De Plantatione

Philo Judaeus

The works of Philo Judaeus, the contemporary of Josephus, volume 1. Yonge, C. D., translator. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854.

For whose enjoyment and use, then, is it that the Paradise is to produce fruit? For that of no man. For there is absolutely no one at all who is represented as inhabiting the Paradise, since Moses says that God removed the first man who was created out of the earth, by name Adam, from his original place, and placed him here.

And, moreover, God has no need of food any more than he has of anything else; for it follows necessarily that he who uses food must first of all stand in need of it. And in the second place, that he must have organs adapted for the reception of it, by means of which he can receive it when it enters him; and then dismiss it from him when he has digested it. But all these things, which are parts of the happiness and blessedness which surround the Great Cause of all things, are inconsistent with the doctrine of those men who represent him as clothed with human form, and influenced by human passions to the utter destruction of all piety and religious feeling—both great virtues; such notions being contrary to all law and right.