Complete Works of Philo Judaeus (Vol. 6)

But the Stoics say there is one world, and that God is the cause of its birth, but God is no longer the cause of its corruption, but rather the power of unwearied fire existing within things, which, over long periods of time, resolves all things into itself, from which, in turn, the rebirth of the world is established by the providence of the craftsman. According to them, one world may be called eternal, and another corruptible. Corruptible is the one according to arrangement; eternal is the one according to the conflagration, made immortal through rebirths and cycles that never cease. Aristotle, however, thinking perhaps piously and holily, said that the world is unbegotten and indestructible. He condemned the terrible atheism of those who argued the opposite, who thought that such a visible god—the sun and moon and the rest of the planets and fixed stars, which truly contain everything divine—was no different from man-made things. And he said, as one can hear, and mocking them, that he once feared for his house, lest it be overturned by violent winds, or extraordinary storms, or time, or neglect of proper care; but now a greater fear hangs over him from those who destroy the entire world with their logic. Some do not call Aristotle the inventor of this opinion, but also some of the Pythagoreans; and I have encountered a book by Ocellus the Lucanian, titled On the Nature of the All, in which he not only declared the world to be unbegotten and indestructible, but also established it through proofs.

§. 4. They say that "begotten and indestructible" is declared by Plato in the Timaeus, through the divine assembly, in which it is said by the eldest and leader to the younger gods:

"Gods of gods, of whom I am the creator and father of works, which are indissoluble because I will it so. For everything that is bound is dissoluble; yet to wish to dissolve that which is beautifully fitted and in good condition is a sign of evil. Therefore, since you have been born, you are not immortal nor indissoluble by nature; yet you shall not be dissolved, nor shall you meet the fate of death, having obtained my will as a bond even greater and more sovereign than those by which you were bound when you came into being."