Praeparatio evangelica

A man or a woman who has solemnly vowed to purify themselves in chastity for the Lord shall be purified from wine and strong drink; and they shall not drink vinegar from wine or vinegar from strong drink. But Solomon also restrains the rulers and judges from its use, saying: "Do everything with counsel, drink wine with counsel. The powerful are prone to anger; let them not drink wine, lest when they have drunk they forget wisdom and their labors." And the apostle also permits it for the sake of illness, saying to Timothy: "Use a little wine for your stomach and your frequent weaknesses."

20. That Plato was not unaware that what he was legislating was practiced among certain barbarians. "If, then, it is necessary for a city to take care of the heights of philosophy, and this has happened in the infinite past time, or even now exists in some barbarian place, far off and outside our sight, or will come to be in the future, we are ready to contend in argument that this said constitution has come to be, and is, and will come to be, whenever this Muse herself becomes master of a city. For it is not impossible to come to be, nor do we speak of impossibilities.

27. That there is a war within us against ourselves and the passions within us

"Now, should we conceive of him in relation to himself as an enemy against an enemy, or how else do we mean it? O stranger from Athens, for I would not wish to address you as an Attic, for you seem to me worthy of being named after the goddess's title; for having correctly traced the argument back to its beginning, you have made it clearer, so that you will easily discover that what we said just now was correct, that all are enemies to all publicly and privately, and each to themselves. How have you spoken, O wondrous one? And here, O stranger, the victory of oneself over oneself is the first and best of all victories, while the defeat of oneself by oneself is the most shameful and worst of all. For these things signify that there is a war within each of us against ourselves." And after other matters he adds, saying: "Therefore, shall we posit each of us as one? Yes. But as possessing within himself two opposing and foolish counselors, which we call pleasure and pain? These are so. And in addition to these two, there are opinions about the future, whose common name is hope, but specifically fear is the expectation of pain, and confidence is the expectation of the opposite. And over all these is reason, which judges what is better or worse for it; and when it becomes a common decree of the city, it is called law." And next he says: "But we know this, that these passions in us are like sinews or cords, which, being present, pull us and draw against each other, being opposite, toward opposite actions, where virtue and vice are distinctly set.

For the argument says that one must always follow one of the attractions and never abandon it, while pulling against the other measures in each case, and that this is the golden and sacred guidance of reason, called the common law of the city, while the others are harsh and iron, and the gentle one, being golden, while the others are like all sorts of forms. One must always assist the best guidance of the law; for since the guidance of reason is good, gentle, and not violent, it needs servants for its guidance, so that the golden race in us may conquer the other races. And thus a myth of virtue preserved about us, as if we were wonders, would be, and the notion of being better or worse than oneself would become more clearly understood, and that a city and a private individual—the one having received the true account within himself about these attractions must live following it, and a city, having received this account either from some god or from one who knows these things, and having established it as law for itself, must associate with itself and with other cities. Thus vice and virtue would be more clearly articulated for us. And among us, the divine word teaches similar things, saying: "I rejoice in the law of God according to the inner man, but I see another law warring against the law of my mind." And again: "Between the reasonings accusing or defending each other," and all other things similar to these.

28. That the soul, not the body, is the cause of the evils done by us. "We remember, indeed, having agreed in the earlier discussion that if the soul should be shown to be older than the body, then the things of the soul would be older than those of the body. Certainly. Then manners, characters, wishes, reasonings, true opinions, cares, and memories would have come into being before the length, breadth, depth, and strength of bodies, if indeed the soul is prior to the body. Necessarily. Then after this it is necessary to agree that the soul is the cause of goods and of evils, of beautiful and shameful things, of just and unjust things, and of all opposites, if indeed we are to set it down as the cause of all things?" And let these things be set forth from the tenth book of the Laws. And Moses agrees with them, often saying in his laws: "And if a soul sins and commits a transgression," and all that is said by him in a similar manner.

29. Concerning the one who philosophizes purely. Since the scripture of the Hebrews says concerning the one who philosophizes with zeal: "It is good for a man when he takes up a yoke in his youth; he will sit alone and be silent because he has taken it upon himself," and concerning the god-loving prophets, that they lived in deserts and mountains and caves on account of the height of their philosophy, having their mind fixed on God alone, listen to Plato, how he himself extols this manner of life, speaking somewhere about the one who philosophizes to the utmost: "Let us speak, then, as it seems, since it seems good to you, about the leaders; for why would one speak of those who spend their time in philosophy in a vulgar way?

These men, from their youth, first of all do not know the road to the marketplace, nor where the court-house or council-chamber or any other common meeting-place of the city is; and laws and decrees spoken or written they neither see nor hear, and the eager pursuits of political clubs for offices, and gatherings, and dinners, and revels with flute-girls, never even in a dream occur to them. And whether anything good or bad has happened in the city, or what evil has befallen anyone from his ancestors or from men or women, has escaped him more than the proverbial measures of the sea. And all these things he not only does not know, but he does not even know that he does not know; for he does not abstain from them for the sake of reputation, but in reality only his body lies and sojourns in the city; but his mind, considering all these things as petty and worthless, and disdaining them, flies everywhere, according to Pindar, "measuring the depths of the earth and the plains above, and the heavens above, studying the stars," and investigating every nature of each whole of all that exists, lowering itself to none of the things near at hand. How do you mean this, Socrates? Just as Thales, when studying astronomy, O Theodorus, and looking upwards, fell into a well, and a Thracian maidservant, clever and graceful, is said to have mocked him, saying that he was eager to know the things in the heavens, but what was behind him and at his feet escaped him. The same jest suffices for all who spend their time in philosophy. For in reality such a man is unnoticed by his neighbor and his fellow-citizen, not only as to what he does, but almost as to whether he is a human being or some other creature. But what then is a human being, and what is it appropriate for such a nature to do or suffer different from other beings?

he inquires and busies himself investigating. You understand, I suppose, O Theodorus, or not? I do, and you speak truly. Therefore, my friend, when such a man associates privately with each person and publicly, as I was saying at the beginning, when he is compelled in a court of law or elsewhere to speak about matters at hand and before his eyes, he provides laughter not only to Thracian women but also to the rest of the crowd, falling into wells and every perplexity through inexperience, and his awkwardness is terrible, producing a reputation for stupidity. For in abuse he has no particular way of abusing anyone, since he knows no evil of anyone from lack of practice; thus at a loss, he appears ridiculous. And in praises and the boasts of others, being manifestly laughing not feignedly but genuinely, he seems foolish. For he considers a tyrant or a king being praised as one of the herdsmen, like a swineherd or a shepherd or some cowherd, hearing them called happy for milking copiously; and he thinks them to herd and milk a more difficult and more treacherous animal than those. And he is no less rustic and uneducated due to lack of leisure.

of such a man it is necessary that he become a herdsman, having a pen on a mountain with a wall thrown around it. And when he hears of ten thousand plethra of land or even more, whoever possesses such a thing, possessing it in a quantity that is wondrous, he seems to hear of very small things, being accustomed to look at the whole earth. And as for the families that are hymned, when someone declares himself to be a noble man having seven wealthy grandfathers, he considers the praise altogether dull and directed at something small, since from lack of education they are unable always to look at the whole nor to reason that countless myriads of grandfathers and ancestors have come to be for each person, among whom wealthy and poor, kings and slaves, barbarians and Greeks have often come to be in countless numbers for anyone, but they pride themselves on a list of twenty-five ancestors or even trace them back to Heracles the son of Amphitryon—this seems absurd to him because of their pettiness, and that the son of Amphitryon was the twenty-fifth in the upward line, and what fortune befell him, and the fiftieth from him, he laughs at those who are unable to reason and to free themselves from the vanity of a foolish soul. In all these things, then, such a man is laughed at by the many, seeming to be haughty in some respects, but in others ignorant of what lies at his feet and at a loss in each matter. You are describing everything that happens, O Socrates.

But when he himself, my friend, draws someone upward, and that person wishes to emerge from "what injustice do I do to you, or you to me" into a consideration of justice and injustice—what each of them is and how they differ from all things or from each other—or from "whether a king is happy possessing much gold" into an inquiry concerning kingship and human happiness and misery in general, what each of them is and in what manner it befits human nature to acquire one and to avoid the other—when, concerning all these matters, that small, sharp, and contentious soul must give an account, he again produces the opposite effects: he grows dizzy, suspended from a height, and looking down from above, unaccustomed, distressed, at a loss, and speaking like a barbarian, he provokes laughter not from Thracian women or any other uneducated person—for they do not perceive it—but from all those who have been raised in the opposite way, as slaves. This, then, is the character of each, Theodorus: one is truly raised in freedom and leisure, whom you call a philosopher, and it is not blameworthy for him to seem naive and good for nothing when he falls into servile tasks, such as not knowing how to pack a bedroll or season a dish or flatter with words; the other, on the contrary, is able to perform all such services correctly and quickly, but does not know how to throw a cloak gracefully in a free manner, nor, having grasped the harmony of words, to hymn correctly the true life of gods and blessed men. If, Socrates, you could persuade everyone of what you say as you persuade me, there would be more peace and fewer evils among men.

But it is not possible for evils to be destroyed, Theodorus, for there must always be something contrary to the good; nor can they be situated among the gods, but they necessarily roam about mortal nature and this place. Therefore one must try to flee from here to there as quickly as possible. Flight is assimilation to God as far as possible; and assimilation is becoming just and holy with wisdom. But, my good friend, it is not at all easy to persuade that it is not for the reasons the many allege that one must flee wickedness and pursue virtue, that one must practice the one and not the other, so as not to seem bad and to seem good. For these things are, as it seems to me, what is called an old wives' tale; but the truth we state thus: God is nowhere and in no way unjust, but is as just as possible, and nothing is more like him than whoever among us becomes as just as possible. Around this lies the true cleverness of a man, and his worthlessness and cowardice. For knowledge of this is wisdom and true virtue, while ignorance is manifest ignorance and vice; and the other so-called clevernesses and

Wisdoms when they occur in political powers are vulgar, and in the arts they are menial. For the one who does injustice and says or does unholy things, it is far best not to allow him to be clever through villainy. For they exult in the reproach and think they hear that they are not fools, mere burdens of the earth, but men such as must be in a city for it to be saved. So the truth must be spoken, that they are all the more what they do not think they are, precisely because they do not think it. For they are ignorant of the penalty of injustice, which they ought least of all to be ignorant of. For it is not what they suppose—blows and deaths, which sometimes befall those who do no injustice—but the penalty from which it is impossible to escape. What do you mean? Paradigms, my friend, standing in reality, one divine and most blessed, the other godless and most wretched, not seeing that it is so, they are hidden by their stupidity and utter folly, becoming like the one through their unjust actions, and unlike the other; and for this they pay the penalty, living the life that corresponds to that which they resemble. And if we say that, unless they rid themselves of their cleverness, even after death that place pure of evils will not receive them, but here they will always have a mode of life similar to themselves, the evil consorting with the evil, then they will hear these things as altogether the talk of fools, coming from clever and villainous men. Indeed so, Socrates. I know it, my friend.

One thing, however, has happened to them: when it is necessary to give and receive a private account concerning the things they censure, and they are willing to endure manfully for a long time and not flee in a cowardly manner, then, O excellent one, they end up being displeased with themselves concerning what they say, and that rhetoric of theirs somehow withers away, so that they seem to differ in nothing from children.

30. CONCERNING ALL SOPHISTRY AMONG MEN. And among us it has been said concerning all sophistry among men: "For the wisdom of this world is folly before God. For it is written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will set aside the understanding of the intelligent. Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age?" But also concerning the necessity of thinking nothing petty for those who philosophize according to God, we are taught in the words: "Let us look not at the visible things, but at the invisible things; for the visible things are temporary, but the invisible things are eternal." And concerning the fact that wickedness revolves around the earth and mortal life, the divine word says somewhere: "Redeeming the time, because the days are evil;" and: "Sufficient for the day is its own evil." And the prophet says: "Curse and theft and adultery and murder are poured out upon the earth, and they mingle blood with blood." And concerning fleeing from here to God, Moses says: "You shall go after the Lord your God and cleave to him." And the same teaches us to imitate God, saying: "You shall be holy, because the Lord our God is holy." And David, knowing God to be just and urging us to become imitators of him, says:

The Lord is just and loved righteousness." And the same one taught to despise wealth, saying: "If wealth flows, do not set your heart upon it;" and: "Do not fear when a man grows rich and when the glory of his house increases; for when he dies he will not take everything, nor will his glory descend with him." But he also taught not to admire human offices in these words: "Do not trust in rulers, in sons of men, who have no salvation. His spirit will depart and go to his own earth; on that day all his thoughts will perish."

31. THAT IT IS SOMETIMES NECESSARY TO USE FALSEHOOD AS A DRUG FOR THE BENEFIT OF THOSE WHO NEED SUCH A MEANS. "But a lawgiver, if he is of any use at all, even if this were not the case as the argument now assumes it to be, if he had dared to tell any other falsehood for the good of the young, is there any falsehood more beneficial than this that he could ever have told, and one more capable of making all men do all just things willingly, not by force? Truth is a fine and stable thing, stranger, but it seems not easy to persuade." You would find countless such things also in the Hebrew scriptures, taken up for the benefit of those who need such a manner, as concerning a jealous or sleeping or angry God, or one subject to other human passions.

32. That not only men but also women and every race of people must be admitted to the aforementioned education. "So then, are the things before us agreed upon? What about? That every man and child, free and slave, female and male, and the whole city itself, never ceasing to chant to itself these things we have gone through, somehow always changing them and providing variety in every way, so that there is an insatiability of hymns for those singing and pleasure. How could it not be agreed that these things must be done thus?" And in the fifth book of the Republic he writes similar things, saying: "Do you know any practice among men in which the male race does not excel in all these things, or the female? Or are we making a long speech about weaving and the tending of cakes and boiled dishes, in which the female race seems to be something, and in which it is most ridiculous to be utterly defeated? You speak truly, he said, that the race is greatly surpassed in all, so to speak; yet many women are better than many men in many things, but on the whole it is as you say. There is therefore no pursuit, my friend, of those that administer the city that belongs to a woman because she is a woman, nor to a man because he is a man, but the natures are similarly distributed in both kinds of animals, and woman partakes of all pursuits by nature, and man of all, but woman is weaker than man in all. Very much so. Then shall we assign all to men, and nothing to women? How so? But there is, I think, as we shall say, a woman who is medical, and one who is not, and one who is musical, and one who is unmusical by nature. What then?

But gymnastics, then, is not, nor is warfare; but the unwarlike and not fond of gymnastics? I think so. What then? Is one philosophical and the other misosophical? And one high-spirited, the other spiritless? These things also exist. So there is a woman fit for guarding, and one who is not; or did we not select such a nature for the men who are guardians? Such indeed. So the nature of woman and man is the same for the guarding of a city, except that one is weaker and the other stronger. It appears so. And so such women are to be chosen to live with and guard together with such men, since they are capable and akin to them in nature." Reasonably, then, our own teaching admits every race not only of men but also of women, not only of free and slaves but also of barbarians and Greeks into education and philosophy according to God.

33. That one must not slander the whole nation because of those among us who do not live according to reason. "Let us consider then in this way. Come, if someone were to praise the feeding of goats and the animal itself, as a possession how fine it is, and another, having seen goats grazing without a goatherd in cultivated places doing harm, were to disparage and blame every herd without a ruler or with bad rulers, would we ever consider such a blame to be sound and to blame anything at all? And how?" And a little later: "But that a praiser or blamer of any community, which is by nature such that it has a ruler and is beneficial with him, and he has never seen it rightly communing with itself under a ruler, but always without a ruler or with bad rulers; do we think that such observers of such communities will ever blame or praise anything good?

How could it be? So then, if some among us should appear to do evil without a guardian or ruler, or with evil rulers, we must not blame our whole school, but rather admire the godly polity from those who pursue it correctly.

34. HOW PLATO TRANSFORMED THE SAYINGS IN PROVERBS INTO A MORE GREEK FORM. In the Proverbs of Solomon, where it is briefly stated, "The memory of the just is with praises, but the name of the impious is extinguished," and again where it is said, "Do not call a man happy before his death," listen to how Plato interprets the meaning, saying in the seventh book of the Laws: "Those citizens who have reached the end of life, having accomplished works beautiful and laborious in body or soul, and having been obedient to the laws, it would be fitting for them to receive praises. How not? But to honor those still living with praises and hymns is not safe, until one has run through the whole of life and set a good end. And let all these things be common to us for good men and good women who have become manifestly so.

35. On Wealth and Poverty. Solomon says in Proverbs, "Do not give me wealth and poverty," and Plato in Republic 3 says: "We have said other things, as it seems, for the guardians, which must be guarded in every way so that they never escape their notice and slip into the city. What are these? Wealth, I said, and poverty; since the one produces luxury, idleness, and innovation, and the other illiberality and evil-doing in addition to innovation." Evil-doing is every dishonorable action.

36. On Honor of Parents. Again, Moses says in the laws: "Let each fear his father and his mother," and "Honor your father and your mother, that it may be well with you," and Plato similarly to Moses says in the Laws about honoring and fearing something like this: "Every sensible man fears and honors the prayers of parents, knowing that they have been fulfilled for many and often." And again in another place he says: "Let each of us revere his elder in deed and word. And let him consider the one who is twenty years older in age, whether male or female, as a father or mother, and be scrupulously careful toward him.

37. On the Possession of Slaves. Moses in his laws forbade Hebrews to enslave Hebrews and said: "If you acquire a Hebrew slave, he shall serve you for six years; in the seventh year you shall send him forth free." And Plato similarly says in the Republic: "So then, no Greek should possess a Greek as a slave, and we should advise the other Greeks likewise? 'Absolutely,' he said; 'thus they would rather turn against the barbarians and keep their hands off their own people.'"

38. How He Changed "Do Not Move the Eternal Boundaries Which Your Fathers Set." "Let no one move the boundaries of the land, neither of a fellow citizen neighbor nor of one who possesses a borderland adjacent to another foreign neighbor, considering that to move immovable things is truly this." And he continues: "Whoever cultivates his neighbor's land by overstepping the boundaries, let him pay the damage, and for the sake of curing his shamelessness and illiberality, let him pay double the damage to the injured party."

39. Similar to "The Sins of the Fathers Are Visited on Their Children to the Third and Fourth Generation to Those Who Hate Me.

In a word, no disgrace of a father or punishment of children shall follow any, unless a father, grandfather, and great-grandfather in succession have incurred the penalty of death.

40. On Thieves. Moses' law says: "If anyone steals a calf or a sheep and slaughters it or sells it, he shall pay five calves in place of the calf and four sheep in place of the sheep; but if he is caught and the theft is found in his hand, from a calf and an ass to a sheep, he shall pay double the living animals." Listen how Plato also follows these things, saying: "For a thief, whether one steals something great or small, let one law be imposed and one penalty of judgment for all. For the stolen thing must first be paid back double, if one is convicted of such a crime and has sufficient other property to pay from his estate; but if not, let him be bound until he pays or persuades the one who condemned him."

41. On a Thief Killed. Again, Moses says: "If the thief is found in the breach and is struck and dies, there is no murder for him." Plato agrees also in this, saying: "If anyone catches and kills a thief entering a house by night for the theft of goods, let him be pure; and if

man who kills a thief in self-defense shall be pure."

42. On a Beast of Burden. "But if a beast of burden or any other animal kills someone, except for those which in a public contest while competing do such a thing, the relatives of the slain shall prosecute the killer, and the land commissioners shall adjudicate, to whom and as many as the relative may appoint, and the convicted party shall be removed beyond the borders of the country after being put to death." These are Plato's words. But Moses, anticipating, says: "If an ox gores a man or a woman and they die, the ox shall be stoned with stones and its flesh shall not be eaten; the owner of the ox shall be blameless."

43. That Plato Uses the Same Examples as the Hebrew Scripture. The prophetic scripture says: "Son of man, behold, the house of Israel has become to me all mixed with bronze and tin and iron and lead, like silver mixed in the midst of a furnace. Therefore I said: Thus says the Lord: Because you have all become one mixture, therefore I will receive you, as silver and bronze and iron and lead and tin are received into the midst of a furnace, to blow fire upon them, to be smelted." And Plato likewise—listen to what he says: "Therefore, listen now to the story. For we are all in the city brothers, as we will say to them in telling the story, but the god, in molding, mixed gold into the generation of those of you who are capable of ruling, because they are most precious; silver into the auxiliaries; and iron and bronze into the farmers and the other craftsmen.

Since all are akin, for the most part you would produce offspring like yourselves, but it sometimes happens that from gold a silver offspring might be born, and from silver a golden one, and all the rest from each other in this way. So the god commands the rulers first and foremost to be such good guardians of nothing, nor to guard anything so strictly, as the offspring, as to what of these is mixed in their souls; and if their own offspring should be base or iron-like, they should not pity them in any way, but, giving the honor appropriate to nature, they should thrust them either among craftsmen or farmers; and if, on the other hand, from these some should be born golden or silver-like, they should honor them and raise them, some to guardianship, others to auxiliary service, since there is an oracle that the city will then be destroyed when the iron guardian or the bronze guardian watches over it. "Do you have any device, then, by which they might be persuaded of this story?"

44. Further on Similar Examples. The prophecy among the Hebrews says to the leaders of the multitude: "O shepherds of Israel, do shepherds feed themselves? Do not shepherds feed the sheep? Behold, you devour the milk, and you slaughter the fat, and you clothe yourselves with the wool, and you do not feed my sheep, and you have not sought the lost one, and you have not bound up the broken one, and you have not turned back the wandering one." And also of the saving word

He says: "The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep, but the hireling, who is not a shepherd, to whom the sheep do not belong, abandons them." Listen also to Plato in the first book of the Republic, how he interprets these matters: "Now do you see, Thrasymachus, that if we examine what was said before, when you were defining the true physician first, and then the true shepherd, you no longer thought it necessary to maintain the distinction accurately afterwards, but you suppose that he fattens the sheep, insofar as he is a shepherd, not looking to what is best for the sheep, but like some banqueter about to feast for the enjoyment, or else for the sake of selling them, like a money-maker, and not a shepherd. For the shepherd's art surely cares for nothing else than that for which it is appointed, namely, how to provide what is best for that object, since the things of the art itself have been sufficiently provided for it to be the best, as long as nothing is lacking for it to be shepherding. Thus I thought it necessary for us now to agree that every rule, insofar as it is rule, looks to what is best for no one else than the one who is ruled and tended, whether in public or private rule. But do you think that the rulers in cities, the true rulers, rule willingly?

45. Again on the same subject. Of the prophecy among the Hebrews which says: "From fear of you, Lord, we conceived and travailed and gave birth to a spirit of salvation," Plato in the Theaetetus makes Socrates say the following: "Now those who associate with me suffer the same thing as women in childbirth; for they are in travail and filled with perplexity night and day far more than those women. And my art can arouse and allay this travail."

46. Again on the same subject. The prophet Ezekiel said: "And the hand of the Lord came upon me, and I saw, and behold, a spirit lifting up was coming from the north," and further on he says: "And in the midst was like the likeness of four living creatures. And their appearance was the likeness of a man upon them, and four faces to the one. And the likeness of their faces was a face of a man and a face of a lion on the right for the four, and a face of a calf on the left for the four, and a face of an eagle for the four." And Plato likewise—listen to what he says: "'Now then,' I said, 'let us converse with him, since we have agreed what power each of injustice and doing just deeds has.' 'How?' he said. 'By molding an image of the soul in speech, so that the one who says those things may know what sort he was speaking of.' 'What sort?' he said. 'One of those such,' I said, 'as are fabled in ancient times to have existed—the natures of the Chimaera, and of Scylla, and of Cerberus, and many others.' 'They are spoken of,' he said. 'Then mold one form of a many-colored and many-headed beast, having heads of tame and wild beasts around it, and able to change and grow all these from itself.' 'A work of a clever molder,' he said.

Nevertheless, since argument is more malleable than wax and suchlike, let it be moulded. Let there be one other form of a lion, and one of a man; and let the first be very much the largest, and the second the second. These, he said, are easy; and they are moulded. Now join them together into one, having three, so that they grow together with each other. They are joined, he said. Now mould around them externally the image of one, that of a man, so that to one who cannot see the inside, but sees only the outer shell, a single animal appears, a man. It is moulded around, he said. Let us then say to the one who claims that it is profitable for this man to do injustice, and that doing just things is not advantageous, because he will assert nothing else than that it is profitable for him to feast the manifold beast and make it strong, and the lion and the things around the lion, and to starve the man and make him weak, so that he is dragged wherever either of those leads, and to accustom nothing to anything else nor make it friendly, but to allow them within themselves to bite and fight and devour each other. Absolutely, he said, would the one who praises injustice say these things. Then again, the one who says that just things are advantageous would affirm that it is necessary to do and say these things, whereby the inner man of the human will be most self-controlled and will care for the many-headed creature like a farmer, nurturing and taming the tame parts, preventing the wild from growing, making the lion's nature an ally, and caring for all together, both for each other and for himself, and thus will nourish them. For indeed, the one who praises justice says these things.

47. That Plato also legislates to divide the citizens into twelve tribes in imitation of the nation of the Hebrews. The whole nation of the Hebrews being divided into twelve tribes, Plato likewise legislates that this should be observed for his own citizens, saying thus: "Let the whole country be divided into twelve portions as equal as possible, and one tribe assigned to each portion shall provide each year five, so to speak, agronomoi and phrouarchoi." And again he says: "The elected generals shall propose twelve taxiarchs for them, one taxiarch for each tribe."

48. In what kind of place Plato legislates to establish the city; and he describes something similar to that in Jerusalem. The royal metropolis of the Hebrews, which was established long ago, being far from the sea, situated among mountains, and possessing land productive of all things, Plato says that the city he establishes in the Laws must be of such a kind. He speaks thus: "But this about it is what he who wishes should rather ask: whether it will be on the sea or inland. The city about which we have just now spoken, stranger, is nearly eighty stades from the sea. What then? Are there harbors near it, or is it altogether without a harbor? It is well provided with harbors, as much as possible, stranger. Ah! What a thing you say. What then? Is the land around it productive of all things, or lacking in some? It is lacking in almost nothing. And will there be any neighboring city near it? Not at all, which is why it is being founded.

An ancient emigration once occurred in that place, rendering this land desolate for an immeasurable time. What then? How has he allotted to us a portion of plains, mountains, and forests? It resembles the nature of the rest of Crete as a whole. Would you call it rougher or more level? Very much so. Therefore, it would not be incurable for the acquisition of virtue. For if it were to be maritime, well-harbored, and not all-producing, but lacking in many things, it would need some great savior and divine lawgivers, lest it have many varied and base characters, being of such a nature; but as it is, it has the consolation of the eighty stades. Yet it lies nearer to the sea than is proper, almost as much as you say it is more well-harbored; nevertheless, even this is acceptable. For a sea neighboring a land, while pleasant day by day, is indeed a truly salty and bitter neighbor; for filling it with commerce and money-making through retail trade, it engenders fickle and untrustworthy characters in souls, making the city itself untrustworthy and unfriendly towards itself and likewise towards other men. As a consolation for these things, it also possesses being all-producing; but being rough, it is clear that it would not be both productive and all-producing at once; for having this, if it provided a great export of silver and gold coinage, it would again be filled in return.

There is no greater evil, so to speak, that could happen to a city for the acquisition of noble and just characters than a single one of these. But after so many demonstrations up to this point, let us consider how he, having accepted the manner of education among the Hebrews through what we have said, rejects the Greek one, writing in the tenth book of the Republic as follows:

49. HOW PLATO REJECTS THE ELEMENTS OF GREEK EDUCATION AS HARMFUL. "Let it be said as between ourselves, for you will not denounce me to the tragic poets and all other imitators, all such things seem to be a mutilation of the minds of the hearers, as many as do not have the remedy of knowing what they really are. 'How so?' he said, 'what do you mean?' 'I must speak,' I said, 'although a certain love and reverence for Homer, which I have had from childhood, prevents me from speaking. For he seems to have been the first teacher and leader of all these beautiful tragic things. But a man is not to be honored before the truth, but what I say must be said.' 'Certainly,' he said." Then he adds next: "Concerning the others, then, let us not demand an account from Homer or any other poet, asking whether they were physicians, and not merely imitators of medical language, what healthy men any poet, ancient or modern, is said to have made, as Asclepius did, or what disciples of medicine he left behind, as that one left his descendants. Nor again let us question him about the other arts, but let us dismiss it.

But concerning the greatest and finest matters which Homer undertakes to speak of—wars, generalships, administrations of cities, and the education of men—it is just to question him, asking: "Dear Homer, if you are not third from the truth, a maker of an image concerning virtue, which we have defined as a mimetic artist, but rather second, and such as to know what pursuits make men better or worse in private and in public, tell us which city has been better governed because of you, as Lacedaemon was because of Lycurgus, and as many great and small cities have been because of many others. But what city accuses you of having been a good lawgiver and of having benefited them? For Charondas is claimed by Italy and Sicily, and we claim Solon; but who claims you? Can anyone say?" "I do not think so," said Glaucon; "indeed, it is not even said by the Homeridae themselves. "But then what war under Homer is remembered as having been well waged under his command or counsel?" "None." "But are there not many inventions and contrivances attributed to a wise man in the realm of arts or other actions, as indeed is said of Thales of Miletus and Anacharsis the Scythian?" "Nothing of the sort at all." "But if not publicly, is Homer said to have been, while alive, a private guide of education for certain individuals who loved him for his company, and to have handed down to later generations a certain way of life, a Homeric one, as Pythagoras himself was exceptionally loved for these things, and his followers, even now calling their way of life Pythagorean, are considered distinguished among others?

Nor again, he said, is anything of that sort said. For Creophylus, Socrates, the companion of Homer, would appear even more ridiculous than his name in respect to education, if what is said about Homer is true. For it is said somewhere that there was great neglect concerning him during his own lifetime, when he lived. So it is said, I replied. But do you think, Glaucon, that if Homer had truly been able to educate men and make them better, not merely by imitating these matters but by knowing them, he would not have made many companions and been honored and loved by them? Yet Protagoras of Abdera and Prodicus of Ceos and many others are able, by associating privately with their contemporaries, to persuade them that they will not be able to manage their own households or cities unless they themselves take charge of their education, and on account of this wisdom they are so intensely loved that their companions almost carry them about on their heads. But would Homer, if he had been able to benefit men toward virtue, or Hesiod, have been allowed to go about rhapsodizing, and would not men rather have clung to them more than to gold and compelled them to stay in their homes, or if they could not persuade them, would they not themselves have followed them wherever they went, until they had sufficiently partaken of their education? Entirely, he said, you seem to me, Socrates, to speak the truth. Shall we then set down, beginning with Homer, that all poetic imitators are imitators of images of virtue and of the other things about which they compose, and that they do not touch the truth?

But as we were just saying, the painter will represent a shoemaker who appears to be one, while he himself knows nothing about shoemaking, and those who observe from the colors and figures know nothing either? Certainly. So then, I think, we will say that the poet applies certain colors to each of the arts by means of names and verbs, without understanding them, but only imitating, so that to others who observe such things from the words, whether he speaks about shoemaking in meter and rhythm and harmony, or about generalship, or about anything else, it seems to be very well said; for these things themselves have by nature a great power of enchantment. Since, when stripped of the colors of music, the sayings of the poets, taken by themselves, I think you know what they appear to be. For you have seen it, or have you not? I have, he said. And these things being so, it seems good to me to go through a few passages of Plato, by which he more rationally establishes the argument concerning God and providence, in this also aligning with the doctrines of the Hebrews. First, let us see how he sets forth the opinions of the atheists.

50. On the doctrine of the atheists, from the tenth book of the Laws: "Some say that all things which are, have come to be, and will come to be, are partly by nature, partly by art, and partly through art. Is that correct? It is likely, I suppose, that wise men speak correctly. Let us then follow them and consider what exactly they mean. By all means. They say that the greatest and most beautiful of them are produced by nature and chance, while the smaller ones are produced by art, which, receiving from nature the generation of the great and primary works, fashions and constructs all the smallest things, which we all call artificial. How do you mean? I will state it more clearly: they say that fire, water, earth, and air all exist by nature and chance, and none of these by art. And the bodies that come after these, concerning the earth, the sun, the moon, and the stars, have come into being entirely through these soulless things; and being carried by chance according to the power of each, as they happen to fit together in a suitable way—hot with cold, or dry with moist, and soft with hard, and all such as by the blending of opposites according to

... chance was mixed with necessity, and in this way and according to these principles they say that the whole heaven and everything in the heaven, and all animals and plants, and all the seasons came into being from these, not through mind, they say, nor through any god nor through art, but through what we call nature and chance. And art, they say, arose later from these, being mortal from mortals, and later gave birth to certain playthings that do not much partake of truth, but to certain images akin to themselves, such as painting and music produce, and all the arts that are their fellow workers. And if any of the arts do produce something serious, these are those which have shared their power with nature, such as medicine, agriculture, and gymnastics. And indeed they say that politics is a small part sharing in nature, but a large part in art; and so all legislation is not by nature but by art, and its enactments are not true. How do you mean? They say, O blessed one, that gods first exist by art, not by nature, but by certain laws, and these differ in different places, according to the agreements each people have made among themselves in their legislation. And indeed they say that what is noble is one thing by nature and another by law, and that what is just does not exist at all by nature, but people continually dispute with one another and always change these things; and whatever they change and whenever they change, then each thing is authoritative, coming into being by art and laws, but not by any nature. These, O friends, are all the teachings of wise men among young people, both private individuals and poets, who say that the most just is whatever one can achieve by force.

Hence impieties fall upon young men, as if there are no gods such as the law prescribes they must conceive, and factions are drawn by these things toward the life that is right according to nature, which is in truth to live ruling over others and not being enslaved to others according to law. "What a discourse you have gone through, O stranger, and how great a ruin of young men in public, in cities, and in private homes." And after other things he says: "But come now, tell me again, Cleinias, and you too; for you must be a partner in the discourse. For the one who says these things seems to consider fire, water, earth, and air to be the first of all things, and to call nature these very things, and soul to come from them later. And he seems not merely to seem, but actually to signify these things to us in his argument. 'Very much so.' 'Then, by Zeus, have we discovered some fountain of foolish opinion among all those who have ever taken up inquiries concerning nature? Consider, examining every argument; for the difference is not small, if those who take up arguments appear to be instigators of impiety in other respects, and not using arguments well, but erroneously. It seems to me, then, that these things are not so. 'You speak well; but wherever it is, try to explain.' 'It seems, then, that we must take up rather unfamiliar arguments.'" And after a little he adds: "Soul, O comrade, all men are in danger of being ignorant of what sort it is and what power it has, and of its other aspects, and especially of its generation, that it is first, born before all bodies, and that it rules over all their change and reordering more than anything else.

If this is so, must not the things akin to soul have come into being before those belonging to body, since soul itself is older than body? Necessarily. Then opinion, care, mind, art, and law would be prior to hard and soft, heavy and light; and indeed the great and primary works and actions of art would come to be, being among the first, while nature and that which they incorrectly call nature would be posterior to this and would begin from art and mind. How is it incorrect? They wish to call nature the generation concerning the first things. But if soul is shown to be first—not fire nor air—and soul has come into being among the first things, it would be most correctly said to be preeminently by nature. These things are so, if one can demonstrate that soul is older than body, but not otherwise. You speak most truly.

51. How Plato Constructs the Argument Concerning God. "Come then, if we are ever to invoke god, let this now be so done; for the demonstration of their own that they exist, let them be invoked with all earnestness. And holding on as to some secure cable, let us embark upon the present argument. And it seems to me most safe to answer when examined about such matters with questions of this kind: O stranger, when one says, do all things stand still, and nothing moves, or the complete opposite? Or do some of them move, while others remain? Some move, I will say, and some remain. Then do not the things that stand still stand in some place, and the things that move move in some place? How could they not? And some would do this in one seat, others in more.

lid things, we shall say, that which receives the power of things standing in the middle moves in one, just as the revolution of the so-called stationary circles turns? Yes." And then he adds: "Further, let us say and answer again to ourselves: if all things were somehow to stand still together, as most of such men dare to say, what first motion among them must necessarily arise from those mentioned? The one that moves itself, presumably; for it could never be changed from before by another, since there is no prior change in them. Therefore, we shall say that the beginning of all motions and the first, occurring in things at rest and existing in things in motion, the self-moving one, is necessarily the oldest and mightiest of all changes, while that which is altered by another and moves other things is second. You speak most truly. Since, then, we are at this point in the argument, let us answer this. What? If we should see this occurring somewhere in the earthy, or watery, or fiery, whether separate or mixed, what shall we say is the affection present in such a thing? Do you ask me whether we shall call it living when it moves itself? Yes. Living; how could it not be? What then? When we see soul in some things, must we not agree that it is other than or the same as this living? Not other. Now, by Zeus, would you not wish to conceive three things about each? How do you mean? One is the essence, one is the definition of the essence, and one is the name; and indeed there are two questions concerning every being. How? Sometimes each of us, when the name is presented, demands the definition itself; sometimes, when the definition itself is presented, asks again for the name.

Is it then something of this sort that we now wish to say? What sort? There is something divided in two into equal parts both in other things and in number. To this thing according to number the name is "even," and the definition is "a number divided into two equal parts." Yes. That is what I mean. Then do we not address it the same in either way, whether when asked for the definition we give the name, or when asked for the name we give the definition, calling it "even" by name and by definition "a number divided in two," it being the same? Absolutely. Now to that to which the name is "soul," what is the definition of this? Do we have any other than the one just now spoken, the motion that is able to move itself? Do you say that "to move itself" has a definition that is the same substance as the name, which we all call "soul"? I do. If this is so, do we still lack that it has not been sufficiently shown that soul is the same as the first generation and motion of things that are, have come to be, and will be, and also of all the opposites to these, since it has been revealed as the cause of all change and motion for all things? No, but it has been most sufficiently shown that soul is the most ancient of all things, having become the origin of motion. Then is not the motion that occurs in another through something else, never providing that anything move itself in itself,

second and as many times as one might wish to count it, being truly a change of a soulless body? Correctly. Then would we be correct and properly, most truly and most perfectly speaking, if we said that soul has come to be prior to body or not, and body second and later than soul which rules, being ruled by nature? Most truly indeed. For we remember having agreed in the earlier discussion that if soul should appear to be older than body, then the things of soul would also be older than those of body. Certainly. Then ways, characters, wishes, reasonings, true opinions, cares, and memories would have come to be prior to length, breadth, depth, and strength of bodies, if indeed soul is prior to body. Necessarily. Then after this is it necessary to agree that soul is the cause of goods and evils, of beautiful and shameful things, of just and unjust, and of all opposites, if indeed we are to set it down as the cause of all things? How could it not be? Since soul governs and dwells in all things that are in every way moved, must we not also say that it governs the heaven? Why not? One or more? More; I will answer for you both. Let us posit at least two, the beneficent one and the one capable of producing the opposite. Very rightly said. So be it.

Soul indeed moves all things in heaven, earth, and sea by its own motions, which are named willing, considering, caring, deliberating, opining rightly, opining falsely, rejoicing, grieving, being confident, fearing, hating, loving, and all such kindred primary motions, which in turn take up secondary motions of bodies and lead everything to growth and decay, separation and combination, and the consequent heatings, coolings, heavinesses, lightnesses, hard and soft, white and black, harsh and sweet, and all things which soul, using them, when it takes on divine intellect always, rightly guides all things rightly and blessedly for the gods, but when it consorts with folly, it produces all the opposites of these. Shall we set these things down as so? Or do we still doubt whether it is otherwise? Not at all. Then shall we say that the kind of soul which is prudent and full of virtue has become master of heaven and earth and the whole revolution, or that which possesses neither? Do you wish that we answer thus to these things: if, O admirable one, we say that the whole path and motion of heaven and of all things in it has a nature similar to the motion, revolution, and reasonings of intellect and proceeds in a kindred manner, it is clear that we must say the best soul cares for the whole cosmos and leads it on that path. Correctly. But if it proceeds madly and disorderly, the bad soul. And these things most correctly. What nature does the motion of intellect have? This is already a difficult question, O friends, to answer sensibly. Therefore it is just that you now take me as a partner in the answer.

You speak well. Let us not now, as if looking opposite to the sun and bringing on night at midday, make our answer as though we would at some time see and know the mind sufficiently with our eyes; but rather, looking at an image of what is asked, we see more safely. What do you mean? By which motion is the mind like? Let us take the image from those ten motions, which I, recalling it to you in common, will make the answer. You would speak most excellently. We remember, then, at least this much from that time, that we set some things as moving, others as remaining. Yes. And of the moving things, some move in one place, others are carried through many. That is so. Of these two motions, the one carried in one place must always move about some center, being an imitation of circular motions, and it is entirely as possible most akin and similar to the revolution of the mind. What do you mean? That which is according to the same, and in the same manner, and in the same place, and about the same things, and towards the same things, and with one reason and one order—both the mind and the motion carried in one place, likened to the revolutions of a well-turned sphere, we would never appear as poor craftsmen of beautiful images in speech. You speak most correctly. Therefore, this motion which is never in the same manner, nor according to the same, nor in the same place, nor about the same things, nor towards the same things, nor carried in one place, nor in order, nor in any reason, would be akin to all folly. For it would be most truly so.

Now then, it is no longer difficult to say outright that, since it is soul that guides everything for us, and the revolution of the heavens must necessarily be said to be guided by a soul that cares for and orders it, either the best soul or its opposite. Stranger, but from what has now been said, it is not even holy to speak otherwise than that a soul possessing every virtue, whether one or more, guides these things. Most excellent, Cleinias, you have followed the argument well. But hear this further as well. What? The sun, moon, and the other stars, if soul guides everything, does it not also guide each one individually? Why not? Let us then make arguments concerning one, which will appear to us to apply to all the stars. Which one? Every man sees the body of the sun, but no one sees its soul; nor indeed of any other body, whether of any living or dead animal, but there is great hope that this whole race is altogether imperceptible to all the body's senses, and is intelligible. Let us then grasp with mind and thought alone something like this concerning it. What? If a soul guides the sun, we will almost not fail in saying that it does so in one of three ways. Which? Either it dwells within this visible spherical body and entirely conveys such a thing, just as our soul entirely carries us about; or it procures for itself a body from outside, of fire or some air, as some say, and pushes body with body by force; or third, being itself without body, but possessing some other powers surpassing wonder, it guides. Yes, it is necessary that soul guides everything by doing one of these things. These things, then, have been said by the philosopher in the tenth book of the Laws.

and in the Philebus, listen to how he constructs the same thought: "For all the wise agree, truly exalting themselves, that mind is king of heaven and earth for us. And perhaps they speak well; but if you wish, let us examine this matter at greater length. Speak as you wish, Socrates, reckoning no length as burdensome to us, for I will not be offended. Well said. Let us begin somehow by questioning anew. How? Shall we say, Protarchus, that the whole and this so-called universe is governed by the power of the irrational and random and chance, or the opposite, as those before us said, that mind and some marvelous wisdom orders and steers it? Nothing of the sort, wonderful Socrates. For what you say seems to me not even pious; but to say that mind arranges all these things—the sight of the cosmos, the moon, the stars, and the entire revolution—is worthy, and I would never speak or think otherwise about them. Do you then wish that we also agree with what was affirmed by our predecessors, that these things are so? And that we not only think it right to speak of others' views without risk, but also share the danger and partake of the blame, when a clever man says these things are not so, but disordered? How could I not wish it? Come then, consider the argument that now comes upon us concerning these matters. Just speak. Do we not see somewhere, in the nature of all bodies of living things, fire, water, air, and earth, as those who are storm-tossed say, present in their composition? Indeed we do. For we are truly storm-tossed by perplexity in our present arguments.

Take then, concerning each of the things among us, something like this.

What sort? That each of these among us is small and mean and in no way pure, and possesses a power not worthy of its nature. But taking one, understand the same concerning all: for example, fire exists among us, and it exists in the universe. What then? Is not that among us small and weak and mean, while that in the universe is marvelous in quantity and beauty and in every power that pertains to fire? What you say is very true. What then? Is the fire of the universe nourished and generated from this and does it begin from the fire among us, or on the contrary does that fire sustain my fire and yours and all those of the other animals? This question you ask is not even worthy of an answer. Rightly. For you will say the same, I think, concerning the earth in animals here and that in the universe, and concerning all the other things I asked about a little while ago, and you will answer thus. For who, answering otherwise, could ever appear sound of mind? Hardly anyone. But follow what comes next after this. For all these things we have just mentioned, when we see them combined into one, do we not call them body? What then? Take the same concerning that which we call the cosmos; for in the same way it would be a body somewhere, being composed of the same elements. You speak most correctly. Then is our body entirely from this body, or does this body from ours get nourished and receive and possess all that we have just said about them? This too, Socrates, is not worthy of a question. What then? Is this worthy of a question, or how will you say? Tell me what sort. Shall we not say that the body among us has a soul?

We shall say so, clearly. From where, dear Protarchus, could we have taken it, if the body of the universe were not ensouled, possessing the same things as this and even better in every way? Clearly from nowhere else, Socrates. For surely we do not think, Protarchus, that those four kinds—limit, the unlimited, the mixture, and the class of cause, which is present as a fourth in all things—that this, while providing soul in things among us and producing bodily training and healing for a body that has stumbled, and in other things composing and curing other things, and calling upon every kind of wisdom, yet in the whole heaven and in its great parts, which are also beautiful and pure, the nature of the most beautiful and most honorable things has not been contrived by these same elements. But this would have no reason at all. Therefore, if not this, then following that argument we would speak better, saying that, as we have often said, there is in the universe much of the unlimited, sufficient limit, and a cause that is not mean, ordering and arranging years and seasons and months, most justly called wisdom and mind. Most justly indeed. But wisdom and mind could never come to be without soul. Certainly not. Therefore you will say that in the nature of Zeus a kingly soul and a kingly mind come to be through the power of the cause, and in other things other beauties, according to what it is pleasing to call each.

52. How the Tenth Book of the Laws Discusses the Providence of God over the Universe. "The one who believes that gods exist but that they do not care for human affairs must be persuaded. 'My good man,' we shall say, 'that you believe in gods is perhaps due to some divine kinship leading you to honor and acknowledge their existence; but the fortunes of wicked and unjust men, both private and public, which in truth are not happy but are greatly celebrated in opinion, though not fittingly, lead you to impiety, being incorrectly hymned both in the Muses and in all kinds of discourses. Or perhaps, seeing men who have reached old age and have left behind children's children in the highest honors, you are now troubled when, in all these things, having seen or heard or even yourself encountered some of them, many impious and terrible deeds have occurred to some through these very things, from small beginnings to tyrannies and the greatest heights; then through all such things you are clearly unwilling to blame the gods as being the causes of such things because of kinship, but being led by unreason and unable to express displeasure toward the gods, you have now come to this state, so as to think that they exist but that they despise and neglect human affairs. In order, then, that the present opinion may not lead you to a greater passion toward impiety, but that we may become able, if possible, to avert the approaching evil with words, let us try, by joining the following argument to the one we previously completed against the one who did not believe in gods at all, to use this now.

You, Cleinias and Megillus, on behalf of the young man, as before, answer in turn; but if any difficulty arises in the arguments, I, as now, will take you up and carry you across the river. You speak rightly; and do you thus act, and we will do as you say as far as possible. But perhaps it would not be at all difficult to show this, that the gods are no less, but rather more, careful of small things than of those which differ in magnitude. For he heard, I suppose, and was present at what was just now said, that being good and possessing every virtue, they have acquired the care of all things, which is most proper to them. Is it not so? And he listened very attentively. Then let us next consider together, what virtue we mean when we agree that they are good. Come, do we say that temperance and the possession of intellect belong to virtue, and the opposites to vice? We do. What then? Do we say that courage is virtue, and cowardice vice? Certainly. And shall we say that some of these are shameful, others noble? Necessarily. And shall we say that, if any of the base things pertain to us, the gods have no share, either great or small, in such things? Everyone would agree to this also. What then? Shall we place neglect, idleness, and luxury in the virtue of the soul? Or how do you say? How indeed? But in the opposite? Yes. Then the opposites are opposite to these; and would not every such man become, as the poet said, most like unto lazy drones, one who is luxurious, neglectful, and idle? You speak most correctly. Then we must not say that the god has such a character, since he himself hates it; nor must we permit anyone who tries to utter such a thing. Certainly not; for how could he?

To whom it is fitting to act and to care especially for something, but he of this kind cares for the great things but neglects the small—by what argument, then, praising such a one, would we not be altogether in error? Let us consider thus: does not such a one act according to two forms, whether god or man? Which two do we mean? Either thinking that the neglect of small things makes no difference to the whole, or through indolence and luxury, if it does make a difference and he neglects; or is there some other way in which neglect occurs? For there is no case, when one is unable to care for all things, that neglect of small or great will arise for one not caring for those things which he is by nature deficient and unable to care for. How could it? Now, since we are three, let the two answer, who both agree that gods exist, but one says they are to be entreated, the other that they neglect small things. First, you both say that god knows and sees and hears all things, and that it is possible for nothing to escape him of all that are objects of perception and knowledge. Do you say that this is so, or how? Thus. What then? That he can do all things that are within the power of mortals and immortals? How will they not also agree that this is so? And indeed we have agreed that they are good and best, being five. Very much so. Is it not then impossible through indolence and luxury

...they themselves admit to doing absolutely nothing at all, being the sort we describe? For idleness is born of cowardice in us, and laziness and luxury are born of idleness. You speak most truly. No one neglects the gods through idleness and laziness, for he has no share in cowardice. You speak most correctly. Therefore, the remaining possibility is this: if they neglect the small and insignificant matters concerning the whole, either they do so knowing that one ought not to care for any such things at all, or what else remains but that they know the opposite? Nothing. Which then, O best and most excellent one, shall we suppose you to say: that they are ignorant and, though they ought to care, neglect through ignorance, or that they know they ought to care, just as the basest of men are said to act, knowing that it would be better to do what they do not, but due to certain defeats by pleasures or pains they do not act? How could it be otherwise? Then indeed human affairs partake of animate nature, and man is the most god-fearing of all animals. So it seems. And we say that all things are possessions of the gods—all mortal animals, whether rational or not, and the whole heaven. How could it not be so? Now then, whether one calls these things small or great to the gods, in neither case would it be fitting for those who possess us to neglect us, since they are most careful and best. For let us also consider this further point: What is it? The matter concerning perception and power—are they not by nature opposed to each other with respect to ease and difficulty? What do you mean? To see and hear small things is more difficult than large ones, but to bear, hold, and care for small and insignificant things is easier for everyone than the opposite. Indeed.

To a physician who is appointed and wishes and is able to heal a whole body, the large parts will be a concern, but the small and tiny parts will be neglected; will the whole then ever be in good condition for him? Not at all. Nor indeed for pilots, nor generals, nor stewards, nor any political figures, nor any other such person, without the few or small things, are the many or great things; for not even without the small stones, say the stone-cutters, do the large stones lie well. How could they? Let us not, then, ever deem the god inferior to mortal craftsmen, who, the better they are, produce their appropriate works more precisely and perfectly, both small and great, by a single art; but the god, being most wise, and wishing to care for and being able to care for, while it is easier to care for small things, does not care for them at all, like some idle or cowardly person shirking labors, but cares for the great things. Let us by no means accept such an opinion about the gods, O stranger; for we would be thinking a thought that is neither pious nor true. It seems to me that we have now already discussed quite sufficiently with the fault-finder concerning the neglect of the gods. Yes, for he is compelled by the arguments to admit that he does not speak correctly. Yet it seems to me that he still needs some incantatory tales. What kind, my good friend? Let us persuade the young man by arguments that for the one who cares for the whole, all things are ordered toward the preservation and virtue of the whole, of which each part, to the best of its ability, suffers and does what is appropriate. And over these there are rulers appointed for each, down to the smallest affection and action, wrought to the final division as an end.

Of which your own, O wretched one, is one part, always looking toward the whole, even though it is very small. But you have failed to notice that concerning this very thing, every generation occurs for the sake of that whole, so that there may exist for the life of the universe a blessed substance, not coming into being for your sake, but you for its sake. For every physician and every skilled craftsman works all things for the sake of the whole, toward the common best; he produces a part for the sake of the whole, and not the whole for the sake of a part. But you are indignant, ignorant of how what is best concerning you contributes to the whole and to you according to the capacity of the common generation. Since the soul, always coordinated with a body, at one time with one, at another time with another, undergoes all sorts of changes through itself or through another soul, there is no other task for the draught-player than to move the character that becomes better to a better place, and the worse to a worse place, so that each may obtain the portion that befits it. "How do you mean?" In the way that there is ease of care for the gods concerning all things, so it seems to me he speaks. For if someone, always looking toward the whole, were to shape and transform all things, such as from fire to living water and not many from one or one from many, having partaken of a first or second or even third generation, one would see multitudes of the transposed ordering. But as it is, there is a wonderful ease for the one who cares for the whole. "How do you mean again?" Thus:

Since our king saw that all our actions are ensouled, and that in them there is much virtue and much vice, and that the soul and body, once generated, are indestructible but not eternal—just as the gods who exist according to law are not eternal, for generation of living beings would never occur if either of these two perished—and since he conceived that what is always by nature beneficial is the good of the soul, and what is harmful is evil, having observed all this he contrived where each of the parts should be placed so that virtue would be victorious and vice defeated in the whole, in the best, easiest, and most excellent way possible. And indeed he has contrived for all this what kind of thing, when it comes to be, should always occupy what kind of seat, and what places it should inhabit; and he has left the causes of the generation of a particular kind to the wishes of each of us. For wherever one desires and whatever one is in soul, each of us for the most part becomes that and such. At least that is likely. So all things that partake of soul change, having within themselves the cause of change; and as they change, they are borne according to the order and law of fate. Those that change in smaller matters of character move over a lesser area of the earth's surface, while those that fall into greater and more unjust changes move into depth and the so-called lower places—all those which, by naming Hades and the names associated with these, people greatly fear and dream about while living, and after being released from their bodies.

The soul becomes greater in vice or virtue whenever it changes through its own will and association that has become strong. Whenever it mingles with divine virtue, it becomes preeminently such, and having become preeminent, it changes its entire holy place, being transported to some better place. But when the opposite occurs, it settles its own life in the opposite direction. This, then, is the justice of mortals who hold Olympus, O child and youth who seem to be neglected by the gods: becoming worse toward worse souls, and better toward better souls, journeying both in life and in all deaths, and suffering what it is fitting to do for those akin to the like, and to act. Of this justice neither you nor any other who becomes unfortunate will ever pray to overcome the gods, which justice those who ordained it ordained preeminently, and it must be scrupulously avoided throughout the whole. For you will never be neglected by it. Not so small will you sink into the depth of the earth, nor so high will you fly into the heaven, but you will pay the fitting penalty to it, whether remaining here or passing through Hades or being transported to an even holier place than these. The same account would hold for you concerning those whom you, observing that they have become great from small beginnings while committing unholy acts or doing something of the sort, thought had become happy from wretched, and as in mirrors you thought you had seen in their actions the neglect of all the gods, not knowing how their consummation contributes to the whole. And do you think it is for nothing to know this, O most courageous of all?

One who does not know this would never even see a trace of it, nor would he be able to form any account concerning life, whether for happiness or for ill fortune. If these things persuade you, Cleinias, and this entire council of ours, concerning the gods, that you do not know what you are saying, then god himself would well assist you. But if you should still be in need of argument, listen to us as we speak to the third, if you have any understanding at all. The sense of these words, even if not the exact phrasing, has been laid down beforehand in the writings of the Hebrews, most concisely and with the thought contained in few words. For the saying, "Being so small, you will not set beneath the depth of the earth, nor, having become high, will you fly up into heaven," would be similar to that in David, which runs thus: "Where shall I go from your spirit, and from your face where shall I flee? If I go up into heaven, you are there; if I go down into Hades, you are present.

If I should take up wings and settle in the farthest reaches of the sea, even there your hand will guide me;” and also, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament announces the work of his hands;” and again in Isaiah, “Lift up your eyes to the height and see who has ordained all these things;” and, “From the magnitude and beauty of created things the creator is analogously perceived;” and, “For his invisible attributes, from the creation of the world, are perceived through his works, his eternal power and divinity being beheld.” Moreover, “I envied the lawless, seeing the peace of sinners” seems to me to have been paraphrased by Plato through the words, “The same argument would apply to those whom you, observing that they have become great from small beginnings after committing unholy acts or something of that sort, thought to have become happy from wretched.” And all the other things similarly said to these anticipated the interpretation of Plato set forth at length in the writings of the Hebrews. Each of them, then, you would find, if you examined them in detail, to agree precisely with the Hebrew texts. By the words of the Hebrews I mean not only the oracles of Moses, but also those of other God-beloved men after Moses, whether prophets or even apostles of our Savior, whose harmony of doctrines would rightly entitle them to a single designation.

13. The thirteenth book of the Preparation for the Gospel contains the following: 1. How Plato refuted the absurdity of Greek theology. From the Timaeus. 2. Further from the Epinomis on the same subject. 3. Further from the second book of the Republic on the same subject. 4. That the narratives concerning the Greek gods contain nothing more than shameful myths, for not being persuaded by which the Athenians put Socrates to death. From the Euthyphro. 5. From Numenius, from his work on the secret doctrines in Plato, on the same subject. 6. That one ought not to heed the opinions of the many nor change one's own purpose through fear of death. From the Crito. 7. That one ought not to retaliate against those who have prepared to wrong us. From the same work. 8. That one ought not to annul what has once been rightly decided, even if death is threatened. This will be applicable to those who in times of persecution abjure piety. 9. What the disposition will be like of one who abjures his own purpose through fear of death. 10. That one ought not to flee from death for the sake of truth. From the Apology of Socrates. 11. How one ought to honor the death of those who have ended life gloriously. From Plato. 12. How philosophy, even before our time, from the Hebrews, Aristobulus the Peripatetic acknowledges that the Greeks derived their philosophy from that of the Hebrews. 13. How Clement similarly demonstrates that the things well said by the Greeks are in agreement with the doctrines of the Hebrews. From the fifth Stromateus. 14. That not everything has been said successfully by Plato; therefore we have not unreasonably declined his authority.

philosophy, but we accept the Hebrew oracles. 15. That Plato did not entirely correctly expound the doctrine concerning the intelligible substances, but the Hebrews did. 16. That Plato did not hold the same correct opinions as the Hebrews in all respects concerning the soul. 17. That according to Plato the nature of the soul is not composed of an impassive and a passive substance. From Severus the Platonist on the soul. 18. Concerning the heaven and the luminaries in it, that Plato did not hold entirely correct opinions. 19. What things concerning women Plato incorrectly ordained. 20. What things concerning lawless love the same ordained in the Phaedrus, to which Moses gives contrary laws. 21. Concerning the penal laws in Plato, not worthy of his magnanimity, to which the laws of Moses are to be compared. 13. Since it has been shown in the preceding treatises that the philosophy according to Plato contains in very many respects an interpretation of Moses and the sacred writings among the Hebrews, as it were translated into the Greek tongue, I now proceed both to supply what is still lacking to the argument and to review what has been said by our predecessors on these topics, at the same time clearing myself of the charge of reasonable slander, if someone should accuse us, saying, why then, since Moses and Plato have philosophized in harmony, do we not follow the teachings of Plato, but those of Moses, when the opposite would be proper, because, given the equal doctrines, the Greek one would be more suitable to us, being Greeks, than the barbarian. But hesitating to reply to this out of respect for the philosopher, I defer this argument to a later time, and will first examine what I first said.

Take then and read what opinion Plato held concerning the Greek theologians and poets, and how he rejected all the ancestral conceptions about the gods and refuted the absurdity in them.

1. How Plato refuted the absurdity of Greek theology. From the Timaeus: "Concerning the other daemons, to tell and know their generation is too great for us; but we must trust those who have spoken before, who were, as they said, offspring of gods, and clearly knew their own ancestors. It is impossible, then, to disbelieve the children of gods, even if they speak without probable and necessary demonstrations, but as they claim to report their own affairs, we must follow the law and believe. So then, according to them, let the generation of these gods be and be told as follows. Oceanus and Tethys were children of Earth and Heaven; from these were Phorcys, Cronus, and Rhea; and from Cronus and Rhea came Zeus, Hera, and all whom we know as their siblings, and further other descendants of these." Through these words, having urged us to believe the myths about the gods and the very poets of the myths as being offspring of gods, first by saying that the poets are offspring of the gods he seems to me to mock, as if the gods were born of men and similar in nature to their offspring.

He next openly slanders the theologians, whom he said were offspring of the gods, through which he adds, saying, "although they speak without probable and necessary proofs," and through which he further adds the phrase "as they said." He seems to jest, saying, "clearly, at any rate, knowing their own ancestors," and "it is impossible to disbelieve the children of gods." And he plainly indicates that he says these things against his own judgment for the sake of the laws, having admitted that one ought to believe them in accordance with the law. And that he thought this, listen to how with a bare and unveiled voice he slanders all the theologians, cutting them down in the Epinomis with these words:

2. From the discourse of the Epinomis concerning the same: "Theogony, then, and zoogony are necessary, as it seems, first for me, since those before have made a bad likeness, to make a better likeness according to the later account, taking up the argument I have attempted against the impious." And that he reasonably declines the theology of the first he teaches in the second book of the Republic, where it is worth attending to how much and what sort of things he sets forth concerning the same poets and theologians and the traditions handed down from ancient times about the Greek gods, speaking in these very words:

3. Again from the second book of the Republic on the same subject: "In the greater things," I said, "we shall see also the lesser. For the same pattern must be present and the same power must belong to both the greater and the lesser. Or do you not think so?" "I do," he said, "but I do not understand what greater things you mean." "Those," I said, "that Hesiod and Homer told us, and the other poets. For they, composing false stories for men, told and still tell them." "What stories," he said, "and what fault do you find in them?" "That," I said, "which must first and most be blamed, especially if someone does not lie well." "What is that?" "When someone represents badly in speech the nature of gods and heroes, what they are like, just as a painter paints nothing like the things he wishes to portray." "Yes," he said, "it is right to blame such things. But what do we mean and what are they?" "First," I said, "the greatest lie about the greatest things, which the one who spoke it did not lie well, as when Uranus did what Hesiod says he did, and Cronus in turn how he punished him. And the deeds and sufferings of Cronus at the hands of his son, even if they were true, I thought should not be so readily told to the foolish and the young, but should rather be kept silent, and if there were any necessity to tell them, they should be heard in secret by as few as possible, after sacrificing not a pig but some great and difficult victim, so that as few as possible might hear them." "Yes," he said, "these stories are harsh." "And they are not to be told," I said, "in our city, Adeimantus.

Nor should it be said to a young listener that the one who commits the worst injustices does nothing remarkable, nor that the one who punishes an unjust father in every way acts as the first and greatest of the gods. "No, by Zeus," he said, "it does not seem to me either that these things are fit to be said." "Nor indeed," I said, "should it be said at all that gods war against gods, plot against them, and fight with them; for these things are not true, if we who are to guard the city must consider it most shameful to be easily hostile to one another. Far from it: we must not only refrain from narrating gigantomachies to them and embellishing them, and many other varied enmities of gods and heroes against their own kin and kindred, but if we are to persuade them that no citizen has ever been hostile to another and that this is not holy, we must rather speak such things to children from the very beginning, and to the elderly, both men and women, and to those who are becoming older, and we must compel the poets to compose stories close to these. The binding of Hera by her son, the hurling of Hephaestus by his father when he was about to defend his mother being struck, and all the theomachies that Homer has composed are not to be admitted into the city, whether composed with hidden meanings or without them. For the young are not able to judge what is hidden meaning and what is not, but whatever they take in at such an age in their beliefs tends to become ineradicable and unchangeable. For these reasons, perhaps, one must take every care that the first things they hear are the most beautifully crafted stories conducive to virtue." So it is.

For, he said, a story. But if someone were to ask us what these are and which myths, what would we say? And I said: Adeimantus, you and I are not poets at present, but founders of a city. It is fitting for founders to know the patterns in which poets must tell their myths, and if they compose contrary to these, it must not be permitted; but they themselves should not compose myths. Correct, he said. But what would these patterns concerning theology be? Something like this, I said: as God truly is, so must he always be represented, whether one composes in epic, in lyric, or in tragedy. For it must be so. Then God is good, in reality and must be spoken of as such. Of course. But nothing good is harmful, is it? I think not. Then does that which is not harmful cause harm? Not at all. Does that which does not harm do any evil? Not that either. And that which does no evil would not be the cause of any evil. How could it be? What then? Is the good beneficial? Yes. Then is it the cause of well-doing? Yes. So the good is not the cause of all things, but is the cause of good things and not the cause of evil things. Absolutely, he said. Therefore, I said, God, since he is good, would not be the cause of all things, as the many say, but is the cause of few things for men, and not the cause of many; for the good things are far fewer than the evil things for us. And of the good things, no other cause should be sought, but for the evil things, other causes must be sought, not God. Most true, he said; you seem to me to speak correctly.

Therefore, I said, we must not accept from Homer or any other poet this error about the gods, when he thoughtlessly errs and says that two jars lie in the threshold of Zeus, full of fortunes, one of good, the other of evil; and that to whomever Zeus gives a mixture of both, that man meets sometimes with evil, sometimes with good; but to whomever he gives unmixed portions, that man is driven by evil famine over the divine earth. Nor should we accept that Zeus is "the dispenser of good and evil alike." Nor will we praise it if someone says that the violation of oaths and truces, which Pandarus committed, was brought about through Athena and Zeus; nor the strife and judgment of the gods through Themis and Zeus. Nor, again, as Aeschylus says, should we allow the young to hear that a god plants the cause in mortals when he wishes to ruin a house utterly. But if a poet composes works containing these iambic lines—the sufferings of Niobe, or those of the Pelopidae, or the Trojan events, or anything else of the sort—either we must not allow him to say that these are the works of a god, or if they are of a god, we must find for them nearly the account we are now seeking, and we must say that the god did just and good things, and that those being punished benefited. But that those paying the penalty are wretched, and that the one doing these things is a god, we must not allow the poet to say. But if they were to say that they needed punishment, and that the wicked are wretched, but that in paying the penalty they were benefited by the god, that we must allow.

evil, and to say that a god, being good, becomes the cause of evil to someone, one must fight in every way that no one in his own city should say these things, if it is to be well-governed, nor should anyone hear them, whether younger or older, whether in meter or without meter, telling such myths, since they would be neither holy if spoken, nor beneficial to us, nor consistent with themselves. I agree with you, he said, and this law pleases me as well. This then, I said, would be one of the laws and patterns concerning god, in which it will be necessary for those who speak to speak and for those who compose to compose, that god is not the cause of all things, but only of good things. And that is sufficient, he said. What then about this second one? Do you think that god is a sorcerer and, as it were, by design appears at different times in different forms, sometimes himself changing and altering his own form into many shapes, and sometimes deceiving us and making us think such things about him, or that he is simple and least of all departs from his own form? I cannot say now, he said, just like that. What about this? Is it not necessary, if something departs from its own form, that it either changes itself or is changed by another? It is necessary. Therefore

That which is in the best condition is least altered and moved by another, for example, a body by food, drink, and exertion, and every plant by the heat of the sun, winds, and such affections—is not the healthiest and most graceful least altered? Of course. And a soul, would not the bravest and most prudent be least disturbed and altered by any external affection? Yes. And indeed, all composite things, such as implements, buildings, and garments, according to the same principle, those that are well-made and in good condition are least altered by time and other affections. That is so. Everything that is in a good state, whether by nature or by art or by both, admits the least change from another. It seems so. But God and the things of God are in every way in the best condition. Of course. Then God would least of all take on many forms. Least of all. But would he change and alter himself? Obviously, he said, if he is altered. Then does he change himself for the better and more beautiful, or for the worse and more ugly? Necessarily, he said, for the worse, if he is altered; for we will not say that God is deficient in beauty or virtue. Very rightly, I said. And this being so, does it seem to you, Adeimantus, that anyone, either god or man, would willingly make himself worse in any respect? Impossible, he said. Therefore it is impossible for God to wish to alter himself, but, as it seems, being most beautiful and best, each of them remains always simply in his own form, as far as possible. That seems to me entirely necessary.

Let no one, then, I said, my good friend, tell us from the poets that gods, resembling foreign strangers, wander through our cities in all manner of forms; nor let anyone falsely tell of Proteus and Thetis, nor in tragedies or other poems introduce Hera transformed as a priestess collecting gifts for the life-giving children of Inachus, the Argive river. And let them not tell us many other such falsehoods; nor, persuaded by these, let mothers terrify their children by telling the stories badly, as if some gods go about by night appearing in many and various forms, so that they may both blaspheme against the gods and at the same time make the children more cowardly. "No, indeed," he said. "But then," I said, "are the gods themselves such as not to change, while they make us think that they appear in all manner of forms, deceiving and bewitching us?" "Perhaps," he said. "What then?" I said. "Would the god wish to lie, either in word or in deed, by presenting phantoms?" "I do not know," he said. "Do you not know," I said, "that the true lie, if one may so call it, is hated by all gods and men?" "How do you mean?" he said. "Do you know," I said, "that no one willingly wishes to lie in the most authoritative part of himself and about the most authoritative things, but everyone fears most of all to possess it there?" "Not even now," he said, "do I understand." "Do you think," I said, "that I am saying something solemn? I mean that to lie in the soul about the things that are, and to be deceived, and to be ignorant, and to have and possess the lie there—this is what all would least accept and most hate in that condition." "Very much so," he said.

But would it not be most correct, as I was just saying, that this truly be called falsehood—the ignorance in the soul of the one who is deceived—since the falsehood in words is a kind of imitation of the affection in the soul and a later-born image, not entirely pure falsehood? Or is it not so? Certainly so. The real falsehood, then, is hated not only by gods but also by men. It seems so to me. What then? When is falsehood in words useful, so as not to be worthy of hatred? Is it not against enemies and against those called friends, when through madness or some folly they attempt to do something evil, that it becomes useful as a remedy for the sake of turning them aside? And in the myths we were just now speaking of, because we do not know how the truth stands concerning ancient matters, do we not make falsehood useful by likening it to the truth as much as possible? Yes indeed, he said, it is so. In which of these respects, then, is falsehood useful to God? Is it because he does not know ancient things that he would lie by likening? That would be ridiculous, he said. So there is no false poet in God? It does not seem so to me. But would he lie out of fear of enemies? Far from it. But because of the folly or madness of his own people? But none of the foolish or mad, he said, is dear to God. So there is no reason for which God would lie? There is not. So the divine and the godly are altogether free from falsehood. Entirely so, he said. Therefore God is altogether simple and true in deed and word, and neither changes himself nor deceives others, neither through apparitions nor through words nor through the sending of signs, whether waking or in dreams. So it seems to me, he said, and to him as well, as you speak.

You grant, then," I said, "that this is a second type in which one must speak and act concerning the gods: that they themselves are not sorcerers by changing themselves, nor do they lead us astray with falsehoods in word or deed?" "I grant it." "Then, while praising much of Homer, we will not praise this: the sending of the dream by Zeus to Agamemnon; nor Aeschylus, when Thetis says that Apollo at her own wedding sang, celebrating her good fortune of children free from disease and of long life, and having said all this, he praised her god-loved fortunes, cried out a paean, cheering me; and I thought the divine, truthful mouth of Phoebus, teeming with the prophetic art, was that; but the same one who sang, who was present at the feast, who said these things, is the same who killed my son. When anyone says such things about the gods, we will be angry and will not grant a chorus, nor will we allow teachers to use them for the education of the young, if our guardians are to become reverent and divine, as far as possible for a human being." "Absolutely," he said, "I grant these types and would use them as laws." So says Plato. But you would find that the writing of the Hebrews contains in no way shameful myths about the god of all, nor even about the divine angels around him, nor about the god-beloved men, similarly to the Greek theologies; but it contains the type set forth by Plato, that the god is good and that all things that have come into being by him are such. And so, concerning each of the creations, the wonderful Moses adds: "And God saw that it was good"; and, summarizing the account about all things, he says:

And God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good. It is also a doctrine of the Hebrews that God is not the cause of evils, since God did not make death nor does he delight in the destruction of the living; for he created all things for existence, and the generations of the world are salvific. But death entered the world through the envy of the devil. Hence also in the prophet, God is introduced speaking to one who has become evil from his own choice: But I planted you as a fruit-bearing vine, wholly true; how have you turned backward, a foreign vine? If somewhere it is said that evils befall the wicked from God, it must be understood homonymously, as punishments are so called, which God, being good, is said to inflict not for the harm of those punished, but for their benefit and advantage; just as a physician might be thought to apply painful and bitter treatments for the salvation of the sick. Therefore also in divine scripture, where it is said that evils are brought upon men by God, one must say, as with Plato, that God wrought just and good things, and when he brought gloomy things, considered evils by men, upon those worthy of them, those being punished benefited, not only according to the philosopher, but also according to the Hebrew scripture which says: For whom the Lord loves, he disciplines; and he scourges every son whom he accepts. But as those paying the penalty are wretched, yet the one doing these things, God, is not.

One must allow the poet to speak, but if they should say that they were in need of punishment as wretched evildoers, and that in paying the penalty they were benefited by God, one must allow it; but to say that God, being good, becomes the cause of evils for anyone, one must resist by every means. And concerning the fact that God does not change, the prophecy among the Hebrews teaches somewhere in the person of God, saying: "Because I am the Lord your God and I have not changed." And in the theological writings David exclaims, saying: "All will grow old like a garment, and you will roll them up like a cloak, and they will be changed; but you are the same, and your years will not fail." But if they introduce the Word of God appearing in human form and shape, one must say that it is not like the myths of the Greeks, similarly to Proteus and Thetis and Hera, nor as the gods who "wander by night appearing in many and various animals," that the accounts of the Hebrews introduce the Word of God having appeared to men, but as Plato himself says that it is sometimes necessary for the benefit of friends, "when through madness or some folly they attempt to do something evil, then for the sake of turning them away, as a useful remedy," the descent of God to men occurs.

Since, then, of the creatures on earth none was more beloved of God than the race of man, being akin and familiar to the Word of God, by whom also the nature of the soul was wrought rational, it is reasonable that, as caring for a beloved creature, they say that the heavenly Word came for the healing of the whole race, which had undergone an extraordinary disease and madness, so that it neither knew God the Father, nor its own proper essence of the intellectual nature, nor again the providence of God, the savior of all, but had come to a turning aside almost to the level of an irrational animal. Therefore they say that the savior and physician came, not indeed departing from his own nature, nor deceiving the beholders, but preserving both true, both the invisible and the visible. For on the one hand he was seen as a true man, on the other he was true Word of God, not practicing sorcery nor deceiving the spectators, since the divine is truth-speaking, as seemed good also to Plato. "So then God, being a simple and true word in deed and word, neither changed himself nor deceived others, neither by phantasies nor by words nor by processions of signs, waking or in dreams." For all such things, as a physician of rational souls, for the sake of the salvation of the whole human race, he truly, but not in appearance, accomplished through the man whom he assumed, bestowing upon us all the friendship with and return to his own Father through the knowledge of God and true piety proclaimed by him. And such are our teachings.

But to those who say otherwise, "We shall be indignant and will not grant them a chorus, nor will we allow the teachers to use the young for education, if our guardians are to become pious and divine," as also seemed excellent to the philosopher.

4. THAT THE NARRATIVES CONCERNING THE GREEK GODS CONTAIN NOTHING MORE THAN THE SHAMEFUL MYTHS, FOR WHICH, SINCE SOCRATES DID NOT BELIEVE THEM, THE ATHENIANS PUT HIM TO DEATH. "For the very men who consider Zeus the best and most just of the gods also admit that he bound his own father because he swallowed his sons unjustly, and that that one in turn castrated his own father for other such reasons; yet they are angry with me because I proceed against my father when he does wrong, and thus they contradict themselves concerning both the gods and me. Is it for this reason, Euthyphro, that I am fleeing the indictment, because when someone says such things about the gods, I somehow receive them with displeasure? For which reason, it seems, someone will say that I am doing wrong. Now then, if you also agree with these things, you who know well about such matters, then it seems necessary for us also to concede. For what shall we say, we who ourselves admit that we know nothing about them? But tell me, by friendship, do you truly believe that these things happened thus? And still more wonderful than these, Socrates, which the many do not know.

And do you really believe that there is war among the gods against each other, and terrible enmities, and battles, and many other such things, as are told by the poets and by good writers, and with which our other sacred things are embroidered, and indeed at the great Panathenaea the robe full of such embroideries is brought up to the acropolis? Are we to say that these things are true, Euthyphro? Not only these, Socrates, but as I said just now, I will tell you many other things about the gods, if you wish, which when you hear I know well you will be astonished. These are the words of Plato in the Euthyphro. And Numenius explains the meaning in his work On the Secret Doctrines of Plato, speaking somewhat as follows.

5. NUMENIUS, FROM THE SECRET DOCTRINES OF PLATO: If Plato, having undertaken to write about the theology of the Athenians, had then been disgusted with it and accused it, as containing factions against each other, and mixtures of some children, and devourings of others, and in place of these, punishments inflicted by fathers on sons and by brothers on brothers, and other such things; if Plato, taking these things into the open, had accused them, he would, it seems to me, have given the Athenians cause to become evil again, and to kill him also, just as they killed Socrates. But since he would not choose to live rather than to speak the truth, yet saw that he would be able both to live and to speak the truth safely, he placed in the character of the Athenians Euthyphro, who was a boastful and impudent man, and one who, if anyone, theologizes badly, and he placed Socrates himself in his own character, in which he was accustomed to refute each one with whom he conversed.

6. THAT ONE OUGHT NOT TO ATTEND TO THE OPINIONS OF THE MANY, NOR TO ABANDON ONE'S OWN CHOICE THROUGH FEAR OF DEATH; FROM THE CRITO: "My dear Crito, your eagerness is worth much, if it were accompanied by some correctness; but if not, the greater it is, the more troublesome. Therefore we must consider whether these things are to be done or not, for I am not only now, but always, such a man as to obey nothing else among my own than the argument which appears to me best when I reason. Now the arguments which I used in the former discussion I am unable to reject now that this fortune has befallen me, but they appear to me nearly the same, and I honor and reverence the same ones as before; and if we have nothing better to say at present, be well assured that I will not yield to you, not even if the power of the many, more than is now present, should frighten us like children, sending bonds and deaths and confiscations of property. How then might we consider these matters most moderately? If first we should take up this argument which you mention, the one concerning opinions, whether it was well said on each occasion or not, that one must attend to some opinions and not to others; or whether before I had to die it was well said, but now it has become evident that it was said for the sake of argument otherwise.

It was said, but it was truly play and nonsense. I myself desire to examine, Crito, together with you, whether this argument will appear to me any different now that I am in this state, or the same, and whether we shall dismiss it or be persuaded by it. It was said, as I think, each time here by those who think they have something to say, just as I was saying just now, that of the opinions which men hold, some must be taken seriously, others not. By the gods, Crito, does this not seem to you to be well said? For you, as far as human affairs go, are outside the prospect of dying tomorrow, and the present misfortune would not mislead you. Consider then: does it not seem to you sufficiently well said that not all the opinions of men must be honored, but some, and others not? Nor those of all men, but of some, and not of others? What do you say? Are these things not well said? They are well said. Then are the good ones to be honored, and the bad ones not? Yes. And are not the good ones those of the wise, and the bad ones those of the foolish? How could it be otherwise? Come then, how were such things said? A man who exercises and does this—does he attend to the praise and blame and opinion of every man, or of that one only who happens to be a doctor or a trainer? Of one only. Then must he fear the blame and welcome the praise of that one only, and not of the many? Clearly. Therefore he must act and exercise and eat and drink in the way that seems good to that one, the expert and knowledgeable one, rather than to all the others together. That is so. Well then, if he disobeys that one and dishonors his opinion and praise, but honors the opinions of the many who know nothing, will he suffer no harm? How could he not?

What is this evil? And to what does it tend, and to what part of the disobedient one? Clearly to this body, which it destroys. You speak well. So too with the other things, Crito, that we may not go through everything. And indeed also concerning just and unjust things, shameful and noble things, good and evil things, about which we are now deliberating, whether we ought to follow the opinion of the many and fear it, or that of the one, if there is someone who understands, whom we ought to respect and fear more than all the others? If we do not follow him, will we not destroy and ruin that which is improved by justice and destroyed by injustice? Or is this nothing? I think so, Socrates. Come then, if we destroy that which is improved by health and corrupted by disease, by not following the opinion of those who understand, is life possible for us when it is corrupted? And is the body something, or not? Yes. Then is life possible for us with a wretched and corrupted body? Not at all. But is life possible for us with that corrupted which injustice injures and justice benefits? Or do we consider that thing, whatever it is of ours, about which injustice and justice exist, to be inferior to the body? Not at all. But more honorable? Much more. Therefore, best of men, we must not at all be so concerned with what the many will say about us, but with what the one who understands about just and unjust things says, and with the truth itself. So first of all, you do not advise correctly when you suggest that we ought to care about the opinion of the many concerning just and noble and good things and their opposites. And the saving word says:

You seek glory from men, but you do not seek the glory that comes from the one alone." Therefore we also, in the contests for piety, act rightly, not considering what the many will say about us, but what the one, the Word of God, wills, whom, once we have chosen by judgment, it is fitting to honor then as before, and not to change, not even "if the power of the many frightens us like children." Such also were those who long ago among the Hebrews shone forth in martyrdom.

7. THAT ONE MUST NOT DEFEND ONESELF AGAINST THOSE WHO CHOOSE TO INJURE US. FROM THE SAME: "Do we say that in no way must one willingly commit injustice, or that in some way one must commit injustice, and in some way not? Or is committing injustice in no way either noble or good, as has often been agreed by us in previous time? Which was also said just now. Or have all those former agreements of ours been poured out in these few days, and long ago, Crito, did we, men of such an age, conversing earnestly with each other, fail to notice that we were no different from children? Or is it most certainly the case, as was said to us then, whether the many say so or not, and whether we must suffer things more severe than these or milder, that committing injustice is for the one who does it both evil and shameful in every way? Do we say so or not? We say so. Therefore one must never commit injustice. Certainly not. Nor, then, must one who is wronged retaliate, as the many think, since one must never commit injustice? It appears not. What then? Must one do evil, Crito, or not? One must not, I suppose, Socrates. What then? Is it just for one who suffers evil to do evil in return, as the many say, or is it not just? In no way.

For doing evil to people is no different from doing injustice. You speak well. Therefore one must neither retaliate nor do evil to any person, not even if one suffers anything at their hands. But see, Crito, that in agreeing to these things you do not agree contrary to your own belief. For I know that these things seem right and will seem right only to a few. Therefore, between those who hold this opinion and those who do not, there is no common counsel, but they must necessarily despise one another, seeing each other's deliberations. So consider well, then, whether you share this view and agree with it, and whether we may begin from this point in our deliberation, that it is never right either to do injustice or to retaliate, or when suffering evil to defend oneself by doing evil in return; or do you withdraw and not share this starting point? For my part, I have held this for a long time and still hold it now. And if you have been persuaded otherwise, speak and instruct; but if you abide by what was said before, then hear what follows. I abide by it and agree; speak. Then I say what follows, or rather I ask: whether one must do what one has agreed with another is just, or must one deceive? One must do it. Set beside these words: "rendering no evil for evil," and "bless those who curse you; pray for those who abuse and persecute you, that you may become sons of your Father in heaven, who makes his sun rise on the wicked and the good and rains on the just and the unjust," and further: "when reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we exhort," which are borne in our sacred writings. And the prophet among the Hebrews says:

If I returned evil to those who return evil to me,” and again: “I was peaceful with those who hate peace.”

8. That one must not set aside what has once been rightly judged, not even if death is brought upon one. This will apply to those who in times of persecution abjure piety: “But then you prided yourself on not being vexed if you had to die, and you said you chose death before exile; but now you are not ashamed of those words, nor do you respect us, the laws, as you attempt to destroy us. You are doing what the basest slave would do, trying to run away contrary to the agreements and compacts according to which you agreed to live with us. First, answer us this: whether we speak the truth in saying that you have agreed to live by us in deed, not merely in word, or whether we do not speak the truth? What shall we say to this, Crito? Something else, or do we agree? Necessarily, Socrates. But what then, if they should say, ‘You are breaking the compacts and agreements with us, not having agreed under compulsion nor having been forced to deliberate in a short time, but in seventy years, during which it was possible for you to leave if we did not please you nor did the agreements seem just to you. But you preferred neither Lacedaemon nor Crete, which you always say are well-governed, nor any other Greek city nor any barbarian one, but you left the city less often than the lame, the blind, and the other disabled. Thus the city and we, the laws, evidently pleased you more than other Athenians; for to whom would a city be pleasing without laws? But now you do not abide by what was agreed?’

if you are persuaded by us, Socrates.

9. What sort of disposition will the man have who, through fear of death, forswears his own purpose? "For whoever is a corrupter of laws would seem to be a corrupter of young and foolish men. Will you then flee from well-governed cities and the most orderly of men? And if you do this, will life be worth living for you? Or will you approach them and shamelessly converse, what words will you use, Socrates? Or the same as here, that virtue and justice are of the greatest value to men, and that which is lawful and the laws? And do you not think that the affair of Socrates will appear shameful? You must think so. But you will depart from these places and go to Thessaly to the friends of Crito; for there there is the greatest disorder and licentiousness, and perhaps they would gladly hear how you absurdly escaped from prison, putting on some disguise or taking a leather cloak or other things, such as those who escape are accustomed to equip themselves with, and changing your own appearance. And that an old man, with but a short time of life remaining, as is likely, dared so greedily to desire to live, transgressing the greatest laws, no one will perhaps mention, unless you annoy someone; but if not, you will hear, Socrates, many things unworthy of yourself. Living submissively, you will then serve all men and be a slave, what will you be doing but feasting in Thessaly, as if you had traveled to Thessaly for a banquet? And those discourses about justice and the rest of virtue, where will they be for us? But do you wish to live for the sake of your children, so that you may rear and educate them? What then?

If you lead them to Thessaly, will you rear and educate them, making them strangers, so that they may enjoy this as well? Or will they not, but while being reared by you, will they be better reared and educated while you are alive, even if you are not with them? For your suitable friends will take care of them. But if you go abroad to Thessaly, will they take care of them? And if you go abroad to Hades, will they not take care of them, if indeed there is any benefit from those who claim to be your suitable friends? You must think so. But, Socrates, persuaded by us, your nurturers, do not value either your children or your life or anything else more than justice, so that when you go to Hades you may have all these things to plead before the rulers there. For neither does it appear to you, while doing these things, to be better or more just or more holy for you or for any of your own, nor will it be better for you when you arrive there. But now you depart wronged, if you depart, not by us the laws, but by men. But if you depart in this shameful way, having retaliated and done evil in return, having broken your own agreements and covenants with us, and having done evil to those whom you least should—to yourself, your friends, your country, and us—then we will be harsh with you while you live, and there our brothers, the laws in Hades, will not receive you kindly, knowing that you attempted to destroy us, so far as in you lay.

10. That one ought not to flee death for the sake of truth. From the Apology of Socrates: "Perhaps then someone might say: 'Are you not ashamed, Socrates, of having pursued such a pursuit, from which you now run the risk of dying?' And I would answer this with a just argument, that you do not speak well, O man, if you think that a man who is of any worth at all ought to take into account the risk of living or dying, and not rather consider only this, when he acts, whether he does just or unjust deeds, and the works of a good man or a bad man. For by your argument, all those demigods who died at Troy would be base, both the others and the son of Thetis, who so despised danger in the face of doing something shameful that, when his mother, being a goddess, said to him, as he was eager to kill Hector, something like this, I think: 'My son, if you avenge the murder of your comrade Patroclus and kill Hector, you yourself will die; for immediately after Hector, fate is ready.' And hearing this, he made light of death and danger, but feared much more living as a coward and not avenging his friends, and said, 'Let me die immediately,' inflicting punishment on the wrongdoer, so that I may not remain here a laughingstock by the curved ships, a burden on the earth. Do you think he cared about death and danger? For this is the truth, O men of Athens: wherever a man stations himself, thinking it best, or is stationed by a commander, there he must, as it seems to me, remain and face danger, taking into account neither death nor anything else before shame.

I then would be guilty of a terrible thing, men of Athens, if, when the commanders whom you chose to command me stationed me at Potidaea and Amphipolis and at Delium and elsewhere, wherever they stationed me, I remained like anyone else and risked death, but when the god stationed me, as I thought and supposed, that I must live philosophizing and examining myself and others, I were to desert my post here from fear of death or any other thing. It would be a terrible thing, and truly then someone might justly bring me into court, because I do not believe in gods, disobeying the oracle, and fearing death, and thinking I am wise when I am not. For to fear death, men, is nothing else than to think one is wise when one is not; for it is to think one knows what one does not know. For no one knows death, nor whether it happens to be for man the greatest of all goods, but they fear it as if they knew well that it is the greatest of evils. And yet how is this not that reproachful ignorance, the thinking one knows what one does not know? But I, men, differ from the many perhaps in this and here; and if I might claim to be wiser than anyone in anything, it would be in this, that not knowing sufficiently about the things in Hades, I also think I do not know; but that doing wrong and disobeying the better, whether god or man, is evil and shameful, I know. Therefore, before the evils which I know are evils, I will never fear nor flee those which I do not know whether they may even be goods; so that not even if you now release me, distrusting Anytus, who said that either I should not have come here at the beginning, or since I have come,

I entered, not that it was possible for them not to kill me, saying to you that if I should escape, then your sons, practicing what Socrates teaches, would all be utterly corrupted—if to this you should say: O Socrates, now we will not be persuaded by Anytus, but we release you, on this condition, however, that you no longer spend time in this investigation nor philosophize; and if you are caught doing this again, you will die. If then you were to release me on these terms, as I said, I would say to you that I, O men of Athens, greet you and love you, but I obey the god rather than you, and as long as I breathe and am able, I will not cease philosophizing and exhorting you and pointing out, to whomever of you I may always meet, saying the things I am accustomed to. And after a little he adds: Let us consider also in this way, that there is great hope that it is a good thing. For death is one of two things: either it is like nothing, and the dead person has no perception of anything, or, according to what is said, it is a kind of change and migration of the soul from this place to another place. And if indeed there is no perception, but it is like a sleep, when someone sleeping sees no dream at all, death would be a wonderful gain.

I think that if someone were to select that night in which he slept so soundly as to see not even a dream, and were to set beside it all the other nights and days of his own life, and then, after considering, were to say how many days and nights he had lived better and more pleasantly than that night, I think that not just any private person, but even the Great King would find them to be few in number compared with the other days and nights. If, then, death is like this, I say it is a gain; for the whole of time appears to be no more than a single night. But if, on the other hand, death is a kind of journey from here to another place, and what is said is true, that there are all the dead, what greater good could there be than this, gentlemen judges? For if someone, on arriving in Hades, freed from those who claim to be judges, should find the true judges, who are said to judge there—Minos and Rhadamanthus and Aeacus and Triptolemus and all the other demigods who were just in their own lives—would that journey be a worthless one? Or again, to associate with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer—at what price would any of you accept that? For my part, I would often be willing to die, if these things are true, since for me too the time there would be wonderful, whenever I might meet Palamedes and Ajax son of Telamon and any other of the ancients who died through an unjust judgment, comparing my own sufferings with theirs—which, I think, would not be unpleasant.

And indeed the greatest thing is to examine and scrutinize those there as if they were here, to see which of them is wise and which thinks he is but is not." And among us it has been said, "One must obey God rather than men" and "Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul" and "Know that if our earthly house of the tabernacle is dissolved, we have a building from God, a handless-made eternal house in the heavens" and that "departing from the body we dwell in the Lord," who has promised to all who have hoped in him to rest in the bosoms of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and to pass the long age in blessed life together with the other God-beloved prophets and righteous among the Hebrews.

11. HOW ONE SHOULD HONOR THE DEATH OF THOSE WHO HAVE GLORIOUSLY EXCHANGED LIFE

"Of those who die in military service, whoever dies having gained a good reputation, shall we not first say that he is of the golden race? Yes, indeed. But shall we not be persuaded by Hesiod, when some of such a race die, that they become pure daemons, earthly, noble, averters of evil, guardians of mortal men? We shall be persuaded, then. Having inquired of the god how we ought to place the daemonic and divine beings and by what distinction, shall we thus place them in the manner he prescribes? Why should we not? For the rest of time, then, shall we honor and worship their tombs as having become daemons?

We shall consider the same things, when someone dies of old age or in some other way, of all those who have been judged preeminently good in life." And these things are fitting for the death of the God-beloved, whom one would not err in calling soldiers of true piety. Hence it is also our custom to go to their tombs and to make prayers there, and to honor their blessed souls, as these things are reasonably done by us. But we have gathered these things from Plato; another lover of beauty might find even more than these in the same author, in agreement with our doctrines, and perhaps also in others. Since others before us have touched upon the same subject, it seems good to me to examine also the works composed by them. I will set forth first the words of Aristobulus, the philosopher from the Hebrews, which are as follows:

12. HOW ARISTOBULUS THE PERIPATETIC, WHO WAS BEFORE US AND FROM THE HEBREWS, ACKNOWLEDGED THAT THE GREEKS DREW FROM THE PHILOSOPHY AMONG THE HEBREWS. FROM THE WORKS OF ARISTOBULUS ADDRESSED TO KING PTOLEMY: "It is evident that Plato followed our legislation, and it is clear that he worked through each of the things in it. For before Demetrius of Phalerum, before the domination of Alexander and the Persians, there was translated through others both the account of the exodus of the Hebrews—our fellow citizens—from Egypt, and the manifestation of all that happened to them, and the conquest of the land, and the exposition of the whole legislation, so that it is obvious that the aforementioned philosopher took many things.

has become very learned, just as Pythagoras also transferred many of our teachings into his own doctrinal system and established them. The entire interpretation of all the things in the law, under the king called Philadelphus, your ancestor, who displayed greater ambition, was undertaken by Demetrius of Phalerum, who managed these matters." Then, after saying something in between, he adds, saying: "For one must take the divine voice not as a literal word, but as the construction of works, just as through the legislation Moses has spoken to us the entire generation of the world by the words of God. For he continually says in each case: 'And God said, and it came to be.' And it seems to me that Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato, having thoroughly examined everything, have followed this, saying that they hear the voice of God, observing that the construction of the whole has been made by God and is continuously held together. Moreover, Orpheus, in the poems of what is called the Sacred Word, sets forth in this way concerning the fact that all things are held together by divine power, are generated, and that God is over all. He speaks thus: 'I will speak to those for whom it is lawful; close the doors, you profane ones, fleeing the ordinances of the just, of the divine one who ordains for all alike; and you, O son of the light-bearing Moon, Musaeus, listen. For I will speak the truth; let not...

the things that previously appeared in your breast, the beloved age may deprive you of; but look to the divine word and attend to it, guiding the intelligent vessel of your heart. Walk well on the path, and behold only the immortal molder of the cosmos. An ancient account concerning this reveals: He is one, self-complete, and from him all things are completed; in them he himself revolves, and no one among mortals sees him with the soul, but he is seen by the mind. He himself does not ordain evil for mortal men from good things; but grace and hatred attend him, and war and plague and tearful pains. There is no other. But you will see all these things easily, if you see him. Before I came here to earth, my child, I will show you, when I perceive his tracks and the strong hand of the mighty god. But I do not see him himself; for a cloud is fixed around him, remaining for me—a tenfold standing for men. For no mortal man could see the ruler, unless he were a monogenous offshoot of the Chaldean race from above; for he was skilled in the course of the star and the motion of the sphere around the earth as it revolves, and in the equal circle, according to its own axis. He guides the spirits around the air and around the stream of water; he reveals the light of fire, born of great might. He himself is again fixed upon the great heaven on a golden throne; the earth stands beneath his feet. He stretches his right hand to the limits of Ocean; the base of the mountains trembles within from his wrath and cannot bear his strong might. He is altogether the heavenly one, and on earth he brings all things to completion, having himself the beginning, the middle, and the end, as the account of the ancients says, as the water-born one ordained, receiving from the divine mind according to the double law.

Otherwise it is not lawful to speak; but I tremble in my limbs, in my mind: from the highest one decrees concerning all things in order. O child, approach with your thoughts, well mastering your tongue, and place the divine utterance in your breast. And Aratus says about the same things as follows: "Let us begin from God, whom men never leave unspoken; all streets are full of God, all marketplaces of men are full, the sea and harbors are full, and everywhere we all have need of God. For we are also of his race; and he, gentle to men, gives favorable signs, and rouses the peoples to work, reminding them of livelihood; he tells when the soil is best for oxen and mattocks, he tells when the seasons are right for planting vines and casting all seeds." I think it has been clearly shown that the power of God is through all things. And as is necessary, we have signified, removing the Zeus and Zenas of the poems; for the intention of their thought is referred to God, and therefore it has been stated by us in this way. Not unreasonably, then, have we brought these things forward in response to the inquiries. For it is agreed by all philosophers that one must have holy conceptions about God, which our own school especially exhorts well. And the whole construction of our law is ordered concerning piety, justice, temperance, and the remaining goods that are true." After these things, he adds further: "It is consistent that God, who constructed the whole world and gave us rest, because life is full of hardship for all, gave the seventh day, which indeed might naturally be called the first generation of light, in which all things are contemplated together. The same could be transferred also to wisdom.

For the whole is light from her. And some of those belonging to the heresy from the Peripatos have said that she holds the rank of a lamp; for following her continuously they will be established untroubled throughout the whole of life. But more clearly and more beautifully one of our ancestors, Solomon, said that she exists before heaven and earth; this indeed is in harmony with what was previously stated. But the clarification through the legislation that God has ceased in her—this does not, as some suppose, mean that God no longer does anything, but that he has so ordered their arrangement for all time by having ceased. For it signifies that in six days he made both heaven and earth and all things in them, in order to indicate the times and to declare beforehand the precedence of one thing over another. For having ordered them, he thus maintains and transforms them. And she has been clarified to us as lawful for the sake of the sign of the seventh word established around us, in which we have knowledge of human and divine matters. And through hebdomads the whole cosmos of all living beings and all growing things is cycled; and that she is called Sabbath is interpreted as being rest. And Homer and Hesiod also clarify, having taken from our books that she is sacred. Hesiod thus: "First the fourth and the seventh day are a sacred day." And again he says: "And the seventh again is the bright light of the sun." And Homer speaks thus: "And the seventh day then came, a sacred day." And again: "It was the seventh day, and all was accomplished." And: "On the seventh dawn we left the stream of Acheron.

This then he indicates, that from the forgetfulness and evil of the soul in the seventh discourse according to truth the aforementioned things are left behind and we receive knowledge of truth, as has been said before. And Linus speaks thus: "On the seventh day all things have been accomplished." And again: "Seventh among good things and seventh is the birth." And: "Seventh among the first and seventh is the perfect." And: "Seven are all things accomplished in the starry heaven, appearing in the cycles of the revolving years." Such then are the things of Aristobulus. And what kind of things have been said by Clement concerning the same subject, you would know through these:

13. HOW CLEMENT LIKEWISE SHOWS THAT THE THINGS WELL SAID BY THE GREEKS HAPPEN TO BE IN AGREEMENT WITH THE DOGMAS OF THE HEBREWS. FROM THE FIFTH STROMATEUS OF CLEMENT. "And the following must be added, and the Greek theft from the barbarian philosophy must now be more clearly set forth. For the Stoics say that God is body and spirit in essence, just as indeed also the soul. All these things you will find outright in the scriptures. For do not now consider their allegories as the gnostic truth delivers, if showing something else, like skilled wrestlers, they indicate something else. But they say that God pervades all substance, while we call him only maker, and maker by word. And they were led by what is said in Wisdom, 'He pervades and goes through all things because of purity,' since they did not understand that these things are said of the first-created wisdom of God. Yes, they say.

But the philosophers posit matter among the principles—the Stoics, Plato, Pythagoras, and also Aristotle the Peripatetic—not a single principle. Let them know, then, the so-called matter, called by them qualityless and formless, and more boldly already said by Plato to be non-being; and perhaps most mysteriously, knowing the one truly existing principle, in the Timaeus he says in these very words: "Now then, let it be thus on our part: concerning all things, whether principle or principles or however it seems about these, it is not to be spoken now, for no other reason than that it is difficult to declare what seems to be the case in the present manner of exposition." Moreover, that prophetic saying, "And the earth was invisible and unfurnished," has provided them with starting points for material substance. Indeed, for Epicurus, the intrusion of chance arose from not following the text: "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." And for Aristotle, it came to bring providence down as far as the moon from this psalm: "Lord, your mercy and your truth in the heaven as far as the clouds." For the revelation of the prophetic mysteries was not yet disclosed before the coming of the Lord. And again

After death, punishments and the penalty through fire were derived from barbarian philosophy by the whole poetic muse, and also by Greek philosophy. Plato, at any rate, in the last book of the Republic says in these very words: "There fierce, fiery men standing by, listening to the utterance, took some aside and led them away, but Aridaeus and the others they bound hand and foot and head, threw them down, flayed them, and dragged them along the road outside over thorns, tearing them." For the fiery men are intended to signify angels, who take the unjust and punish them. "He who makes," he says, "his angels spirits and his ministers a burning fire." It follows from these things that the soul is immortal; for that which is punished or disciplined, being in a state of perception, lives, even if it is said to suffer. What then? Does not Plato also know rivers of fire and the depth of the earth, called Gehenna by the barbarians, poetically naming it Tartarus, and introducing Cocytus and Acheron and Pyriphlegethon and suchlike places of punishment for the sake of discipline and correction? And concerning the small and, according to scripture, the least of the angels who see God, and also indicating the oversight that comes to us through the presiding angels, he does not hesitate to write: "When all the souls had chosen their lives, as they had drawn lots, they proceeded in order to Lachesis, and she sent with each the daemon he had chosen as guardian of his life and fulfiller of his choices." Perhaps also the daimonion of Socrates hinted at something of this sort.

Indeed, the philosophers, having received from Moses that the cosmos is generated, have taught it. And Plato himself has plainly said: "Was it without any beginning of generation, or has it come into being, having begun from some beginning? For it is visible and tangible and has a body." And again, whenever he says: "Now to find the maker and father of this universe is a task," he not only showed that the cosmos is generated, but also indicates that it has come into being from him, as if having come into being from him alone and having subsisted from non-being. The Stoics also hold that the cosmos is generated. And as for the devil, the ruler of demons, who is talked about by barbarian philosophy, Plato in the tenth book of the Laws says that he is a maleficent soul in these words: "A soul that governs and dwells in all things that are moved in every way—must we not also say that it governs the heaven? Why not? One, or more? I will answer for you both. Let us posit no fewer than two, the beneficent one and the one capable of producing the opposite." Similarly, in the Phaedrus he writes thus: "There are indeed other evils, but some demon has mixed pleasure with most of them at the immediate moment." But also in the tenth book of the Laws he plainly shows that apostolic saying: "Our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against the spiritual things in the heavens," writing somewhat as follows: "For since we have agreed among ourselves that the heaven is full of many good things, and also of their opposites, but of the latter more—such a battle, we say, is immortal and requires wonderful guardianship." And again, barbarian philosophy knows both the intelligible cosmos and the sensible cosmos.

and he assigns the archetype to the monad, as intelligible, and the image of the beautiful paradigm to the hexad; for among the Pythagoreans, the hexad is called marriage, as a generative number. And in the monad he constitutes an invisible heaven and a holy earth and an intelligible light. "For in the beginning," he says, "God made the heaven and the earth; and the earth was invisible." Then he adds: "And God said, Let there be light, and there was light." But in the sense-perceptible cosmogony he fashioned a solid heaven—the solid being sense-perceptible—and a visible earth and a light that is seen. Does it not seem to you that from this Plato leaves behind ideas of living beings in the intelligible world and creates the sense-perceptible forms according to the intelligible kinds? Reasonably, then, Moses says that the body is formed from earth, which Plato calls an earthen tabernacle, 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 addition in the case of the first-formed man, for which reason man is said to have come into being "according to the image and likeness." For the image of God is the divine and royal Logos, the impassible man, and the image of that image is the human mind. But if you wish to take up the assimilation under another name, you would find in Moses a sequence called divine. For he says: "Walk behind the Lord your God and keep his commandments." And all the virtuous, I think, are followers and servants of God.

From this, the Stoics have said that the end of philosophy is to live in accordance with nature, while Plato says it is likeness to God, as we set forth in the second Stromateus. Zeno the Stoic, taking from Plato, and he from the barbarian philosophy, says that all good men are friends of one another. For Socrates says in the Phaedrus: "It is not fated that evil be friend to evil, nor that good not be friend to good." This he also sufficiently demonstrated in the Lysis, that in injustice and wickedness friendship could never be preserved. And the Athenian Stranger similarly says: "Action is friendly and follows God and has one ancient account, when like is friendly to like that is moderate, while immoderate things are friendly neither to immoderate nor to moderate things; and God would be for us the measure of all things." Then, going on, he adds again: "For every good man is like to a good man, and according to this he is also like to God, and is friend to every good man and to God." Having come to this point, I recalled that at the end of the Timaeus he says: "One must liken that which understands to that which is understood according to the ancient nature, and having likened it, one has the end of the best life set before men by the gods for both the present and the future time." And shortly after he adds: "And that we are brothers, as if being of one God and one teacher, Plato seems somewhere to call us thus: 'For you are all in the city brothers, as we will say to them in telling a myth. But the God, when molding, mixed gold into the generation of those of you who are capable of ruling, wherefore they are most honored; and those who are auxiliaries, silver;

iron and bronze for the farmers and the other craftsmen." Hence, he says, it has come about by necessity "that these men embrace and love those things for which they have knowledge, and those others for which they have opinion." For perhaps he divines this chosen nature that yearns for knowledge, unless, positing three natures, he delineates three constitutions, as some have supposed, and for the Jews a silver one, for the Greeks the third, and for the Christians, in whom the royal gold is mingled, the Holy Spirit. And indicating the life of the Christians, he writes verbatim in the Theaetetus: "Let us speak then of the leaders; for why should one mention those who spend their time poorly in philosophy? These men, you see, know neither the way to the marketplace nor where the court or council chamber or any other public meeting place of the city is; they neither see nor hear laws and written decrees. As for the pursuits of clubs and assemblies or revels with flute-girls, it never even occurs to them to engage in such things. Whether someone in the city has fared well or ill, or what evil has befallen someone from his ancestors, escapes them more than the so-called measures of the sea. And they are not even aware that they do not know these things, but in truth their body lies and dwells there, while they themselves fly about, as Pindar says, 'above the earth and beneath the heaven,' stargazing and investigating every nature everywhere." Again, in turn, to the saying of the Lord, "Let your yes be yes and your

Not that," one must compare to that: "But it is not at all lawful for me to allow falsehood and to destroy truth." And with the prohibition concerning swearing, this saying in the tenth book of the Laws agrees: "Let praise and oath be absent from everything." And altogether, Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato, saying that they hear the voice of God, observing that the construction of the universe has been made by God and is continuously sustained, have heard Moses saying, "He spoke and it came to be," describing the word of God as deed. And standing on the formation of man from dust, the philosophers on each occasion proclaim the body as earthly, while Homer does not hesitate to place in a curse the words "But may you all become water and earth," just as Isaiah says, "and trample them" "like clay." And Callimachus writes explicitly: "That was the year when once the winged, the sea creature, and the four-footed spoke thus, like the clay of Prometheus." And again the same: "If," he said, "Prometheus molded you and you came from no other clay." And Hesiod, concerning Pandora, says: "And he ordered Hephaestus, the famous craftsman, to mix earth with water as quickly as possible, and to put in a human voice and mind." Now the Stoics define nature as a technical fire proceeding methodically to generation; and fire and light are allegorized as God and his Word by Scripture. And what, does not Homer also, paraphrasing the separation of water from earth and the visible revelation of the dry land, say concerning Tethys and Oceanus: "For a long time now they have kept apart from each other's bed and love"?

Again, the most learned among the Greeks attribute power over all things to God. Epicharmus, who was a Pythagorean, says: "Nothing escapes the divine; you must know this: it is our overseer, and God can do nothing impossible." The lyric poet says: "God can raise up pure light from black night, and cover the clear radiance of day with dark cloud." He who alone can make night when day is present, he says, is God. Aratus, in the work entitled *Phaenomena*, after saying "Let us begin from Zeus," adds: "We men never leave him unspoken; every street is full of Zeus, every marketplace of men, the sea and harbors are full, and we all have need of Zeus in everything; for we are also of his race, as of a creator... and he, gentle, gives favorable signs to men; for he himself fixed the signs in the sky, distinguishing the stars; he considered the stars for the year, which especially would signify the seasons to men, so that everything might grow securely; and they always propitiate him first and last. Hail, father, great marvel, great boon to men." And before this, Homer, in describing the shield made by Hephaestus, creating the cosmos after the manner of Moses, says: "On it he wrought the earth, on it the sky, on it the sea, on it all the constellations with which the sky is crowned." For Zeus, celebrated through poems and prose writings, refers the concept to God.

Now, as if under the sun's rays, Democritus writes that there are some few men "who, stretching up their hands to that place which we Greeks now call the air—everything is called Zeus, and this one knows all, gives and takes away, and is king of all." More mystically, Pindar of Boeotia, being a Pythagorean, teaches that the race of men and the race of gods are one, and that we both breathe from one mother, matter, and that there is one craftsman of these, whom he calls the "father, the supreme artisan," who has granted advancements toward divinity according to worth. For I pass over Plato, who in his letter to Erastus and Coriscus clearly appears to indicate father and son, I know not how, from the Hebrew writings, urging verbatim: "swearing with earnestness not unmusical and with the sister of earnestness, education, by the god who is cause of all and of the leader and cause, the father lord, swearing by him, whom if you philosophize rightly, you will know." And the speech in the Timaeus calls the craftsman father, speaking somewhat as follows: "Gods of gods, of whom I am father and craftsman of works." So that when he says: "Around the king of all are all things, and all things are for his sake, and that is the cause of all good things; second around the second, and third around the third," I for my part understand nothing other than that the holy Trinity is indicated. For the third is the Holy Spirit, and the Son is second, through whom all things came to be according to the will of the Father. And the same author in the tenth book of the Republic mentions Er the Armenian, of the race of Pamphylus, who is Zoroaster. Zoroaster himself writes:

These things Zoroaster the Armenian, by race a Pamphylian, who died in war, wrote, having learned them from the gods while in Hades. This Zoroaster, Plato says, lay on the pyre for twelve days and then revived. Perhaps he hints not at the resurrection, but at those things, that the path for souls into the ascent is through the twelve zodiac signs, and he himself says that the same descent occurs into generation. These things must be understood also as the twelve labors of Heracles being spoken of, after which the soul attains release from this entire world. I also refer to Empedocles; this natural philosopher mentions the restoration of all things, as a change into the substance of fire that will one day occur. Most clearly, Heraclitus of Ephesus is of this opinion, having judged that one cosmos is eternal, and another is perishable, the one according to the ordering, knowing that it is not other than that one being in a certain state. But that he knew the cosmos, which is eternally qualified from the whole substance, to be eternal, he makes clear by speaking thus: "The same cosmos of all things neither any god nor any man made, but it was always and is and will be, ever-living fire, kindled in measures and extinguished in measures." And that he also held it to be generated and perishable, the following words indicate: "Turnings of fire: first sea, and of sea half is earth, half is lightning-bolt." For he means in effect that fire, by the governing reason and god, is turned through air into moisture, as the seed of the ordering, which he calls sea; and from this in turn come into being heaven and earth and the things contained therein.

How it is again taken up and consumed by fire, he makes clear through these words: "The sea is dispersed and measured according to the same principle as before it came to be." Similarly, the same applies to the other elements. The most distinguished of the Stoics also teach things similar to this, discussing the conflagration, the administration of the cosmos, the individually qualified cosmos and man, and the persistence of our souls after death. Again, Plato, in the seventh book of the Republic, has called the day here a "night day" because of, I think, "the world-rulers of this darkness"; and he calls sleep and death the journey of the soul into the body, in agreement with Heraclitus. And does not the Spirit through David foretell this concerning the Savior, saying: "I slept and slumbered; I awoke, because the Lord will support me"? For it allegorizes not only the resurrection of Christ as an awakening from sleep, but also the descent of the Lord into the flesh as sleep. Immediately the same Savior exhorts: "Watch," that is, practice living and try to separate the soul from the body. And in the tenth book of the Republic, Plato prophesies the Lord's day through these words: "When each of those in the meadow has spent seven days, they must rise up from there and on the eighth day travel, arriving on the fourth day." By "meadow" one must understand the sphere of the fixed stars, as a gentle and pleasant place and the region of the holy; and by "seven days" each motion of the seven planets and every productive art hastening toward the end of rest; and the journey after the wandering stars to the