Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​And he held that the cosmos is composed of fire, water, air, and earth: of fire, so that it might be visible; of earth, so that it might be solid; of water and air, so that it might be proportional—for the powers of solids are proportional by means of two middle terms so that the whole may become one—; and of all the elements, so that it might be complete and imperishable. And time came to be as an image of the eternal. And while the latter abides forever, the motion of the heaven is time; for night and day and month and all such things are parts of time. Wherefore without the nature of the cosmos there is no time; for it coexists along with it and is time.

​And for the generation of time the sun and moon and the planets came to be. And in order that the number of the seasons might be distinct and living creatures might partake of number, God kindled the light of the sun. And in the circle above the earth is the moon, in the next adjacent one is the sun, and in those above are the planets. And the cosmos is entirely ensouled through its being bound to an ensouled motion. And in order that the cosmos, having come to be in likeness to the intelligible animal, might be made complete, the nature of the other living beings came to be. Since therefore that paradigm possessed them, the heaven too must possess them. The heaven then possesses gods that are for the most part fiery; and the other kinds are three: winged, aquatic, and pedestrian.

​And the earth is the oldest of the gods within the heaven. It came to be as a fabrication so as to produce night and day; and being at the center, it moves around the center. And since causes are two, some things, he says, are through intellect, while others are from a necessary cause, as must be stated. And these are air, fire, earth, and water—not strictly being elements, but receptacles. And these are composed of triangles joined together and are dissolved into them; and their elements are the scalene triangle and the isosceles.

​The two things mentioned, then, are principles and causes, of which God as paradigm is one, and matter the other; and matter must necessarily be formless, just as in the case of other receptacles. And it is a cause of these things from necessity; for, receiving in some way the forms, it generates substances, and on account of the dissimilarity of its power it moves, and being moved, it counter-moves the things generated from it. And while these formerly moved irrationally and disorderly, when they began to construct the cosmos, they were brought by God into a condition as proportionate and orderly as possible.

​For even before the fashioning of the heaven the two causes existed, and a third, genesis, yet not clearly, but only as traces and disorderly; but when the cosmos came to be, these too received order. And the heaven came to be out of all existing bodies. And it is his opinion that God, just like the soul, is incorporeal; for in this way above all is he free from susceptibility to destruction and affection. And he posits the forms, as has been said before, as certain causes and principles for things constituted by nature being of such a kind as they themselves are.

​Concerning goods and evils, he used to say things of this kind: the end is likeness to God. Virtue is self-sufficient for happiness; but it additionally requires instruments, namely bodily advantages—strength, health, keenness of sense, and the like—and external advantages, such as wealth, noble birth, and reputation. Nonetheless, the wise man will be no less happy even if these are not present. He will, moreover, take part in public life, will marry, and will not transgress the established laws; and so far as circumstances allow, he will also legislate for his own fatherland, unless he sees that affairs are utterly beyond remedy in the excessive corruption of the populace.