Complete Works of Philo Judaeus (Vol. 6)

Since, therefore, the arrangement—as no part was left behind to be forced—demonstrates that the world will be destroyed by nothing external, because nothing remains outside; nor by anything within it, because of the aforementioned proof, according to which the susceptible is affected by one of the causes, and was born to receive the other.

§. 11. The testimonies in the Timaeus a dialogue by Plato regarding the world being free from disease and not subject to destruction are these: "Of the four, the composition of the world took each one as a whole. For the one who composed it, composed it out of all fire, water, air, and earth, leaving no part of anything nor any power outside, considering these things: first, that it might be as much as possible a whole and perfect animal made of perfect parts. Furthermore, that it be one, as there were none left over from which another such thing could be made; and also that it be free from old age and disease, realizing that the hot and cold things in the body, and all that have strong powers, when they stand around from the outside and fall upon it untimely, dissolve it, and by bringing disease and old age, cause it to wither. Because of this cause and this reasoning, God fashioned it as a whole from all, complete, and free from old age and disease." Let this testimony from Plato be taken for the indestructibility of the world. And the fact that it is unbegotten comes from natural truth. For dissolution follows the generated, but indestructibility follows the unbegotten; since even the one who composed that trimeter line,

That which is generated is destined to die,

seems not to have composed it off the mark, as the sequence of destruction goes this way. And in another way it is as follows: all things that are composite perish, taking a dissolution into that from which they were composed. And dissolution was therefore nothing but a return to the natural state of each. So, by contrast, composition is a forced movement of the combined parts into a state contrary to nature, and thus it seems most truthfully...