Before the Creation of Time in Plato’s Timaeus

Abstract

In the Timaeus, Plato offers a detailed account of the beginning of the cosmos. In this account, a god creates an ordered, living, and intelligent cosmos by looking at a perfect model. Unlike the Christian god, who creates out of nothing,1 the god in the Timaeus creates from a preexisting receptacle and some traces of fire, water, air, and earth, which move in a disorderly fashion (Timaeus 30a2– 6; 52d2– 53b7; 69a6– c5). Along with the cosmos, the god also creates time: