Praeparatio evangelica

10. ON BEING, MOSES AND PLATO. Moses in his hierophancies, speaking in the person of God, declared, "I am the Being. Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel: The Being has sent me to you," and he plainly affirmed that God alone is Being and is alone and fittingly deemed worthy of this appellation. And again Solomon, concerning the generation and destruction of sensible and corporeal things, said, "What has come to be? That which is about to be. And what has been made? That which is about to be made. And there is nothing fresh under the sun that will speak and say, 'See, this is new'; it has already come to be in the ages that have passed before us." And following these, we also divide the whole into two, into the intelligible and the sensible, defining the intelligible as incorporeal and rational in nature, imperishable and immortal, and the sensible as being in flux and destruction, change and alteration of substance, and all things are summed up into one principle, and we teach that the ungenerated and the truly and really Being is one, the cause of all incorporeal and corporeal things. See in what manner Plato, not only in thought but also in the very words and phrases, having sharpened the Hebrew scripture, appropriates the doctrine, explaining more fully here something like this: "What is that which always is and has no generation? And what is that which is always becoming and never is?

That which is always grasped by intellection with reason, being always the same, while that which is grasped by irrational sense-perception comes to be and passes away, but is never really being. Has not the admirable one clearly shown that he has transformed the saying spoken by Moses, "I am the Being," through the question "What is that which always is, and has no generation?" and has made this even clearer by stating that being is nothing other than that which is not seen by the eyes of the flesh, but is apprehended by the mind? For when he asks what being is, he answers himself, saying: "That which is grasped by intellection with reason is being." And the saying of Solomon, "What has come to be? That which will come to be; and what has been made? That which will be made," he has interpreted in almost the same words, clearly saying: "That which is grasped by irrational sense-perception comes to be and passes away, but is never really being." To which he adds: "For all these are parts of time, the 'was' and the 'will be'; which we, without noticing, apply to eternal substance, not rightly. For we say that it was, is, and will be. But only 'is' belongs to it according to true reason; while 'was' and 'will be' are properly said of generation in time, for they are motions. And that which always holds itself the same immovably cannot become either older or younger through time, nor can it ever come to be, nor has it come to be now, nor will it be in the future at all, nor any of the things which generation has attached to things borne in sense-perception; but these are things of time, which imitates eternity and moves in a circle according to number, and have become forms.

and in addition to these things, such as that which has come to be is come to be, and that which is coming to be is coming to be, and further that which will come to be is that which will come to be." And so that no one may suppose that we are misinterpreting the philosopher's words, I shall use commentaries that reveal the meaning of these statements. Many have applied themselves to the theory of these matters, but for now it suffices for me to set forth the words of a distinguished man, Numenius the Pythagorean, which he expounds in his second treatise On the Good, somewhere as follows:

11. From Numenius the Pythagorean, On the Good: "Let us then, with all our power, draw as near as possible to that which is, and let us say: that which is neither ever was nor ever comes to be not, but is always in a defined time, in the present alone. Now if one wishes to call this present 'eternity,' I also agree; but we must think that past time has already escaped us, has fled and run away into no longer being; and the future, on the other hand, is not yet, but promises what it will be, to come into being. It is not reasonable, then, to suppose in any single way that that which is either is not, or is no longer, or is not yet, since if this is said, a great impossibility arises in the argument: that the same thing both is and is not at the same time. And if this is so, scarcely could anything else be, if that which is itself is not according to that which is. Therefore that which is is both everlasting and steadfast, always according to the same and the same. It has neither come to be nor perished, nor has it been increased nor diminished, nor has it ever become more or less. And indeed, among other things, it will not be moved in place; for it is not lawful for it to be moved, nor indeed

behind nor before, neither ever above nor below, nor to the right nor to the left will being ever be moved, nor will it ever be moved about its own center, but rather it will stand fixed and firm and steadfast, always remaining the same and in the same state." And further on after other matters he adds: "So much then by way of preface. I myself will no longer be evasive nor will I claim ignorance of the name of the incorporeal; for indeed it now seems more pleasant to speak than not to speak. And so I declare that its name is this long-sought one. But let no one laugh if I say that the name of the incorporeal is being and essence. And the reason for the name 'being' is that it has not come to be nor will it be destroyed, nor does it admit any other motion or change for better or worse, but is simple and unalterable and in the same form, neither willingly departing from its identity nor being compelled by another. And Plato also said in the Cratylus that names are imitations of things, being themselves added. Let it therefore be established and decreed that being is incorporeal." Then a little later he adds: "I said that being is incorporeal, and that this is the intelligible. Now the things said, as many as I can recall, were of this sort. But I wish to console the inquiring argument by suggesting this much, that if these things do not agree with the doctrines of Plato, yet one ought to think they belong to some other great man, a man of great power, such as Pythagoras. For Plato says—let me recall how he puts it: 'What is that which always is and has no becoming? And what is that which becomes but never is?

Now that which is comprehensible by intellection with reason, and that which is opinable by opinion with irrational sense-perception, coming into being and perishing, but never really being. For he asked what being is, declaring it to be ungenerated without dispute. For he said that generation does not belong to being; for it would then change; and if changing, it would not be eternal. Then, going on, he says: "If being is entirely eternal and unchangeable and in no way whatsoever departing from itself, but remains according to the same and stands in like manner, this would presumably be that which is comprehensible by intellection with reason. But if body flows and is carried away by direct change, it escapes and is not. Hence is it not great madness that this is not indefinite, but opinable only by opinion and, as Plato says, coming into being and perishing, but never really being?" These things, then, Numenius, interpreting both the teachings of Plato and, much earlier, those of Moses, brings to clarity. And fittingly that saying is circulated about him, through which he is remembered to have said: "What is Plato but Moses speaking Attic?" Observe, moreover, whether Plutarch, unfolding the present thought more fully, would not concur with the aforementioned utterances of the philosophers and with those of the Hebrews set forth in other theologies, through which at one time the oracular god is introduced speaking:

Because I am the Lord your God and I have not changed." But at another time the prophet, looking to him, declares that while all visible things might at some time be turned and altered, "You are the same, and your years do not fail." Consider, then, whether Plutarch, in his work On the E at Delphi, does not seem to interpret the thought, speaking as follows word for word, as if in a proposition of the one who said through Moses "I am the one who is," and "I am the Lord your God and I have not changed," and "You are the same":

12. PLUTARCH, FROM THE WORK ENTITLED ON THE E AT DELPHI: "Therefore I think that the letter signifies neither number nor order nor conjunction nor any other of the deficient particles; but it is a complete address and salutation of the god, which, together with the utterance, places the speaker in the conception of the god's power. For the god, greeting each of us who approach here, says 'Know yourself,' which is no less than 'Hail'; and we, in turn, addressing the god, say 'You are,' as giving back the true and unerring address of 'being,' which alone is fitting for the only one. For we truly have no share in being, but every mortal nature, placed in the midst of destruction and generation, provides a phantom and a dim and unstable semblance of itself.

If one should apply the mind, wishing to grasp it, just as a violent grip on water, by pressing and compressing it as it flows, destroys what is seized, so reason, pursuing the excessive clarity of each of the passible and changeable things, slips away, on the one hand toward its coming to be, on the other toward its perishing, unable to grasp anything that remains or truly exists. "For it is not possible to step twice into the same river," according to Heraclitus, nor to touch mortal substance twice in the same state, but with the swiftness and speed of change it scatters and again gathers, or rather not again nor later, but simultaneously it is constituted and departs, approaches and goes away. Hence the thing that comes to be does not reach being, because its generation never ceases nor stands still, but always changing from seed it makes an embryo, then an infant, then a child, a youth in succession, a young man, a man, an elder, an old man, destroying the first generations and ages by those that follow. But we fear one death ridiculously, having already died and dying so many times. For not only, as Heraclitus said, "the death of fire is the birth of air," but even more clearly in our own case: the one in his prime perishes when an old man comes to be, the young man perishes into the one in his prime, and the child into the young man, the infant into the child, and yesterday has died into today, and today into tomorrow; no one remains nor is one, but we become many, around some one phantom and common impression of matter being driven and slipping away.

For how can we, remaining the same, now delight in one thing, before in another, love and hate and admire and blame opposites, employ different arguments, different passions, no longer having the same form, the same shape, the same thought? For it is not likely that one should suffer different things without change, nor, if changing, would he be the same. But if he is not the same, then he exists only by changing, becoming other from other; but perception is deceived, in ignorance that what appears is not what really is. What, then, is that which really is? That which is eternal and ungenerated and imperishable, upon which no time brings change. For time is something mobile, and is co-imagined with moving matter, ever flowing and not containing, like a vessel of destruction and generation. Indeed, the "after" and the "before" and what is called "will be" and "has been" are of themselves a confession of non-being. For to say that what has never come into being or has already ceased to be, is, is foolish and absurd. And when we most fix our thought upon time, and utter "it stands" and "it is present" and "now," this again, as reason slips away, it destroys. For it is squeezed out into the future and the past, like a ray of light to those wishing to see, necessarily dispersing. And if the measured nature suffers the same as the measurer, it too is neither abiding nor being, but is coming to be and perishing according to its distribution with time. Hence one cannot say of that which is such as "was" or "will be"; for these are inflections and transitions and variations of that which is not naturally disposed to remain in being.

But God is, if one must say so, and exists in no time, but in the immovable, timeless, and unswerving eternity, in which there is nothing before, nothing after, nothing future, nothing past, nothing older, nothing younger; but being one, he has filled the "always" with a single "now"; and he alone is that which truly is, not having come to be, nor about to be, nor having begun, nor about to cease. Thus, then, must we who revere him greet and address him, or even, by Zeus, as some of the ancients said, "Thou art One." For the divine is not many, as each of us is, a motley and festive mixture of countless differences arising in passions; but Being must be one, just as the One is being; otherness, a difference of being, departs into generation from non-being.

13. That the Divine is Ineffable. Since Moses and all the prophets among the Hebrews teach that the divine is ineffable, and indicate the symbol of the ineffable appellation through their unutterable sign, Plato also, in agreement with them, says in his great Epistle in these words: "For it is not at all expressible like other subjects of study, but from much intercourse arising about the matter itself and from living together, suddenly, like a light kindled from a leaping fire, it comes to be in the soul and then nourishes itself." And this example of light was anticipated by another Hebrew prophet who said: "The light of your face has been marked upon us, O Lord," and again another: "In your light we shall see light.

14. That God is One Only. Moses said concerning the God of the universe: "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one." Again, Plato, concurring with this, teaches that God is one, just as the heaven is one, speaking somewhere in the Timaeus as follows: "Now, have we been right to call it one heaven, or would it be more correct to speak of many and infinite? It is one, if it is to have been crafted according to the model. For that which contains all intelligible living beings would never be second to another." He clearly knows one God, even if, as is customary among Greeks, he is accustomed to use the plural appellation, and from the Letter to Dionysius, in which, giving signs of the letters written by him with care and those otherwise carelessly thrown off, he said that he would prefix the name of gods to those having nothing serious, and the name of God to those composed by him with thought. He speaks thus verbatim: "Concerning the symbol about the letters, as many as I send with care and as many as not, I think you remember, but still consider and pay close attention; for there are many who urge me to write, whom it is not easy to reject openly. Now, the serious letter begins with God, the less serious with gods." The same author explicitly admits that he has learned the doctrine concerning God from ancient sources, saying in the Laws: "God, as the ancient account says, holding the beginning, end, and middle of all existing things, proceeds straight according to nature, moving in a circle. And with him always follows Justice, the avenger of those who fall short of the divine law; and he who is about to be happy, clinging to her, follows humbly and orderly.

But if someone, lifted up by arrogance or puffed up by wealth or honors or even by beauty of body together with youth and folly, burns in his soul with insolence, as if he needed neither ruler nor any guide, but was even capable of leading others, he is left deserted by God, and having been deserted and having taken on yet others like himself, he leaps about, disturbing everything at once, and to many he seemed to be someone, but after not much time, having incurred a punishment not blameworthy to justice, he utterly destroyed himself, his house, and his city." These things Plato [says]. Compare to "going through nature" the "he saw the straightnesses of his face"; and to "with it always accompanies justice, the avenger of those who depart from the divine law," compare "the Lord is just and loved justices" and "vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord" and "because the Lord is an avenger and repays those who do excessive pride"; and to "which the one who is going to be happy, clinging to it, follows, humble and orderly," follows "you will walk behind the Lord your God"; and to "the one lifted up by arrogance is left deserted by God," "God sets himself against the proud, but gives grace to the humble" and "the joy of the impious is an extraordinary fall." These then are a few things from countless concerning the God over all. But behold also the things concerning the second cause.

15. ON THE SECOND PRINCIPLE. Let these things be acknowledged by us in this manner concerning the first principle of all things. But consider also the matters concerning the second, which the oracles of the Hebrews teach to be the Word of God and God from God, even as we ourselves have been taught to theologize. Now Moses explicitly theologizes two Lords, where he says: "And the Lord rained down fire and brimstone from the Lord upon the city of the impious," where he made, as is his custom, a juxtaposition of the two characters used among the Hebrews; this is the ineffable theology among them through the four letters. And David, another prophet and also king of the Hebrews, in agreement with this, says: "The Lord said to my Lord, 'Sit at my right hand,'" indicating the highest God through the first Lord, and the second to him through the second appellation. For to whom else is it lawful to suppose that the right hand of the unbegotten divinity is yielded except to the one concerning whom the discourse is? Whom the same prophet in other passages more clearly explains, establishing that the one being theologized is the creative Word of the Father of all things, where he says: "By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made firm." And he introduces the same as a savior of those in need of healing from him, saying: "He sent his Word, and it healed them." And his son and successor Solomon, presenting the same thought under a different appellation, calling it Wisdom instead of Word, sets forth the following as from its own person: "I, Wisdom, have made counsel my dwelling, and I have summoned knowledge and understanding." Then he adds in sequence:

The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works; before the age he established me, in the beginning before he made the earth, before the mountains were fixed; before all hills he brings me forth. When he prepared the heaven, I was present with him. And again, of the same author are these words: God established the earth in wisdom, and prepared the heavens in understanding. And further, these also are said to be of the same: I have known all that is hidden and manifest; for wisdom, the artificer of all things, taught me. Then he adds: What wisdom is and how it came to be, I will declare and will not hide mysteries from you, but will trace it from the beginning of its generation. And thereafter he explains such things as these: For this is an intelligent spirit, holy, only-begotten, manifold, subtle, mobile, clear, undefiled, all-powerful, all-overseeing, and penetrating through all intelligent, pure, most subtle spirits. For wisdom is more mobile than any motion. It pervades and passes through all things because of its purity. For it is a vapor of the power of God and a pure effluence of the glory of the Almighty. Therefore nothing polluted falls into it. For it is a radiance of eternal light and an unblemished mirror of the energy of God and an image of his goodness. It extends vigorously from end to end and administers all things kindly. So far the scripture. But Philo the Hebrew, interpreting the meaning of the doctrine more clearly, sets it forth in this manner:

10. Philo, On the Second Cause: "It is fitting for those who have established a fellowship for knowledge to desire to see that which is; but if they cannot, then at least its image, the most sacred word." In the same treatise he also says this: "Even if one is not yet worthy to be called a son of God, let him strive to be adorned according to his firstborn word, the most ancient of angels, as a polyonymous archangel; for he is called both beginning and name of God, and word, and the man according to the image, and the seeing Israel. Therefore I was led a little earlier to praise the virtues of those who say that 'we are all sons of one man.' For even if we have not become worthy to be considered children of God, yet we are of his invisible image, the most sacred word; for the word is the image of God, the most ancient." And again he adds: "I have also heard one of Moses' companions uttering such a saying: 'Behold a man whose name is Anatole'; a very novel appellation, if you suppose it refers to one composed of body and soul; but if you acknowledge that incorporeal one bearing the form of the divine image, you will agree that the name Anatole was most aptly bestowed upon him. For the father of all things has raised up this son as the most ancient, whom elsewhere he named the firstborn. And the one who was born, imitating the ways of his father, looking to his archetypal patterns, formed the forms." Let these things be set down here by me from the Hebrew Philo, taken from the treatise entitled "That the Worse Attacks the Better.

Already on another occasion, when I was setting forth the doctrines of the piety of the ancient Hebrews in the books of the *Evangelical Preparation*, the matters concerning the second cause were sufficiently discussed, to which I will now refer the studious. Since so much has been theologized among the Hebrews concerning the second cause of all things in this manner, it is now time to hear Plato also speaking as follows in the *Epinomis*:

17. Plato, On the Second Cause: "And let us assign honors not to one for a year, to another for a month, and to others assign no portion nor any time in which he traverses his own orbit, jointly completing the cosmos, which the most divine reason ordained; which the blessed man first admired, and then conceived a desire to learn as much as is possible for mortal nature." And also in the *Letter* to Hermias, Erastus, and Coriscus, the doctrine is set forth with great caution, as he writes word for word as follows: "This letter must be read by all three of you, best of all together, but if not, by two at a time, as often as possible, in common according to your ability, and you must use this as a covenant, law, and authority, which is justice, swearing with a zeal not unmusical and with the sister of zeal, education, and the

all men swear by God the leader of all things, both those that are and those that will be, and by the father and lord of the leader and cause; whom, if we philosophize rightly, we shall all clearly know to the extent possible for happy men." Does it seem to you that Plato, saying these things, followed the doctrines of the Hebrews, or from where else did it occur to him to address another god, superior to the cause of all generated things, the one who is indeed father of the universal leader? And whence did he derive the name "Lord" for the Father of the Demiurge, when no Greek before him had ever heard these things, nor had they even been brought to mind? But if we again need other witnesses for an indisputable demonstration of both the philosopher's thought and the construction of the argument, listen to what Plotinus, in his writings on the three principal hypostases, clearly sets forth:

18. PLOTINUS ON THE SECOND CAUSE: "If one admires this sense-perceptible cosmos, looking at its magnitude, beauty, and the order of its eternal motion, and at the gods in it, some visible, others invisible, and at daemons, animals, and all plants, let him ascend to its archetype and the more true reality, and there see all things intelligible and eternal from themselves, in their own intelligence and life, and over these the pure intellect as ruler and wisdom beyond contrivance." Then, following these, he adds: "Who then generated this? The simple one, the one before such a one, the cause of this one's being and of its being many, the one that makes number; for number is not first; for before the dyad is the one; second is the dyad, generated from the one." And again, descending, he adds:

How then and what must one think about that which remains? An illumination from it, but from it while it remains; like the bright light around the sun, always generated from it, while it remains. And all existing things, as long as they remain, give from their own substance a necessary hypostasis around them towards the outside, dependent on their present power, which is an image, as it were, of the archetypes from which it sprang. Fire gives its own heat, and snow does not keep the cold only within. Especially those things that are fragrant bear witness to this: for as long as it exists, something proceeds from them around them, which those who are near enjoy when they have come into existence. And all things that are already perfect generate; that which is always perfect generates always and eternally; and it generates something less than itself. What then must one say about the most perfect? Nothing from it, or the greatest things after it. The greatest after it is Intellect, and second. For Intellect sees that one and needs it alone, but that one needs nothing from this. And that which is generated from a superior Intellect is Intellect; and Intellect is superior to all, because the others are after it. To these he adds in sequence, saying: "Everything that generates desires what is generated and loves it, and especially when the generator and the generated are alone. And when the generator is also the best, it is necessarily present with it, separated only by otherness. We say that Intellect is an image of that one; for we must speak more clearly." And again he adds to these: "And for this reason the things of Plato are threefold: he says that all things are about the king of all, the first things, and the second about the second things, and about the third things the third.

He says that the cause has a father, calling the intellect the cause; for the intellect is the craftsman for him. And he says that this intellect makes the soul in that mixing-bowl. And since the cause is the intellect, he says that the good and that which is beyond intellect and beyond being is its father. And in many places he calls being and intellect the form. So that Plato knows that the intellect comes from the good, and the soul from the intellect, and that these doctrines are not new nor of recent origin, but were spoken long ago, though not openly, and that the present discourses have become interpreters of those, confirming by evidence that these opinions are ancient, by the writings of Plato himself." So says Plotinus. And Numenius, championing the doctrines of Plato in his work *On the Good*, interprets as follows, speaking himself about the second cause:

19. NUMENIUS ON THE SECOND CAUSE: "He who is going to understand concerning the first and second god must first distinguish each thing in order and in some good arrangement, and then, when it seems to be in good order, then he must attempt to speak in an orderly manner, but not otherwise; for it is said that for one who touches the heap before the first things come into being, the treasure becomes ashes. Let us not suffer the same thing; but having invoked the god, who becomes the guide of our own discourse, to show the treasure of thoughts, let us begin thus: it is necessary to pray already, but also to distinguish. The first god, being in himself, is simple, because, consorting with himself throughout, he is never divisible; but the second and third god are one; however, when he comes together with matter, which is a dyad, he unifies it, but is divided by it, since it has a desiring nature and is flowing.

Therefore, because it is not with the intelligible—for it would be with itself, since by looking at matter and caring for it, it becomes oblivious of itself. And it touches the sensible, tends to it, and leads it back again to its own character, having yearned for matter." And after other remarks he says: "For it is not necessary that the first god should create, and the creating god must be considered to have the first god as father. If, then, we were inquiring about the demiurgic god, claiming that the one who existed earlier must act in this way preeminently, this approach of the argument would be fitting; but if the argument is not about the demiurge, and we are inquiring about the first god, I will set aside what has been said, and let those things be unspoken, and I will attempt to capture the argument, hunting it from another direction. Before the capture of the argument, however, let us agree among ourselves on an indisputable understanding: that the first god is idle of all works and is king, while the demiurgic god rules, proceeding through heaven. And through this, our column exists, with the intellect being sent downward in a passage to all those ordered to participate. So when the god looks and is turned toward each of us, then the bodies live and are sustained, tending to the god's emanations; but when the god turns to his own lookout, these things are extinguished, and the intellect lives, enjoying a blessed life." These are the words of Numenius. Now compare with them the words from the prophecy of David, long sung among the Hebrews in this manner: "How great are your works, O Lord.

You made all things in wisdom. The earth was filled with your creation; all things look to you to give them timely nourishment. When you give, they gather; when you open your hand, all things are filled with goodness. But when you turn away your face, they are thrown into confusion. You will take back their breath, and they will perish and return to their dust. You will send forth your breath, and they will be created, and you will renew the face of the earth. For how would these things differ from the philosopher’s thought which declares that “when the god looks upon and is turned toward each of us, then the bodies live and are sustained, tending the god with his glancing beams, but when the god turns to his own contemplation, these things are extinguished”? And again, when the saving word among us says, “I am the vine, my father is the farmer, you are the branches,” listen to what Numenius theologizes about the second cause: “Just as again there is a word referred from the farmer to the planter, so in the same way the first god is related to the demiurge. For the one, being the seed of every soul, sows into all things that partake of his goods; the lawgiver plants and distributes and transplants into each of us what has been previously laid down from there.” And further on again, concerning how the second subsists from the first cause, he speaks as follows: “Whatever things, when given, pass over to the receiver, having departed from the giver, are service, goods, hollow coin, stamped coin.

Now these things are mortal and human, but the divine things are such that when given from here they come to be there, and from here they have not departed, and when they come to be there they have benefited one and harmed not another, and have contributed to the recollection of that which one knew. And this good thing is the good knowledge, of which the receiver has benefited, but the giver is not deprived of it. As you might see a lamp kindled from another lamp having light, which did not take away the former but rather the material in it was kindled by the fire of that other. Such is the thing of knowledge, which when given and received remains with the giver, and is present with the receiver, the same. The cause of this, O stranger, is nothing human, but because the disposition and substance that holds the knowledge is the same both in the giving god and in the receiving me and you. Wherefore also Plato said that wisdom came to men from Prometheus with a most brilliant fire. And again, going on, he says: "And these are lives, one of the first god, the other of the second god. Clearly the first god will be stationary, while the second is moved in the opposite direction; the first is concerned with the intelligibles, the second with both intelligibles and sensibles. Do not be surprised if I said this; for you will hear something much more wonderful. For instead of the motion present in the second, I declare the rest present in the first to be an innate motion, from which the order of the cosmos and the eternal permanence and the preservation flow out into all things." And further to these, in the sixth book he adds this:

Since Plato knew that among men the demiurge alone is known, but that the first mind, which is called the self-existent being, is completely unknown among them, for this reason he spoke thus, as if one were to say: "O men, the mind which you conjecture is not first, but there is another mind before this one, older and more divine." And after other matters he adds: "A helmsman, borne somewhere in the midst of the sea, high above the rudders, sitting at the tiller, directs the ship, while his eyes and mind are stretched straight toward the upper air and the heights, and his path goes upward through the sky, though he sails below on the sea; so also the demiurge, having bound matter together with harmony so as neither to shatter nor to stray from it, is himself established above it, as above a ship on the sea of matter; and he directs the harmony, steering with the ideas, and looks, instead of at the sky, toward the god above, directing his eyes toward him, and receives the critical part from contemplation, and the impulsive part from striving." And our saving word says: "The son can do nothing of himself unless he sees the father doing something." But such are the things of Numenius concerning this. And that he was not setting forth his own opinions, but those held by Plato, there is no need to add to his own words. And that Plato was not the first to use these conceptions, but that the wise men of the Hebrews preceded him, has been shown through the passages set forth.

Naturally, then, Amelius, who became conspicuous among the younger philosophers and was himself, if anyone, a zealous follower of Plato, yet called the Hebrew theologian a barbarian, and although he did not deign to mention the evangelist John by name, nevertheless bears witness to his words, writing these very things verbatim:

20. AMELIUS ON THE THEOLOGY OF JOHN THE EVANGELIST AMONG US: "So this was the Logos according to which things that come to be always are, as Heraclitus would affirm, and, by Zeus, as the barbarian affirms, established in the rank and dignity of the beginning, to be with God and to be God; through whom all things simply have come to be; in whom that which has come to be is by nature living and life and being; and to fall into bodies and, having put on flesh, to appear as a man, while even then displaying the greatness of its nature; and, indeed, having been dissolved again, to be deified and to be God, as it was before being brought down into body and flesh and man." These things, no longer obscurely but openly with bare head, having been translated from the theology of the barbarian, would be clear. And who was the barbarian for him, if not the evangelist of our savior, John, a Hebrew from Hebrews? Who, beginning his own writing, theologizes somewhere thus: "In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God; this one was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be which has come to be. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of an only-begotten from the Father." Concerning the same, listen also to what another Hebrew theologian sets forth: "Who is the image of the invisible God, firstborn of all creation, because in him were created all things in the heavens and on the earth, both visible and invisible; and all things subsist through him, and all things were created in him." But also the matters concerning the constitution and substantiality of the second cause have been harmonized here by the wise men of the Greeks with those of the Hebrews. Let us then proceed also to other matters.

9. CONCERNING THE THREE PRINCIPAL HYPOSTASES. Since the oracles among the Hebrews, after the discourse concerning Father and Son, enumerate the Holy Spirit in the third rank and posit the holy and blessed Trinity in this manner, as the third power transcends all created nature and is first among the intellectual substances constituted through the Son, but third from the first cause, observe how Plato also hinted at such things through his letter to Dionysius, saying: "I must speak to you in riddles, so that if the tablet should suffer something in the folds of the sea or the land, the reader may not understand. For it is thus: concerning the king of all, all things are, and for the sake of that one are all things, and that one is the cause of all beautiful things; second concerning the second things, and third concerning the third things.

Therefore the human soul yearns to learn what these things are, looking to its own kindred." Those who attempt to explain Plato refer these to the first god, and to the second cause, and thirdly to the soul of the cosmos, defining it also as a third god. But the divine oracles place the holy and blessed Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—in the beginning, according to what has been set forth. Next it is fitting to examine the substance of the good.

22. ON THE SUBSTANCE OF THE GOOD. Since the divine scripture among the Hebrews teaches in various ways that the substance of the good and the good itself are nothing other than God, through such statements as: "The Lord is good to all who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him," and "Confess to the Lord that he is good, because his mercy is everlasting," and also through the saving word which declared to one who inquired about this: "Why do you ask me about the good? No one is good except the one God." Listen to what Plato says in the Timaeus: "Let us then state the cause for which the constructor constructed generation and this whole universe. He was good; and in the good, envy never arises concerning anything. Being free from this, he wished that all things should become as like himself as possible." And in the Republic he says this: "Is not the sun, though not sight itself, the cause of sight, and is seen by that same sight? So it is," he said.

This then," I said, "I affirm that I mean the offspring of the good, which the good begot analogous to itself, that whatever that itself is in the intelligible place with respect to intellect and the objects of intellection, this one is in the visible place with respect to sight and the objects of sight." And next he adds: "This then, that which provides truth to the things known and gives the power to the knower, affirm to be the idea of the good." And again he says: "The sun, I think, you will say provides to visible things not only the power of being seen, but also generation and growth and nourishment, though it is not itself generation. How so? And to the things known, then, you will say that not only the being known is present from the good, but also that being and essence are present to them from that, the good not being essence, but beyond essence, exceeding it in seniority and power." Through these things most clearly Plato says that not only the being known of the intelligible substances, but also their being and having essence come from the good, that is, from God, and that the good "is not essence, but beyond essence, exceeding in seniority and power;" so that they are not to be posited as consubstantial with it, nor even to be considered unbegotten, since indeed they have received both being and essence from that which is not essence, but beyond essence, exceeding in seniority and power; which alone the oracles of the Hebrews fittingly proclaim as God, as being the cause of all things. Therefore, those things which have neither being nor essence from themselves, nor are of the nature of the good, it is not reasonable to consider gods, to which the good is not present by nature.

For this must be attributed to one alone and to no other, the sole good, which Plato wonderfully proclaimed to be "beyond all essence, surpassing it in seniority and power." And again Numenius, in his work On the Good, interpreting Plato's thought, expounds in this manner:

23. Numenius, On the Good: "Now it is possible for us to apprehend bodies by means of signs derived from similar things and from the inherent characteristics present in adjacent things. But the good cannot be apprehended from any adjacent thing, nor yet from any sensible similar thing—there is no device whatsoever for that. Rather, it will be necessary, as if someone sitting on a lookout were to catch sight of a small fishing boat, one of those skiffs, solitary and alone, held by the cross-seas, and with a single glance, sharp-eyed, perceived the boat, so must one depart far from sensible things and hold converse with the good alone, alone,

where there is no human being, nor any other living creature, nor any body great or small, but some unspeakable and indescribable, truly divine solitude, where are the habits, pastimes, and splendors of the good, and it itself in peace, in benevolence, the tranquil, the governing principle, gracious, riding upon essence. But if someone, clinging to sensible things, imagines the good fluttering about and then, in a state of luxury, thinks he has encountered the good, he misses the mark entirely. For in truth, not an easy, but a divine method is needed for it; and it is best to disregard sensible things, to be bold toward the mathematical sciences, to contemplate numbers, and thus to practice the study of what being is." So much in the first book; and in the fifth book he says the following:

If essence and form are intelligible, and mind has been agreed to be older and the cause of this, then this very mind alone is found to be the good. For if the demiurgic god is the god of generation, it suffices that the good is the principle of essence. And analogously, the demiurgic god is an imitator of this, while generation is to essence as its image and imitation. And if the demiurgic god of generation is good, then the demiurgic god of essence will be the good itself, connate with essence. For the second, being twofold, makes both his own form and the cosmos, being a demiurge, and then entirely contemplative. Since we have collected names of four things, let these four be: the first god, the good itself; his imitator, the good demiurge; essence, one of the first and another of the second; of which the beautiful cosmos is an imitation, adorned by participation in the beautiful. And in the sixth book he adds: "And the things that participate in him do so in nothing else, but only in intellection; thus they would benefit from the conjunction of the good, and not otherwise. And indeed intellection belongs only to the first. From which then the others are illuminated and made good, if this belongs to that one alone, it would be the mark of a foolish soul still to dispute. For if the second is good not from himself but from the first, how is it possible that that from which he has participation and is good is not good, especially since the second has partaken of him as good? Thus Plato by syllogism assigned to the sharp-sighted that the good is one." And again he says next:

Plato set these things forth as they are, separating them one from another. For in the Timaeus he wrote specifically of the circular motion in connection with the demiurge, saying "he was good"; but in the Republic he called the good the Idea of the Good, as though the good were the Idea of the demiurge, who has been shown to us to be good by participation in the first and only good. For just as men are said to be formed by the Idea of man, and oxen by the Idea of ox, and horses by the Idea of horse, so too, fittingly, the demiurge, if he is good by participation in the first good, would be the Idea of the Good, the first mind, which is the Good itself.

24. ON THE IDEAS ACCORDING TO PLATO. "Thus generated"—clearly the cosmos—"it has been crafted with reference to that which is comprehensible by reason and intelligence and which holds always in the same state. And these things being so, it is absolutely necessary that this cosmos be an image of something. For that intelligible living being contains all intelligible living beings within itself, just as this cosmos contains us." These are the words of Plato in the Timaeus. I will set forth the meaning of what has been said from the works of Didymus On the Doctrines of Plato. He writes as follows: "The Ideas are said to be certain paradigms, defined according to genus, of natural sensibles, from which arise the sciences and the definitions. For among all men, a certain man is conceived, and among all

Horses, a horse, and in general, among animals, the animal ungenerated and indestructible. And just as many impressions come from one seal, and many images from one man, so from each single idea come the natures of perceptible bodies in multitudes: from the idea of man, all men... and according to the same principle for the others that are natural. And the idea is an eternal substance, cause and principle of each thing being such as it is itself. Therefore, just as the particular forms precede the perceptible bodies as archetypes, so the one that contains all in itself, being most beautiful and most perfect, exists as the paradigm of this cosmos; for, having been assimilated to it by the god who crafted it, it was produced by him according to providence from the whole substance. These things are from the aforementioned man. But the all-wise Moses also anticipated these things, teaching that before the visible sun and stars, and before the visible heaven, which he calls the firmament, and before the dry land among us, and before the day and night among us, another light besides that of the sun, and day and night, and the rest, were made by the leader and cause of all things, God. But also the children of the Hebrews after Moses define that there is an incorporeal sun, not visible to all, nor accessible to mortal eyes, as the prophet says in the person of God: "For those who fear me, a sun of righteousness will rise." And another Hebrew prophet knows justice itself, not the particular justice among men, but the idea of it, who said concerning God: "Who raised up righteousness from the east? He called it before his face, and it will proceed.

will give before the nations." And our common discourse has just presented to us from the Hebrew scripture the divine Logos, incorporeal and substantial. Concerning this Logos, the following has also been said by the same authors: "He who became for us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption." He is called life, he is called wisdom, he is called truth. And the Hebrew teachings instruct that all things that exist and subsist in essence—if indeed the Hebrews are the apostles and disciples of our Savior—and indeed countless other incorporeal powers beyond the heavens and beyond all material and flowing substance, whose images they say are impressed in the sensible realm, for which they have already adopted the name "image." For they have explicitly said that man is an image of an intelligible paradigm, and that the entire life of men proceeds in an image. Thus Moses says: "And God made man; he made him according to the image of God." And again another Hebrew, philosophizing on ancestral traditions, says: "Indeed, man proceeds in an image." And now the interpreters of the sacred laws—listen to how they clarify the meaning in the writings of Moses. Thus the Hebrew Philo, interpreting the ancestral traditions, says in these very words:

25. Philo, On the Ideas in Moses: "But if one should wish to use the names more nakedly, he would say that the intelligible world is nothing other than the Logos of God already engaged in world-making. For the intelligible city is nothing other than the reasoning of the architect already intending to build the intelligible city. And this doctrine is Moses', not mine. For when he records the generation of man in the subsequent passages, he explicitly acknowledges that he was formed 'according to the image of God.' If the part is an image of an image, then clearly the whole form, this entire sensible world, if it is greater than the human, is an imitation of a divine image. And it is clear that the archetypal seal, which we call the intelligible world, would itself be the paradigm, the archetypal idea of ideas, the Logos of God. And he says that 'in the beginning God made the heaven and the earth,' taking 'beginning' not, as some think, in a temporal sense; for time did not exist before the cosmos, but came into being either with it or after it. For since time is the interval of the cosmos's motion, and motion could not occur before the thing moved, but must necessarily be established later or simultaneously, it is therefore necessary that time either be coeval with the cosmos or younger than it, while to declare it older is unphilosophical. If 'beginning' is not now taken in a temporal sense, it would be reasonable to indicate the numerical sense, so that 'in the beginning he made' is equivalent to 'he first made the heaven.'" Then he continues: "First, then, the maker made an incorporeal heaven and an invisible earth and an idea of air and of void.

Of these, one he called darkness, since air is black by nature, and the other abyss, for the void and the boundless are of great depth. Then there was an incorporeal substance of water and of spirit, and finally a seventh, light, which again was incorporeal and intelligible, a paradigm of the sun and of all the light-bearing stars that were to be established in the heaven. The spirit and the light were deemed to have precedence. For he named the spirit "of God," because spirit is most vital, and God is the cause of life; and the light, because it is exceedingly beautiful. The intelligible is as much more brilliant and radiant than the visible as, I think, the sun is than darkness, day than night, and the ruling faculty of the soul, the mind, than the eyes of the body. That invisible and intelligible light became an image of the divine Logos that interpreted its generation; and it is a supercelestial star, a source of the perceptible stars, which one might not inappropriately call "all-brightness," from which the sun, the moon, and the other planets and fixed stars draw, according to the capacity of each, their appropriate lights, that pure and unmixed radiance being dimmed wherever it begins to change in the transition from the intelligible to the perceptible. For nothing in the realm of perception is pure." And a little later he adds: "Since light came into being, and darkness withdrew and departed, and boundaries were fixed in the intervals between, evening and morning, the necessary measure of time was immediately completed, which he fittingly called day, and not the first day, but one day, which is so called because of the solitude of the intelligible world, which has a monadic nature.

The incorporeal world, then, already had its limit, being established in the divine Word; but the perceptible world was being brought to completion according to the pattern of this. And first of its parts, which is also the best of all, the creator made the heaven, which he aptly called a firmament, since it is corporeal; for body is by nature solid, being also three-dimensional; and what other concept of solid and body is there than that which is extended in every direction? Reasonably, then, opposing the perceptible and corporeal to the intelligible and incorporeal, he called this solid. So Philo. And Clement agrees with him in the sixth Stromateus, speaking thus:

20. CLEMENT ON THE SAME SUBJECT: "Barbarian philosophy knows again a world, the intelligible and the perceptible; the one archetypal, the other an image of the beautiful paradigm. And it assigns the one to the monad, as being intelligible, and the perceptible to the hexad; for among the Pythagoreans marriage, as a generative number, is called the hexad. And in the monad it establishes an invisible heaven and a holy earth and an intelligible light. 'For in the beginning,' it says, 'God made the

heaven and the earth; but the earth was invisible.” Then he adds: “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” In the perceptible cosmogony, he creates a solid heaven—but the solid is perceptible—and visible earth and visible light. Does it not seem to you that from this Plato leaves behind ideas of living beings in the intelligible world and creates the perceptible forms according to the intelligible kinds? Reasonably, then, Moses says that the body is formed from earth, which Plato calls an earthly frame, and that the rational soul is breathed in from above by God into the face. For here they say the ruling part is established, interpreting the entry of the soul through the sense organs as an advent in the first-formed man, which is why man is said to have been made “according to the image and likeness.” For the image of God is the divine and royal Word, the impassible man; and the image of that image is the human mind. Let us also hear what will be said.

27. Of the Hebrews and Plato concerning the Opposing Powers. Further, in addition to these things, Plato, following the teachings of the Hebrews, says that there are not only incorporeal and good powers, but also opposing ones, writing somewhere in the tenth book of the Laws: “Must we not say that a soul governs and dwells in all things that are moved in every way, and that it also governs the heaven? Why so? One, or more? I will answer for you. Let us posit no fewer than two: the beneficent one and the one capable of producing the opposite.” Then, going on, he says:

Since we agreed among ourselves that the heaven is full of many good things, but also of their opposites, and more of the latter, such a conflict, we say, is immortal and requires a wonderful guard, and our allies are gods and daemons, while we in turn are possessions of gods and daemons. Whence these things came to Plato I could not say; but what I can say is true, that many thousands of years before Plato was born this doctrine was acknowledged by the Hebrews. For their scripture says: "And it was like this day, and the angels of God came to stand before God; and the devil came in their midst, having gone around the earth and walked upon it," calling the opposing power "devil" and the good powers "angels of God." And it calls these good powers "divine spirits" and "servants of God" in what it says: "He who makes his angels spirits and his servants a flame of fire." But also the one who said the following sets forth the conflict of the opposites: "Our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of the darkness of this age, against the spiritual things of evil in the heavens." And Plato seems clearly to be translating the saying of Moses which said: "When the Most High divided the nations, as he scattered the sons of Adam, he set boundaries of nations according to the number of the angels of God," by which he defined the whole race of men as "possessions of gods and daemons.

28. On the Immortality of the Soul: Hebrews and Plato. And concerning the immortality of the soul, Plato does not differ from Moses in opinion. For the former first defined the soul in man as an immortal substance, declaring it to be an image of God, or rather to have been made in the image of God. For it says: "God said, 'Let us make man in our image and likeness.' And God made man, he made him in the image of God." And further, dividing the composite by reason into the visible body and that conceived according to the soul, he adds: "And God took dust from the earth and fashioned man and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul." But also he says that he became ruler and king of all things on earth. So he says: "And God said, 'Let us make man in our image and likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky and the beasts and the whole earth. And God made man in his image, he made him in the image of God.'" For how else could an image and likeness of God be conceived except according to the powers in God and according to the likeness of virtue? And Plato, as if instructed by Moses in these matters, listen to what he says in the Alcibiades: "Can we then say that there is anything more divine in the soul than that about which knowing and thinking are? We cannot. This part of it, then, resembles God; and one who looks to this and knows all that is divine, both God and wisdom, would thus know himself most of all. So it appears.

Therefore, just as mirrors are clearer, purer, and brighter than the mirror in the eye, so also is God purer and brighter than the best part in our soul? It seems so, Socrates. Then, looking to God, we would use that most beautiful mirror and, regarding human things pertaining to the virtue of the soul, we would thus most see and know ourselves. Yes." These things are in the Alcibiades. But in the On the Soul, he interprets more broadly concerning these topics: "Let us then posit, if you wish, he said, two kinds of beings, the one visible, the other invisible? Let us posit, he said. And the invisible always remains the same, while the visible never remains the same? Let us posit these things too, he said. Come then, he said, is there not something else of ourselves, the one part being body, the other soul? Nothing else, he said. To which kind, then, would we say the body is more similar and more akin? In every way, this is indeed to the visible. And what of the soul? Visible or invisible? Not by humans, at least, O Socrates, he said. But we were speaking of things visible and invisible according to human nature, or do you think otherwise? According to human nature. What then do we say about the soul? Is it visible or invisible? Not visible. Invisible, then? Yes. Therefore, the soul is more similar to the invisible than the body is, and the body to the visible. Necessarily so, O Socrates.

Therefore we were saying earlier that the soul, whenever it uses the body for examining something, whether through seeing or hearing or some other sense—for this is what it means to examine something through the body—then it is dragged by the body toward things that never remain the same, and it itself wanders and is disturbed and becomes dizzy as if drunk, because it is in contact with such things. Very much so. But whenever it examines by itself, it goes off to that which is pure, always existing, immortal, and unchanging, and being akin to it, it always comes to be with that, whenever it becomes by itself and is in itself, and it ceases from its wandering and, concerning those things, always remains in the same and unchanging state, because it is in contact with such things. And this experience of it is called wisdom. Absolutely, he said, you speak well and truly, Socrates. Then, from what was said earlier and now, to which form does the soul seem to you to be more similar and more akin? Everyone, I think, would agree, he said, from this method, even the most slow-witted, that the soul is more similar to that which always remains the same than to that which does not. And what about the body? To the other. Now consider also this: that whenever soul and body are in the same place, nature assigns to the one to serve and be ruled, and to the other to rule and be master; and according to this, again, to which does it seem to you to be similar?

divine and which mortal? Or does it not seem to you that the divine is by nature such as to rule and lead, while the mortal is such as to be ruled and serve? It does to me. To which, then, does the soul resemble? Clearly, Socrates, the soul resembles the divine, and the body the mortal. Consider then, he said, Cebes, whether from all that has been said these conclusions follow for us: that the soul is most like the divine, immortal, intelligible, uniform, indissoluble, and always remaining in the same state in relation to itself, while the body is most like the human, mortal, unintelligible, multiform, dissoluble, and never remaining in the same state in relation to itself. Have we anything else to say, dear Cebes, that this is not so? We have not. What then? Since these things are so, is it not fitting that the body should be quickly dissolved, while the soul should be altogether indissoluble or nearly so? How could it be otherwise? Do you understand, then, he said, that when a man dies, his visible part, the body, which lies in the visible realm and which we call a corpse, and which is liable to be dissolved, to fall apart, and to decay, does not immediately suffer any of these things, but remains for a considerable time—indeed, if one dies with the body in a fine condition and at such a season, even for a very long time? For the body, when it collapses and is embalmed, like those embalmed in Egypt, remains whole for an incredible length of time. And some parts of the body, even if it decays, such as bones and sinews and all such things, are nevertheless, so to speak, immortal, are they not? Yes.

The soul, then, is the invisible, that which goes to another place, noble and pure and invisible, truly to Hades, to the good and wise god, whither, if god wills, my soul too must go at once. But is this soul, such and so constituted, when it is separated from the body, immediately dissipated and destroyed, as most people say? Far from it, my dear Cebes and Simmias. Rather, it is much more like this: if it departs pure, dragging nothing of the body with it, because it has willingly had no communion with it in life, but has fled from it and gathered itself into itself, since it has always practiced this—and this is nothing other than philosophizing rightly and practicing dying easily. Or is this not the practice of death? Absolutely. Then, being in this state, it goes to that which is like itself, the invisible, the divine and immortal and wise, where, upon arriving, it is possible for it to be happy, freed from wandering and ignorance and fears and wild loves and the other human evils, and, as is said of the initiated, truly spending the rest of time with the gods. Shall we say this, Cebes, or otherwise? Thus, by Zeus, said Cebes.

But if, I think, it is polluted and impure, and is released from the body, always having been with the body and serving it and loving it and being bewitched by it, and by desires and pleasures, so that it thinks nothing else to be true except the corporeal, which one might touch and see and drink and eat and use for sexual pleasures, while the dark and invisible to the eyes, the intelligible and desirable to philosophy, this it has been accustomed to hate and tremble at and flee; do you think that a soul in such a state can depart pure and by itself? Not at all, he said. These are the words of Plato; Porphyry unfolds the meaning in the first book of his To Boethus On the Soul, writing in this manner:

29. PORPHYRY ON THE SAME SUBJECT: "Now, a strong argument that seems to Plato for the demonstration of the immortality of the soul, that from likeness. For if it is like the divine and immortal and invisible and indissoluble and indestructible and substantial and established in incorruptibility, how would it not be of the kind according to the paradigm? For when of two clearly opposite extremes, such as rational and irrational, something else is disputed as to which side it belongs, this was also a method of proof through showing to which of the opposites it is similar. For thus, although in irrationality in the first age of the human race it was held down, and many even up to old age abound in the errors of irrationality, nevertheless because it bears many similarities to the purely rational, this race was believed from the beginning to be rational.

Since, then, the divine system is manifestly pure and undefiled, and the earthly, material, and corruptible system is equally evident, while the soul's affiliation with either of these two parts is disputed by some, Plato thought it necessary to trace the truth by means of similarity. And because the soul in no way resembles the mortal, material, mindless, lifeless, and therefore tangible, sensible, generated, and perishing, but rather resembles the divine, immortal, invisible, intelligent, living, and akin to truth, and all those attributes he ascribes to it, it seemed inconsistent to grant the other similarities to God while denying that the substance of the soul partakes of the same likeness, on account of which it has come to possess these attributes. For just as things dissimilar to God in their activities are at once also different in the constitution of their substance, so it follows that things which share in some way in the same activities already possess similarity of substance. For it is on account of a particular substance that the activities are particular, as flowing from it and being its offshoots." Now, Boethus, removing the force of this argument, listen immediately at the beginning of the argument to what he has written as follows: "If the soul is immortal and a nature superior to all destruction, one must wait and examine many arguments before declaring. However, that nothing among us is more similar to God than the soul, one would believe without much investigation, not only because of the continuous and unceasing motion which it imparts in us, but also because of the intellect itself.

Looking to this, the natural philosopher of Croton said that the soul, being immortal, naturally flees all rest, just as divine bodies do. But also, the form of the soul in general, and especially the ruling mind within us, when one considers what plans and impulses it often stirs up, would reveal to the observer a great likeness to God. And he adds further: "For if the soul is shown to be the most similar of all things to the divine, what further need is there to require other arguments as a prelude to the proof of its immortality, and not to count this one among the many, since it is sufficient to convince the well-disposed, that it would not partake of energies akin to the divine unless it itself were divine? For if, even when buried in the mortal, dissoluble, mindless, in itself dead and ever-perishing and flowing into the change of destruction, it both makes and holds together that body and reveals its own divine substance, even though it is obstructed and hindered by the utterly destructive formation set before it, how, if it were separated from the irrational, like gold from enveloping clay, would it not immediately manifest its own form as being like to God alone, but also, because it partakes of him, preserves the likenesses in its activities, even in its most mortal state, as it is when confined in the mortal, and for this reason is not dissolved, because it was of a nature immune to corruption?" And a little further on he says: "And reasonably it appears both divine from its likeness to the indivisible, and mortal from its approach to mortal nature; and it descends and ascends and

is mortal-like and similar to the immortal. For a human is both one who gorges himself and strives to be sated like cattle, and one who is able to save a ship at sea through knowledge amid dangers, and one who saves in diseases, and one who discovers truth, and having methodically pursued it, devises means for the apprehension of knowledge, and inventions of fire-making, and observations of horoscopes, and imitations of the works of the creator through contrivances. For a human devised on earth the conjunctions of the seven planets with their motions, imitating through mechanisms what is in heaven. And what did he not devise, demonstrating the divine and god-like mind within himself? From these, revealing the audacities of an Olympian and divine being, and in no way mortal, he has persuaded the many, through self-love of their own downward inclination, to think him mortal-like from external appearances, since they are unable to see him as he is; and this is the sole means of consolation from vice, that by the equalization of their own misery through external appearances, they persuade themselves that, as the external, so the internal is for all humans. Of all these things, Moses has proven to be the teacher, who, expounding the first generation of humanity according to the proposed passages, confirmed the doctrines concerning the immortality of the soul through the assimilation to the divine.

But since the matters concerning the incorporeal and invisible substance have been shown to be in agreement and of like opinion with Moses and Plato, it is now time to survey the remaining parts of Plato’s philosophy and to demonstrate that the man is in every respect a friend to the Hebrews, except perhaps where, having been diverted, he was led to say something more humanly than according to the true account. Immediately, of the things said, as many as have been spoken correctly by the man would concur with the opinions of Moses, but as many as he supposed to be displeasing to Moses and the prophets would not have a consistent account. This will be shown by us at the proper time. For now, since it has been detected that in the contemplation of the intelligibles the things laid down are harmonious and in agreement, it is time, returning again to the physiology of the sensibles, to run through briefly the man’s agreement with the Hebrews.

30. ON THE COSMOS BEING GENERATED. Moses having declared this universe to be generated, that it came into being by God, he says, beginning his own writing: “In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth,” and after the details he adds: “This is the book of the generation of heaven and earth, when they came to be, on which day God made the heaven and the earth.” Hear Plato, how he does not fall short of this thought, writing somewhere thus: “Now everything that comes into being necessarily comes into being by some cause; for it is altogether impossible for anything to have generation without a cause.” And he adds: “Now the whole heaven, or cosmos, or whatever other name one might most appropriately call it, let it be so named by us.

We must therefore first consider concerning it, which is laid down as necessary to examine at the beginning about everything, whether it always existed, having no beginning of generation, or whether it has come into being, having begun from some beginning. It has come into being; for it is visible and tangible and has a body, and all such things are sensible, and sensible things have been shown to be comprehensible by opinion and generated. And to that which has come into being, we say that it is necessary for it to have come into being by some cause. Now to find the maker and father of this universe is a task, and having found him, to declare him to all is impossible. And again, further on he says: Thus then, according to the likely account, we must say that this world came into being, a living being endowed with soul and intelligence, in truth through the providence of God.

31. CONCERNING THE LUMINARIES IN THE HEAVEN. Again, Moses having taught that these also are generated, by what he said: And God said, Let there be luminaries in the firmament of the heaven to shine upon the earth; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and for years. And God made the two great luminaries and the stars; and he placed them in the firmament of the heaven. Similarly, Plato says: From such reason and thought of God, for the generation of time, so that time might come into being, the sun and moon and five other stars, having the additional name planets, have come into being for the determination and guardianship of the numbers of time.

Having made their bodies, God placed them in the circuits." Observe whether the phrase "from the reason and thought of God" spoken by Plato is not similar to that among the Hebrews which says, "By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the spirit of his mouth all their powers." And also when Moses said, "And he placed them in the firmament," Plato has used a similar expression, "he placed," saying, "Having made their bodies, God placed them in the circuits."

32. THAT ALL THE WORKS OF GOD ARE GOOD. When the Hebrew scripture declares concerning each of the creations, "And God saw that it was good," and in the summary of all things says, "And God saw all things, and behold, they were very good," listen to Plato as he says, "If indeed this world is beautiful and the craftsman good, it is clear that he looked to the eternal." And again, "For the one is the most beautiful of things that have come into being, and the other is the best of causes."

33. CONCERNING THE ALTERATION AND CHANGE OF THE WORLD. And concerning this, when the whole Hebrew scripture speaks, sometimes through what it says, "And the heaven will be rolled up like a scroll," and sometimes through what it adds, "And there will be a new heaven and a new earth, which I make to remain before me, says the Lord," and again at other times through what it says, "For the form of this world passes away," listen to how Plato establishes the doctrine, saying in the Timaeus, "And he constituted a heaven visible and tangible.

And for these reasons, from such things and in number four, the body of the cosmos was generated, having through proportion become harmonious and possessing friendship from them, so that, having come together into the same as itself, it became indissoluble by others except by the one who bound it together." Then next he says: "Time, then, came into being together with the heaven, so that, having been generated together, they might also be dissolved together, if ever any dissolution of them should occur." And again, having said: "Gods of gods, of whom I am the creator and father of works, indissoluble if I do not will it," he adds, saying next: "Now everything that is bound is dissoluble, but that which is well fitted and in good condition is unwilling to be dissolved through evil. Therefore, since you have come into being, you are not immortal nor entirely indissoluble. Yet you will certainly not be dissolved nor will you meet with a portion of death, having obtained a bond greater and more authoritative than those with which you were bound when you came into being." And in the *Statesman* the same author says: "For this whole universe is at one time itself guided and revolved by the god, and at another time it is let go, when the cycles of the time appropriate to it have already received their measure, and then it is again turned spontaneously in the opposite direction, being a living thing and having received intelligence from the one who fitted it together in the beginning. This again is for it

to go, for this reason, has become innate. For what reason, then? That which always remains the same and in the same state and is identical belongs only to the most divine of all things, but the nature of body is not of this order. That which we have named heaven and cosmos has partaken of many blessed things from its generator, yet it has also shared in body; hence it is impossible for it to be without change throughout, but as far as possible it moves in the same place and in the same manner with a single motion, because it has received the revolution, which is the smallest deviation of its own motion. For it is possible for almost nothing to turn itself perpetually except the leader of all things that are moved. And it is not lawful for this one to move something sometimes in one way and then again in the opposite. From all these things, then, one must not say that the cosmos itself always turns itself, nor that it is wholly turned by god in two opposite revolutions, nor again that two gods thinking opposite things turn it, but rather what was just said and remains alone: that sometimes it is guided by another divine cause, acquiring life again and receiving fabricated immortality from the demiurge, and sometimes, when it is released, it goes by itself, being let go at the opportune time, so that it proceeds in reverse for many myriads of periods, because it is very great and most evenly balanced, moving on the smallest foot. Indeed, it appears quite reasonably that all you have gone through has been said. Having reasoned, then, let us understand the affection from what has now been said, which we said is the cause of all wondrous things. For this is precisely it. What kind?

That the motion of the universe is sometimes carried in the direction in which it now revolves, and sometimes in the opposite direction. How so? This change must be considered the greatest and most perfect of all the turnings that occur in the heavens. It seems so, at any rate. So we must suppose that the greatest changes occur at that time to the beings that dwell within it. And this is likely. And great, many, and varied changes occurring together—do we not know that the nature of animals bears them with difficulty? Of course. Then the greatest destructions necessarily occur at that time among the other animals, and indeed only a small portion of the human race is left. And besides these, many other remarkable and strange afflictions befall them, but the greatest is this, which accompanies the reversal of the universe at that time, when the turning opposite to the present one occurs. To all this, proceeding next concerning the resurrection of the dead, moved similarly to the opinions of the Hebrews, he adds the following:

34. CONCERNING THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD, FROM THE SAME AUTHOR: "What then was the generation of animals at that time, O Stranger, and in what manner were they born from each other? It is clear, O Socrates, that in the nature of that time, birth from each other did not occur, but that which is once called the earth-born race was that which at that time was again turned up from the earth, and it was remembered by our first ancestors, who bordered on the time after the previous revolution ended and at the beginning of this one were born; for these became the heralds to us of these accounts, which are now wrongly disbelieved by many. For from this, I think, one must understand.

It is consistent that the elders go to the nature of the child from those who have died, and again lying in the earth, being reconstituted there and revived, they follow the turn, with generation being revolved in the opposite direction, and thus earth-born men necessarily spring up in this way, having that name and account, as many as

their god did not convey to another portion. So this indeed follows from what has been said before." Then again proceeding next, he sets forth in the following manner things similar to the doctrines of the Hebrews concerning the consummation of the world:

35. AGAIN CONCERNING THE CONSUMMATION OF THE WORLD "For when the time of all these things was completed and a change had to occur, and indeed the entire earthly race was already destroyed, each soul having rendered all the generations, as many seeds as were assigned to each having fallen into the earth, then indeed the helmsman of the universe, as if letting go of the tiller of the rudders, withdrew to his own lookout, and fate and innate desire turned the world back again. Therefore all the gods who were co-rulers in the regions with the greatest daemon, knowing what was happening, let go of their care for the parts of the world. And the world, turning back and colliding, set in motion an opposite impulse of beginning and end, causing a great earthquake within itself, and produced another destruction of all kinds of living beings.

After this, when sufficient time had passed and the turmoil and disturbance were already ceasing, and the earthquakes were taking on calm, and it was being adorned and proceeding in its accustomed course, having itself the care and power over what is in it and of itself." And he adds shortly after, saying: "Therefore, at that time, the god who had adorned it, seeing it in difficulty, caring lest it be storm-tossed by disturbance and, dissolved, sink into the infinite place of unlikeness, again becoming the overseer of its rudders, turning back the parts that had sickened and been dissolved in its own previous cycle, adorns and corrects it, and renders it immortal and ageless. This is said to be the end of all things."

30. HOW PLATO, SIMILARLY TO THE WORDS OF THE HEBREWS, RELATES THAT THE DEAD ARE RAISED. "These things, then," I said, "are nothing in number or magnitude compared to what awaits each when it has ended. But you must hear them, so that each of them may fully receive what is owed by the account to be heard." "You would speak," he said, "as to one who hears not many things but gladly." "But I will not," I said, "tell you the tale of Alcinous, but of a valiant man, Er the Armenian, by race a Pamphylian, who once died in war, and when the dead were taken up on the tenth day, already decayed, he was taken up sound, and when brought home and about to be buried, on the twelfth day, lying on the pyre, he revived, and upon reviving he told what he saw there. He said that when his soul had departed, he journeyed with many and they arrived at a certain daemonic place, where there were two chasms in the earth, close to each other, and in the heaven above, opposite them, two others.

Judges were seated among these, who, when they had given judgment, ordered the just to proceed to the right and upward through the sky, having attached signs of their judgments from before, and the unjust to the left and downward, these also having behind them signs of all they had done. And when he himself approached, he said that he must become a messenger to men of the things there and to command them to listen and to observe all things in that place. This is what Plato says; and akin to these things Plutarch also relates somewhere in the first book On the Soul as follows:

37. Plutarch, On the Similar: "We ourselves were present with this Antyllus; but let us relate it to Sosicles and Heracleon. For being ill recently, he seemed to the physicians to be in a hopeless condition; but having recovered a little from a not violent coma, he did and said nothing else out of the ordinary, but said that he had died and had been sent back again, and that he would not die at all from that illness, but that those who had brought him had heard wrongly from the Lord; for having been sent for Nicander, they had come bringing him instead of that one. Now Nicander was a shoemaker, but otherwise one of those who had been in the wrestling school and was familiar and known to many. Hence the young men approaching mocked him as having run away and corrupted the servants from there. He himself, however, was evidently immediately disturbed and annoyed; and finally, when a fever suddenly attacked him, he died on the third day. But this one revived, and is still alive, doing well, and is the most reasonable of our guests." Let these things be set down because also in the Hebrew scriptures resurrections of the dead are recorded.

Since they also contain that a certain land will be given only to the godly in promises, according to the saying: "But the meek will inherit the land," and the saying clarifies that this land is heavenly: "The upper Jerusalem is free, which is our mother," and the prophet hints at this same land, composed of precious and valuable stones in an allegorical manner, saying: "Behold, I prepare for you anthrax as your stone, and I will set your battlements of jasper, and your foundations of sapphire, and your enclosure of choice stones." See how Plato also confesses that these very things or similar ones are true in his On the Soul, attributing the account to Socrates as follows:

38. How Plato also expounds similarly to the Hebrews concerning the so-called heavenly land. "But indeed, Simmias, it does not seem to me to be the art of Glaucus to describe what it is; yet as to its truth, it appears to me more difficult than according to the art of Glaucus. And at the same time, I perhaps would not be capable, and even if I knew, my life, Simmias, seems to me not to suffice for its length. However, the form of the earth, as I am persuaded it is, and its regions, nothing prevents me from describing. 'But,' said Simmias, 'even these suffice.' I am persuaded, then, he said, first of all, that if it is spherical in the middle of the heaven, it needs neither air to prevent it from falling nor any other such necessity, but the likeness of the heaven itself to itself in all directions and the equilibrium of the earth itself are sufficient to hold it.

For it is a balanced thing, and if something similar is placed in the middle, it will have no more inclination this way or that, but remaining equally poised, it stays unbent. "First of all, then," he said, "I am convinced of this." "And rightly so," said Simmias. "Furthermore," he said, "it is something very great, and we dwell from the Phasis as far as the Pillars of Heracles in a small part of it, like ants or frogs living around a marsh by the sea, and many others elsewhere dwell in many places. For there are everywhere around the earth many hollows, various both in form and size, into which water, mist, and air have flowed together; but the earth itself lies pure in a pure heaven, where the stars are, which many of those accustomed to speak of such things call aether; and these things are the sediment of it, always flowing into the hollows of the earth. So we, dwelling in its hollows, are unaware and think we live on the surface of the earth, just as if someone living in the middle of the depths of the ocean thought he lived on the sea, and seeing the sun and the other stars through the water, supposed the sea to be the sky, and because of slowness and weakness had never reached the surface of the sea nor, emerging and rising up from the sea, had seen this place here, how much purer and more beautiful it is than their own, nor had heard from another who had seen it. We have suffered the same thing: for dwelling in some hollow of the earth, we think we live on its surface, and call the air heaven, as though through this heaven the stars pass.

But that it is the same, because of weakness and slowness we are not able to go through to the outermost air; for if someone should come to its edge or, becoming winged, should fly up, then looking up, just as here fish from the sea, when they leap up, see the things here, so too would one see the things there; and if one's nature were able to endure the sight, one would know that that is the true heaven and the true light and the true earth. For this earth here, and the stones, and every place here are corrupted and eaten away, like things in the sea by the brine; and nothing worthy of mention grows in the sea, nor is anything perfect, so to speak, but there are caves and sand and endless mud and mire, wherever there is any earth, and they are in no way worthy to be judged against the beautiful things among us. But those things would appear to differ far more from the things among us. For if it is proper even to tell a myth, it is worth hearing, Simmias, what the things on the earth under the heaven are like. "Indeed," said Simmias, "Socrates, we would gladly hear this myth." "It is said, then," he said, "my friend, first that the earth itself is such to look upon, if one should behold it from above, like the twelve-paneled balls, variegated, divided by colors, of which the colors here are like samples, such as painters use; but there the whole earth is made of such colors, and much more from brighter and purer ones than these.

For the sea-purple one is wondrous in beauty, and the gold-like one, and the one as white as gypsum and whiter than snow, and composed of the other colors likewise, and of even more and more beautiful ones than we have seen. For even these hollows of it, being full of water and air, provide some form of color, gleaming in the variegation of the other colors, so that a single continuous and variegated form of it is imagined. And in this, being such, such things grow proportionally, trees and flowers having fruits; and likewise the mountains and the stones have, according to the same principle, smoothness and transparency and more beautiful colors; of which the little stones here are these beloved fragments, sardians and jaspers and emeralds and all such things; but there nothing of such kind is not, and they are even more beautiful than these. And the cause of this is that those stones are pure and not consumed nor corrupted, as those here are, by decay and brine and the things that have flowed together here, which provide ugliness and diseases to stones and earth and to the other animals and plants. And the earth itself is adorned with all these, and also with gold and silver and the other such things. For they are manifest by nature, being many in number and large and in many places of the earth, so that it must be a spectacle for blessed spectators.

How also concerning the judgment after death Plato likewise believes, as do the Hebrews. The divine scripture of the Hebrews proclaims that there will be a judgment seat of God and a judgment of souls after departure from here, through countless other passages and through what it says: "He set up a judgment seat, and books were opened, and an Ancient of Days sat. A river of fire drew before him; myriads upon myriads ministered to him, and thousands upon thousands stood before him." Listen to Plato's divine judgment, and indeed to the river mentioned by name, as he describes many abodes of the pious and various punishments of the impious in agreement with the words of the Hebrews. He says then in the dialogue On the Soul the following: "A third river of these issues forth in the middle, and near its outlet falls into a great place burning with much fire and makes a lake larger than our sea, boiling with water and mud; from there it proceeds in a circle, turbid and muddy, and winding around the earth arrives elsewhere and at the extremities of the Acherusian lake, not mixing with the water; and after winding many times under the earth it discharges lower than Tartarus. This is the one they call Pyriphlegethon, whose streams send up fragments wherever they happen upon the earth. Opposite this, the fourth issues forth into a place first terrible and wild, as it is said, having a color all like cyanus, which they call Stygian, and the lake which the river makes by falling in is called Styx.

The one who falls here and receives terrible powers in the water, plunges down into the earth and, coiling around, goes opposite to Pyriphlegethon and meets the Acherusian lake from the opposite side, and not even the water of this one mixes with any other, but this one also, having gone around in a circle, discharges into Tartarus opposite to Pyriphlegethon; and the name of this one is, as the poets say, Cocytus. These things being so constituted, when the dead arrive at the place to which the daemon conveys each one, first those who have lived piously and justly and those who have not are judged. And those who are deemed to have lived in a middling way, having gone to the Acheron and embarked on the vessels that are there for them, arrive on these at the lake and there they dwell and, being purified, are released from their wrongdoings, paying penalties if they have committed any injustice, and receiving honors for their benefactions according to each one's worth. But those who are deemed to be incurable because of the magnitude of their sins, whether they have committed many and great acts of temple-robbery or many unjust and lawless murders or any other such things, these the appropriate fate casts into Tartarus, whence they never emerge.

Those who seem to have committed sins that are curable but great—for example, having done something violent to a father or mother in anger, and who live the rest of their lives in repentance, or who become murderers or something of that kind—these must fall into Tartarus, and having fallen and been there for a year, the wave casts them out, the murderers into Cocytus, the parricides into Pyriphlegethon. When they are burned in the Acherusian lake, there they cry out and call, some those whom they killed, others those whom they outraged, and having called, they beseech and beg to be allowed to come out into the lake and be received. And if they persuade them, they come out and cease from their evils; but if not, they are carried back again into Tartarus and from there again into the rivers, and suffering these things they do not cease until they persuade those whom they wronged; for this penalty was assigned to them by the judges. Those who seem to have lived exceptionally piously are freed and released from these places in the earth, as from prisons, and arrive above at the pure dwelling and are settled on the earth. Among these, those who have sufficiently purified themselves by philosophy live entirely without toil for the rest of time and arrive at dwellings even more beautiful than these, which are neither easy to describe nor is the time sufficient at present. But for these reasons, Simmias, we must do everything to partake of virtue and wisdom in life; for the prize is noble and the hope is great. Thus Plato.

But you will set beside the words "and they arrive at better dwellings, which it is not easy to describe nor is there sufficient time at present" our own text, which runs thus: "For an eye has not seen, and an ear has not heard, and it has not entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him." And to the aforementioned dwellings you will set the words "many abodes" promised by the Father to the godly, and to the statements about Pyriphlegethon the eternal fire threatened against the impious, according to the Hebrew prophet who says to them: "Who will announce to you that fire burns? Who will announce to you the eternal place?" And again: "Their worm will not die, and the fire will not be quenched, and they will be for a spectacle to all flesh." Observe also how Plato, in agreement with these, after saying that the impious will go to Tartarus, adds: "whence they never come out." And again, after saying that the pious will live in blessed places, he adds: "for all time and even into the future." But also the phrase "without toil" spoken by him would be similar to "pain and grief and groaning fled away." And when he says that those who go to the Acheron do not simply arrive there, but first "ascending, which are their vehicles," what else does he mean by "vehicles" than the bodies, into which the souls of the dead ascend and are punished together with them, according to the customs among the Hebrews? But since this discourse has received a sufficient outline, I will proceed to the twelfth book of the Evangelical Preparation.

12. Book 12 of the Preparation for the Gospel contains the following: 1. That even according to Plato, the children of the Hebrews rightly transmitted to their initiates a faith in learning that was unadorned, on account of its imperfection. From the first book of the Laws. 2. That according to Plato, the greatest of the virtues is faith. 3. That one must believe what is said about the soul and other such accounts. 4. That it will be necessary to present the first introductions to children in the form of myths. 5. That not harmful myths, but only beneficial ones, must be chanted to children. 6. That Plato not only accepted faith in word, but also in his own disposition confessed to believe and be persuaded by those things which we also believe. 7. That the sacred doctrines of truth ought not to be divulged to all. 8. What sort of rulers Plato says must be appointed: that they should be uneducated and illiterate, provided only that their character is well-ordered. 9. That one ought to flee from positions of authority. 10. Concerning justice according to Plato. 11. Concerning the paradise according to Moses. 12. That woman is said to have been taken from man. 13. Concerning the first life of man. 14. That they also associated with irrational animals. 15. How they remember the flood. 16. That the teachings are correctly derived by us from the

beginning from the beginning ends with human matters. 17. That it is good to train children from an early age in the customs of piety. 18. That the only education to be considered is that which leads to virtue, not that which leads to money-making or any livelihood-seeking pursuit. 19. That similarly to the Hebrews, Plato also held that the things here are images of more divine things. 20. That it is necessary to prepare young people for the attainment of virtue through the learning of correct hymns and songs. 21. What kind of thoughts the songs ought to contain. 22. That not everyone is able to compose correct songs and melodies, but only God or some divine man. 23. Concerning those who are to judge the songs composed according to God. 24. That songs are to be included in symposia as a kind of sympotic laws. 25. That not everyone is to be permitted the drinking of wine. 26. That Plato was not unaware that the laws he was legislating were practiced among some barbarians. 27. That war is against ourselves and the passions within us. 28. That not the body, but the soul is the cause of the evil deeds done by us. 29. Concerning the one who philosophizes purely. 30. Concerning all sophistry among humans. 31. That it will sometimes be necessary to use falsehood as a medicine for the benefit of those who need such a method. 32. That not only men, but also women and every race of people should be admitted to the aforementioned education. 33. That the whole nation should not be slandered because of those among us who do not live according to reason. 34. How Plato changed the sayings in Proverbs into a more Greek form. 35. Concerning wealth and poverty.

On the honor of parents, 37. On the acquisition of servants, 38. How the saying "Do not remove eternal boundaries which your fathers set" was changed, 39. Similar to "Repaying the sins of fathers upon the third and fourth generation to those who hate me," 40. On thieves, 41. On a thief being killed, 42. On a beast of burden, 43. That Plato used the same examples as the Hebrew scripture, 44. Further on similar examples, 45. Further on the same, 46. Further on the same, 47. That Plato also legislates that the citizens must be divided into twelve tribes in imitation of the Hebrew nation, 48. In what kind of place Plato legislates to establish the city; he describes something resembling that in Jerusalem, 49. How Plato rejects the preliminary Greek education as harmful, 50. On the opinion of the atheists; from the tenth book of the Laws, 51. How Plato constructs the argument concerning God, 52. How he expounds on God's providence over the whole. The twelfth book of our Evangelical Preparation will from here supply what is still lacking to the former harmony of Plato with the Hebrew oracles, as with the concord of a harmonious lyre, taking its beginning from an apology for our faith which is blasphemed by the many.

1. That even according to Plato, those being introduced to the right teachings of the Hebrews were given faith in the subjects without excessive precision, due to their immaturity, from the first book of the Laws: "If, then, someone were to criticize correctly or incorrectly the Laconian and Cretan constitutions, that would be another argument; at any rate, I might be more able than both of you to state what is said by the many. For among you, even if the laws have been only moderately established, one of the finest laws would be to allow no young person to inquire which of them are good or not good, but with one voice and from one mouth all are to agree that everything is well established by the gods, and if anyone speaks otherwise, they are not to tolerate hearing it at all; but if an older person among you perceives something, he is to make such remarks to a ruler or an age-mate, in the presence of no young person. 'That is most correct, stranger, what you command.'" Reasonably, then, the earlier scripture of the Hebrews also places faith before understanding and contemplation of the divine writings, through what it says: "If you do not believe, you will not understand." And again: "I believed, therefore I spoke." Hence also among us, for those recently introduced and incomplete in their condition, as if their souls were infantile, the reading of the divine scriptures is handed down more simply, with the command that they must believe as the words of God in what is contained; while for those advanced in condition and gray in thought, it is permitted to delve deeper and examine the meaning of what is said. These the Hebrews were accustomed to call "deuterotai," being interpreters and exegetes, as it were, of the meaning of the scriptures.

2. That according to Plato, faith is the greatest of the virtues: "Shall we then say next that you, Tyrtaeus, as it seems, praise most those who become distinguished in war against a foreign and external enemy? Would he say this and agree? Why not? But we, while these are good, say that those who become clearly best in the greatest war are far better. And we too have a poet as witness, Theognis, a citizen of the Megarians in Sicily, who says: 'A faithful man is worth as much as gold and silver to weigh against, in grievous civil strife, Cyrnus.' And we say that this man in a more grievous war becomes far better than that one, almost as much as justice, temperance, and wisdom coming together with courage itself are better than courage alone. For a man faithful and sound in civil strife could never come to be without the whole of virtue; but those who cross over well and are willing to die fighting in the war that Tyrtaeus speaks of are very many of the mercenaries, most of whom become bold, unjust, insolent, and nearly the most senseless of all, except for a very few. So where does this argument now end for us? And what clear point does he intend to make in saying these things? Obviously this, that more than anything else, the lawgiver here from Zeus, and every lawgiver who is of any use at all, will always lay down the laws looking especially to the greatest virtue.

There is, as Theognis says, this faithfulness in dangers, which one would call perfect justice." And among us, the saving word, having yoked together prudence with faith, judges the one adorned in both respects by his own words, saying: "Who then will be the faithful and prudent steward?" and again: "Well, good and faithful slave, you were faithful in few things, I will set you over many." Clearly, then, in these things he shows that he does not accept irrational faith, but that which is yoked together with the greatest virtues, if indeed prudence and goodness are such.

3. That one must believe what is said about the soul and the other such accounts, from the eleventh book of the Laws: "For at some point we seem to have gone through the previous arguments, that the souls of the departed have some power after death and care for human affairs. These things are true, but the accounts containing them are long. And it is necessary to believe both the other reports about such matters, being so many and very ancient, and also the lawgivers who declare these things to be so, if they do not appear altogether senseless." And in the book of Maccabees, the prophet Jeremiah is said, after his departure from life, to be seen praying on behalf of the people, as taking thought for men on earth. And Plato says one must believe these things.

4. That the first introductions for children ought to be given in the form of myths. From the second book of the Republic: "Now, there are two kinds of stories: one true, and the other false. Yes. And children must be educated in both, but first in the false ones? I do not understand, he said, how you mean. Do you not understand, said I, that we first tell myths to children? And this, to speak generally, is false, though it also contains some truth. And we use myths with children before we use physical exercises. That is so." So says Plato. And among the Hebrews also, it is customary to transmit the histories of the inspired scripture to the souls of the young more simply, as if they were some myths, while to those who have been trained in disposition, the deeper and doctrinal contemplations of the words are transmitted through what is called the second teaching and the clarification of the meanings hidden from the many.

5. That not the harmful myths, but only the beneficial ones, ought to be instilled in children. "Do you not know, then, that the beginning of every work is the most important, especially for anyone young and tender? For it is then especially that a character is molded and takes on the stamp which one may wish to impress upon each. Very much so. Shall we, then, so easily allow the children to hear any chance myths that have been made up, and to take into their souls opinions that are for the most part contrary to those which, when they are grown up, we shall think they ought to have? We shall by no means allow it. First, then, it seems, we must supervise the myth-makers, and approve the myth they make if it is good, and reject it if it is not.

Those who are selected we will persuade nurses and mothers to tell to the children and to mold their souls with myths much more than they mold their bodies with their hands. And of those now told, the many must be rejected." And these things were observed among the Hebrews before Plato. For those who had the divine spirit, a discerning spirit, approved what was rightly and from the Holy Spirit spoken and written, and rejected what was not such, just as also the words of the false prophets. And it was customary for parents and nurses to charm young children with the most beneficial narratives from the divine scriptures, as with some mythologies, for the sake of preparation for the piety that would be in them when they became men.

5. That Plato accepted faith not only by word but also by the very disposition to believe and be persuaded in these things, which we also believe. From the Gorgias: "Listen then, they say, to a very fine account, which you will consider a myth, I think, but I consider it an account; for I will tell you what I am about to say as being true." And a little later: "The one who has passed his life justly and piously, when he dies, goes to the Isles of the Blessed to dwell in complete happiness free from evils, while the one who has lived unjustly and impiously goes to the prison of punishment and justice, which they call Tartarus." And again a little later: "Then they must be judged stripped of all these things; for they must be judged when dead.

The judge must be naked, dead, beholding with the soul itself the soul itself suddenly after each one has died, bereft of all his kindred and having left behind on earth all that adornment, so that the judgment may be just. And he continues: "These things, Callicles, are what I have heard and believe to be true, and from these words I reason that something like this occurs: death is, as it seems to me, nothing other than the separation of two things, the soul and the body, from each other. And when they are separated, each of them no less retains its own condition, which it had when the man was alive: the body its nature, and its treatments and affections are all manifest. For example, if someone's body was large by nature or nurture or both while living, this man's corpse is also large when he dies; and if he was fat, the corpse is fat, and so on; and if he practiced letting his hair grow long, his corpse is also long-haired; or if someone was a scoundrel and had traces of blows, scars on his body from lashes or other wounds while living, the body when dead can be seen to have these; or if someone had broken or twisted limbs while living, so also when dead; and in a word, whatever condition the body was prepared in while living, all or most of these are manifest in it for some time after death. The same thing, it seems to me, holds for the soul, Callicles: all things are manifest in the soul when it is stripped of the body—both the things of nature and the affections due to the practice of each thing which a man had in his soul.

When, then, they arrive before the judge—I mean from Asia before Rhadamanthus—Rhadamanthus, having set them before him, beholds the soul of each, not knowing whose it is, but often, having taken hold of the great king or any other king or potentate, he sees that the soul is in no healthy state, but is scourged and full of wounds from perjuries and injustice, which each of his actions has imprinted upon the soul, and everything is crooked from falsehood and boastfulness, and nothing straight because it has been turned away from truth. And he sees the soul filled with asymmetry and ugliness from power, luxury, insolence, and intemperance of actions; and having seen it, he sends it dishonorably straight to the prison, where it is to go and undergo the sufferings that are fitting. Now it is fitting that everyone who is under punishment, being rightly punished by another, either becomes better and benefits, or becomes an example to others, so that others, seeing him suffering what he suffers, may become better through fear. There are those who both benefit and pay the penalty at the hands of gods and men—these are the ones who commit curable sins; yet their benefit comes through pains and sufferings both here and in Hades, for it is not possible to be freed from injustice otherwise. But those who have committed the worst injustices and have become incurable through such misdeeds—from these the examples are made; and these themselves no longer benefit at all, since they are incurable, but others benefit who see them suffering the greatest and most painful and most fearful sufferings for all time because of their sins, simply suspended as examples.

there in Hades in the prison, spectacles and admonitions for those who continually arrive for judgment. Of these, I say that one will be Archelaus, if what Polus says is true, and any other such tyrant. I think that most of these examples come from tyrants and kings and potentates and those who have done deeds of war; for they, through their power, commit the greatest and most unholy sins. Homer also bears witness to this. For he has represented kings and potentates in Hades as being punished for all time—Tantalus, Sisyphus, and Tityus. But Thersites, and any other wicked man who was a private citizen, no one has represented as being subject to great punishments as incurable; for, I think, he did not have the power; therefore he was more fortunate than those who had it. But indeed, Callicles, it is from among those who have power that very wicked men come; nor does this prevent good men from arising among them as well, and it is very much worth admiring when they do; for it is difficult, Callicles, and worthy of great praise, for one who has great power to do injustice to live justly. Such men are few; for both here and elsewhere there have been, and I think there will be, others good in this virtue of justly administering whatever one is entrusted with. One very notable man has arisen even among the other Greeks, Aristides the son of Lysimachus, and indeed all others, best Callicles, who become good.

As for the judges, as I was saying, when that Rhadamanthus takes someone of that sort, he knows nothing else about him, neither who he is nor whose son, but only that he is some wicked person; and having observed this, he sends him away to Tartarus, marking whether he seems curable or incurable. And he who arrives there suffers what is fitting. But sometimes, when he sees another soul that has lived piously and with truth, whether of a private man or of someone else, especially, I say, O Callicles, of a philosopher who has minded his own business and not meddled in life, he rejoices and sends him to the Isles of the Blessed. And Aeacus does the same; each of these judges holding a staff. But Minos sits alone as overseer, holding a golden scepter, as Homer's Odysseus says he saw him: holding a golden scepter, giving judgments among the dead. I myself, O Callicles, am persuaded by these words, and I consider how I shall show to the judge that my soul is as healthy as possible. Therefore, letting go of the honors of the many, I will practice truth, and I will try in reality to be as good as I can, both in life and when I die. And I exhort all other men, as far as I am able; and indeed I exhort you in turn to this life and this contest, which I say is superior to all contests here.

and I reproach you, because you are not able to help yourself when the trial and judgment come, which I was just speaking of, but when you go before that judge, the son of Aegina, when he seizes you and leads you away, you will gape and grow dizzy no less than I here and you there, and perhaps someone will strike you and box your ears dishonorably and in every way abuse you. Perhaps then this seems to you a tale told by an old woman, and you despise it. And it would be no wonder if you despised these things, if by seeking we could find something better and truer than them. But now you see that you three, who are the wisest of the Greeks—you and Polus and Gorgias—are unable to show that one ought to live any other life than this one, which appears to be beneficial even there, but when all other arguments are refuted in so many words, this argument alone remains undisturbed: that one must beware of doing injustice rather than suffering it, and that every man must practice not seeming to be good, but being good, both in private and in public." Now Plato speaks of Aeacus and Minos

and he posited Rhadamanthus as one of the judges of the departed, but the divine word testifies that all must stand before the judgment seat of God, "so that each may receive through the body the consequences of what he did, whether good or evil." And again: "On the day, it says, when God judges the hidden things of men, he will render to each according to his works, to those who seek glory and honor and incorruptibility through perseverance in good work, eternal life, but to those who from contentiousness and disbelief in the truth, and who obey injustice, wrath and anger; affliction and distress for every soul of the man who works evil, both of the Jew first and of the Greek; for there is no distinction."

7. THAT IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO DISCLOSE TO ALL THE SACRED DOCTRINES OF TRUTH "But beware lest these things ever fall into the hands of uneducated men; for almost, as it seems to me, there is nothing more laughable to the multitude than these teachings, nor again more admirable and inspiring to the well-endowed. Often repeated and always heard, and after many years, like gold, they are purified with great effort." And among us the saving word says: "Do not give the holy to the dogs nor cast your pearls before swine," and: "For the psychic man does not receive the things of the spirit of God; for it is folly to him.

8. What sort of men Plato says rulers must be appointed, that they may be private individuals and unlettered if only they are adorned in character. From the third book of the Laws: "And indeed, when a single man has beautiful words in his soul but they accomplish nothing more, but rather the opposite, all these most grievous forms of ignorance I would set down for a city and for each individual citizen, but not those of the craftsmen, if indeed you understand me, strangers, what I say. We understand, friend, and we agree with what you say. Let this then be established as decided and stated, that nothing of office is to be entrusted to those citizens who are ignorant of these things, and that they are to be reproached as ignorant, even if they are very rational and have cultivated all the refined things and all that pertains to quickness of soul, while those who are opposite to these are to be addressed as wise, even if, as the saying goes, they know neither letters nor how to swim, and offices are to be given to them as prudent. For how, friends, could even the smallest form of prudence come about without harmony? It is not possible. But the most beautiful and greatest of harmonies would most justly be called wisdom, of which the one who lives according to reason partakes, while the one who falls short will appear as a destroyer of the household and in no way a savior of the city, but rather the opposite, being ignorant in these matters on each occasion." Let these things be set down by me from the Laws. And the same author in the Statesman says the following about not being overly concerned with names and expressions: "Well said, Socrates; and if you preserve not being earnest about names, you will appear richer in prudence in your old age.

9. That one must flee from offices. From the first book of the Republic.

The Hebrew scripture first introduces Moses declining the leadership of the people through what he said to the one who was giving him oracles: "I beg you, lord, appoint another who is able, whom you will send." And then Saul hiding himself so as not to accept the kingship, and the prophet Jeremiah declining. Hear how Plato also establishes the reasonableness of declining, speaking thus: "Then, Thrasymachus, this is already clear, that no art or office provides what is beneficial to itself, but, as was said long ago, it provides and commands what is beneficial to the subject, looking to the advantage of that weaker one, and not to that of the stronger. For these reasons, I, my dear Thrasymachus, was just now saying that no one is willing to rule voluntarily and to handle and correct the evils of others, but asks for a wage, because he who is going to act well in his art never does what is best for himself nor commands according to the art when he commands, but for the subject. For these reasons, therefore, it seems, there must be a wage for those who are going to be willing to rule, either money or honor, or a penalty if they do not rule.

10. Concerning the Platonic Just Man. Since the oracles among the Hebrews teach that their own prophets and just men are to endure with good courage the worst insults and outrages and every danger, you may learn the agreement of Plato's opinion on this matter from these words of his, which he has placed in the second book of the Republic: "Let us then set up such a man, the just man, and place him in argument beside the unjust man, a man simple and noble, who, as Aeschylus says, wishes not to seem but to be good. And the seeming must be taken away. For if he seems to be just, there will be honors and gifts for him as one who seems such. It will then be unclear whether he is such for the sake of justice or for the sake of the gifts and honors. He must be stripped of everything except justice, and made to be in the opposite condition to the former; for committing no injustice, let him have the reputation of the greatest injustice, so that he may be tested for justice by not being softened by evil repute and its consequences; but let him be unchangeable until death, seeming throughout life to be unjust." And shortly after he adds: "It must be said, then: and indeed, even if it is spoken rather rudely, do not think that I am speaking, Socrates, but those who praise injustice before justice. They will say this, that the just man in such a condition will be scourged, racked, bound, have his eyes burnt out, and finally, after suffering all evils, will be impaled, and will learn that one ought to wish not to be just, but to seem just." These things Plato says in words.

But in deeds much earlier the just men and prophets among the Hebrews are recorded as having suffered all the things mentioned, who, being most just, were considered most unjust: "they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, they died by the sword, they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, lacking necessities, maltreated, wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and in the holes of the earth, of which the world was not worthy." And the apostles of our Savior, pursuing the highest justice and piety, but clothed in a reputation for injustice among the many, what they suffered it is possible to hear them saying: "We became a spectacle to the world and to angels and to men," and: "Until this very hour we hunger and thirst and go naked and are buffeted and are unsettled; reviled, we bless; persecuted, we endure; slandered, we exhort; we became like the scum of the world." But even to this day the noble martyrs of our Savior throughout the whole inhabited world, practicing not seeming but being just and pious, have suffered all that Plato enumerated; for they were scourged and endured bonds and racks, and indeed their eyes were gouged out, and finally after suffering all terrors they were impaled. You would not find anyone similar among the Greeks if you sought, so that it is reasonable for someone to say that the philosopher did nothing other than prophesy through these things concerning those who excel among us in piety and true justice.

11. Concerning the Mosaic Paradise. When Moses, according to certain secret accounts, said at the beginning of the constitution of the world that a certain paradise of God had come to be, and that in this paradise the man was deceived through the woman by the serpent, Plato, almost directly altering the very words, listen in the Symposium to what sort of things he himself has set down allegorizing, naming the garden of Zeus instead of the paradise of God, and instead of the serpent and the deception wrought by it, he posited Penia plotting, and instead of the first man, whom the wisdom and providence of God had put forward like a newborn son, he called him Poros, son of Metis, and instead of saying "when this cosmos was constituted," he said "when Aphrodite was born," thus allegorizing the cosmos on account of its beauty. He speaks then in these very words: "When Aphrodite was born, the gods feasted, both the others and Poros, the son of Metis. And when they had dined, Penia came begging, as though there were a feast, and she was about the doors. Then Poros, having become drunk with nectar—for wine did not yet exist—entered the garden of Zeus and, heavy with drink, slept. Then Penia, plotting on account of her own poverty to produce a child from Poros, lay down beside him and conceived Eros." Such things, then, in these matters also, Plato hinted at in a manner resembling Moses.

12. How They Say the Woman Was Taken from the Man. Again, when Moses said, "But for Adam there was no helper like himself. And God cast a trance upon him, and he slept, and He took one of his ribs and filled up flesh in its place. And the Lord God built the rib which He had taken from Adam into a woman," Plato, not understanding the intention with which it was spoken, is clearly not ignorant of the account, but attributes it to Aristophanes, as to a comedian accustomed to mock even the solemn things, introducing him speaking thus in the Symposium: "First you must learn the nature of human beings and its affections. For our nature long ago was not the same as it is now, but different. First, there were three genders of humans, not as now two, male and female, but also a third existed common to both of these, of which now only the name remains, but the thing itself has vanished; for there was then both a form and a name, androgynous, common to both male and female." Then, after ridiculing in his usual manner, he adds, saying: "Having said this," Zeus in his account "cut the humans in two, like those who cut eggs with hairs. And whichever one he cut, he ordered Apollo to turn the face and half the neck toward the cut, so that the human, beholding his own cutting, might be more orderly, and he ordered him to heal the rest.

13. On the First Life of Humans. When Moses described the first life of the earthborn as having taken place in a paradise of God, and that God was their leader in a way of life without money or possessions, that all things grew for them without sowing or plowing, and that they were naked of the covering that came later, listen to the philosopher interpreting these very things in the Greek language. He says: "God himself tended them, overseeing them, just as now humans, a more divine animal, tend other inferior kinds. While he tended them, there were no constitutions nor possessions of women and children; for all were born from the earth, remembering nothing of the past, but all such things were absent. They had abundant fruits from trees and much vegetation, not grown by agriculture, but produced spontaneously by the earth. They were naked and without bedding, spending most of their time outdoors grazing. For the climate was blended without distress for them, and they had soft beds from the abundant grass growing from the earth. You hear, Socrates, the life of those under Cronus; and this one, which the account says is under Zeus, the present one, you have perceived yourself.

14. That They Also Conversed with Irrational Animals. Again, when Moses recorded that "the serpent was more cunning than all the beasts," and set forth what the serpent said to the woman and the woman to the serpent, and the conversations of the serpent, listen to what Plato writes: "If then the nurslings of Cronus, having so much leisure and power available to them that they could not only converse with humans but also with beasts through speech, used all these for philosophy, conversing with beasts and with each other and inquiring from every nature whether any, having some particular power, perceived something different from the others for the gathering of wisdom, it is clear that those then differed infinitely from those now in happiness. But if they, gorging themselves with food and drink, told stories to each other and to the beasts, such as are now told about them, and this, in my opinion, is also quite clear. Nevertheless, let us leave these matters aside, until some competent informant appears to show us how those of that time had their desires concerning knowledge and the use of speech.

15. How They Mention the Flood. Moses, having laid down legislation for men, thought it necessary in his prooemia to mention the flood and the life of men after it, and then he sets forth the polity of ancient men among the Hebrews who were beloved of God and of those who were otherwise examined in transgressions, considering that the history of these matters would be suitable to what he was legislating. And Plato likewise, when he came to the writing of the laws, imitates the same manner as Moses; at least in the prooemia of the Laws he uses his own archaeology, mentioning the flood and the life after the flood; for beginning the third book of the Laws, listen to what he says: "Do the ancient accounts seem to you to have some truth? Which accounts? That many destructions of men have occurred by floods and diseases and many other things, in which a small race of men is left. Indeed, such a thing is very plausible to everyone. Come then, let us conceive this one of the many, that which happened by the flood. What sort of thing are we to think about it? That those who then escaped the destruction would be almost some mountain shepherds, small sparks of the race of men preserved on the peaks. Clearly. And indeed such men must necessarily be inexperienced in the other arts and in the devices in the cities against each other for greed and contentiousness and all the other evil machinations they devise against each other. Likely, then. Let us suppose that the cities in the plains and those dwelling by the sea were utterly destroyed at that time. Let us suppose.

Therefore we shall say that all instruments and everything that was diligently discovered belonging to art or politics or any other wisdom perished at that time." And after other remarks he says: "Therefore let us say that the state of human affairs at the time when the destruction occurred was thus: a certain vast and terrible desolation, and an immense abundance of land." Having said these and other similar things, he goes through the lives of men after the flood, and then, just as Moses attaches the polity of the ancient God-beloved Hebrews to the account after the flood, so Plato similarly, after the lives of those after the flood, attempts to give an ancient account of Greek affairs, as the former did of the Hebrews, and he mentions those at Troy and the first polity in Lacedaemon, the Persians, and those among them who lived either rightly or not; then after the history of these matters he begins the arrangement of the laws, in this also following Moses.

10. That the Teaching, Beginning Rightly for Us from Divine Matters, Ends in Human Matters. From the First Book of Plato's Laws. Since Moses made his entire legislation and his polity depend on piety toward the God of the universe, beginning his legislation from the creator of all things, and then taught that human goods flow from divine goods, and referred divine things to the ruling mind of all, that is, to the God of the universe, see how the philosopher, walking in the same footsteps, blames the lawgivers of the Cretans and Lacedaemonians, and teaches the law that pleases Moses, speaking thus:

Where then would you still have me divide and speak, and yourself listen? Shall I tell you? Certainly, O stranger. One must say: The laws of the Cretans are not in vain preeminently esteemed among all the Greeks; for they are correct, rendering those who use them happy. For they provide all goods. Goods are twofold: some human, some divine; and the latter depend on the former. And if a city receives the greater goods, it also acquires the lesser; but if not, it is deprived of both. The lesser goods are: first, health; second, beauty; third, strength for running and for all other bodily movements; fourth, wealth—not blind, but sharp-sighted, if it follows wisdom. The first of the divine goods, which governs, is wisdom; second, a temperate state of soul with mind; from these, when blended with courage, third would be justice; fourth, courage. All these are by nature ranked before those, and thus must be ranked by the lawgiver. After these, the other ordinances for the citizens, looking to these, are to be for them.

One must give orders, and of these some are human matters looking to the divine, and the divine matters all looking to the ruling mind; and concerning marriages shared with one another, and after these in the births and rearing of children, both males and females, and as they are young and advance to old age, one must rightly care for and dishonor those who honor correctly, and in all their interactions, having examined and watched over their griefs and pleasures and desires and the pursuits of all loves, one must rightly blame and praise through the laws themselves. And shortly after he says: "But the one who established the laws, having observed all this, will appoint guardians over them, some proceeding through wisdom, others through true opinion, so that the mind, binding all these together, may declare them attendant on temperance and justice, and not on wealth or ambition. Thus, O strangers, I would have wished, and even now wish, to go through for you how in the so-called laws of Zeus and those of Pythian Apollo, which Minos and Lycurgus established, all these things are present and in what order they have become manifest to one experienced in laws through art and certain customs, but to the rest of us they are not at all clear." And it has been said among us:

Seek first the kingdom and righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. But Moses also, much earlier, having made the beginning from the teaching about God and then having applied accordingly his own polity and the laws concerning contracts and common life, establishes as rulers and guardians over all those who are priests of God, as the oracles also teach, just men who hate arrogance, some going through wisdom, others through true opinion.

17. THAT IT IS GOOD TO TRAIN CHILDREN FROM AN EARLY AGE IN THE CUSTOMS OF PIETY. I say then and affirm that whoever is going to be a good man must practice this very thing from childhood, both in play and in earnest, in the things appropriate to each matter; for example, the one who is going to be a good farmer or some builder must play at building some childish buildings, and the other at farming; and the one who rears each of them must prepare for each small imitations of the real tools; and also of the necessary lessons they must learn beforehand, such as a carpenter measuring or weighing, and a warrior riding while playing or doing something else of that sort; and to try through their plays to turn the pleasures and desires of the children toward that which, when they arrive, they must have as their end. We call the chief point of education the right nurture, which will lead the soul of the one playing as much as possible into love of that which, when he becomes a man, he must be perfect in the virtue of the matter. And Moses, anticipating this, legislated, saying:

And these words, all that I command you today, shall be in your heart and in your soul, and you shall pass them on to your sons. This is indeed what the Hebrews are accustomed to do, from tender age rearing all their young with the teachings of piety; and this is still zealously observed among the Jewish nation according to ancestral custom.

18. THAT ONE MUST REGARD AS EDUCATION ONLY THAT WHICH LEADS TO VIRTUE, NOT THAT WHICH IS FOR GAIN OR SOME LIVELIHOOD

Let not, then, what we call education be left undefined. For now, reproaching or praising each man's upbringing, we speak of someone as educated among us, and another as uneducated, sometimes even in the case of those highly trained in retail trade, shipping, and other such pursuits. For the present argument, it seems, would not consider these to be education, but rather the education from childhood that leads to virtue, making one desirous and eager to become a perfect citizen, knowing how to rule and be ruled with justice. This nurture, as it seems to me, the present argument, having defined it, would now wish to call education alone, while that which tends toward money or some strength or even some other wisdom without mind and justice it would deem vulgar and illiberal and not at all worthy to be called education. But let us not quarrel with them over a name; rather, let the argument now agreed upon by us stand, that those who are rightly educated become nearly good, and that education must never be dishonored, as it is the first of the finest things to come to the best men.

And if ever it goes astray—and it is possible to correct it—this must always be done throughout life by every person to the best of their ability." And in the second book of the Laws he adds: "I call education the virtue that first comes to children; if pleasure and affection and pain and hatred arise correctly in souls when they are not yet able to grasp reason, and when they do grasp reason they harmonize with it, having been rightly habituated by the appropriate customs, this entire harmony is virtue, and the part of it that is rightly trained concerning pleasures and pains, so as to hate what ought to be hated from the beginning to the end, and to love what ought to be loved—this very thing, cut off by reason and called education, you would rightly call it, in my opinion." These are the words of Plato. But David, anticipating him in his psalms, teaching to hate what ought to be hated and to love what ought to be loved, says this: "Come, children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. What man is there who desires life, who loves to see good days? Restrain your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it." And Solomon similarly says: "Listen, children, to the education of a father. For I give you a good gift; do not forget my laws." And again: "Acquire wisdom, acquire understanding; do not forget." And: "Say that wisdom is your sister, and procure prudence as a friend for yourself." And:

Do not walk the paths of the impious, nor emulate the ways of the lawless." And you would find countless other such instructive passages in the writings of the Hebrews, conducive to the acquisition of piety and virtue, suitable for both the young and those of mature age.

19. THAT PLATO ALSO, SIMILARLY TO THE HEBREWS, HELD THAT THINGS HERE ARE IMAGES OF MORE DIVINE THINGS. When the divine oracle said to Moses, "See, you shall make everything according to the pattern shown to you on the mountain," and the sacred word more clearly stated, "Those who worshipped by means of a model and a shadow of the heavenly things," teaching that the symbols in Moses' writings directly contain an image of the more divine things in the intelligible realm, listen to how Plato also interprets similar matters in the sixth book of the Republic, writing as follows: "Now the philosopher, by consorting with the divine and the orderly, becomes orderly and divine, insofar as it is possible for a human being. But there is much slander in all things. Certainly, then. If, I said, it should become necessary for him to practice what he sees there in the characters of human beings, both in private and in public, and not only to mold himself, do you think he will become a bad craftsman of temperance and justice and of all popular virtue? Not at all, he said. But if the multitude should perceive that what we say about him is true, will they then be angry with the philosophers and disbelieve us when we say that a city would never otherwise be happy, unless those painters who use the divine paradigm should delineate it? They will not be angry, he said, if they perceive it. But what, then, do you mean by the manner of this delineation?

Having taken, I said, as it were a tablet of a city and the customs of men, first they would make it clean, which is not altogether easy. But you know that they would differ from others immediately in this, that they would be unwilling to touch either a private individual or a city, nor to write laws, before receiving it clean or making it clean themselves. And rightly so, he said. Then do you think they would outline the form of the constitution? Why not? Then, I think, working they would look frequently to both sides, both to what is by nature just and beautiful and temperate and all such things, and also to that in men, and they would produce the human image by mixing and blending from the practices, judging from that which Homer called the godlike and godlike form arising in men. Rightly, he said. And they would, I think, erase one thing and write in another, until they made human customs as god-loving as possible.

20. That the young must be prepared beforehand for the attainment of virtue through the learning of correct hymns and songs. From the second book of the Laws: "It seems to me that the argument, revolving for the third or fourth time, comes to the same point, that education is the drawing and leading of children towards the correct reason declared by the law and agreed upon by the most equitable and the eldest through experience as being truly correct.

So that the soul of the child may not be accustomed to rejoice and grieve in opposition to the law and to the things established by the law, but may follow along, rejoicing and grieving with the same things as the old man, for this reason, what we call songs have truly now become incantations for souls, composed with a view to such harmony as we speak of; but because the souls of the young cannot bear earnestness, they are called and performed as games and songs, just as for those who are sick and weakly in body, those who care for them try to offer wholesome food in pleasant foods and drinks, and the bad in unpleasant ones, so that they may be accustomed to welcome the one and rightly hate the other. And the same thing the correct lawgiver will persuade and compel the poet, if he does not persuade, to make correctly the figures of temperate and brave and wholly good men in rhythms and the melodies in harmonies, using noble and praiseworthy words. Reasonably, therefore, among us also the children are accustomed to practice the songs composed by the divine prophets and the hymns to God.

21. What Kind of Understanding the Songs Should Contain

"You compel the poets to say that the good man, being temperate and just, is happy and blessed, whether he is great and strong or small and weak, and whether he is rich or not; but if he should be 'richer than Kinyras and Midas,' yet be unjust, he is miserable and lives wretchedly. And I would not mention, the poet says to you, if he speaks correctly, nor would I count as a man anyone who does not do and acquire all the things called noble with justice, and even, being such, would not reach out for spoils from close at hand; but if he is unjust, let him not dare 'to look upon bloody slaughter' nor conquer 'running like the Thracian North Wind,' nor let any of the so-called goods ever come to him; for the things called good by the many are not correctly spoken. For it is said that the best is health, second is beauty, third is wealth; and countless other goods are spoken of: indeed, sharp sight and hearing and having all the senses keenly, and also doing whatever one desires when ruling as a tyrant, and finally the culmination of all blessedness is to possess all these things and become immortal as quickly as possible. But you and I say somewhere that all these things are the best possessions for just and holy men, but the worst for unjust men, beginning with health.

And indeed, seeing and hearing and perceiving and living altogether is the greatest evil for one who is immortal for all time and possesses all the so-called goods except justice and every virtue, but a lesser evil if such a one lives for the shortest time. I think that the poets among you say these things, which I also say, and you will persuade and compel them, and also, assigning rhythms and harmonies that follow these, to educate your youth in this way. For do you not see? I myself say clearly that the so-called evils are goods for the unjust, but evils for the just; and the goods are truly goods for the good, but evils for the evil. So what I asked, do we agree, I and you, or how? These things are not far from the psalms of David, which he, anticipating, composed by divine inspiration through songs and hymns, teaching who is truly blessed and who is the opposite. For from there his book begins, saying: "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the impious," and the like. And Plato, changing this, says that the poets must say, "that the good man, being temperate and just, is happy and blessed; but if he is rich and unjust, he is wretched." And this again David somehow set forth through the psalms, saying: "If wealth flows, do not set your heart on it;" and again: "Do not fear when a man grows rich and when the glory of his house increases." At leisure you might find each of the things said by the philosopher word for word throughout the whole sacred scripture of the psalms.

22. That not everyone is able to produce correct songs and melodies, but only God or a divine man. "Now, he is exceedingly legislative and political. But you would find other trivial things there as well. This, however, concerning music is true and worthy of consideration: that it was possible to legislate confidently about such matters, producing melodies that naturally provide correctness. This would be the work of God or some divine man." Reasonably, therefore, it was also legislated among the Hebrews that no other hymns and songs be accepted in divine teachings except those composed by the divine Spirit through the divine men, the prophets, and the melodies appropriate to them, sung in their customary manner.

23. Concerning those who are to judge which songs are composed according to God. "I grant even this much to the many: that music must be judged by pleasure, but not by just anyone; rather, that is nearly the most beautiful Muse which delights the best and sufficiently educated, and especially that which delights the one who excels in virtue and education. For this reason we say that the judges of these matters need virtue, because they must partake of the rest of prudence and also of courage. For the true judge must not learn to judge by the theater, being overwhelmed by the uproar of the many and his own lack of education, nor, on the other hand, knowing through cowardice and timidity, from the same mouth with which he invoked the gods when about to judge, carelessly render a false judgment.

is not a student, but a teacher, as is just, the judge sits rather as a spectator and as one who will oppose those spectators who do not give pleasure appropriately or correctly." And among the Hebrews of old, it was not for the multitude to judge the words and inspired odes uttered from divine spirit, but there were few and rare men, themselves also partakers of the divine spirit that discerns what is said, to whom alone it was permitted to approve and consecrate the books of the prophets, and to reject those of such as were not.

24. That even in symposia the odes are to be received as some kind of sympotic laws. "And what the argument intended from the beginning, to show the assistance to the chorus of Dionysus as being well spoken, it has said to the best of its ability. Let us then consider whether this has been so. Now, such a gathering is necessarily tumultuous, becoming ever more so as the drinking proceeds, which we assumed from the beginning must necessarily happen concerning what is now being said. Necessarily. And each person, lighter than himself, is lifted up and rejoices and is filled with boldness and becomes disobedient to his neighbors, and deems himself a sufficient ruler of himself and of others. Why not? Then we said, when these things happen, the souls of the drinkers become, as it were, iron made red-hot, softer and younger, so that they become easily led by one who is able and knows how to educate and mold them, just as when they were young.

This one is the same craftsman as before, the good lawgiver, whose laws must be convivial, capable of making that hopeful and bold man, who becomes more shameless than he should and does not wish to endure order and the proper portion of silence and speech and drinking and music, do everything contrary to these, and of sending in, against the unseemly boldness that enters, the most beautiful fear that fights against it, such as are with justice, which we have called awe and shame, divine fear. These are the things. And of these laws there are to be guardians and co-creators, the undisturbed and sober ones themselves." Reasonably, therefore, it has been handed down to us also in our own symposia to sing songs and hymns composed to God, with the guardians of the proper order among us attending to this.

25. THAT THE DRINKING OF WINE IS NOT TO BE PERMITTED TO ALL. "If a city, as if in earnest, will use the practice now mentioned with laws and order, as employing it as a training for the sake of temperance, and will not abstain from the other pleasures in like manner and according to the same principle, contriving for the sake of mastering them, then in this way all these things are to be used.

If, however, it is to be allowed as a game and a pastime for anyone who wishes, whenever he wishes and with whomever he wishes, to drink with any other practices whatsoever, I would not cast my vote that this city or this man should ever indulge in drunkenness; rather, I would even more strongly side with the Carthaginian law over the practice of the Cretans and Lacedaemonians, that no one in a military camp should ever taste this drink, but should spend all that time drinking water, and that in the city neither a female nor a male slave should ever taste it, nor should rulers during the year of their office, nor pilots nor judges while actively serving, taste wine at all, nor should anyone who comes together for a council worthy of consideration, nor should anyone taste it at all by day, except for the sake of bodily training or illness, nor by night, when a man or a woman is planning to beget children. And one could mention many other things, that for those who have right reason and law, wine is not to be drunk, so that according to this argument there would be no need of many vineyards in any city, but the other crops and the whole regimen would be regulated. And Moses, anticipating this, legislates that the priests must not taste wine at the time of their sacred service, saying: "And the Lord spoke to Aaron, saying: 'You and your sons with you shall not drink wine or strong drink when you enter the tent of testimony or when you approach the altar, and you shall not die; it is a perpetual law for your generations.'" And the same lawgiver also decrees for those making a vow, saying: