is superior to that which is not, and it must be the production of the most excellent producer. It is also one, and illimitable; because the model after which it was made was one; and it is spherical, because its creator was of that form; for it also contains all other animals, and God who made it comprises all forms. And it is smooth, and has no instruments whatever all round it, because it has no need of any. But the whole world remains imperishable, because it cannot be resolved into God; and God is the cause of universal production, because it is the nature of the good to be productive of good; and the best is the cause of the production of the heaven; for the best of all productions can have no other cause than the best of all intelligible existences. And since God is of that character, and since heaven resembles the best, inasmuch as it is at least the most beautiful of all things, it cannot be like anything else that is produced, except God.
He also teaches that the world consists of fire, water, air, and earth; of fire, in order that it may be visible; of earth, in order that it may be firm; of water and air, that it may not be destitute of proportion; for two middle terms are indispensable to keep the solid bodies in due proportion to one another, and to realize the unity of the whole. In short, the world is formed of all the elements together, in order that it may be perfect and imperishable.
Again, time is the image of eternity; eternity subsists for ever; but the motion of the heaven is time; for day, and night, and the months, and all such divisions, are parts of time, on which account there could be no such thing as time apart from the nature of the world; for time existed contemporaneously and simultaneously with the world. And it was with reference to time that the sun, and the moon, and the planets were made; and it was in order that the number of the seasons might be manifest, and that the animals might partake of number, that God kindled the light of the sun; and that the moon was above the circle of the earth, and that the sun was next to it, and in the still higher circles were the planets.