Since it has been shown in the treatises prior to this one that the philosophy of Plato, in very many respects, contains an interpretation of Moses and of the sacred writings held among the Hebrews, translated, as it were, into the Greek tongue, I now proceed both to render to the argument what remains lacking and to go through what has been said by those before us on these matters, at the same time freeing myself from a reasonable charge of slander, should anyone perhaps reproach us, saying: why then, when Moses and Plato have philosophized in harmony, do we not follow the doctrines of Plato rather than those of Moses -- the reverse being what is required -- since, given that the doctrines are equal, the Greek teaching would be more fitting for us, being Greeks ourselves, than the barbarian one? Hesitant to meet this objection out of the reverence I bear toward the philosopher, I defer this discussion to a later point, and shall first examine the matters that were first proposed to me. Take up, then, and read what opinion Plato held concerning the Greek theologians and poets, and how he set aside all the ancestral conceptions concerning the gods and refuted the absurdity found among them.
But concerning the other divinities, to speak and to know their origin is a task too great for us; we must instead trust those who have spoken of them before, who were, as they claimed, offspring of the gods, and who surely knew clearly their own ancestors. It is impossible, then, to disbelieve the children of the gods, even though they speak without probable or necessary proofs; but since they profess to report matters that are their own domestic affair, we must, in following custom, believe them.
Thus, then, following them, let the genesis concerning these gods be held and stated by us as follows: Of Earth and Heaven were born Oceanus and Tethys, and of these, Phorcys, Cronos, and Rhea, and all who came after them; and of Cronos and Rhea were born Zeus and Hera, and all whom we know to be called their brothers and sisters, and still others descended from these.
Having, by these words, urged us to believe the myths concerning the gods and the poets of these myths themselves, as being indeed offspring of the gods, he seems to me, first of all, by saying that the poets are offspring of the gods, to be mocking -- implying thereby that the gods themselves had become men, and were, in their nature, similar to their offspring.
Next he directly discredits the theologians, whom he had called offspring of the gods, through the words he adds, saying, 'though they speak without probable or necessary proofs'; and by adding the phrase 'as they claimed.' He seems clearly to be jesting also when he says 'who surely knew their own ancestors,' and in the statement 'it is impossible to disbelieve the children of the gods.' And he plainly reveals that he says these things contrary to his own judgment, for the sake of the laws, when he admits that it was necessary, in following custom, to believe them.
And that this indeed was his thought, listen to how, in plain and unveiled speech, he discredits absolutely all the theologians, striking at them in the Epinomis with these words.
It is necessary, then, it seems, that I, since those before me have poorly portrayed the theogony and the generation of living beings, should portray it better in this later discussion, taking up again the argument I have undertaken against the impious.
That he rejects the theology of the earliest writers with good reason, he shows in the second book of the Republic, where it is worth fixing our attention on how many and what sort of things he sets forth concerning these same poets and theologians, those who from ancient times handed down accounts concerning the Greek gods, speaking in these very words.
'In the greater myths,' I said, 'we shall also see the lesser ones. For the same type must hold, and the same effect must be produced, by both the greater and the lesser.' -- 'I think so too,' he said; 'but I do not understand which you mean by the greater ones.' -- 'Those,' I said, 'which Hesiod and Homer used to tell us, and the other poets as well. For these, surely, composing false myths for men, used to tell them, and still tell them now.'
'Which ones do you mean,' he said, 'and what fault do you find with them?' -- 'The very fault,' I said, 'that must be found first and most of all, especially when someone lies badly.' -- 'What is that?' -- 'When someone gives, in his account, a bad likeness of the true nature of gods and heroes, of what sort they really are -- like a painter who paints something in no way resembling the things he wished to portray.' -- 'Indeed,' he said, 'it is right to find fault with such things. But how exactly do we mean this, and what things?'
'In the first place, then,' I said, 'the greatest lie, and about the greatest matters, was told with no fine effect by him who said that Uranus did the things Hesiod says he did, and again that Cronos took vengeance on him in the way he describes. As for the deeds of Cronos, and what he suffered at the hands of his son, even if they were true, I should not think they ought to be so readily told to the young and thoughtless, but should rather, if possible, be passed over in silence; and if there were some necessity to tell them, they should be heard only by the fewest possible, under a pledge of secrecy, after sacrificing not a pig, but some great and hard-to-procure victim, so that as few as possible might happen to hear them.'
'Yes indeed,' he said, 'these are difficult tales.' -- 'And they must not be told,' I said, 'O Adeimantus, in our city; nor must it be said in the hearing of a young man that in committing the utmost injustice he would be doing nothing to marvel at, nor again that in punishing an unjust father by every means, he would only be doing what the first and greatest of the gods did.' -- 'No, by Zeus,' he said, 'these things do not seem to me fit to be told either.'
'Certainly not,' I said, 'not at all, that gods war against gods, and plot against them, and fight; for these things are not even true -- if indeed those who are to guard the city must consider it most shameful to fall out with one another lightly. Far from it: tales of the battle of the giants must not be told to them nor embroidered, nor the many and varied other enmities of gods and heroes against their own kindred and intimates; but if we are to persuade them that no citizen ever hated another, and that this is not holy, such things rather must be said to the children from the very first, and to the old men and old women, and to those growing older, and the poets must be compelled to compose stories close to this.'
Nor must the binding of Hera by her son, nor the hurling of Hephaestus by his father when he was about to defend his mother who was being beaten, nor the battles of the gods that Homer has composed, be admitted into the city, whether they are composed with hidden meanings or without hidden meanings.
For the young are not able to judge what is a hidden meaning and what is not, but whatever opinions they take in at that age tend to become hard to wash out and unchangeable. For this reason, perhaps, it is of the utmost importance that what they hear first should be stories composed in the finest possible way with a view to virtue.
'That is reasonable,' he said; 'but if someone should ask us again just what these things are and what the stories are, what should 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 according to which the poets must compose their tales, and if they compose contrary to these, they must not be permitted; but the founders themselves are not to compose the tales.'
'Rightly said,' he replied; 'but what exactly would the patterns concerning theology be?' 'Something like this, I suppose,' I said: 'god must always be represented as he really is, whether one composes about him in epic, in lyric, or in tragedy.' 'Yes, indeed.' 'Is not god good in reality, and must he not be so described?'
'Of course.' 'But surely none of the good things are harmful, are they?' 'It does not seem so to me.' 'Then does what is not harmful do harm?' 'By no means.' 'And does what does no harm do any evil?' 'Not that either.' 'And what does no evil could not be the cause of any evil.' 'How could it?' 'Well then, is the good beneficial?' 'Yes.' 'It is therefore the cause of well-being?' 'Yes.'
'The good, then, is not the cause of all things, but of those things that are well it is the cause, while of evils it is not the cause.' 'Entirely so,' he said. 'Then god,' I said, 'since he is good, would not be the cause of all things, as most people say, but of few things for men he is the cause, and of many he is not the cause; for the good things are far fewer for us than the evils. And for the good things no other cause is to be assigned, but for the evils some other causes must be sought, not god.'
'You seem to me to be speaking most truly,' he said. 'Then we must not accept,' I said, 'from Homer or from any other poet, this foolish error committed concerning the gods, when he says that two jars lie at the threshold of Zeus, filled with fates, the one of good, the other of evil.'
And to whomever Zeus gives a mixture of both, that man meets sometimes with evil, sometimes with good; but to whomever he gives unmixed only the bitter portion, evil hunger drives him over the sacred earth.
Nor that Zeus has been made the dispenser to us of both good and evil. And as for the breaking of the oaths and the truce which Pandarus broke, if anyone says that this happened through Athena and Zeus, we shall not approve of it; nor that the strife and judgment of the gods came about through Themis and Zeus. Nor again, as Aeschylus says, must we allow the young to hear that 'god plants a cause among mortals when he wishes utterly to destroy a house.'
But if anyone composes works containing these iambic verses, whether about the sufferings of Niobe, or of the descendants of Pelops, or the events at Troy, or anything else of that kind, either these events must not be allowed to be called the works of a god, or, if they are of a god, the poet must discover for them nearly the very account we are now seeking, and must say that god did what was just and good, and that they were benefited by being punished. But the poet must not be permitted to say that those who paid the penalty were wretched, and that it was god who did this.
But if they say that the wicked were wretched because they needed punishment, and that in paying the penalty they were benefited by god, this may be allowed.
But that god, being good, becomes the cause of evils to anyone -- this must be fought against by every means; no one, whether young or old, should say this or hear it said in his city, if it is to be well governed, whether told in verse or without verse, on the ground that such statements, if made, would be neither pious nor profitable to us nor consistent with themselves.
'I vote with you on this law,' he said, 'it pleases me too.' 'This, then,' I said, 'would be one of the laws and patterns concerning god, according to which those who speak must speak and those who compose must compose -- namely, that god is not the cause of all things, but of the good.' 'And indeed,' he said, 'that is quite sufficient.'
'What then is this second point? Do you think god is a sorcerer, capable of appearing by design at different times in different forms, at one time actually becoming and changing his own shape into many forms, at another deceiving us and making us think such things about him; or is he simple, and of all things least likely to depart from his own form?' 'I cannot say, at least not offhand,' he replied.
'And what about this: is it not necessary, if anything departs from its own form, that it be changed either by itself or by something else?' 'Necessary.' 'Now is it not the case that things which are in the best condition are altered and moved least by another -- as, for example, a body by food and drink and exertion, and every plant by sunshine and winds and such affections -- and is it not the healthiest and finest that is altered the least?' 'Of course.'
'And as for the soul, would not the most courageous and most prudent soul be least disturbed and troubled by any external affection?' 'Yes.' 'And indeed, by the same reasoning, all composite things -- implements, buildings, and garments -- when well made and in good condition, are altered least by time and other affections.' 'That is so.'
'So everything that is in a fine condition, whether by nature, by art, or by both, admits the least change from something else.' 'It seems so.' 'But surely god and what belongs to god are in every way in the best condition.' 'Of course.' 'In this respect, then, god would least of all take on many forms.' 'Least of all indeed.' 'But might he change and alter himself?' 'Clearly so,' he said, 'if indeed he is altered at all.'
'Does he then change himself for the better and more beautiful, or for the worse and more shameful?' 'It would necessarily be for the worse, if he is altered at all,' he said; 'for surely we shall not say that god is deficient in beauty or virtue.' 'You speak most rightly,' I said. 'And this being so, Adeimantus, does it seem to you that anyone, either god or man, would willingly make himself worse in any respect?'
'Impossible,' he said. 'Then it is impossible,' I said, 'for god too to be willing to alter himself, but, as it seems, each of them, being the most beautiful and the best possible, remains forever simply in his own form.' 'That seems to me entirely necessary,' he said. 'Then let none of the poets tell us, my excellent friend, that "the gods, taking the likeness of strangers from foreign lands, appear in all sorts of forms, roaming through the cities."'
Nor let anyone tell falsehoods about Proteus and Thetis, nor let anyone in tragedies or in other poems introduce Hera transformed, as a priestess collecting alms for the life-giving children of the Argive river Inachus.
And let them not tell us many other such falsehoods. Nor again, being persuaded by these, let mothers frighten their children, telling the stories badly, saying that certain gods go about by night appearing in the likeness of many strangers of all sorts, lest at the same time they blaspheme against the gods and also make the children more cowardly. 'No indeed, let them not,' he said.
'But is it, then,' I said, 'that the gods themselves are of such a nature as not to change, but make us think that they appear in all sorts of forms, deceiving us and playing tricks?' 'Perhaps,' he said. 'What then?' I said; 'would god be willing to lie, either in word or in deed, by putting forth appearances?' 'I do not know,' he said.
'Do you not know,' I said, 'that the true falsehood, if one may call it that, is hated by all gods and men?' 'What do you mean?' he said. 'You know, I suppose,' I said, 'that no one is willingly false in the most authoritative part of himself and concerning the most authoritative matters, but everyone fears above all to possess that falsehood there.' 'I still do not understand,' he said.
'You think, I suppose, that I am saying something profound,' I said; 'but what I mean is that everyone would least of all accept, and hates most of all, being false and having been deceived in the soul concerning the things that are, and being ignorant, and holding and possessing falsehood there.'
'Very much so,' he said. 'And indeed, most rightly, what I was just now saying might be called the true falsehood -- the ignorance in the soul of the one who has been deceived -- since that in words is a kind of imitation of the affection in the soul, and an image that comes into being afterward, not an altogether unmixed falsehood. Or is it not so?' 'Quite so.'
'The falsehood that is truly such, then, is hated not only by gods but also by men.' 'It seems so to me.' 'What then? When and in what respect is the falsehood in words useful, so as not to be worthy of hatred? Is it not useful, as a kind of remedy, against enemies, and toward those called friends, when, through madness or some folly, they attempt to do something evil, then for the sake of turning them away from it?'
'And in the mythologies we were just now speaking of, because we do not know how the truth stands concerning ancient things, do we not, by making the falsehood as much as possible like the truth, thereby make it useful?' 'Yes, quite so,' he said, 'that is how it is.' 'In which of these respects, then, is falsehood useful to god? Would he lie by making a likeness because he does not know ancient things?' 'That would be ridiculous indeed,' he said.
'So there is no lying poet in god?' 'It does not seem so to me.' 'But might he lie out of fear of enemies?' 'Far from it.' 'But on account of the folly or madness of his kin?' 'But,' he said, 'none of the foolish or the mad is dear to god.' 'Then there is nothing for the sake of which god would lie?' 'There is not.' 'Then the divine and the godhead are altogether without falsehood.' 'Altogether so, indeed,' he said.
'God, then, is altogether simple and true both in deed and in word, and neither does he himself change, nor does he deceive others, either by apparitions, or by the sending of signs, whether waking or in dreams.' 'So it appears to me too,' he said, 'now that you have said it.' 'Do you agree, then,' I said, 'that this is a second pattern according to which one must speak and compose concerning the gods -- that they are neither sorcerers who change themselves, nor lead us astray by falsehoods in word or in deed?' 'I agree.'
So, while praising Homer for many things, we shall not praise this -- the sending of the dream to Agamemnon by Zeus -- nor Aeschylus, when Thetis says that Apollo, singing at her wedding, celebrated the good fortune of her children, 'free from sicknesses and blessed with long life,' and, cheering my heart, hymned the fortunes granted by the gods. And I thought that the divine mouth of Phoebus, brimming with the art of prophecy, was free from falsehood. But he himself, the one who sang, the one who was present at the feast, the one who said these things -- he himself is the one who slew my son.
When anyone says such things about the gods, we shall be angry and shall not grant him a chorus, nor shall we allow the teachers to use it for the education of the young, if our guardians are to become god-fearing and godlike, so far as it is possible for a man to be so to the greatest degree. 'I entirely agree with these patterns,' he said, 'and I would use them as laws.'
This is what Plato says. But one would find that the Hebrew Scripture contains in no way shameful myths concerning the God of the universe, nor indeed concerning the divine angels around him, nor concerning men beloved of God, unlike the Greek theologies; but it does contain the pattern set forth by Plato -- that God is in fact good, and that all things brought into being by him are of this same character.
At each of the works of creation, the wondrous Moses adds, 'And God saw that it was good.' And concerning all of them, summing up the account of everything, 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 -- for indeed 'God did not make death, nor does he delight in the destruction of the living'; for he created all things that they might exist, and the generative powers of the world are wholesome; but through the envy of the devil death entered into the world.
For this reason it is also recorded in the prophet, God saying to the one who had become evil by his own choice: 'I planted you a fruitful vine, wholly true; how have you turned back into a strange vine?' But if it is said anywhere that evils befall the wicked from God, this is to be understood equivocally, since the punishments are called by this name; these God, being good, is said to inflict not for the harm of those being punished, but for their benefit and advantage -- just as a physician too might be thought to administer the painful and bitter treatments as 'evils,' for the salvation of the sick.
Therefore, wherever it is said in the divine Scripture that evils are brought upon men by God, one must say what Plato says -- that God did what was just and good, and that when he brought upon those who deserved them the grim things reckoned evil by men, they were benefited by being punished -- 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 receives.'
But it must not be allowed for the poet to say that those who paid the penalty were wretched, and that it was God who did this; but if they say that the wicked were wretched because they needed punishment, and that in paying the penalty they were benefited by God, this is to be allowed; but that God, being good, becomes the cause of evils to anyone -- this must be fought against by every means.
But also concerning God's not being subject to change, the prophecy among the Hebrews teaches in this way, speaking in the person of God: 'For I am the Lord your God, and I have not changed.' And in the theological hymns David also proclaims, saying, 'They all shall grow old like a garment, and like a cloak you shall fold them up, and they shall be changed; but you are the same, and your years shall not fail.'
But if anywhere the Hebrew writings introduce the Word of God as appearing in human form and shape, one must say that this is not in the manner of the Greek myths, like Proteus and Thetis and Hera, nor as the gods who go about by night appearing in the likeness of many animals of all sorts do the Hebrew accounts introduce the Word of God as having appeared to men; but rather, as Plato himself says must happen at some point 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 from it, the coming of God among men becomes useful like a remedy.
Since, then, among the living creatures on earth none was more beloved of God than the race of man, being kindred and akin to the Word of God, by whom also the nature of its soul had been fashioned rational, it is fitting, as one caring for a friend among living creatures, that the heavenly Word, they say, came for the healing of the whole race, which had fallen into a strange sickness and madness, so that it neither knew God the Father, nor its own essence as of a rational nature, nor again the providence of God, the saviour of all things, but had come almost to the point of turning aside into an irrational creature.
For this reason they say that the Saviour and Physician came near, not having departed from his own nature, nor having deceived those who saw him, but having kept both true -- the unseen and the seen. For in one respect he was seen as a true man, and in another he was truly the Word of God, not practicing sorcery, nor deceiving those who beheld him, since it seemed right also to Plato that the divine be without falsehood.
Therefore the God-Word, being altogether simple and true in both deed and word, neither himself changed, nor deceived others -- not by apparitions, nor by discourses, nor by the sending of signs, nor even in a dream. For all such things, as a physician of rational souls, he truly worked for the salvation of the whole human race -- not in mere appearance -- through the man he had assumed, bestowing upon all of us friendship with, and return to, his own Father, through the knowledge of God and the true piety proclaimed by him.
Such, then, is our position; but toward those who speak otherwise we shall be angry and shall not grant them a chorus, nor shall we allow the teachers to use such things for the education of the young, if our guardians are to become god-fearing and godlike -- just as it also seemed best to the philosopher.
For men themselves happen to believe that Zeus is the best and most just of the gods, and yet they admit that this same Zeus bound his own father because he unjustly swallowed his sons, and that Zeus in turn castrated his own father for other similar reasons; but they are angry at me because I prosecute my father for wrongdoing, and thus they say things contrary to themselves concerning both the gods and me.
'Is this, then, Euthyphro, the reason I am prosecuted for the indictment -- that whenever anyone says such things about the gods, I somehow find it hard to accept, on account of which, it seems, someone will say I do wrong? Now then, if you too, who know well about such matters, agree with this, then it seems we too must necessarily concede it. For what indeed shall we say, we who ourselves confess to knowing nothing about these things? But tell me, in the name of the god of friendship, do you truly believe these things happened as they are told?' 'And things even more amazing than these, Socrates, which the many do not know.'
'And do you then believe that there really is war among the gods with one another, and terrible enmities and battles, and many other such things, as are told by the poets, and with which our other sacred places have been adorned by good painters, and indeed at the great Panathenaea the robe, full of such embroidered scenes, is carried up to the Acropolis? Shall we say these things are true, Euthyphro?'
'Not only these, Socrates, but, as I just said, I will also relate to you, if you wish, many other things about the gods, which I well know will astonish you when you hear them.' These things Plato says in the Euthyphro. And Numenius clarifies the meaning in his work On the Secret Doctrines in Plato, speaking somewhat as follows:
If Plato, having undertaken to write about the theology of the Athenians, then grew displeased with it and denounced it as containing mutual factions, unions between children, the devouring of some of them, and, in place of these things, punishments visited upon fathers, and brothers extolled against brothers, and other things of this kind — if indeed Plato had taken these matters and denounced them openly, it seems to me he would again have given the Athenians a reason to do evil by putting him too to death, as they did Socrates. But since he would not have chosen to live rather than to speak the truth, and yet saw that he would be able both to live and to speak the truth in safety, he set the figure of Euthyphro in the role of the Athenians — a boastful and foolish man, representing anyone else who speaks badly of the divine — while he presented Socrates himself, in his own person and in his own characteristic manner, in which he was accustomed to cross-examine each person he conversed with.
My dear Crito, your eagerness is worth much, if it comes with a measure of rightness; but if not, the greater it is, the harder it becomes to deal with. We must therefore consider whether these things ought to be done or not, since I am a man who, not only now but always, is such as to obey nothing of my own affairs except the argument which, upon reflection, appears to me best.
But the arguments which I used to state before, I cannot now cast aside, now that this fortune has befallen me; rather, they appear to me much the same as before, and I esteem and honor the very same ones as formerly. And if we have nothing better to say than these in the present circumstance, know well that I will not concede to you, not even if the power of the multitude should terrify us like children with more than what now confronts us, sending upon us bonds and deaths and confiscations of property.
How then might we examine these matters most fittingly? If first we should take up this argument which you mention, concerning opinions — whether it was rightly said on each occasion or not, that one ought to pay heed to some opinions but not to others; or whether it was rightly said before I had to die, but now it has become evident that it was said merely for the sake of argument, and was in truth nothing but child's play and idle talk.
I for my part desire, Crito, to examine together with you whether it will appear to me somehow different, now that I am in this condition, or the same as before, and whether we shall dismiss it or be persuaded by it. It was said, as I recall, in something like this way on each occasion by those who thought they were saying something, just as I myself was saying just now — that of the opinions which men hold, one ought to value some highly, but not others.
Now by the gods, Crito, does this not seem to you rightly said? For you, so far as human affairs go, are not about to die tomorrow, and the present misfortune would not lead you astray. Consider then: does it not seem to you sufficiently well said, that one ought not to honor all the opinions of men, but some, and not others; nor those of all men, but of some, and not of others? What do you say? Is this not well said? — Well said.
Then ought one to honor the good opinions, but not the bad ones? — Yes. And are not the good ones those of the prudent, and the bad ones those of the imprudent? — How could it be otherwise? Come then, how in turn were such things put? Does a man in training, who practices this, pay attention to the praise and blame and opinion of every man, or of that one man alone who happens to be a physician or a trainer? — Of that one alone.
Ought one then not to fear the censures and welcome the praises of that one man alone, and not those of the many? — Evidently. In this way, then, must he act and train, and eat and drink, in whatever manner seems best to the one who is his overseer and understands the matter, rather than as seems best to all the others together? — This is so. Well then. But if, having disobeyed that one man and dishonored his opinion and his praises, and having honored instead the opinions of the many who understand nothing, will he not suffer some harm? — How could he not? And what is this harm? And to what does it extend, and to which part of the disobedient man does it reach? — Clearly to the body; for this it destroys.