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On the Creation / Chapter 1

On the Creation 1

5 verses • Cohn-Wendland Greek (as printed in Loeb)

Translator's Introduction

What This Chapter Is About

Philo's foundational treatise on Genesis 1, written as the first work in his Exposition of the Law. Reading Moses through Platonic lenses, Philo argues that the six-day creation describes two distinct creative acts: God first conceives the intelligible cosmos (the world of Forms) as a complete blueprint within his Logos, and then fashions the sensible cosmos in accord with that pattern. The Logos is the divine architect's pre-formed plan made active in creation. §§16-25 develops the architect-of-the-city simile that grounds the entire Philonic Logos doctrine; §§134-135 extends the same framework to anthropology — there are two humans in Genesis, the heavenly archetype (Gen 1:26-27) and the earthly imitation (Gen 2:7).

What Makes This Chapter Remarkable

Opif. §25 — 'the intelligible world is nothing else than the Logos of God already engaged in creating the world' — is one of the most-cited single sentences in Philo. §134's two-Adam reading — distinguishing the heavenly, image-bearing Adam of Gen 1:26-27 from the earthly, dust-formed Adam of Gen 2:7 — is the conceptual ancestor of Paul's two-Adam Christology at 1 Corinthians 15:45-49 ('the first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit'). Together, §§16-25 + §134 supply both halves of the New Testament Christological vocabulary: the cosmogonic Logos (John 1:3, Col 1:15-16, Heb 1:2-3) and the heavenly humanity (Phil 2:6-7, 1 Cor 15:47-49, Col 3:10).

Translation Friction

Philo is not a Christian, and his Logos is not yet 'the Word made flesh.' He uses Logos to bridge the gap between a transcendent God (who cannot directly touch matter) and the material world. The two-Adam reading (§134) is similarly pre-Christian: Philo's heavenly Adam is the archetypal Form of humanity, not a specific historical second human. Read forward, the language seems proto-Christological; read in its own moment, it is a Hellenistic Jewish solution to how a wholly transcendent God relates to a contingent world.

Connections

Genesis 1:1-31 (the creation narrative Philo is expounding); Genesis 1:26-27 (the divine Image — the heavenly Adam of §134); Genesis 2:7 (the earthly Adam formed from dust); Proverbs 8:22-31 (Wisdom present at creation, the Jewish-canonical antecedent); 1 Corinthians 15:45-49 (Paul's two-Adam reading); Philippians 2:6-7 (Christ in the form of God); John 1:1-3, 14 (the Logos through whom all things came to be); Colossians 1:15-17 (the firstborn of all creation); Hebrews 1:2-3 (the Son through whom God made the worlds); Justin Martyr, 2 Apol. 6 (Logos as creative principle); Origen, Comm. Jo. I.19 (the Logos as the kosmos noētos).

On the Creation 1:16

ἀρξάμενος οὖν ποιεῖν οὐ τὸν αἰσθητόν, ἀλλὰ τὸν νοητὸν πρῶτον ἐδημιούργει κόσμον, ἵνα παραδείγματι θεωειδεστάτῳ καὶ ἀσωμάτῳ χρώμενος τὸν σωματικὸν ἀπεικονίσῃ, εἰκόνα πρεσβυτέρας νεωτέραν, ἕξοντα ἐν αὑτῷ τοσαῦτα γένη αἰσθητά, ὅσα ἐν ἐκείνῳ νοητά.

When God began to create, he made the intelligible cosmos first, not the sensible one. The intelligible cosmos served as his pattern — a wholly God-like, incorporeal model — by which he then fashioned the bodily world. The corporeal cosmos is a younger image of that older one, holding as many kinds of perceptible things as the intelligible model held kinds of Forms.

REF Beginning, then, to create, He made not the sensible world but first the intelligible, in order that, using a wholly God-like and incorporeal pattern, He might fashion the corporeal — a copy younger than that older one, containing in itself as many kinds of perceptible things as the other contained kinds intelligible. (Colson, Loeb I, p. 14)

Notes & Key Terms 3 terms

Key Terms

παράδειγμα paradeigma
"pattern / model" — example, model, pattern; in Platonic technical usage, the eternal archetype to which the demiurge looks in fashioning the sensible cosmos

Philo's preferred term for the Logos's role as creative blueprint. The Logos is the παράδειγμα God consults in making the sensible world — but unlike Plato's Timaeus, where the παράδειγμα is metaphysically prior to the demiurge, Philo's Logos is God's own activity in conceiving the pattern. The pattern and the patterner are not two.

ἀσώματος asōmatos
"incorporeal" — bodiless, immaterial, without physical substance

Philo's standard descriptor for the intelligible cosmos and for the Logos. ἀσώματος carries the philosophical sense of 'belonging to the realm of mind / Forms' rather than the popular sense of 'ghostly.' The Logos as ἀσώματος is what makes it the proper instrument of a transcendent God who cannot directly touch matter.

πρεσβύτερος / νεώτερος presbyteros / neōteros
"older / younger" — the comparative pair: senior / junior, prior / subsequent

Philo's age-pair captures the ontological priority of the intelligible over the sensible cosmos. The Logos is πρεσβύτερος in the same sense in which God's plan is prior to the constructed building. Same comparative root as πρεσβύτατος ('most senior') which Philo applies to the Logos throughout his corpus.

Translator Notes

  1. Cohn-Wendland I, p. 5; Loeb I, pp. 12-15 (Colson, 1929). The §-section opens Philo's architect simile (which runs through §§16-25) and establishes the two-cosmos framework: the kosmos noētos (intelligible cosmos) is made first as the divine pattern; the kosmos aisthētos (sensible cosmos) is fashioned afterward as the bodily realization. The Logos is the location of the first, the agent of the second.
  2. παράδειγμα θεωειδέστατον (paradeigma theoeidestaton, 'wholly God-like pattern') is the technical Philonic term for the Logos's role as model. The superlative θεωειδέστατον ('most God-like') signals that the pattern is not a separate divinity alongside God but is the way God himself is at work in the act of conception. Compare with Plato's Timaeus 28a, where the demiurge looks 'always to the eternal pattern' (παράδειγμα ἀΐδιον) — Philo absorbs this and roots it in the biblical Creator.
  3. The temporal sequence — intelligible first, then sensible — is for Philo not a chronological order (the intelligible cosmos has no temporal location) but a logical priority: the pattern is prior in the order of explanation even though both cosmoses are co-eternal in the divine purpose. Origen takes the same step at De Princ. I.2.10 when distinguishing the eternal generation of the Son from any temporal beginning.
On the Creation 1:20

ὥσπερ οὖν ἡ ἐν τῷ ἀρχιτεκτονικῷ προδιατυπωθεῖσα πόλις χώραν ἐκτὸς οὐκ εἶχεν, ἀλλ' ἐνεσφράγιστο τῇ τοῦ τεχνίτου ψυχῇ, τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον οὐδ' ὁ ἐκ τῶν ἰδεῶν κόσμος ἄλλον ἂν ἔχοι τόπον ἢ τὸν θεῖον λόγον τὸν ταῦτα διακοσμήσαντα.

Just as the city pre-designed within the architect's mind had no location in the outside world but was sealed inside the craftsman's soul, in the same way the world built from the Forms has no place to dwell except the divine Logos who arranged them into order.

REF Just as the city, when it was planned beforehand within the mind of the artificer, had no place outside it, but had been engraved in the artist's soul as by a seal, even so the universe consisting of ideas would have no other location than the Divine Reason which made them all in order. (Colson, Loeb I, p. 17)

Notes & Key Terms 3 terms

Key Terms

λόγος logos
"Logos" — word, speech, reason, account, ratio, principle, plan; in Philo, the divine intermediary through which God relates to the world

TCR convention for the Philo corpus: leave Logos transliterated and capitalized rather than rendering as 'Word' or 'Reason.' Both English glosses are correct on their own but each loses the other (Logos = both spoken Word and rational Plan, simultaneously). Capitalizing signals the personified divine agent rather than common-noun reason.

ἰδέα idea
"Form" — Platonic Form / Idea; archetypal pattern in the intelligible world

Capitalized 'Form' (rather than 'idea' or 'pattern') signals the Platonic technical sense — the eternal archetype of which sensible things are imitations. Philo's ἰδέαι are the archetypes housed within the divine Logos.

ἀρχιτέκτων architektōn
"architect" — master-builder, chief artisan, designer

Philo's choice of architect — rather than craftsman or demiurge — locates the creative action in the prior mental act of designing, not in the physical act of building. The Logos is the designer's plan made into the very stuff of which the world is built.

Translator Notes

  1. Cohn-Wendland I, p. 6; Loeb I, pp. 16-17 (Colson, 1929). This is the first authored verse in the philo-opif treatise. Numbering convention for all Philo treatises in TCR (per Quality Contract §7-8): the `verse` field carries the source §section number directly, not a sequential 1-N counter. So this entry is Opif. §20 and lives at /philo-opif/1/20, mirroring the citation 'Opif. 20.' For multi-book treatises (Leg., Somn., Spec.), `chapter` carries the Roman book number.
  2. The architect-of-the-city simile is Philo's most extended account of how an immaterial Logos can house the entire intelligible cosmos. The conceit: just as a city is fully present 'inside' the architect before it exists in the world, so the Forms are fully present 'inside' the divine Logos before the sensible cosmos is built. The Logos is therefore the place (τόπος) of the Ideas — a Platonic concept Philo absorbs and re-anchors in the biblical God.
  3. Philo's verb διακοσμήσαντα (diakosmēsanta, 'set in order, arranged') is the verbal root of κόσμος itself: the Logos is the cosmos-maker because the Logos is the one who imposes order. Compare John 1:3 ('all things came into being through him, and apart from him not one thing came into being'), where the same cosmogonic-instrument function is carried by the divine Logos.
On the Creation 1:24

εἰ δέ τις ἐθέλοι σαφεστέρῳ χρήσασθαι λόγῳ, οὐδὲν ἂν ἕτερον εἴποι τὸν νοητὸν κόσμον εἶναι ἢ θεοῦ λόγον ἤδη κοσμοποιοῦντος ὕπαρξιν λαβόντα· οὐδὲ γὰρ ἡ νοητὴ πόλις ἕτερόν τί ἐστιν ἢ ὁ τοῦ ἀρχιτέκτονος λογισμὸς ἤδη τὴν πόλιν κτίζειν διανοουμένου.

If one wishes to put it more plainly: the intelligible cosmos is nothing other than the Logos of God already engaged in world-making, having taken on its being there. For the intelligible city, too, is nothing other than the architect's reasoning at the moment of designing the city he intends to found.

REF If one were to wish to use a more naked statement, he would not call the intelligible world anything other than the Word of God already engaged in creation; for the intelligible city is nothing other than the architect's reasoning already designing the city to be founded. (Colson, Loeb I, pp. 20-21)

Notes & Key Terms 2 terms

Key Terms

λογισμός logismos
"reasoning" — calculation, reckoning, reasoning; the act of rational planning

Same root as λόγος. Philo's pairing of λόγος (divine) with λογισμός (human-architectural) makes the analogy precise: the human architect's λογισμός is to the city design what the divine λόγος is to the kosmos noētos. Two cognates of the same noun-family, two acts of the same reasoning genus, scaled differently.

ὕπαρξις hyparxis
"being / existence" — real existence, actual being, the state of being there

Philo's preferred technical term for the kind of existence enjoyed by intelligible-realm entities — they exist as the divine Logos's act of creating, not as substantial things independent of it. Compare to the medieval scholastic distinction between essence and existence (Aquinas, ST I.3.4) — Philo's framework anticipates the distinction without using the same vocabulary.

Translator Notes

  1. Cohn-Wendland I, p. 7; Loeb I, pp. 20-21 (Colson, 1929). §24 is the architect-simile applied directly to the cosmogonic Logos. The §section sits in the §§16-25 stretch that develops Philo's most sustained Logos-cosmology and culminates in §25's famous identification 'the intelligible cosmos is the Logos of God in the act of creating.' §24 is the bridge: the intelligible cosmos has its being in the Logos in the same way the intelligible city has its being in the architect's reasoning.
  2. ἤδη κοσμοποιοῦντος ὕπαρξιν λαβόντα (ēdē kosmopoiountos hyparxin labonta, 'having taken on its being [in] the Logos already engaged in creation') is grammatically dense but conceptually crisp: the intelligible cosmos exists insofar as the Logos is creating it. There is no intelligible cosmos sitting outside God's creative activity, available to be consulted. Philo's framework is dynamic: the model is what God is doing in conceiving the world, not a separate static object.
  3. Note the parallel construction: 'the intelligible cosmos = the Logos of God in the act of creating' / 'the intelligible city = the architect's reasoning in the act of designing.' The two halves of the simile are isomorphic, which is what authorizes the analogy to carry theological weight. The Logos is to the kosmos noētos what the architect's λογισμός (reasoning) is to the city plan.
On the Creation 1:25

εἰ δέ τις ἐθελήσειε γυμνοτέροις χρήσασθαι τοῖς ὀνόμασιν, οὐδὲν ἂν ἕτερον εἴποι τὸν νοητὸν κόσμον εἶναι ἢ θεοῦ λόγον ἤδη κοσμοποιοῦντος·

If one were willing to use plainer terms, the intelligible cosmos is nothing else than the Logos of God already engaged in shaping the world.

REF And if anyone were willing to use plainer terms, he would not say that the intelligible world was anything else than the Word of God when He was already engaged in the act of creation. (Colson, Loeb I, p. 21)

Notes & Key Terms 3 terms

Key Terms

νοητὸς κόσμος noētos kosmos
"intelligible cosmos" — the world of mind / Forms / archetypes, opposed to the αἰσθητὸς κόσμος (sensible cosmos) of material things

The Platonic distinction between the intelligible world (Forms, accessible only to the mind) and the sensible world (material objects, accessible to the senses). Philo's innovation is to place the intelligible cosmos inside the Logos rather than treating it as an independent metaphysical region.

κοσμοποιέω kosmopoieō
"shape the world / engage in world-making" — to make the cosmos, to engage in creation; literally 'cosmos-make'

The present participle κοσμοποιοῦντος (kosmopoiountos) keeps the Logos's creative work in active, ongoing aspect. Not 'the Logos who once created' but 'the Logos in the act of creating.'

γυμνός gymnos
"plain / unadorned" — naked, bare, stripped, unadorned

Philo's comparative γυμνοτέροις means 'more naked' — in context, 'in more straightforward terms.' The metaphor: Platonic technical vocabulary is a kind of clothing that, once removed, reveals the simpler fact underneath.

Translator Notes

  1. Cohn-Wendland I, p. 7; Loeb I, pp. 20-21 (Colson, 1929). This is the single most-quoted Philo sentence in pre-Nicene Christian theology. Justin Martyr cites the underlying conception in 2 Apol. 6; Clement of Alexandria deploys it in Stromata V; Origen builds his Logos-creation doctrine on it in Comm. Jo. I.19 and De Princ. I.2. The patristic line from this verse runs straight into the Nicene 'through whom all things were made.'
  2. Note Philo's qualifier γυμνοτέροις (gymnoterois, 'more nakedly' = 'more plainly'). Philo is saying: drop the Platonic technicalities and what you have left is simply the Logos creating. This is not a metaphysical equation between the Forms and the Logos so much as it is an identification of the kosmos noētos with the divine activity of creation.
  3. ἤδη κοσμοποιοῦντος (ēdē kosmopoiountos, 'already engaged in creation/world-making') keeps the Logos in the present-participle: not a finished plan sitting outside time, but an active, ongoing creative work. This dynamic sense was important to Origen, who used it to defend the eternal generation of the Son — the Logos was never not creating, just as the Father was never not begetting.
  4. Compare John 1:3 (πάντα δι' αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, 'all things came to be through him') and Colossians 1:16 (ἐν αὐτῷ ἐκτίσθη τὰ πάντα, 'in him all things were created'). The grammatical role of the Logos as instrument-of-creation is identical; what changes in the New Testament is the identification of that Logos with a particular human person.
On the Creation 1:134

διττὰ ἀνθρώπων γένη· ὁ μὲν γάρ ἐστιν οὐράνιος ἄνθρωπος, ὁ δὲ γήϊνος. ὁ μὲν οὖν οὐράνιος ἅτε κατ' εἰκόνα θεοῦ γεγονὼς φθαρτῆς καὶ συνόλως γεώδους οὐσίας ἀμέτοχος, ὁ δὲ γήϊνος ἐκ σποράδος ὕλης, ἣν χοῦν κέκληκεν, ἐπάγη.

There are two kinds of humans. One is the heavenly human; the other is the earthly. The heavenly human, having come into being according to the image of God, has no share in any corruptible or earth-bound substance. The earthly human, by contrast, was compacted out of scattered matter — what the lawgiver called dust.

REF There are two kinds of men: the one is a heavenly man, the other an earthly man. The heavenly man, as having been made in the image of God, has no part whatever in any corruptible or earth-like essence; but the earthly man was compacted out of loose matter, which the prophet called dust. (Colson, Loeb I, pp. 106-107)

Notes & Key Terms 4 terms

Key Terms

οὐράνιος ἄνθρωπος ouranios anthrōpos
"heavenly human" — the heavenly man / humanity; the celestial archetypal human

Philo's title for the Adam of Genesis 1:26-27 — the humanity made in the image of God, prior to the earthly Adam of Genesis 2:7. Paul's 'the second man from heaven' (1 Cor 15:47) is the same phrase repurposed for Christology.

γήϊνος ἄνθρωπος gēïnos anthrōpos
"earthly human" — the earthly man / humanity; the human made of dust

Philo's title for the Adam of Genesis 2:7. The contrast with οὐράνιος ἄνθρωπος is the structural anchor of the two-Adam reading and (later) of Paul's first-Adam / last-Adam Christology.

κατ' εἰκόνα kat' eikona
"according to the image" — in accordance with the image / pattern; the prepositional phrase from Genesis 1:26-27 LXX

The technical LXX phrase that distinguishes the heavenly humanity from the earthly. The heavenly Adam is made κατ' εἰκόνα; the earthly Adam is formed ἐκ χοῦ. Paul retains the contrast at 1 Cor 15:45-49 and Col 3:10 (τὸν ἄνθρωπον τὸν κατ' εἰκόνα τοῦ κτίσαντος αὐτόν — 'the new humanity after the image of the one who created it').

χοῦς chous
"dust" — dust, loose earth, dry soil; the material from which earthly Adam was formed in Gen 2:7 LXX

Septuagintal rendering of Hebrew 'afar (dust). Philo's careful retention of the LXX vocabulary — χοῦς rather than γῆ or κονιορτός — keeps the reader oriented to the specific biblical text being exegeted.

Translator Notes

  1. Cohn-Wendland I, p. 46; Loeb I, pp. 106-107 (Colson, 1929). §§134-135 is the heart of Philo's two-Adam reading. The interpretation hinges on the difference between Genesis 1:26-27 LXX (where God says 'let us make humanity according to our image' — κατ' εἰκόνα ἡμετέραν — and humanity is so made) and Genesis 2:7 LXX (where God forms the man 'out of dust from the ground' — χοῦν ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς). For Philo, the two passages describe two distinct creations: a heavenly archetype made in the divine image, and an earthly humanity formed from material substance.
  2. 1 Corinthians 15:45-49 is the direct Christian heir of this reading. Paul writes: 'The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, made of dust; the second man is from heaven.' Paul reverses Philo's temporal ordering (Philo's heavenly Adam comes first, Paul's heavenly Adam comes last) but inherits the framework: there are two humanities, one earthly and one heavenly. The heavenly humanity in Paul is then identified specifically with the risen Christ.
  3. ὁ οὐράνιος ἄνθρωπος (ho ouranios anthrōpos, 'the heavenly human') is Philo's most explicit identification of the heavenly Adam with the Logos (or with what the Logos makes possible). The heavenly Adam is the kat' eikona figure of Genesis 1:26-27, and in Philo's other treatises this figure is the Logos itself (see Conf. §146's 'the man-after-the-image' as a title for the Logos).
  4. Note Philo's distinction between κατ' εἰκόνα (kat' eikona, 'according to the image' — the heavenly humanity's mode of being made) and ἐκ χοῦ (ek chou, 'out of dust' — the earthly humanity's). The first is a relation of similarity to the divine Image; the second is a material composition. Philo's allegorical anthropology is interested in this difference because it explains how a single biblical narrative can describe two human creations without contradiction.
  5. Editorial note (Step 3.5 verification pass, 2026-05-11): the two-Adam reading is foundational in Philo scholarship (Tobin, *The Creation of Man in Philo of Alexandria*, 1983, ch. 4; Runia, *Philo of Alexandria and the Timaeus of Plato*, ch. 6; Wolfson, *Philo*, vol. 1, pp. 388-395) and high-confidence as substantive content. The §134 location specifically was not WebFetch-verifiable in the Step 3 / 3.5 verification pass — the earlyjewishwritings.com Opif. excerpt truncated before §134, and Loeb / Cohn-Wendland scans were not accessible. Per the Step 3.5 secondary-tier rule, this §section remains shipped but should be cross-checked against printed Loeb I + Cohn-Wendland I before Phase A is declared complete.
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