Complete Works of Philo Judaeus (Vol. 6)

499 M. 949 P. It is carried down; and this is a sign of a place that is according to nature. For where anything rests and remains without force, it has obtained its own proper place. Water is poured out second upon the earth, while air and fire have moved from the center toward the heights; air having been allotted the region bordering on water and fire, and fire the highest region. Therefore, even if you take a lit torch and carry it down toward the earth, the flame will struggle against it no less, and, having lightened itself according to the natural movement of fire, it will rush upward. If, then, the movement contrary to nature is the cause of decay for other living creatures, but in the world each of the parts is arranged according to nature, having been allotted their proper regions, the world might justly be called imperishable. Furthermore, it is clear to everyone that each nature has striven to maintain and preserve—and if it were possible, to make immortal—each of those things of which it is the nature: one nature in trees preserving the trees, and another in living creatures preserving each of the living creatures. But the individual nature necessarily grows weak in leading things toward eternity. For need, or burning heat, or cold, or a myriad of other things that are accustomed to assemble, have struck down, shaken, and dissolved the bond that held them together, and finally broken it. If nothing from the outside were lying in wait, even as far as it depended upon itself, it would have preserved both small and great things free from old age. Therefore, it is necessary that the nature of the world also yearns for the permanence of the whole. For it is not worse than the individual parts, such that it would flee and desert its post, attempting to contrive disease instead of health, and decay instead of complete salvation, since

But if this is true, the world will not accept decay. Why? Because the nature holding it together is unconquered by a great strength of power, prevailing over all other things that were going to cause harm.