Since the Scripture among the Hebrews, speaking of the man who philosophizes with earnest diligence, says: "It is good for a man when he bears the yoke in his youth; he shall sit alone and keep silence, because he has taken it upon himself" — and concerning the God-loving prophets, that indeed, on account of the height of their philosophy, they spent their lives in deserts, mountains, and caves, keeping their minds fixed on God alone — hear now how Plato himself likewise extols this very manner of life as divine, discoursing somewhat as follows concerning the man who philosophizes to the highest degree.
'Let us, then, speak, it seems, since it pleases you, about the foremost among them — for what would one even say of those who spend their time in philosophy in a mediocre way? These men, from their youth onward, in the first place, do not know the way to the marketplace, nor where the courthouse is, or the council chamber, or any other common assembly of the city; and laws and decrees, whether spoken or written, they neither see nor hear. As for the eager rivalries of political factions for office, and their gatherings, and banquets, and revels with flute-girls — it does not even occur to them in a dream to take part in such things.'
'What has happened well or ill in the city, or what evil has come upon someone from his forebears, whether on the father's or the mother's side, escapes him more than the proverbial "grains of sand" by the sea. And he does not even know that he does not know all these things; for he does not hold himself apart from them for the sake of gaining a good reputation, but in truth it is only his body that lies and dwells in the city, while his mind, judging all these matters to be small and worthless, disdains them and flies off everywhere, as Pindar says — surveying, in geometry, the things beneath the earth and the things upon its surface, studying the heavens above in astronomy, and searching out the entire nature of each and every thing that exists in its wholeness, never once lowering itself to anything near at hand.'
'What do you mean by this, Socrates?' 'Just as, when Thales was studying the stars, O Theodorus, and gazing upward, he is said to have fallen into a well; and a witty and charming Thracian serving-girl is said to have mocked him for it, saying that he was eager to know the things in the sky, but that the things right before him and at his feet escaped his notice.'
The same jibe suffices for all who spend their lives in philosophy. For in truth such a man does not notice his next-door neighbor, not only what he does, but scarcely even whether he is a human being or some other kind of creature. But what a human being is, and what it befits such a nature to do or to suffer that is different from other things, this he seeks out and troubles himself investigating. You understand this, I think, Theodorus, or do you not?
"I do indeed, and what you say is true." "Therefore, my friend, such a man, meeting each person both privately and publicly — as I was saying when I began — whenever he is compelled in a law-court or somewhere else to discourse on the things at his feet and before his eyes, provides laughter not only to Thracian serving-girls but to the rest of the crowd as well, falling into wells and every kind of perplexity through his inexperience; and his awkwardness is dreadful, giving an impression of stupidity."
"For in matters of abuse he has nothing of his own with which to abuse anyone, since from want of practice he knows no evil of anyone; so being at a loss he appears ridiculous. And amid praises and the boastful vaunting of others, laughing not in pretense but in real earnest, and being plainly seen to do so, he seems to be a simpleton."
"For when he hears a tyrant or a king extolled as one of the herdsmen — a swineherd, say, or a shepherd, or some cowherd — he supposes he is hearing someone congratulated on happiness for milking a great deal; yet he reckons that the creature such men tend and milk is far more difficult to manage and more prone to treachery than those animals."
"And that such a man, through lack of leisure, must become no less rustic and uneducated than the herdsmen, penned like sheep within a wall on a mountainside. And when he hears that someone possesses ten thousand plethra of land, or even more, and so has acquired a marvelous quantity, it strikes him as altogether trifling to hear, accustomed as he is to look upon the whole earth."
"And as for those who sing the praises of lineage, saying that so-and-so is noble because he can point to seven wealthy grandfathers, he considers their praise altogether dull and short-sighted, since through lack of culture they cannot ever look to the whole, nor reckon that everyone has had countless myriads of grandfathers and forebears, among whom rich and poor, kings and slaves, barbarians and Greeks, have occurred by the thousand for anyone whomever; yet when men pride themselves on a list of five-and-twenty ancestors and trace their line back to Heracles the son of Amphitryon, the pettiness of it strikes him as absurd — that the twenty-fifth ancestor back from Amphitryon was whatever fortune happened to make him, and likewise the fiftieth from him, and he laughs at such people for being unable to reckon and to rid their foolish souls of this vanity."
"In all these matters, then, such a man is laughed at by the many, seeming to some to hold himself haughtily, while in fact being ignorant of what lies at his feet and at a loss in every particular." "You describe exactly what happens, Socrates."
"But whenever, my friend, such a man himself draws someone upward, and that person is willing to leave off asking 'in what way do I wrong you, or you me,' and turn instead to examine justice and injustice themselves — what each of them is, and how they differ from everything else and from one another — or to pass from asking whether a king is happy, possessing besides much gold, to an inquiry into kingship itself and into human happiness and misery in general, of what sort each is, and in what manner it befits human nature to obtain the one and escape the other — whenever, concerning all these matters, that small-souled, sharp-witted, litigious fellow must in his turn render an account, he pays back the reverse: growing dizzy as he hangs suspended aloft, and gazing down from on high, distressed and at a loss through unfamiliarity, and stammering barbarously, he provides laughter — not to Thracian girls, nor to any other uneducated person, for they do not perceive it, but to all who have been reared in the opposite way from slaves."
"This, then, Theodorus, is the character of each: the one truly reared in freedom and leisure — whom you call a philosopher — may without blame seem simple and worthless whenever he falls into servile tasks, such as not knowing how to pack up a bedroll, or season a dish, or utter flattering speeches; while the other, capable of performing all such tasks deftly and sharply, does not know how to throw his cloak freely over his right shoulder like a gentleman, nor, having grasped the harmony of words, to hymn aright the true life of the gods and of blessed men."
"If you could persuade everyone, Socrates, of what you say, as you have persuaded me, there would be more peace and fewer evils among mankind." "But it is not possible, Theodorus, for evils to be destroyed; for there must always be something opposed to the good; nor can they have their seat among the gods, but of necessity they haunt mortal nature and this region here."
"Therefore one must try to flee from here to there as quickly as possible. And flight is likeness to God so far as is possible; and likeness is to become just and holy with understanding. But indeed, my excellent friend, it is not at all easy to persuade men that it is not for the reasons the many give — namely that one should shun wickedness and pursue virtue for the sake of not seeming bad and seeming good — that one ought to practice the one and not the other."
"For this is what is called old wives' prattle, so it seems to me; but the truth we state thus: God is in no way, in no manner, unjust, but as just as it is possible to be, and nothing is more like him than whoever among us in turn becomes most just. It is concerning this that the true cleverness of a man consists, as well as his worthlessness and unmanliness."
"For the knowledge of this is wisdom and true virtue, while ignorance of it is folly and manifest vice; the other so-called forms of cleverness and wisdom, when found in political power, are vulgar, and in the arts, base. For the man who does wrong and speaks or does unholy things, therefore, it is by far best not to grant that he is clever by reason of his villainy."
"For they glory in the reproach, and imagine they are being told that they are no fools, no idle burdens on the earth, but the very men a city needs to preserve itself. So the truth must be told: they are all the more what they do not think themselves to be, precisely because they do not think it. For they are ignorant of the penalty of injustice, of which one ought least of all to be ignorant. For it is not what they suppose — beatings and executions, which sometimes befall even those who do no wrong — but a penalty that is impossible to escape."
"What do you mean?" "There stand set up in reality, my friend, two patterns: the one divine and most blessed, the other godless and most wretched; and not seeing that this is so, through folly and utter senselessness they fail to notice that by their unjust deeds they are growing like the one and unlike the other; and for this indeed they pay the penalty, living the life that corresponds to what they resemble."
"And if we tell them that, unless they rid themselves of this so-called cleverness, that place which is pure of evils will not receive them even when they die, but here they will forever keep the manner of life resembling their own — evil men consorting with evil men — they, being altogether senseless, will hear this as though it were spoken by some foolish people, and will go on believing themselves altogether clever and cunning."
"Quite so indeed, Socrates." "I know it well, my friend. Yet one thing does happen to them: whenever in private they must give and receive an account concerning the very things they disparage, and are willing to hold out manfully for a long while, not fleeing in cowardice, then, strange to say, my good sir, in the end they are not pleased with themselves over what they have said, and that rhetoric of theirs somehow withers away, so that it seems no better than a child's."
And among us too it has been said concerning all human sophistry: for the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the understanding of the prudent I will set aside. Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age?"
But we are also taught that those who philosophize according to God should think nothing petty, in the passage where it is said: "while we look not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen; for the things that are seen are temporary, but the things that are not seen are eternal."
And concerning the fact that wickedness revolves about the earth and mortal life, the divine word somewhere says, "redeeming the time, because the days are evil," and "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." And the prophet also says, "cursing 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 walk after the Lord your God, and cleave to him." And the same man teaches us to imitate God, saying, "You shall be holy, because the Lord our God is holy."
And David too, knowing God to be just and urging us to become imitators of him, says, "The Lord is righteous, and he loved righteousness." And the same man taught contempt of wealth, saying, "If riches increase, set not your heart upon them," and, "Be not afraid when a man grows rich, and when the glory of his house is increased; for when he dies he shall take nothing away, nor shall his glory go down after him."
But he taught us not even to admire the offices held among men, in these words: "Put not your trust in princes, in the sons of men, in whom there is no salvation. His spirit shall go forth, and he shall return to his earth; in that very day all his thoughts shall perish."
Would a lawgiver, then, be of even the slightest use, even if this were not so as reason has now shown it to be, if — supposing he ever dared to tell a beneficial falsehood to the young — there were any falsehood he could ever have told more profitable than this one, and better able to make everyone do all just things not by compulsion but willingly? "Truth is a noble thing, stranger, and abiding; yet it seems by no means easy to persuade men of it."
You would find countless such things also in the writings of the Hebrews, as when God is spoken of as being jealous, or sleeping, or growing angry, or subject to certain other human passions — expressions of this kind taken up for the benefit of those who have need of such a manner of speech.
"Do we then agree on what has gone before?" "Concerning what?" "That every man and child, free and slave, female and male, and the whole city addressing itself to itself as one, must never cease from these things which we have gone through, changing them somehow always and altogether producing variety, so that there arises among those who sing them a kind of insatiable desire for the hymns, and pleasure." "How could one not agree that these things should be so practiced?"
And in the fifth book of the Republic he writes similar things, saying as follows: "Do you know of anything practiced among men in which the male sex is not in every respect superior to the female? Or shall we speak at length of weaving, and the care of cakes and stewed dishes, in which indeed the female sex is thought to have some skill, and in which it is quite the most ridiculous of all things to be surpassed?"
"What you say is true," he replied, "that, so to speak, the one sex is very much surpassed by the other in all things; yet many women are better than many men at many things; but on the whole it is as you say." "There is, then, my friend, no pursuit among those that administer a city that belongs to woman because she is a woman, nor to man because he is a man, but the natures are alike distributed among both these living creatures, and woman by nature shares in all pursuits, and man in all, though in every one of them woman is weaker than man."
"Quite so." "Shall we, then, assign everything to men and nothing to women?" "How could we?" "But there is, I suppose, as we shall say, a woman skilled in medicine, and one who is not; and one musical, and one unmusical by nature." "Certainly." "And is there not also one skilled in gymnastics and warlike, and one unwarlike and unfond of gymnastics?" "I think so too." "What then — one philosophic and one hating wisdom, and one spirited, and one lacking spirit?" "These too exist."
"There is, then, also a woman fit to be a guardian, and one who is not; or did we not select men of just such a nature to be guardians?" "Just such a nature indeed."
"Woman and man, then, have the same nature with regard to guarding the city, except in so far as the one is weaker and the other stronger." "So it appears." "And such women, then, must be chosen to live together with such men and share in guarding, since they are competent and akin to them by nature."
Reasonably, then, our own doctrine likewise admits "every race, not only of men but also of women," "not only of the free and the enslaved, but also of barbarians and Greeks," into education and philosophy according to God.
Let us then consider it in this way. Come now: if someone should praise the raising of goats, and the animal itself as a fine possession, while another, having seen goats roaming unattended and doing damage on cultivated land, should find fault with them, and should censure every creature seen to be without a ruler or under bad rulers — should we think the censure of such a man ever sound in blaming anything whatsoever? "How could we?" And a little further on:
"What then of one who praises or censures any community whatsoever, of a kind naturally fitted to have a ruler, and beneficial together with that ruler — but who has never once seen it rightly sharing community with a ruler, but always either ruler-less or associating with bad rulers — do we suppose such observers of such communities will ever censure or praise anything to good purpose?" "How could they?"
It is not right, then, that if some among us should appear apart from a leader and ruler, or acting ill under bad rulers, our whole school should on this account be blamed; rather, one should the more admire, on the strength of those who rightly pursue it, this God-fearing commonwealth.
In the Proverbs of Solomon it is briefly said, "The memory of the just is accompanied with praises, but the name of the impious is extinguished"; and again it is said, "Call no man blessed before his death." Hear how Plato interprets this thought, saying in the seventh book of the Laws:
"Of the citizens, as many as have reached the end of life, having accomplished noble and toilsome deeds either of body or of soul, and having been obedient to the laws, it would be fitting for them to obtain praises." "How could it be otherwise?"
"Yet to honor with praises and hymns those who are still living is not safe, before one has run the whole course of life and set upon it a noble end. Let all these things be common to us, both to men and to women who have manifestly proved good."
"Give me neither riches nor poverty," says Solomon in the Proverbs; and Plato, in the fourth book of the Republic, says: "We have found other things too, it seems, for the guardians, which must be guarded against in every way, lest they escape notice and slip into the city." "What are these?" "Wealth," I said, "and poverty; the one breeding luxury, idleness, and revolution, the other, besides revolution, breeding illiberality and evil-doing." "And evil-doing is every dishonorable act."
Again, Moses in the laws says, "Let each man fear his father and his mother"; and, "Honor your father and your mother, that it may be well with you." And Plato likewise, agreeing with Moses both in honoring and in fearing, says somewhat as follows in the Laws: "Every man of sense fears and honors the prayers of parents, knowing that they have often, for many, been fulfilled." And again elsewhere he says: "Let each of us revere his own elder in deed and word; and let him regard with caution anyone who exceeds him by twenty years in age, male or female, thinking of him as a father or her as a mother."
Moses in the laws forbade Hebrews to enslave Hebrews, saying, "If you acquire a Hebrew servant, he shall serve you six years; but in the seventh year you shall send him out free." And Plato likewise, in the Republic, says: "Should we then advise that neither they themselves possess a Greek slave, nor counsel other Greeks so to do?" "Quite so indeed," he said; "they would thus be all the more inclined to turn against the barbarians, and to spare their own kind."
"Let no one move the boundaries of land, whether of a fellow citizen who is a neighbor, or of one bordering him, holding land at the extremities and neighboring some other stranger, believing that this is truly what it means to move the immovable." And next he says: "Whoever cultivates his neighbor's land, overstepping the boundaries, shall pay for the damage; and, to cure him besides of his shamelessness and illiberality, let him pay to the injured party double the damage over and above."
In a word, let a father's disgrace and his children's punishments follow no one, unless a certain father, and his father before him, and that man's father in turn, should in succession incur the sentence of death.
Moses' law says, "If someone steals a calf or a sheep, and slaughters it or sells it, he shall repay five calves for the calf, and four sheep for the sheep; but if the stolen thing is found alive still in his hand, he shall repay double, whether calf, donkey, or sheep." Hear how Plato too follows in these very steps, saying: "For the thief, whether he steals something great or small, let there be one law laid upon all alike, and one single penalty of justice. For the thing stolen must first be repaid twofold, if a man is convicted of such an offense and has property enough besides to pay it over and above his allotment; but if not, let him be bound until he pays it off, or persuades the one who won the judgment against him."
Again, when Moses says, "But if the thief is found breaking in, and is struck and dies, there is no bloodguilt for him," Plato agrees with this too, saying: "If someone catches a thief coming by night into a house to steal goods, and kills him, let him be clear of guilt; and if he kills a footpad in self-defense, let him likewise be clear of guilt."
"But if a beast of burden or some other animal kills anyone — except in the case of those competing in a publicly held contest, doing such a thing while so competing — let the relatives of the slain prosecute the killer for murder, the case being apportioned among as many of the land-wardens as the relative may appoint; and let the animal found guilty be put to death and its carcass cast beyond the boundaries of the land." This is what Plato says. But Moses, having said this beforehand, says: "If a bull gores a man or a woman and he dies, the bull shall be stoned with stones, and its flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the bull shall be blameless."
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; in the midst of the furnace of silver they are mixed. Therefore say, Thus says the Lord: Because you have all become one alloy, therefore I will gather you, as silver and bronze and iron and lead and tin are gathered into the midst of a furnace, to blow fire upon them, that they may be melted." And Plato likewise — hear what he says.
Listen, then, to the rest of the myth. We shall tell them, weaving the tale: all of you who are in the city are brothers; but the god, in fashioning you, mixed gold into the begetting of those of you who are fit to rule, wherefore they are most honored; and silver into the auxiliaries; and iron and bronze into the farmers and the other craftsmen.
Since, then, you are all akin, for the most part you would beget offspring like yourselves; yet sometimes from gold there might be born a silver offspring, and from silver a golden one, and likewise all the others from one another.
So the god enjoins upon the rulers, first and foremost, that of nothing should they be such good guardians, nor should they guard anything so closely, as the offspring, to see what of these metals is mingled in their souls; and if a child of theirs should be born tinged with bronze or iron, they must in no way take pity on it, but rendering the honor appropriate to its nature, must thrust it out among the craftsmen or the farmers; and again, if from these there should spring up one tinged with gold or silver, they shall honor it and raise it up, some to the guardianship, others to the auxiliary rank, since there is an oracle that the city shall be destroyed when it is guarded by an iron guardian or a bronze one. Do you have, then, any device by which they might be persuaded of this myth?
Since the prophecy among the Hebrews says to the leaders of the people, 'O shepherds of Israel, do shepherds feed themselves? Do not shepherds feed the sheep? Behold, you eat the milk, and slaughter the fatling, and clothe yourselves with the wool, but you do not feed my sheep; and you have not sought that which was lost, nor bound up that which was broken, nor brought back that which went astray'; and moreover, since the word of salvation says, 'The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, but the hired man, who is not a shepherd and to whom the sheep do not belong, abandons them' — hear also how Plato, in the first book of the Republic, interprets these very things.
But now you see, Thrasymachus — for let us examine again what went before — that when you first defined the true physician, you no longer thought it necessary afterward to keep as strictly to the true shepherd, but you think that he, insofar as he is a shepherd, fattens the sheep not with a view to what is best for the sheep, but as though he were some banqueter about to feast at a festival, or again with a view to selling them, like a moneymaker, and not a shepherd. But the shepherd's art surely cares for nothing else than that for which it is appointed, namely, to provide what is best for that; since as for its own affairs, so as to be the best possible art, that has surely been sufficiently provided for, so long as it lacks nothing of being the shepherd's art. So then I, for my part, thought it necessary for us just now to agree that every rule, insofar as it is rule, considers what is best for nothing else than that which is ruled and cared for, in both public and private rule. But you think that the rulers in cities, the true rulers, rule willingly?
Since the prophecy among the Hebrews says, 'Because of the fear of thee, O Lord, we have conceived in the womb, and been in travail, and have brought forth the spirit of salvation' — Plato, in the Theaetetus, makes Socrates say the following: 'Those who keep company with me suffer the same thing as women in labor; for they are in travail and filled with perplexity, night and day, far more than those women. And it is my art that can arouse this travail and bring it to rest.'
Since the prophet Ezekiel says, 'The hand of the Lord came upon me, and I looked, and behold, a stormy wind was coming from the north,' and goes on to say, 'and in the midst, as it were the likeness of four living creatures; and their appearance was as the likeness of a man upon them, and each had four faces; and the likeness of their faces was the face of a man, and the face of a lion on the right of the four, and the face of a calf on the left of the four, and the face of an eagle to the four' — hear likewise what Plato says.
'Now then,' I said, 'let us converse with him, since we have agreed what power each of the two, doing wrong and doing what is just, possesses.' 'How?' he said. 'By fashioning in speech an image of the soul, so that he who makes those claims may see what sort of thing he was saying.' 'What sort of image?' he said. 'Something like those,' I said, 'of the ancient natures told of in myth, such as the Chimaera, and Scylla, and Cerberus, and many others of which it is said that many forms grew together into one.'
'Yes, such things are told,' he said. 'Fashion then one form of a variegated, many-headed beast, having heads of tame and wild animals in a circle round it, and able to change and to grow all these out of itself.' 'That is the work of a clever modeler,' he said; 'nevertheless, since speech is more pliable than wax and such materials, let it be modeled.'
'Now fashion one other form, that of a lion, and one of a man; and let the first be by far the largest, and the second next.' 'These,' he said, 'are easier, and have been modeled.' 'Now join them into one, the three of them, so that they somehow grow together with one another.' 'They are joined,' he said. 'Then mold around them, on the outside, the image of one thing, that of the man, so that to one who is not able to see the inside, but sees only the outer shell, it appears to be a single creature, a man.'
'It has been molded around,' he said. 'Let us now say to him who claims that it is profitable for this man to do wrong, and that doing what is just does not benefit him, that he is saying nothing other than that it is profitable for him, by feasting the many-formed beast, to make it strong, and the lion and all that belongs to the lion, but to starve the man and make him weak, so that he is dragged along wherever either of the other two leads him, and to accustom neither of them to the other nor make them friends, but to let them bite and fight and devour one another.'
'Yes, indeed,' he said, 'these are the things he who praises doing wrong would say.' 'Then again, would not he who says that doing what is just is profitable declare that one must do and say such things as will make the inner man within the man most in control, and that he will care for the many-headed creature like a farmer, nourishing and taming the tame parts, and preventing the wild ones from growing, making an ally of the lion's nature, and caring for all in common, making them friends with one another and with himself, and rearing them in this way?' 'Indeed, this in turn is exactly what he who praises justice would say.'
Since the whole nation of the Hebrews is divided into twelve tribes, Plato likewise legislates that this same thing should be observed among his own citizens, saying thus: 'Let the whole territory be divided, as far as possible, into twelve equal parts. And let one tribe, allotted to each part, provide five country-wardens and tribal-rulers annually.' And again he says: 'Let the generals who are chosen put forward as commanders of the ranks twelve men, one commander of the ranks for each tribe.'
Since the royal metropolis that anciently existed among the children of the Hebrews was far from the sea, situated among mountains, and possessed of land bearing all manner of produce, Plato likewise says, in the Laws, that the city being founded by him ought to be of such a kind. He speaks thus: