Philosophical cosmology and religious polemic: The “worship of creation” in the writings of Philo of Alexandria and the Wisdom of Solomon

Cosmology and criticism in Greek philosophical traditions

In the fifth and sixth century B.C.E., several Greek cities in Ionia and southern Italy developed traditions of scientific speculation that challenged traditional myths and stories about the gods. ¹¹ Figures like Thales, Heraclitus, and Empedocles criticized traditional myths and religious practices as absurdly anthropomorphic (Heraclitus, Fr. 5, 14–15, 40, 42, 56–7, 96), as exemplified in a fragment of Empedocles: “He is not equipped with a human head on a body, he has no feet, no swift knees, no shaggy genitals, but he is mind alone, holy and inexpressible, darting through the whole cosmos with swift thought” (Fr. 134). ¹² In place of the sexed-up, mercurial, and sometimes violent super-patrons that populate the works of Homer and Hesiod, the Pre-Socratics develop alternative theories to explain the structure, origins, and destiny of the world available to human experience and observation. ¹³ Although highly critical of the conventional gods, these early scientists retained central places for divinities, albeit re-imagined as metaphysical principles, rational structures inherent in the cosmos, qualities of matter, and various mind-like causes that create, structure, or maintain the cosmos. For instance, Xenophanes imagines a divine mind that “causes everything to vibrate” (Fr. 23–6), and Aristotle reports that “looking up at the whole sky, [Xenophanes] said that the one was god” (Met. 986b20). Similarly, Thales’s cosmology allowed for the idea that “all things are full of gods” (Aristotle, De Anima 411a8); Heraclitus developed metaphysical principles variously termed the logos, the one wise, and Zeus; Diogenes of Apollonia envisions an intelligent, intangible mind that “has reached everything and arranged everything and is in everything” (Fr. 3 and 5); and Empedocles names his four elements after gods, arguing that they were as worthy of awe and reverence as the traditional deities. ¹⁴ Even Anaxagoras, who infamously re-imagined the heavenly bodies as fiery stones, also argued that an external force (aether) moves these stones and that a mind-like, intelligent cause in turn moves the aether. Although very far from the human-like characters of traditional Greek myth, anthropomorphism proves resilient in these mind-like principles and first causes.

Most of the Pre-Socratics still operate with teleological and anthropomorphic assumptions, but their highly abstract concepts of divinity bear little resemblance to the gods of conventional religion. This point was not lost on critics like Socrates and Plato who charged them with “atheism” and reasserted a much stronger view of providence and teleology. ¹⁵ Although Plato’s late cosmology infamously posits the primacy of an immaterial, intelligible realm, his lower spheres, with their material scala naturae, more closely resemble traditional cosmologies than do earlier scientific traditions. ¹⁶ So the creation account in the Timaeus posits a single metaphysical first and sustaining cause that works on elements or matter/substrate to create the lower material world. The result is a hierarchically differentiated material world with heavenly bodies, lower gods, and human souls bound together in an interrelated but hierarchically differentiated whole. Generally, then, the Platonic scala naturae tends to characterize the earthly realm—the realm of birth, death, and decay and the interchange of the elements—as spatially distant from the visible gods above (the heavenly bodies) and as ontologically other relative to the first cause. For these reasons, the later Platonist Xenocrates famously refers to the sublunary sphere as Hades, though not in some simplistic evil or proto-gnostic sense. ¹⁷

Though notoriously ambiguous, attention to the fate of Plato’s lower gods brings out important features of later Platonic cosmologies. ¹⁸ As John Dillon shows, two basic theories emerge to explain the “created gods” of Plato’s Timaeus. ¹⁹ The first is a more static theory that identifies them with the structure inherent in matter or the properties of the four elements: earth, water, air, and fire. The second, a more anthropomorphic theory, takes daemons to be human-like beings, perhaps even souls in different stages of rehabilitation that can participate in ritual exchange. Both theories can be identified—at least in some form—in Alcinous’s Handbook of Platonism. In chapter 14, Alcinous claims that the heavenly bodies are gods of some kind, explaining that the moon measures months and the sun years, while the stars emerge as “living beings endowed with intelligence and gods, and they are spherical in shape” (Did. 14.6). ²⁰ The stars are soon identified with Chronos, Zeus, Ares, and the Olympians. Whatever their names, however, Alcinous construes these “gods” as spherical beings with capacities for intelligent movement of the most perfect, spherical kind. The Handbook also goes on to discuss the ranks of divinities below them:

There are, furthermore, other divinities, daemons, whom one could also term “created gods” present in each of the elements, some of them visible, others invisible, in ether, and fire, and air, and water, so that no part of the world should be without a share in soul or in a living being superior to mortal nature. To their administration the whole sublunar and terrestrial sphere has been assigned. (Did. 15.1)

Here, daemons, created gods, fragments of soul, or superior natures seem to inhere in the elements, more consistent with Dillon’s static theory. ²¹ On this view, the Titans and Olympians govern the perfect, patterned, eternal movements of the heavenly bodies, while the daemons account for the interchange of the elements below the moon. The language about intelligent daemons or fragments of soul leaves room for ambiguity about their precise status, but the context suggests that their “administration” amounts to little more than structuring the inherent properties of each of the four elements.

Alcinous also emphasizes the fixed and subordinate status of all lower gods relative to the supreme god or first cause:

God is in fact himself the creator of the universe, and of the gods and daemons, and by his will this universe admits of no dissolution. ²² The rest is ruled over by his children, who do everything that they do in accordance with his command and in imitation of him. (Did. 15.2; cf. Philo, Aet. 13) ²³

These gods and sublunary daemons minister the multiple spheres of the cosmos, but they do so in ways that express the rationale of the providential designer and first cause. These roles and relationships are also expressed in the hierarchy of imitation that structures Platonic cosmology, where each rank of beings and substances desires its superior (see, for example, Philo, Her. 242–2). ²⁴

Later, other Platonists make varying and sometimes difficult arguments about the lower gods, but they seem to accept the primacy of a supreme deity (or deities) and to insist on the divine nature of the heavenly bodies and elements; however, they envision their precise ontological status or the relationships between the first cause and the potential model, demiurge, or dyad. Xenocrates and other Platonists also tend to idealize the heavenly bodies and the visible cosmos in contexts where they opt to celebrate cosmopolitan values. For instance, consider how Plutarch celebrates the heavenly bodies and the elements:

This [boundless aether] is the boundary of our native land, and here no one is either exile or foreigner or alien; here are the same fire, water, and air, the same magistrates and procurators and councilors (ἄρχοντες οἱ αὐτοὶ καὶ διοικηταὶ καὶ πρυτάνεις)—Sun, Moon, and Morning Star; the same laws for all, decreed by one commandment and one sovereignty. (Mor. 601A; cf. Philo, Opif. 32) ²⁵

Plutarch’s “law” amounts to the ordered, rational cycles apparent in the seasons, months, and years, but he goes on to portray this as evidence of the “one king and ruler,” quoting directly from Plato’s Laws (715e-716a): “God, holding the beginning, middle, and end of the universe, proceeds directly, as is his nature, in his circuit; upon him follows Justice, who visits with punishment those that fall short of the divine law” (Mor. 601A; cf. 1124F). On these terms, the unified, rational workings of a single cosmos align with Plutarch’s cosmopolitanism.

Intellectual school critiques emphasize stark differences between Platonists and Stoics on issues like the tri-partite versus the monistic soul and the existence or non-existence of an intelligible realm. Nevertheless, Stoic cosmology remains committed to the idea of providential design, which demonstrates the enduring influence of Socrates. ²⁶ Though rejecting Plato’s ontological hierarchy with its immaterial realm, the Stoics imagine a single, unified cosmos made up of different grades of matter, the most important of which is divine, rational, all-pervading, and providential (Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.135–137). ²⁷ This complex, differentiated universe has two primary metaphysical causes (archai), which are conceived as active and passive matter. The active cause is a type of fiery, light, mobile, divine, and rational matter (pneuma) that pervades and shapes all things in accord with its rational design. Although some may have jettisoned the theory of ekpurôsis, this theory of world-cycles and cosmic regeneration re-enforces the notion of a supreme, designing first and sustaining cause precisely by burning up all differentiation to arrive again at a single, perfect, unified divine substance out of which the world re-emerges anew. ²⁸ Fittingly, when later Epicurean atomists criticize more “anthropocentric” cosmologies, they especially take issue with Platonists and Stoics while continuing to dispute with the Pre-Socratics, now long dead. ²⁹

This picture of Stoic physics would seem to obviate the gods of traditional religion, but the sources sometimes diverge on the issue of lesser gods and daimôns. Many Stoics advanced nominalist arguments that the names of the Greek gods refer, properly understood, to components of the Stoic cosmos. ³⁰ As Chrysippus argued, Hera was simply air, Poseidon water, and so on so that each of the early scientific “elements,” with their distinctive properties (wet/dry; light/heavy; cool/hot), are really what Greeks mean (or should mean) when they speak about lesser gods. Such theories redefine the gods in radical ways, but they also maintain that the marvelous workings of the material world ultimately express the rational design of the all-pervading unified logos, pneuma, designing fire, or Zeus. Similarly, the heavenly bodies are not to be associated with the gods of Greek religion, but are rather composed of different, more refined dispositions of the elements. For Chrysippus, for instance, earthly things are composed of the four elements in some qualified type of mixture, but the moon is a more rarified mix of only two (fire and air), whereas the sun is composed of fire alone (SVF 2.413). ³¹ Stoic theories tend to generate arguments to the effect that the cosmos is itself a God and that the element-gods are not actually immortal, save for the purest form of matter known as pneuma, Zeus, or designing fire. So Cicero’s Stoic spokesperson (ND 2.28–30) observes that the wondrous attributes of the elements, plants, animals, and humans and the vitality of beating hearts and the dynamics of digestion come to show that “the world must be a God, and all the power of the world must be sustained by a divine element” (2.10.30). ³² Both arguments would be derided by their more ungenerous critics, as attested in the Epicurean counter-attack elsewhere in Cicero’s treatise (ND 1.37; 1.36–41; cf. Plutarch, Mor. 1085; Lactantius, Inst. 7.3).

It should be emphasized, however, that the Stoic school does not seem to arrive at a consensus theory about the precise status of lesser gods. Some seem to have allowed that daimôns might exist in the lower realms, yielding lesser deities that could be independent and even capable of evil. ³³ As Kempe Algra argues, however, much of the evidence, including Cleanthes’s Hymn to Zeus, and the writings of Seneca (Ep. 95, 47, 50), Marcus Aurelius, and Diogenes Laertius (Lives 7.88), suggests that Stoics conceived of daimôns not as quasi-independent deities but rather as the god internal to the human mind. Such formulations make good sense of Stoic theory about the rational powers of the human soul, which they understand as fragments or manifestations of the all-pervading divine mind that endows each person with rational capacities, however poorly they may realize them. Along the same lines, Algra shows that traditions of Stoic prayer do not so much beseech some external god for intervention as they focus attention on the development of one’s own rational powers. ³⁴ This philosophical understanding of prayer is sharply at odds with traditional notions of reciprocity, which philosophers often subjected to ridicule and misrepresentation as involving quid pro quo or attempting to “bribe” the gods.

Although some Stoics may have developed a more multi-tiered hierarchy of divinities that included independent daimôns, much of the evidence suggests that they were more inclined to understand the laws of the elements, heavenly bodies, and providence as evidence of a single coherent designer immanent within the cosmos. Conceived of as out-workings of this marvelous divine reason, they found a unified explanation for virtually all features of the created order, from the dynamic transformation of physical elements whereby fire becomes air and, when condensed out of air, water, to the pumping of the human heart and the workings of the digestive system. Though deeply pantheistic, the result is a curious world picture that effectively excludes the gods of traditional religion. Stoics were not averse to engaging in traditional religious practices, but these were to be understood allegorically, since the divine architect does not engage in reciprocity of any kind. ³⁵

Finally, it should be noted that arguments about inferring a supreme, organizing principle from the visible creation are familiar from Stoic and Platonist versions of the so-called “argument from design,” where the existence of God is to be inferred from observing the wondrous design of the cosmos. Compare, for instance, ND 2.90, where Cicero’s Stoic spokesperson insists that, even if men were at first confused by the creation, after observing its uniformity, they should “infer the presence not merely of an inhabitant of this celestial and divine abode, but also of a ruler and governor, the architect as it were of this mighty and monumental structure.” ³⁶ Interestingly, Cicero’s Stoic spokesperson does not ignore the claim that others might identify a supreme god over all. Rather, he seems to acknowledge that traditional religion does allow for a supreme deity, an “inhabitant” of the heavens. Cicero’s move from observing the created order to postulating a single ruler, creator, and director is similar to what we find in some passages in Philo, but Cicero emphasizes that it is precisely the ordered, cyclical patterns of the heavens that should induce this insight. ³⁷ Such arguments appear in many philosophical writings, and as others have suggested, such “design arguments” could inform some of the polemics we find in the writings of Philo and Wisdom. My analysis has focused on Stoic and Platonic traditions of cosmology more generally in order to show how foundational these cosmologies are both for their constructive and for their critical projects.

Cosmological polemics in the writings of Philo of Alexandria

Philosophical cosmology proves central to Philo’s many polemics about true and false beliefs, monotheism, atheism, and idolatry. ³⁸ In many cases, he draws on Platonic metaphysics to develop arguments about the incomparable ontological status of the first cause, now rendered identical to the Jewish God. In this way, a basically Platonic scala naturae becomes the basis for diverse attacks, whether against those who fail to distinguish the intelligible from the sensible realm (as Conf. 133) or misunderstand the nature of the elements, heavenly bodies, and the order of power and priority in the cosmos as a whole. ³⁹ In some cases, Philo presents a basically static world picture, although in others he seems to leave the precise status of the elements, heavenly bodies, or lesser beings more indeterminate.

In Philo’s Questions and Answers on Genesis, for instance, the punishment of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 19:23–24) becomes a lesson about how the Jewish God acts on the elements and heavenly bodies. Philo first builds a highly positive account, writing, “the sun and the day and light and whatever other things in the world are excellent and precious (ὅσα ἄλλα ἐν κόσμῳ καλὰ καὶ τίμια)” and noting that it is the place “from which come the annual storms and rains” that are so important for the growth of plants, trees, and the production of food for all living beings (4.51). On this presentation, God’s mastery of the creation also explains the righteous vengeance sometimes meted out from the heavens. ⁴⁰ Importantly, Philo insists that such punishments are intended to clarify the precise nature of heavenly rule:

For the destruction of all things on earth, in order to show that the causes of the seasons and annual times is not heaven or the sun or the processions and revolutions of the other stars but the power of the Father, who presides over the whole world as over a winged chariot, and guides it as he thinks best and most beautiful. ⁴¹ And this marvelous activity shows, not the established habit of the elements ⁴² but a certain autocratic and arbitrary power which transforms the elements of all things as it chooses. ⁴³ For sulphur and fire are light by nature, and for this reason they are born aloft, but the innovation of the curse changed their movements into the opposite one, from up (to down), and forced the lightest things to be borne like the heaviest. ⁴⁴ (QG 4.51)

Here, the autocratic deity sometimes intervenes (temporarily) to upset the “established habit of the elements” and for certain specific reasons. ⁴⁵ Philo turns the bulk of his attention to the command of the elements, which are familiar from early scientific speculation, but argues that the qualities of each element are temporarily reversed by the autocratic deity on high. In his hands, then, a Platonic theory about the priority of an intelligent designer becomes an argument about the supremacy and ontological exceptionalism of the Jewish God. Those with more specialized philosophical interests might balk at such an effort, but Philo is at least attempting to work within the bounds of Platonism.

The heavens and the heavenly bodies re-appear as a central preoccupations in On the Creation of the World (Opif.) and On the Special Laws (Spec.). In his interpretation of Genesis 1, for instance, Philo argues that God creates the earth before the heavenly bodies precisely so as to counter the theory that the heavenly bodies are themselves responsible for the productivity of the earth (Opif. 45). ⁴⁶ On this argument, the Jewish God alone guides all things in accord with law (nomos) and justice (dikê) and so “has no need of his heavenly offspring on which he bestowed powers but not independence” (Opif. 46). Philo’s “offspring” here could hint at lesser deities, but the emphasis on the role of the high God suggests otherwise. A similar ambiguity characterizes a passage in the Special Laws, which returns to some of Philo’s favorite straw men: those who allegedly revere the heavenly bodies as “gods with absolute powers (θεοὺς αὐτοκράτορας)” (Spec. 1.13). In this context, Philo re-interprets Deut 4:19 to show that Moses was alone in recognizing that the heavenly bodies are only “magistrates (ἄρχοντας)” that preside over their “subjects (ὑπηκόους)” on earth below, acting as mere “lieutenants of the one father of all” (Spec. 1.13–14; cf. 14–20; Plato, Laws 903b–c). Philo does not clarify whether or not there could be divine beings that lack “autocratic” powers, although in 1.19 he seems to suggest that they are “liable to correction, though in virtue of their excellence never destined to undergo it,” which suggests something like natural principles or qualities of matter. It should also be emphasized that Moses’s alleged exceptionalism proves quite un-exceptional: not only does this reflect a fairly standard Platonic position, but most philosophical schools (save for the Epicureans) also envision a providential designer and director of some kind. Philo’s opponents with their helmsman-less cosmos are a useful polemical fiction.

In a number of other contexts, Philo more explicitly condemns the alleged “worship of creation.” Elsewhere in the Special Laws, for instance, he argues that to honor “created beings” before their maker is to misconstrue the order of power and privilege inherent in the hierarchical world-order. So he writes,

How great a punishment does he deserve who denies the truly existing God and honors created beings before their maker (τοὺς γεγονότας πρὸ τοῦ πεποιηκὸτος) and thinks fit to revere, not only earth or water or air or fire, the elements of the all (στοιχεῖα τοῦ παντὸς), or again the sun and moon and planets and fixed stars, or the whole heaven and universe, but also the works of mortal craftsmen, sticks and stones, which they have fashioned into human shape? (Spec. 2.255)

Taking aim at idolatrous outsiders and potential insiders, Philo adapts theories about a providential designer to fit with polemics about the gods and cult statues of other peoples. ⁴⁷ A similar constellation of claims appears in On the Decalogue (esp. 52–81), where Philo charges that the misattribution of divinity gives rise to virtually every species of error (Dec. 7–8; cf. Wis 14:27). Following a more traditional parody of icons, Philo ridicules the “larger part of mankind” as follows:

For some have deified the four elements (ἐκτεθειώκασι γὰρ οἱ μὲν τὰς τέσσαρας ἀρχάς), earth, water, air and fire, others the sun, moon, planets and fixed stars, others again the heaven itself, others the whole world. But the highest and most august, the begetter, the ruler of the great world-city, the commander-in-chief of the invincible host, the pilot who ever steers all things in safety, him they have hidden from sight by the misleading titles assigned to the objects of worship mentioned above. (Dec. 54–55)

The charge of deifying the “elements” and the “whole world” may reflect views associated with the Stoics, who tended to construe many of the traditional Olympian gods as allegories for the elements, qualities of elements, and principles (including their all-pervading rational divine pneuma). ⁴⁸ In theory, however, this fits with statements made by a wide array of Platonist, Peripatetic, and Stoic philosophers, as in Tim. 29 b–c, where Plato describes the created world as “a blessed god.”

As Philo’s excursus on idolatry continues in the Decalogue, he again insists that this hodge-podge of delusions shares a common cause: a misunderstanding of relationships of divine power. To this end, he draws heavy-handed analogies about the creator’s standing over the created order as like the priority of a master over servants or kings over subjects. Portraying both cosmic and social hierarchies as natural, inevitable, and good, he charges that idolaters honor “the subordinate satraps (ὑπάρχοις σατράπαις),” with honors rightfully due their king; that they give to “servants what belonged to their master (τὰ δεσπότου δούλοις)”; and those due superior on inferiors (Dec. 61). ⁴⁹ In other instances, Philo rages against those who hold “any of the parts of the universe to be the omnipotent god (τοῦ κόσμου μερῶν αὐτοκραρῆ θεὸν ὑπολαμβάνειν)” (Dec. 58) and who fail to move beyond the realm of the senses, although this should properly serve as a “natural stepping stone to the conception of the uncreated and eternal, the invisible charioteer who guides in safety the whole universe” (Dec. 60). In this way, Platonic arguments about intellectual progress and the intelligible realm are synthesized with traditional polemics about statuary and arguments about the obligations that inferiors owe their superiors. Such claims are also prominent in On the Migration of Abraham, where Philo concludes that the stars are not primary causes because God’s own potency (his goodness) “ordered and marshaled the whole realm of being” (Migr. 182) while itself remaining prior to and outside the creation (Migr. 183). ⁵⁰

Philo’s polemics intermingle a variety of intellectual traditions and discourses to serve his representation of Jewish traditions as exceptional and unique. In doing so, he often misrepresents the (largely) Platonic traditions he appropriates, the rival cosmologies he attacks, and the gentile beliefs and practices he claims to describe. Two sleights of hand are particularly prominent. First, Philo typically ignores the Platonic lower gods and so robs the Platonic hierarchy of its more subtle language about divinity; second, he maintains that others mistakenly worship the created order rather than the first cause that stands outside it. ⁵¹ In this way, he plausibly arrives at a hierarchical schema that is basically Platonic but now serves ungenerous indictments of others—whether gentiles or rival philosophers—as deifying components of the created order. Although he develops other types of arguments as well, Philo often returns to these lesser components, whether this allegedly involves the worship of statues; elements like fire, water, and air; heavenly bodies; the sensible world of change and decay; or generally, the grave error of taking “any of the parts of the universe to be the omnipotent God” (Dec. 58).

Cosmic knowledge and idolatry in Wisdom 7 and 13

Scholars have long recognized that the Wisdom of Solomon is marked by strong interests in cosmic knowledge and by high-pitched claims about viciously immoral, idolatrous outsiders who, lacking this knowledge, are bound for death and destruction. ⁵² Pre-occupations with cosmic knowledge come to the fore in chapter 7, where the writer portrays Solomon as educated by wisdom so that he arrives at an “unerring knowledge of existent being” (7:17). Here, the figure of Solomon prays:

God grant that I speak in accord with his wish,

and conceive thoughts worthy of his gifts,

for he himself is both the guide of Wisdom

and corrector of the wise.

Both we and our words are in his hands,

as well as all understanding and craftsmanship.

For it was he who gave me unerring knowledge of existent

being,

to know the structure of the universe and the operation

of the elements;

the beginning, and end, and middle of times, ⁵³

the changes of the solstices and the vicissitudes of the

seasons;

the cycles of years and the position of the stars;

the nature of living creatures and the tempers of beasts;

the violent force of spirits and the reasonings of men;

the species of plants and the virtues of roots. ⁵⁴

I learned both what is hidden and what is manifest,

for wisdom, the artificer of all, taught me.

For in her is a spirit intelligent and holy,

unique of its kind yet manifold, subtle

lucid, unsullied . . . .

all-powerful, all-surveying,

and pervading all spirits,

intelligent, pure, and most subtle.

For Wisdom is more mobile than any motion,

she pervades and permeates all things by reason of her

pureness. ⁵⁵ (7:15–24)

Here, the world unfolds, in a seemingly inevitable way, as a structured whole, and knowledge of this cosmos is available to elites trained in or by wisdom. This singular world involves elements that intermingle and change in reliable ways as well as predictable cycles of time, here yielding the seasons, solstices, and probably the weather patterns that go along with them. Ps-Solomon goes on to fill this out with knowledge about the movements of the luminaries and stars, as well as about various classes of living beings, from spirits to plants and animals. The language about the “violent force of spirits” could allude to lower level divine beings or winds, as David Winston argues (compare Sir 39:28), but they are here portrayed as components within a structured whole that obey a certain order. ⁵⁶ Thus construed, the movements of the stars, the workings of the elements, the seasons, winds, and nature of plants, all reveal the same regular structure.

In theory, the cosmology developed in Wisdom 7 could be construed as Stoic, Platonic, or something in-between, but the role of wisdom as immanent mediator suggests a more distinctively Stoic orientation. ⁵⁷ Unlike Philo, Ps-Solomon shows virtually no interest in strongly Platonic images of a demiurgic creator acting on matter or in positing an ontologically distinct order of being that is somehow outside of, superior, and prior to the material, created order. ⁵⁸ Instead, the text abounds with effusive hymns about “wisdom” that, especially in 7:22b–8:1, sustains, suffuses, structures all things, and has the kinds of creative, providential, and pedagogical roles of the divine in Stoic theology. ⁵⁹ Taking Stoic philosophical theology seriously also offers a way to contextualize some distinctive language about the divine without relying on vague notions of wisdom as an abstraction, personification, or hypostasis of God. ⁶⁰

In Wisdom 13, Ps-Solomon again recalls the cosmology of chapter 7 but bends this to strongly polemical ends. ⁶¹ In ways that resonate with many of Philo’s invectives, Ps-Solomon impugns those who allegedly worship the heavens, elements, and heavenly bodies, writing:

Born to mindlessness were all those who were [inherently] ignorant of God, and unable to perceive the existent one from visible goods, nor recognize the artificer, though intent on his works. But either fire, or breath, or swift air, or starry heaven, or torrential water, or the celestial lights, cosmic lords (πρυτανείς κοσμοῦ), they accounted gods. If through delight in the beauty of these things they took them to be gods, let them know how much superior is the master of these things, for it was the primal author of beauty who created them. ⁶² If it was through amazement at their dynamic operations (δύναμιν καὶ ἐνέργειαν), let them apprehend from these how much more powerful is he who shaped them. For from the greatness and beauty of created things, is their author correspondingly perceived. Yet little blame attaches to these, for they too perhaps err in spite of their search for God and their desire to find him. For they are engaged in searching out his works, and are persuaded by visual impressions, since what they see is indeed beautiful. Yet even they are not to be excused, for if they were so resourceful as to be able to infer the “universe,” how is it they did not sooner discover the master of these things? (13:1–9)

Here, the Jewish God is “the existent one,” “artificer,” and the “primal author of beauty,” language that combines both Stoic and Platonic language about a supreme God. ⁶³ Some of Epictetus’s writings (Disc. 1.6.7–8) use the language of an intelligent artificer (τὸν τεχνίτην) that is revealed in all observable “works” (cf. ND 1.20.53), and the argument that the beauty of creation should lead to knowledge of the true God (or rather the “mind of God”) is made by Philo (Spec. 3.189), as well as other writers. ⁶⁴ The language of “dynamic operations (δύναμιν καὶ ἐνέργειαν)” is also similar to what we find in Marcus Aurelius (among others), who uses this as proof of the existence of “the gods” in the plural (Med. 12.28; cf. Wis 7:17). As used by Marcus Aurelius, however, this explains the patterns of cyclical change, movement, and transformation within the Stoic cosmos writ large. ⁶⁵

Ps-Solomon charges idolaters with failing to infer an “existent one” or “artificer” from the visible works of creation, but he also insists that they deify the elements, heavenly bodies, and the starry heavens. What these ignorant persons “account as gods,” however, are not lesser beings of some kind, and there is little effort to make the kinds of “argument from hierarchical design” that abound in the writings of Philo, although such claims are robust in the subsequent idol-polemics. In this case, Ps-Solomon accuses others of failing to draw proper inferences from the wondrous beauty of the design itself. So we learn of a mistake about the “visible goods” and the “beauty,” “dynamic operations,” and the “works” of the architect that made them. As Winston notes, there could be an implicit jab here against the Stoics, but Ps-Solomon does not marshal some of the classic polemics about Stoic theology, and other aspects of the text read more coherently as a creative adaptation of that cosmology. ⁶⁶ For instance, the artificer envisioned in 13.1 makes good sense along the lines of the supreme Stoic pneuma or logos, and the creation Ps-Solomon ascribes to this artificer is a wondrous, dynamic, and beautiful world of elements and heavenly bodies, all obeying divine principles, ordinances, or laws (cf. Wis 6:10). However stunning this creation may be, it is, for Ps-Solomon, at least, also free of divine beings that might be suitable objects of worship.

For Ps-Solomon, the cosmos is a dynamic, organized unity that appears devoid of lesser gods, save for the radiant, all-pervading wisdom that connects the figure of Solomon to true cosmic knowledge, virtue, and immortality. By ignoring the gods of other Mediterranean and West Asian traditions, Ps-Solomon depicts the created order as self-evidently composed of elements, heavenly bodies, or the whole “starry heavens,” a cosmology that sets up neatly for a lengthy series of idol-polemics in chapters 13–16, especially arguments to the effect that attributing life to mundane statues involves strikingly obvious errors in judgment about the true nature of the cosmos, the creator’s priority over the created, the craftsman’s priority over dead wood, and that of ensouled beings over soul-less matter. The infamous claim that the worship of idols is the beginning, cause, and end of all evil (14:27) expresses this critique in an especially clear way (see also Philo, Dec. 7–8). On these terms, true and false knowledge, perception, and understanding all become central for divine-human exchange and also for defining the true people of God.

Cosmological polemics in Philo of Byblos, Aristobulus, and Paul

The fragments of Philo of Byblos and Aristobulus show that other writers shared some of the polemical interests we find in Wisdom and Philo. For instance, Philo of Byblos claims that the Canaanites misidentify the elements as gods: “They assigned names chosen especially from their kings to the cosmic elements and to some of the recognized deities” (Fr. 1 = PE 1.9.23–29; 1.10). ⁶⁷ The contrast drawn between “cosmic elements” and “recognized deities” suggests philosophical conceptions of the four elements, although the precise nature of the “recognized deities” remains unclear. In the following lines, the natural order emerges as self-evidently composed of “the sun, the moon, the other planets, the elements and their combinations, so that for them some gods were mortal and some immortal” (1.9.23–29; 1.10.6). Although other writers identify gentile gods with the heavenly bodies, the language about the combination of the elements suggests a philosophical-ish cosmology that is familiar from the writings of Philo and Ps-Solomon. As in many of Ps-Solomon and Philo’s polemics, the world appears here as self-evidently composed of elements in different states and combinations, perhaps including the heavenly bodies that the Canaanites mistakenly treated as gods.

The fragments of Aristobulus also draw on philosophical ideas to explain and defend traditional narratives about divine interventions. ⁶⁸ For instance, Aristobulus notes that the fire that appeared on Mt. Sinai did not consume anything because “the power of fire, which is marvelous beyond all things because it consumes all things, blazes without substance and consumes nothing, unless the power from God (to consume) is added to it” (2.15). Just as Philo of Alexandria’s God reigns supreme over the elements, so too Aristobulus’s supreme deity orders, directs, and occasionally suspends the inherent qualities of the elements (in this case, fire). In this text, Greek traditions do not clearly serve polemical ends, but elsewhere they do. So in fragment 4, Aristobulus claims that Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato copy Moses: “when they contemplate the arrangement of the universe, so carefully made and so unceasingly held together by god” (4.4; 4.9; 3.1). In keeping with these claims about originality and priority, Aristobulus goes on to charge that Orpheus imitates Moses in maintaining that all things are held together by “divine power” and then adds a long hymn about the “undying shaper of the universe” that is visible to the mind only (4.4). In setting up this hymn, Aristobulus explicitly notes that it was originally a song in praise of Zeus composed by Aratus (4.6–7). In Aristobulus’s hands, the hymn speaks of Israel’s God in the singular as a supreme organizing principle, in ways that are consistent with certain strains of philosophical theology, perhaps especially that of the Stoics. ⁶⁹ Along with this singular deity, the hymn also describes multiple gods who fill the marketplaces, streets, and seas, and who offer benefits, knowledge, and omens to mankind, consonant with more anthropomorphic theories of the Platonic or Stoic lower gods and daimones. These gods also seem to be immanent in the cyclical patterns of the seasons, meteorological phenomena, and agriculture (Fr. 4.6–7), an argument that may go back to Socrates. ⁷⁰ At the close of fragment 4, Aristobulus again presents the traditions of Moses as a type of philosophy, claiming, “our philosophical school” holds only “holy opinions concerning God”; similarly, “the whole constitution of our Law is arranged with reference to piety and justice and temperance and the rest of things that are truly good” (4.8).

Cosmic knowledge also becomes central in Romans 1, where Paul explores the history of gentile sin and warns of a looming judgment. ⁷¹ Elsewhere Paul allows that there are “other gods and lords” as well as daimones, but he moves hastily over them and focuses attention on the awesome power of the true God in heaven (as in 1 Cor 8 and 10). In this case, however, he argues that the cosmos very clearly displays that Israel’s deity (here construed generically as “God”) reigns supreme. So he writes:

Knowledge of God was clearly displayed to them (διότι τὸ γνωστὸν τοῦ θεοῦ ϕανερὸν ἐστιν ἐν αὐτοῖς). God displayed it to them. For his invisible attributes are intellectually discerned in the created order, ever since the creation of the cosmos, namely, his eternal power and deity/godliness (ὁ θεὸς γὰρ αὐτοῖς ἐφανέρωσεν. τὰ γάρ ἀόρατα αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ κτίσεως κόσμου τοῖς ποιήμασιν νοούμενα καθορᾶται ἤ τε ἀΐδιος αὐτοῦ δύναμις καὶ θειότης), therefore they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him or give thanks, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human, or four-footed animals, or birds, or reptiles. (1:19–23). ⁷²

Paul does not here charge that idol-worshippers treat the elements, the creation, or the heavenly bodies as gods, but he does focus attention on cosmic knowledge and on issues of mind, perception, and understanding. On these terms, the cosmos becomes the vehicle through which knowledge about God was made available to all peoples. This argument at first seems to suggest that gentiles failed to apprehend the true nature of divinity, but the language of v. 21 (“although they knew God”) suggests that they had this knowledge at some point and lost it, an argument that is consonant with certain strains of the “argument from design” in Stoic sources (Seneca, Ep. 90.28; Pseudo-Heraclitus, Ep. 4.10–15). In these texts, all people (correctly) intuited a Stoic-like deity from the wondrous order of creation in an early golden era but later succumbed to much more crude notions of divinity. ⁷³ In the context of Romans 1, however, this argument seems generally to establish that gentiles failed to worship the true God of Israel although they (at some point in the distant past) did recognize the true cosmic creator and ruler. In the subsequent verses, God transforms their very hearts and minds so that they became base and irrational, in keeping with well-known philosophical discourses about ethics and with Jewish polemics about gentile sinners. ⁷⁴ Thus, God punishes the gentiles by handing them over to passions, desires, and a “base mind” (vv. 24, 26, 28), and they descend into multifarious forms of vice and wickedness. In this way, an argument about cosmic knowledge, appropriate worship, and punishment comes to explain that the vast majority of the world’s peoples failed to worship Israel’s God and are justly punished by the abject loss of self-control.

In Romans 1, Paul seems content to justify God’s punishing justice (including an impending violent retribution) by insisting that true knowledge about Israel’s God was made available in the creation itself. Thus, he does not seem to argue that gentiles took the elements or the heavenly bodies as gods, although such claims are well attested in other literature, as we have seen, and his language about stoicheia tou kosmou in Galatians 4 could allude to this kind of polemic. ⁷⁵ It is possible that there is some resonance here with polemics about the mis-apprehension of the true nature of power and privilege in the created order, such as we find in many of the treatises of Philo that ridicule the worship of inferiors in place of superiors. In this case, however, Paul seems content to draw a contrast between mortal and immortal types of being, rather than inferiors and superiors, although that contrast is probably implied in v. 23. Thus, he effectively argues that true knowledge about God (and especially God’s creative powers and presence in/over the cosmos) becomes the provenance of a select few, although in the distant past it was made plain to all, so they are culpable (and “without excuse,” as he claims repeatedly). Issues of physics and cosmology are often central to Paul’s thought but, in this particular case, this cosmology is not “load bearing” in the ways that it is for Ps-Solomon and others, and he shows little concern here with imagining the world in markedly philosophical terms. By contrast, his thought here is much more philosophical in the sense that it develops an intense interest in positing that issues of mind, knowledge, and understanding are central to divine-human interaction and in exploiting the hidden, interior regions of the person as a site for establishing religious loyalty, knowledge, and value.

Conclusion

This article has sought to tease out some distinctive features of Jewish polemical discourses about the elements, the heavens, and the created order. Although the surviving literature proves selective, these patterns suggest that writers like Philo and Ps-Solomon were comfortable with targeting the heavens, heavenly bodies, and the elements as would-be gods because they were confident that their cosmologies left no room for the traditional gods. Indeed, though later Christian theological traditions will make “creaturely being” into a central category, I find it remarkable that much biblical and Hellenistic literature seems ambivalent about the precise status of gentile gods, which, outside of the texts treated here, are only rarely associated with the heavenly bodies or meteorological phenomena in the biblical anthology and in later literature.

In developing these arguments, I have tried to show how certain Stoic and Platonic traditions of philosophical cosmology shed light on these traditions of polemic. This work suggests that Philo and Ps-Solomon do not adapt philosophical traditions in haphazard or unpredictable ways, but rather that they recognize (in my view, correctly) that philosophical cosmologies offer rich resources for expanding their polemical arsenals. In adapting these ideas, however, they also synthesize them with much more traditional anthropomorphic ideas about a God who chooses favorites and punishes, rewards, and vindicates certain special persons and groups. On this approach, Philo and Pseudo-Solomon often arrive at innovative ways of re-imagining the world and the gods, but that are not exceptional or wholly different.