are one, Who on the shaft that made him die, Espied a feather of his own, Wherewith he wont to soar so high." as the tragic poet says. For any one, copying the form of this argument and adapting it to the entire world, may prove in the clearest manner that providence itself is liable to corruption.

### Section 50

[¶22] Consider the matter thus: let the world be the subject of our argument, as Dion was just now, for it is perfect, and let the soul of the world take the place of Theon, who was From the Myrmidons of AEschylus. The passage is evidently the original of the stanza in Waller’s Ode to a Lady " That eagle’s fate and mine are one, Who on the shaft that made him die, Espied a feather of his own, Wherewith he wont to soar so high." imperfect, since a part is less than the whole; and as the foot was cut off from Dion, so also let everything which resembles a body be cut off from the world;

### Section 51

[¶24] therefore it is necessary to say that the world has not been destroyed though its body has been taken away, just as Dion was not destroyed by having his foot cut off, but the soul of the world it is that has perished, like Theon, who suffered no artificial mutilation, for the world also receded to a lesser substance when all of it that resembled a body was taken away. And the soul was destroyed because there could not be two specific differences affecting the same subject. But it is impiety to say that providence perishes, and since it is imperishable it follows of necessity that the world also must be imperishable.