Numenius of Apamea: The Father of Neo-Platonism

it becomes the mother of the corporeal and nature-born divinities. Her own lot, however, is said to be preponderantly happy, but not entirely so, inasmuch as her native malice cannot be entirely eliminated.

18. How God Perfects the World.

God, therefore, adorned Matter with a certain magnificent virtue (or strength) and corrected its faults in every possible way, without, however, entirely eliminating them, lest material Nature should entirely perish. Still, he did not permit her to extend herself too far in all directions, but he transformed her whole condition by enlightenment and adornment so as to leave a nature which might be turned from inefficiency to efficiency; and this he accomplished by introducing system into its disordered confusion, proportion into its incommensurability, and beauty into its repulsiveness.

Very rightly does Numenius deny the possibility of finding any flawless condition, whether in human works of art, or in nature, in the bodies of animated beings, or in trees or fruits; no, nor in the blowing of the wind, in the flowing of the water, nor even in heaven. Everywhere does the nature of evil mingle with Providence, as some flaw.

As Numenius strives to represent an unveiled image of Matter, and to bring it into the light, he suggests, as a suitable method to attain such a conception, that one should think away all single bodies, which continually change their form, as it were, in the lap of matter. That which remains after this abstraction should be contemplated in the mind; this residue he calls "matter" and "necessity." The whole world-machine arose from this residue and God, in that God persuaded to goodness and necessity matter yielded.