Common use of Analysis part 2 Clause in Contracts

Analysis part 2. God and the intelligible world are intertwined In the previous section, I explored Philo’s qualification of the intelligible world as ἀγένητος and we saw how this qualification meant for Philo that God and the intelligible world are closely related to each other. They both belong to the category of true being, opposite to the material world of becoming. The current section describes how Philo regarded God and the intelligible world as so closely related to each other that neither can easily be distinguished from the other. We will see how the distinction between God and the intelligible world 224 The timelessness of the intelligible world also explains the close relation that Philo expresses in Opif. 12 between the conceptual, the invisible, the not-becoming and everlastingness. 225 See pp. 61–67. 226 Philo qualified both God and the intelligible world as ἀγένητος. Philo uses ἀγένητος for God in Migr. 91; Mut. 22; Som. I, 77; Dec. 60; Virt. 213. Philo expresses the thought that time does not apply to God in Deus 32 (see further note 230). The doctrine that the ideas are that which truly exist is formulated as a Platonic tenet by Seneca in Ep. 58 (see Dillon, Middle Platonists, p. 136). Wolfson claimed that Philo qualifies the ideas as ἀγένητος to indicate that they were not created out of matter (Wolfson, Philo vol. 1, p. 222). 227 This idea is comparable to Dillon’s explanation that Philo used the term ἀσώματος to express that something has qualities opposite to those of σῶμα (especially decay and change) (see Dillon, ‘Angels’, p. 203). — Philo’s doctrine of God — becomes vague when we explore the following question: where did Philo believe the intelligible world exists? In Opif. 16–25, Philo explains that if in any sense the intelligible world can be said to exist in a place, this place must be divine reason: God’s mind.228 Philo problematises this statement in Opif. 17. Here, he writes that it is not appropriate to say that the intelligible world exists in a place, because a ‘place’ is something belonging to the material world. In Opif. 24, Philo bypasses this terminological problem by identifying the intelligible world with divine reason itself, instead of saying that it exists within it. He writes: ‘one would say the intelligible world to be nothing else than the reason of God already creating the world.’229 In this sentence, ‘already’ is used as translation of ἤδη, but we should bear in mind that this ‘already’ cannot imply a temporal sense for Philo. The dimension of time does not apply to God, and therefore does not apply to his act of creation.230 As Philo saw it, it is nonsensical to suggest that there was a time when God was not engaged in the act of creation. Given that the dimension of time does not apply, God can be seen as always being in the act of creation. Therefore, the intelligible world can be identified with divine reason, because time is not a relevant category whenever God’s act of creating the world is concerned.231 The identity between divine reason and the intelligible world can be taken a step further. Not only could Philo identify divine reason and the intelligible world with each other, he could also identify the intelligible world and God with each other. He designated both God and the intelligible world as ‘the monad’ (ἡ μονάς) or ‘the one’ (τό ἕν). In De Opificio Mundi he identified the intelligible world with the monad.232 Elsewhere he identified God the Creator with the monad or the one.233 Both ‘the monad’ and ‘the one’ were used in ancient philosophy to identify the source of everything that exists. The origin of this