On the Creation of the World

Philo reads the first chapter of Genesis beside Plato's *Timaeus* and finds one maker, one world, and one law for the cosmos and its citizens.

by Philo of Alexandria83 passages held

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Original title: De opificio mundi
Original language: Ancient Greek

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Overview

Nearly every printed collection of Philo's works since the French scholar Adrien Turnèbe's edition of 1552 has opened with this treatise, and the placement suits it. Its argument is about beginnings. Other lawgivers, Philo says, either issued bare commands or buried their laws in myth; Moses began his law with the making of the world, so that anyone who keeps it lives in step with nature and becomes a citizen of the world. To read the six days of Genesis he reaches for Plato's Timaeus, the dialogue in which a divine craftsman shapes the cosmos after an eternal model, and scholars have called the result a Jewish Timaeus. God first conceives the world as a plan in the mind, then builds the visible one from it; the six days describe an order of rank, not a week of labour. The two accounts of human creation in Genesis become two kinds of human being, one after the divine image and one moulded from earth, and a long passage on seven, the Sabbath's number, draws on Pythagorean number lore. The treatise ends by listing five lessons Moses teaches, each aimed at an opponent: atheists, believers in many gods, those who hold the world uncreated and eternal, those who imagine many worlds, and those who deny that God takes care of what he made. Christian writers who later composed commentaries on the six days of creation drew on it.

Key concepts

What is the world of ideas in On the Creation of the World?

It is the world as God first conceived it, a plan that exists only for the mind, with its seat in the divine reason. Philo compares it to an architect who sketches a whole city in his head before a stone is laid, then builds the real city to match. The visible world is the copy; the intelligible one is the model, and it came first in rank rather than in time.

What does Philo mean by calling the law-abiding person a citizen of the world?

He means that Moses' law and the order of the cosmos come from the same maker, so obeying the one is living in harmony with the other. That is why the law opens with creation rather than with commands or myths. A person who keeps it arranges their actions by the intention of nature itself, and belongs not to one city only but to the world as a whole.

Why does the number seven get so much space in the treatise?

Because seven is the Sabbath's number and, for Philo, the number in which the order of creation comes to rest. Drawing on Pythagorean number lore, he runs through the properties that set seven apart among the numbers and reads them as a sign of its dignity. The long passage is not decoration: it is his way of showing that the week Genesis describes follows a rational order, not an arbitrary one.

What are the five lessons at the end of On the Creation of the World?

They are five teachings Philo draws from Moses' account, each aimed at an opponent: that God exists, against the atheists; that God is one, against believers in many gods; that the world was made, against those who hold it uncreated and eternal; that the world is one, against those who imagine many; and that God cares for what he made, against those who deny providence.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

One Maker, One Plan, One Law for World and City

Why would a book of laws open with the making of the world? Because, Philo answers, the law and the cosmos come from one mind, and whoever keeps the one lives in step with the other.

Philo reads the six days of Genesis with Plato's Timaeus in hand. God first conceives the world as a plan, the way an architect carries a city in his head, and the plan has its seat in the divine reason; the visible world is then built after it. The days mark an order of rank, not a week of labour, and seven, the Sabbath's number, gathers that order up. The book closes on five lessons, each aimed at an opponent, from the atheist to the one who denies that God cares for what he made.

creation
cosmology
intelligible world
archetypes
divine reason
number symbolism
order
cosmos
providence
time

Enter a dialogue

The Human Being, Made Twice and Made Last

Genesis tells the making of humankind twice. What if both accounts are true, and describe two kinds of human being?

Philo does not smooth over the doublet. One human being is made after the divine image; the other is moulded from earth, clay joined to divine breath. Humankind also comes last, and he explains why: as a host sets out the whole banquet before inviting the guests, God furnished the world before calling its guest in. The garden story that follows gives pleasure the serpent's part, and the loss of paradise becomes an account of a mind won over through the senses.

human nature
soul
intellect
reason
pleasure
senses
perception
animal life

Enter a dialogue

Within this work

passages held: 83
distinct concepts: 133
by passages held, corpus-wide: #549

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “creation” and “providence”.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 18 pairings. 83 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
creation	providence	8
mathematics	number symbolism	8
cosmology	number symbolism	5
creation	intelligible world	5
creation	nature	5
creation	human nature	4
cosmology	creation	3
cosmology	intelligible world	3
creation	number symbolism	3
nature	providence	3
cosmology	mathematics	2
cosmology	nature	2
cosmology	providence	2
human nature	providence	2
intelligible world	number symbolism	2
cosmology	human nature	1
human nature	nature	1
number symbolism	providence	1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

Against Flaccus (In Flaccum)
Written as a demonstration of divine justice, this account of the Alexandrian riots of 38 CE and of the prefect Philo blamed for them stands with his historical and apologetic works.
EN
Allegorical Interpretation (Legum allegoriae I–III)
The first surviving treatise of the Allegorical Commentary, Philo's long verse-by-verse reading of Genesis, covering its second and third chapters in three books.
EN
Every Good Man Is Free (Quod omnis probus liber sit)
Written in the manner of the Greek schools rather than as commentary on Moses, it is, with On the Eternity of the World, one of Philo's philosophical treatises.
EN
On Abraham (De Abrahamo)
The first of Philo's lives of the patriarchs in the Exposition of the Law, following On the Creation of the World; its companions on Isaac and Jacob are lost, and On Joseph continues the set.
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On Cultivation (De agricultura)
Noah the farmer is a subject Philo splits across two treatises; this first one is built on the difference between near-synonyms, and On Planting continues it.
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On Dreams (De somniis I–II)
A treatise of the Allegorical Commentary, in two surviving books on the dreams of Jacob, Joseph and Pharaoh's court.
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On Drunkenness (De ebrietate)
Of the two books on drunkenness known in antiquity, this is the one that survives; it sits between On Planting and On Sobriety in the Allegorical Commentary's run on Noah and the vine.
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On Flight and Finding (De fuga et inventione)
Hagar's flight and the angel who finds her, Genesis 16:6–14, read within the Allegorical Commentary.
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On Joseph (De Josepho)
The life of the statesman in Philo's series of patriarch lives within the Exposition of the Law. It follows On Abraham; lives of Isaac and Jacob, now lost, once stood between them.
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On Mating with the Preliminary Studies (De congressu eruditionis gratia)
Philo's reading of Genesis 16 as a theory of education, set within the Allegorical Commentary; On Flight and Finding continues Hagar's story.
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On Planting (De plantatione)
The second of Philo's two treatises on Noah as farmer, turning from farming in general to the planting of the vineyard.
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On Rewards and Punishments (De praemiis et poenis et de exsecrationibus)
The closing treatise of the Exposition of the Law, on the rewards, punishments, blessings and curses the Law sets before its hearers.
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On Sobriety (De sobrietate)
A short sequel to On Drunkenness in the Allegorical Commentary, on Noah waking and pronouncing his blessings and curse. Its Greek title names exactly that: what Noah prayed for and cursed once sober.
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On the Change of Names (De mutatione nominum)
Genesis 17 and its renamings, from Abram and Sarai to Jacob and Joshua, read in the Allegorical Commentary; it also carries Philo's clearest statement that God has no proper name.
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On the Cherubim (De Cherubim)
Two short commentaries joined under one title: the cherubim at Eden's gate, then the birth of Cain. Within the Allegorical Commentary it picks up where the three books of Allegorical Interpretation stop.
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On the Confusion of Tongues (De confusione linguarum)
The Tower of Babel in the Allegorical Commentary, opening with a defence of Genesis against critics who likened it to Greek myth.
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On the Contemplative Life (De vita contemplativa)
A portrait of the Therapeutae, classed with Philo's historical and apologetic writings; it opens by referring back to his account of the Essenes, the active life to this contemplative one.
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On the Creation of the World (De opificio mundi) you are here EN
On the Decalogue (De decalogo)
The hinge of the Exposition of the Law, turning from the lives of the patriarchs to the written law.
EN
On the Embassy to Gaius (Legatio ad Gaium)
The companion of Against Flaccus: an eyewitness history of the embassy Philo led to Gaius, and the fullest account he left of his own public life.
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On the Eternity of the World (De aeternitate mundi)
Among Philo's philosophical treatises, the one that names the Greek schools and their arguments most openly.
EN
On the Giants and On the Unchangeableness of God (De gigantibus; Quod Deus sit immutabilis)
Two treatises that editions usually separate but that read as one commentary, in the Allegorical Commentary, on the verses of Genesis leading up to the flood.
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On the Life of Moses (De vita Mosis I–II)
Philo's biography of Moses in two books, usually counted with the Exposition of the Law though it stands on its own.
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On the Migration of Abraham (De migratione Abrahami)
Abraham's call in Genesis 12, read as the soul's migration toward God; in the Allegorical Commentary it follows On the Confusion of Tongues in the order of Genesis.
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On the Posterity of Cain (De posteritate Caini)
The last of the Cain treatises in the Allegorical Commentary, following Cain from his exile through his descendants.
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On the Sacrifices of Abel and Cain (De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini)
One of the run of treatises on Cain and Abel in the Allegorical Commentary, taking up the brothers' offerings in Genesis 4.
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On the Special Laws (De specialibus legibus I–IV)
The largest work in the Exposition of the Law, in four books; it follows On the Decalogue and is followed by On the Virtues.
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On the Virtues (De virtutibus)
A pendant to On the Special Laws in the Exposition of the Law, gathering laws under the virtues they train rather than under the Ten Commandments.
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The Worse Attacks the Better (Quod deterius potiori insidiari soleat)
It follows On the Sacrifices of Abel and Cain in the Allegorical Commentary and carries the brothers' story on to the murder itself.
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Who Is the Heir of Divine Things? (Quis rerum divinarum heres sit)
Best known for its long passage on the Logos dividing the world into opposites, this reading of God's covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15 belongs to the Allegorical Commentary.
EN

— or open another of their works