On the Creation of the World (De opificio mundi)

Introduction

A treatise in Greek, part of a series in which Philo of Alexandria explains the laws of Moses for educated readers. It works through the account of creation in Genesis 1–3 and reads it with the help of Plato’s Timaeus and Pythagorean number lore. The six days are not a sequence in time but an expression of order; God first conceives an intelligible world (kosmos noētos), the model after which the visible world is made, an expression that first appears in Philo. The two creation stories of humans are read as a heavenly and an earthly human being. The text shaped Christian commentaries on the six days of creation.

Connections

Builds on

• Timaeusc. 360 BCE · Plato