In the work
Quis rerum divinarum heres sit, Philo sketches the creation of the world
in a series of diahireses. He lets the creation process begin with God dividing
matter into the heavy and the light, and through further divisions he reaches
the origin of the cosmos and the different forms of life. (Heres 133-140; cf.
146ff.) Philo does not go into the question of the origin of matter here
either. Likewise Philo does not go into the question of the origin of matter
here either. Likewise Philo describes the creation process in various other
passages as obviously the forming of a given material. (Spec. leg. III 180; IV 187) And the supposition that Philo tacitly
presupposed in all these statements that God had also created the formless
matter beforehand, is seen to be untenable when he explains that God did not
himself form the formless material, since it is unthinkable that he should
touch the endless confused matter, but that he used for this purpose his
incorporeal energies, the Ideas. (Spec. leg. I, 329: ου γαρ ην θεμις απειρου και πεφυρμεντης υλης φαυειν τον ευδαιμονα και
μακαριον.) A similar
negative conception of matter is apparent from an exposition of Genesis 1:31:
Philo declares that God was not praising the lifeless, transitory matter, but
only the works of his creation, (Heres 160: επηνεσε δε ο θεος ου την δημιουργηθεισαν υλην, την αψυχον και πλημμελη και διαλυτην, ετι δε φθαρτην εξ εαυτης ανωμαλον τε και αωισον, αλλα τα εαυτου τεχνικα εργα. The δημιουργηθεισαν υλην is, of course, the ‘formed’, not the
‘created’ matter.) and occasionally Philo can even expressly describe matter as bad and
as one of the causes of evil. (Spec. leg. IV, 187 [χειρων ουσια]) Such statements make it appear unthinkable that Philo could have reckoned wit the creation of matter by
God. Pilo took over the Greek teaching about pre-existent matter, without
thinking it through independently, and in particular he did not reflect on the
problem how the omnipotence of the biblical God could be united with the view
of a mere formation of the world. This shows how deeply Philo was rooted in the
traditions of Greek thought. (Also the repeated declaration of the basic
preposition ‘nihil de nihilo’ [aet. 5; prov. II, 109; spec. leg. I, 266] show
how Philo’s thought starts or the presuppositions of Greek ontology) (Gerhard May, Creatio
Ex Nihilo: The Doctrine of ‘Creation out of Nothing’ in Early Chrisitan Thought
[trans. A. S. Worrall; Edinburgh, T&T Clark, 1994], 11-12)
People have even ventured the opposite
possibility, that Philo by ‘no-being’ meant pre-existent matter. Aristotle had
asserted that Philo had described matter as ‘not being’ and an utterance by
Plato’s disciple Hermodor, preserved by Simplicius, confirms this. (Aristotle,
Phys. I 9 [192a 6-8]) Most of all the Plotinus then conceived matter as μη ον. (cf. Plotinus, Enn. II 5.4f; III 6.7; I 8.3)
But it seems to me ruled out that Philo speaks of ‘non-being’ in this Platonist
sense. When he says that God created ‘the non-being’, he always uses the
plural τα μη οντα and clearly means individual things: through
the act of creation they move from non-being into being. In the places where it
says that God creates ‘out of non-being’, the expressions εκ μη οντος and εκ μη οντων are interchangeable, without visible change
of meaning. The oscillation between singular and plural decisively counts
against the view that Philo is here talking about unformed matter, for, as the
indefinite and unlimited something, which is potentially everything, matter can
only be described as μη ον. (cf. the reflections of Plotinus, Enn. II 4.8ff; III 6.6-18) Also the
fact that Philo always forms the expression ‘non-being’ with the negative μη, is no sure indication that he looks upon
matter as only relatively ‘non-being’. In philosophical texts μη ον generally stands as the
term for absolute ‘non-being’. (e.g., Plutarch, quaest. Conv. VIII 9.2 [731D];
Plato, quaest. 4 [1003A] de an. Procr. 5 [1014B]) Furthermore, in the Greek of
imperial times μη is in general use, being
considered more elegant than ου, and is specifically preferred with the participle We are therefore
left to decide according to the train of thought whether εκ μη οντος means ‘out of matter’ or ‘out of nothing’.
Philo’s statements, however, nowhere approach the Platonising understanding.
When Philo speaks of a creation by God ‘out of non-being’, this is not to be
interpreted as either as creatio ex nihilo or as formation of the
‘non-being’ matter. This alternative does not present itself to him. He will
simply say that the world, which hitherto did not exist, came into being
through God’s creative act, which of Platonists could also teach, and he seems
to take for granted the eternity of matter. (Ibid., 17-18)
. . . the assertion ‘God created the world out
of nothing’ or created ‘non-being’ in no way necessarily implied that matter
also was something created. Thus Philo could speak of the creation of the world
‘out of nothing’ and at the same time suppose the pre-existence of matter.
(Ibid., 152)
Compare with the
following:
Philo nowhere explicitly indicates that God
himself first created the primordial matter, as would later be formulated in
the classic doctrine of creatio ex nihilo. (David T. Runia, "Philo,
Alexandrian and Jew," in Exegesis and Philosophy: Studies on Philo of
Alexandria [Aldershot: Variorum, 1990], 8)
Continuing, Runia
notes that:
What is
very surprising is that according to Philo the first day - day 'one ' in the
Septuagintal text - is not concerned with the creation of the visible cosmos as
we know it. Before God commenced his creative task, he first made - just like a
good architect - a plan or blue-print, an intelligible or noetic cosmos which
he placed in his Logos. When we read about 'heaven', 'earth', 'darkness', 'the
deep', 'spirit', 'waters' and 'light' in Gen. 1:1-3, we should not think of the
parts of the world we can see and experience, but rather regard these as the
most important components of the rational
plan of the cosmos, which is carried out during the remaining five days of the
creation account (on the seventh day the Creator takes his rest, although that
should not be taken in the literal sense, since any form of tiredness of
laziness is foreign to the divine nature). Philo's dependence on the Timaeus
of Plato, in which the divine demiurge contemplates a pre-existent intelligible
model, is apparent. A striking difference, however, is that Philo locates the plan,
which is equivalent to the Platonic world of ideas, in God or his Logos,
whereas for Plato the ideas are quite independent of any deity for their
existence. (Ibid., 9-10)
Aristides
It is thus surprising to find in Aristides the
idea of creatio ex nihilo in a nearly classical formulation: God created
the elements out of nothing, through his commandment. The Greek text of the Apology
of Aristides is, however, only known to us as it was repeated in the novel
of Barlaam and Josaph, probably written by John of Damascus. In the Syriac
translation the passage runs differently: here Aristides wants to show that the
elements ‘are not gods, but a transitory and mutable creation like humanity’. (Gerhard May, Creatio
Ex Nihilo: The Doctrine of ‘Creation out of Nothing’ in Early Chrisitan Thought
[trans. A. S. Worrall; Edinburgh, T&T Clark, 1994], 119)
Literally
‘which is in accordance with the image of man’. This presumably means indeed
that the elements are just as transitory and mutable as men are (cf. 7, 1f.).
Vona [L’apologia di Aristide (Rome, 1950)], p. 142, applies the passage
to the human figure of the images of the gods. But it is unlikely that there is
an allusion to Rom. 1:23, as Vona in agreement with most earlier editors
suggests. (Ibid., 119 n. 4)
Justin develops the following train of
thought: God alone is not originate and not transitory. His unoriginated and
intransitory character constitute his being. Everything after him is originate
and transitory. Between a number of unoriginated beings no distinction would be
conceivable; they would all have to be perfectly alike and therefore there can
only be one single unoriginated being. Yet if one wished to accept the
existence of various unoriginated beings, it would be impossible to give any
reason for their variety. In the attempt to find this reason, thinking it would
fall into an infinite regress, and finally one would have arbitrarily to
explain any αγενητον as God, the cause of all. (Dial. 5.4-6) About a century after Justin,
Porphyry in his commentary on the Timaeus with almost identical
reflections advances against Atticus the proposition that matter is originate:
if one were to establish matter as a second αγενητον alongside the divine, there would have to be a
cause or the difference between God and matter. This cause can neither be
something originate nor something unoriginated, and so the search for it would
peter out—exactly Justin’s conclusion—in an infinite regress. (As said by
Proclus in Timaeus 119-B-C) But unlike Porphyry, Justin is only maintaining
that the soul is originate and transitory; he does not go into the question
whether matter is originate or unoriginated. (Gerhard May, Creatio Ex Nihilo: The
Doctrine of ‘Creation out of Nothing’ in Early Chrisitan Thought [trans. A.
S. Worrall; Edinburgh, T&T Clark, 1994], 124)
In the exegesis of Genesis 1:2 Hermogenes
follows a widespread expository tradition which goes back to hellenistic
Judaism. This is true not only of the meaning given to Genesis 1:2a, on
unordered matter, but also of the equating of ‘darkness’, ‘deep’, ‘Spirit of
God’, and ‘water’ (Gen. 1:26) with the four elements. Related interpretations
of Genesis 1:2b are to be found in Philo, Justin, and Theophilius of Antioch. (Philo,
prov. I 22; Justin, apol. I 59, 5; Theophilus of Antioch, Autol. II 13) In this
connection should also be remembered the Jewish-hellenistic exposition given in
the midrash Genesis rabba, which sees in the Tohuwabohu, darkness, water, wind,
and ‘deep’ the original materials of creation. (Gen. rabba I 9) Only the
references of the term ‘beginning’ in Genesis 1:1 to matter (Tertullian, Herm.
19, 1) and the thesis that the imperfect tense ‘was’ in Genesis 1:2a denotes
the eternity of matter and its lack of a beginning, (Tertulian, Herm. 23, 1;
27, 1) seem to be without parallels. (Gerhard May, Creatio Ex Nihilo: The Doctrine
of ‘Creation out of Nothing’ in Early Chrisitan Thought [trans. A. S.
Worrall; Edinburgh, T&T Clark, 1994], 144)
Wasnik misses in Hermogenes a reference to
Wisdom 11:17 where it expressly says God create the world out of unformed
matter. (Ibid., 144)
Tatian (student of Justin Martyr)
In his Oratio ad Graecos Tarian gives a
sketch of his teaching on the Logos and on cosmology. (Or. 5) The Logos comes
forth from God to order matter into the cosmos. The matter which the Logos
shapes cannot, however, have been, like God, without a beginning, as in that
case it would have to be thought of as a second, godlike principle, but it is
brought into being by God himself. (Or 5, 3) Creation thus proceeds in two
stages: first God produces directly the material substratum, and then the Logos
shapes this into the cosmos. Tatian does not speak of a ‘creation’ of matter,
but uses the term προβαλλεσθαι which the Valentinians used to denote the process of emanation. (Or. 5,
3) It is, however, inconceivable that he should have looked on matter as an
emanation from God. The meaning of his statements can only be that God caused
matter to come into being without any outward precondition, that he created
it—even if the corresponding formula is lacking—out of nothing.
Tatian is the first Chrisitan theologian known
to us who expressly advanced the proposition that matter was produced by God. (Gerhard May, Creatio
Ex Nihilo: The Doctrine of ‘Creation out of Nothing’ in Early Chrisitan Thought
[trans. A. S. Worrall; Edinburgh, T&T Clark, 1994], 149-50)
We must
enquire into the special reasons which led Tatian to oppose the acceptance of
an eternal matter, while other Chrisitan teachers then and after hi, who were,
like him, under the influence of Middle Platonism, were still able to hold fast
to that idea. First, Tatian’s relationship as a pupil to Justin must be noted:
Justin’s theses that there could be nothing unoriginated except God and that no
limits existed to God’s creative capability had to lead, when thought through
consistently, to accepting that matter also had to be created. Justin himself
had not got as far as this conclusion, but it must have suggested itself to
Tatian, who saw and emphasised much more sharply than his teacher the
contradiction between Christian and Greek thought. Further, we may well ponder
whether Tatian was not under pressure to deny the pre-existence of matter by
reason of the demands of actual controversies within the Church. (Ibid., 150)