Quis Rerum Divinarum Heres Sit

Philo Judaeus

The works of Philo Judaeus, the contemporary of Josephus, volume 2. Yonge, C. D., translator. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854.

But as the discussion on the subject of a division into equal portions, and on that of opposite contrarieties, is of great extent and of necessary importance, we will not wholly pass it by, nor will we dwell on it with prolixity, but, investigating it as it is, we will be content with such things as seem suitable to the occasion. For as the Creator divided our soul and our limbs in the middle, so also, in the same manner, did he divide the essence of the universe when he made the world;

for, having taken it, he began to divide it thus: in the first instance, he made two divisions, the heavy and the light, separating that which was thick from that which was more subtle. After that, he again made a second division of each, dividing the subtle part into air and fire, and the denser portion into water and earth; and, first of all, he laid down those elements, which are perceptible by the outward senses, to be, as it were, the foundations of the world which is perceptible by the outward senses.

Again, he subdivided heavy and light [*](Exodus xxxix. 3. )

v.2.p.120

according to other ideas, for he divided the light into cold and hot; and the cold he called air, and that which was hot by nature he called fire. The heavy, again, he divided into wet and dry; and the dry he called land, and the wet he called water—

and each of these, again, received other further subdivisions; for the land was divided into continents and islands, and the water into sea and rivers, and all drinkable springs, and the air was divided into the solstices of summer and winter; fire, also, was divided into what is useful (but fire is a most insatiable and destructive thing), and also by a different division into what is saving; and this division was assigned for the conformation of the heaven.