Philo: Appendix 1: Concerning the World

VII. And the way in which Paradise was planted is in strict conformity with what has been here said; for we read that "God planted a Paradise in Eden, towards the east, and there he placed the man whom he had Made."

Now, to think that this means that God planted vines and olives, and trees of apples and pomegranates, and things of that kind, is great and incurable folly. But in order that no one might imagine that the Creator had need of anything that he had created, Moses has made a most important declaration when he says, "The Lord, the King of ages, for ever and Ever."

Accordingly, God is both the Father, and the Creator, and the Governor, in reality and truth, of all the things that are in heaven and in the whole world. And, indeed, the future is concealed and separated from the present moment at one time by a brief, and at another time by a long interval. But God is also the Creator of time, for he is the Father of that which is the father of time; and the father of time is the world, which proves that its own birth is the motion of time. But nothing is future to God, because he is in possession of and the author of the boundaries of time; for it is not time, but rather the archetype and model of time. But in eternity nothing is passed, nothing is future, but everything is at the present moment.