Book 3
1.71
And there is one created universe,Cf. Plato, Tim. 31 a, b; 33 a; 55 c, d; 92 c. seeing that it is perceptible to sense, which has been made by God. And it is animate because that which is animate is better than that which is inanimate.Cf. Plato, Tim. 30 b. And this piece of workmanship is assumed to come from a cause supremely good.Cf. Plato, Tim. 30 a, b; 55 c, d. It was made one and not unlimited because the pattern from which he made it was one. And it is spherical because such is the shape of its maker.
1.72
For that maker contains the other living things, and this universe the shapes of them all.A perversion of Tim. 33 b. To that which is to comprehend all animals in itself that shape seems proper which comprehends in itself all shapes. Diogenes Laertius opposes, not universe and its shape, but maker and universe. It is smooth and has no organ all round because it has no need of organs. Moreover, the universe remains imperishable because it is not dissolved into the Deity.Cf. Plato, Tim. 33 a-d; 34 b; 32 c; 63 a. And the creation as a whole is caused by God, because it is the nature of the good to be beneficent,Cf. Plato, Tim. 32 c, 33 a; 38 b; 41 a, 43 d. and the creation of the universe has the highest good for its cause. For the most beautiful of created things is due to the best of intelligible causesCf. Plato, Tim. 29 e-30 a; 42 e.; so that, as God is of this nature, and the universe resembles the best in its perfect beauty, it will not be in the likeness of anything created, but only of God.
