Ancient Philosophy · Part 14 · Athens · C1
Plato III: The Timaeus
Part 14 of Ancient Philosophy: in the Timaeus, Plato tells how a divine craftsman made the world as a living copy of an eternal model, built from triangles and perfect geometric solids. It was Plato’s most influential dialogue for fifteen hundred years, and the one Philo knew best. Describing composition (consists of, is made up of, is composed of, comprises), with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria.
Tonight, the book that changed my life: the Timaeus.
And the book that will shape how Jews, Christians and Muslims read the creation of the world for over a thousand years, partly because of you, Philo.
It starts with Atlantis. Then it builds the whole universe out of triangles. Bring a ruler.
The Timaeus is a late dialogue in which a philosopher called Timaeus of Locri, perhaps an invented character, gives a long account of the making of the universe. Plato calls it a “likely story”: not certain knowledge, but the most reasonable account possible about a world that is always changing.
In it, a divine craftsman (the Demiurge), who is good and without envy, shapes the world out of disorder, looking to an eternal, perfect model. He gives the world a soul, divided by musical ratios, and makes time as “a moving image of eternity”. The four elements are made of tiny geometric solids built from triangles.
For centuries, the Timaeus was the only work of Plato that most scholars in Western Europe could read, in a partial Latin translation. In Alexandria, Philo used it to explain the opening of Genesis.
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