The twelfth book of our Evangelical Preparation will render from this point onward what was lacking in the former book concerning the concord of Plato with the oracles of the Hebrews, as in the harmony of a well-tuned lyre, taking its beginning from a defense of our faith, which is blasphemed by the many.
'Now whether one rightly or wrongly finds fault with the Laconian and the Cretan constitution would be another discussion; but as to what is said by the many, perhaps I might be better able to state it than either of you. For among you, if your laws have indeed been even moderately well framed, it would be one of the finest of laws that none of the young should inquire which of them are rightly or not rightly established, but that all, with one voice and from one mouth, should agree that all are rightly established, since the gods laid them down, and that if anyone speaks otherwise, they should not endure at all to listen to him; but if some old man among you perceives anything amiss, he should raise such matters with a ruler or with someone of his own age, in the presence of no young person.' 'Most rightly, O stranger, do you exhort us.'
Fittingly, then, does the scripture of the Hebrews, which precedes the understanding and contemplation of the divine writings, put faith first, through the words where it says, 'But if you do not believe, you shall not understand.' And again, 'I believed, therefore I spoke.'
Hence also among us, to those who are newly introduced and still imperfect in their spiritual condition — being, as it were, infants in soul — the reading of the divine scriptures is delivered in a simpler manner, together with the requirement to believe, as being urged to receive the words conveyed as the words of God; but to those who are advanced in condition and, so to speak, gray-haired in understanding, it is permitted to go deeper in thought and to test the sense of what is said. These the children of the Hebrews were fond of calling 'deuterotai' (repeaters), as being, so to speak, translators and expounders of the meaning of the scriptures.
Well then, might we next say that you, Tyrtaeus, as it seems, especially praise those who become distinguished in war against a foreign and external enemy? He would say this, I suppose, and would agree. Of course.
But we, while granting that these men are good, say that far better still, and clearly the best by far, are those who prove excellent in the greatest war. And we too have a poet as witness, Theognis, a citizen of the Megarians in Sicily, who says: 'A trustworthy man is worth his weight in gold and silver, Cyrnus, in grievous civil strife.'
And we say that this man proves by far better than that one in the more grievous war—by about as much as justice, temperance, and wisdom, coming together with courage, are better than courage alone. For a man could never become trustworthy and sound amid seditions without virtue entire; whereas those who, as Tyrtaeus describes, stand their ground well and fight, willing to die in war, are found in great numbers among mercenaries, of whom the majority become bold, unjust, insolent, and about the most senseless of nearly all men, except for some very few.
To what point, then, does this argument of ours now come? And wishing to make what clear does he say these things? Clearly this: that above all, the lawgiver here descended from Zeus—indeed every lawgiver who is of even the slightest use—will always frame his laws looking to nothing else than the greatest virtue; and this, as Theognis says, is that trustworthiness amid dangers which one might call perfect justice.
And among us too, the saving Word, having joined prudence together with faith, approves in his own sayings the one who is adorned in both respects, saying: 'Who then is the faithful and prudent steward?' And again: 'Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will set you over many.' Clearly, then, in these sayings he shows that he does not approve of unreasoning faith, but that which is yoked together with the greatest virtues, seeing that prudence and goodness are indeed such.
For it seems that we have gone through the foregoing arguments at an opportune moment, showing that the souls of the departed, once they have died, possess a certain power and take care of the affairs of men. These are true accounts, but lengthy ones. One must trust the other reports concerning such matters, being as they are so many and exceedingly ancient, and one must also trust those who legislate that these things are so, provided they do not appear altogether senseless.
And in the book of Maccabees it is said that the prophet Jeremiah, after his departure from this life, is seen praying on behalf of the people, as one who takes thought for the men upon the earth. And Plato too says that one must believe these things.
'Now there is a twofold kind of discourse: the one true, the other false.' 'Yes.' 'And must education take place in both, and first in the false ones?' 'I do not understand,' he said, 'what you mean.' 'Do you not understand,' I said, 'that first we tell tales to children? And this, generally speaking, is false, though there is also truth in it. And we make use of tales with children before gymnastic exercises.' 'That is so.'
This is what Plato says. And among the Hebrews too it is the custom to hand down the histories of the divinely inspired Scripture to those who are children in soul more simply, as it were certain tales, while to those trained by exercise in their faculties, it is customary to hand down the deeper and doctrinal contemplations of the words, through what is called the 'second teaching,' and the clarification of the thoughts that escape the many.
Do you not know that the beginning is the most important part of every task, especially indeed for anyone young and tender? For it is then above all that the impression is molded and takes on whatever stamp one wishes to imprint upon each.
Quite so. Shall we, then, so easily permit children to hear whatever tales happen to be fashioned by anyone at all, and to take into their souls opinions that are, for the most part, contrary to those which we shall think they ought to hold once they are grown?
By no means shall we permit it at all. It seems, then, that we must first oversee the makers of tales, and whatever tale they make that is good we must approve, but whatever is not, we must reject. And the approved ones we shall persuade the nurses and mothers to tell to the children, molding their souls with these tales far more than they mold their bodies with their hands. But most of the tales they now tell must be cast out.
And these things had been observed among the Hebrews even before Plato. For those who possessed the divine Spirit, which discerns spirits, approved what was rightly spoken and written from the Holy Spirit, but disapproved of whatever was not such, just as also the words of the false prophets. Moreover, it was the custom for parents and nurses to charm the infant children, as it were, with certain mythologies—that is, with the most beneficial narratives drawn from the divine Scriptures—for the sake of preparing beforehand the piety they would have as grown men.
'Listen, then,' they say, 'to a very beautiful account, which you, I suppose, will consider a myth, but I consider a true account; for what I am about to tell you I shall tell as being true.'
And a little later: The man who has passed through life justly and piously, when he dies, departs to the Isles of the Blessed to dwell there in complete happiness, free from evils; but the man who has lived unjustly and impiously goes to the prison of retribution and justice, which they call Tartarus.
And again a little later: Then they must be judged stripped of all these things; for it is the dead who must be judged. And the judge too must be stripped, must be dead, beholding with the soul itself the very soul of each one who has just died, bereft of all his kinsmen and having left behind on earth all that adornment, so that the judgment may be just.
And next he adds: These are the things, Callicles, which I have heard and believe to be true; and from these accounts I reckon the following to follow: death happens to be, as it seems to me, nothing other than the dissolution of two things, the soul and the body, from each other.
And when they have been dissolved, each of the two nonetheless retains its own condition, just as it had when the man was alive—the body its own nature, together with its treatments and its experiences, all plainly visible; as, for instance, if someone's body was large by nature or by nourishment or both while he was living, his corpse too, once he has died, is large; and if he was stout, he is stout also when dead, and so on with the rest.
And again, if he practiced wearing his hair long, his corpse too has long hair; or if someone had been flogged and bore on his body the marks of the blows as scars—whether from whips or other wounds—while living, then his body when dead can be seen bearing these same marks; or if someone's limbs were broken or distorted while alive, they are so also when dead.
And in a word, whatever condition the body was fashioned to be in while living, all these things were plainly visible also once he had died—or at least most of them—for some time. This same thing, then, I think, holds true also concerning the soul, Callicles: everything is plainly visible in the soul once it has been stripped of the body—both the marks of its nature and the experiences it has undergone through each man's pursuit of a given thing, which the man had in his soul.
When, then, they come before the judge, those from Asia before Rhadamanthys—Rhadamanthys, having them stand before him, examines the soul of each, not knowing whose it is, but often, when he has laid hold of the Great King himself, or of any other king or potentate whatever, he sees nothing sound in the soul, but finds it thoroughly scourged and full of scars from perjuries and injustice, which each of his deeds had smeared upon the soul; everything twisted through falsehood and boastfulness, and nothing straight, because it had been reared without truth; and he sees the soul, from license and luxury and insolence and intemperance of conduct, filled with disproportion and shamefulness. And having seen it, he dismisses it dishonorably straight to the place of confinement, where it is about to go and undergo the sufferings appropriate to it.
And it is fitting for everyone undergoing punishment, being rightly punished by another, either to become better and to profit thereby, or to become an example to others, so that others, seeing him suffer whatever he suffers, may become better through fear.
Now those who are benefited and pay the penalty at the hands of both gods and men are those who have committed curable offenses; nevertheless, their benefit comes to them through pains and sufferings, both here and in Hades; for it is not possible to be rid of it in any other way.
But those who have committed the extreme injustices and, because of such wrongdoings, have become incurable—from these come the examples; and these men themselves no longer profit at all, being as they are incurable, but others profit who see them undergoing, for their sins, the greatest, most painful, and most fearful sufferings for all time, being literally hung up there in Hades in the prison house as examples, spectacles and warnings for those of the unjust who are ever arriving.
Among these I say Archelaus too will be, if Polus speaks the truth, and any other who is such a tyrant. And I think that most of these examples have come from among tyrants, kings, potentates, and those who have managed the affairs of cities; for these, because of their power, commit the greatest and most unholy offenses.
And Homer bears witness to these things too. For he has made those who undergo punishment in Hades for all time to be kings and potentates—Tantalus, Sisyphus, and Tityus. But Thersites, and any other private individual who was wicked, no one has represented as being held fast in great punishments as incurable; for it was not, I think, within his power; and for that reason he was more fortunate than those who had such power.
But indeed, Callicles, it is from among the powerful that the exceedingly wicked men come to be; yet nothing prevents good men from arising among these as well, and it is truly worthy of the highest admiration when they do arise. For it is difficult, Callicles, and highly praiseworthy, when one has come into great power to do wrong, to live out one's life justly instead; few such men come to be—though both here and elsewhere such men have existed, and I think there will be others too, good men possessing this virtue of administering justly whatever is entrusted to them.
And one such man has become quite renowned even among the rest of the Greeks, Aristides the son of Lysimachus. But most men, my good friend, become evil. As for the judges—as I was saying—whenever that Rhadamanthys takes hold of someone of this sort, he knows nothing else about him, neither who he is nor whose son, only that he is wicked; and having discerned this, he sends him off to Tartarus, marking him beforehand as to whether he seems curable or incurable.
And having arrived there, he suffers what is fitting. But sometimes, having beheld another soul that has lived piously and with truth—the soul of a private man, or of anyone else, but above all, as I say, Callicles, of a philosopher who has minded his own affairs and not meddled in others' during his life—he has admired it and sent it off to the Isles of the Blessed.
Aeacus does these same things; each of these two, holding a rod, gives judgment. But Minos sits alone, overseeing, holding a golden scepter, as Homer's Odysseus says he saw him, holding a golden scepter, giving judgment to the dead.
I myself, then, Callicles, am persuaded by these accounts, and I take care how I may present my soul to the judge in as sound a condition as possible. Bidding farewell, then, to the honors of the many, and practicing truth, I shall try, as far as I am able, being in reality the best man I can be, both to live and, when I die, to die.
And I exhort all other men too, as far as I am able; and in particular I exhort you in return to this way of life and to this contest, which I declare to be worth more than all the contests here.
And I reproach you, that you will not be able to help yourself when your trial and judgment come, which I have just now been speaking of; but when you come before that judge, the son of Aegina, and he lays hold of you and leads you off, you will gape and grow dizzy no less than I do here—and you there; and someone there will perhaps strike you disgracefully on the cheek, and altogether treat you with contempt.
Perhaps, then, these things seem to you to be told like a myth, as if by some old woman, and you despise them. And there would be nothing surprising in despising them, if in searching we were able to find something better and more true than these.
But now you see that the three of you, who are the wisest of the Greeks living today—you and Polus and Gorgias—are not able to prove that one ought to live any other life than this one, which appears to be advantageous even there; but among so many arguments, while all the others have been refuted, this alone remains unshaken: that one must guard against doing wrong more than against suffering wrong, and that above all else a man must practice, not seeming to be good, but being good, both in private and in public.
Plato, then, supposed that Aeacus, Minos, and Rhadamanthys would be the judges of the departed; but the divine word bears witness that all must stand before the judgment seat of God, so that each one may receive back the things done through the body, in accordance with what he has practiced, whether good or worthless.
And again it says: in the day when God judges the secrets of men, he who will render to each according to his works—to those who by patient endurance in good work seek glory and honor and incorruption, eternal life; but to those who are self-seeking and disobey the truth, and obey unrighteousness, wrath and fury, tribulation and distress, upon every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; for there is no partiality.
Be careful, however, that these things never fall into the hands of uneducated men; for there is hardly anything, as it seems to me, more laughable in the ears of the many than these things, nor again anything more admirable and inspiring to those of good natural ability. But being spoken often and always heard, and over many years, it is only with difficulty, like gold, purified through much labor.
And with us too, the saving word says: 'Do not give what is holy to the dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine.' For indeed the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. And indeed, in the case of a single man, whenever good words present in his soul accomplish nothing further, but rather the complete opposite results from them—all these forms of ignorance, the most grievous of all, I for my part would attribute to the city and to each individual citizen, but not to the ignorance of the craftsmen, if indeed you follow, strangers, what I am saying. 'We do follow, my friend, and we agree with what you say.'
Let this, then, be laid down as agreed and stated: that to those citizens who are ignorant in this respect, nothing pertaining to rule is to be entrusted or granted, and they must be reproached as ignorant, even if they are highly skilled in calculation and have thoroughly practiced all the clever things and whatever pertains by nature to quickness of soul; whereas those who are the opposite of these must be addressed as wise, even if, as the saying goes, they know neither their letters nor how to swim, and offices must be given to them as to men of sound mind.
For how, my friends, could even the smallest form of prudence come to be without concord? It is not possible. But the fairest and greatest of concords might most justly be called the greatest wisdom, of which he who lives according to reason is a partaker, while he who falls short of it proves to be a ruin of his household and in no way a savior with regard to the city, but on each occasion shows himself, on the contrary, to be utterly ignorant in these matters.
Let this much, then, be set down for me from the Laws. And the same man, in the Statesman, concerning not being overly concerned about names and terms, says the following: 'Well said, Socrates; and if you preserve this habit of not being overly concerned about names, you will show yourself richer in prudence as you come into old age.'
Since the Scripture among the Hebrews first introduces Moses declining the leadership of the people, saying to him who spoke to him in oracle, 'I beseech you, Lord, choose out another who is able, whom you will send'; and then Saul hiding himself so as not to accept the kingship; and the prophet Jeremiah likewise excusing himself—hear now how Plato too establishes the reasonableness of such declining, speaking as follows.
Is it not, then, Thrasymachus, already clear that no art nor rule provides what is beneficial to itself, but, as we were saying long ago, provides and commands what is beneficial to that which is ruled, looking to the advantage of the weaker, not of the stronger?
For these reasons, then, my friend Thrasymachus, I was just now saying that no one is willing of his own accord to rule and to take in hand the correction of others' evils, but demands a wage, because he who is about to practice his art well never does what is best for himself, nor, in giving orders according to his art, does he give orders for his own sake, but for that of the one ruled. For which reasons, it seems, there must be a wage available for those who are going to be willing to rule—either money, or honor, or a penalty if they do not rule.
Since the oracles among the Hebrews teach that the prophets and righteous men among them endured the utmost insults and outrages and every danger with good courage, you may learn the concordant opinion of Plato on this very point from these words of his, which he set down in the second book of the Republic.
Having set up such a man, then, let us in turn set the just man beside him in our argument—a simple and noble man, wishing, in Aeschylus's phrase, not to seem but to be good. And the seeming must be taken away from him. For if he shall seem to be just, he will have honors and gifts for seeming to be such; so it would be unclear whether he is such for the sake of justice itself, or for the sake of the gifts and honors.
He must, then, be stripped of everything except justice, and must be made to be in a condition opposite to the former man: though doing no wrong, let him have the reputation of the greatest injustice, so that he may be tested with regard to justice by not being softened by ill repute and the things that come from it; but let him remain unchanged until death, seeming to be unjust throughout his life, while being just.
And shortly after he adds: It must be stated, then; and indeed, even if it be stated somewhat crudely, do not suppose, Socrates, that it is I who say it, but those who praise injustice above justice. And they will say the following: that the just man, so disposed, will be scourged, will be racked, will be bound, will have both his eyes burned out, and at last, after suffering every evil, will be impaled, and will thereby learn that one must wish not to be just, but to seem so.
These things Plato said in word; but in deed, long before him, the righteous men and prophets among the Hebrews are recorded to have suffered all the things just mentioned — men who, though most righteous, were stoned as though most unrighteous, were sawn asunder, died by the slaughter of the sword, wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, afflicted, ill-treated, wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and the holes of the earth — men of whom the world was not worthy.
And the apostles of our Savior too, pursuing the loftiest righteousness and piety, yet being clothed by the multitude with a reputation for wickedness — one may hear from their own words what they suffered, saying: 'We have become a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men; and to this very hour we hunger and thirst and are naked and are buffeted and have no fixed abode; being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we bear it; being slandered, we entreat: we have become as the offscouring of the world.'
But even to this very day the noble martyrs of our Savior throughout the whole inhabited world, practicing not merely the appearance but the reality of righteousness and piety, have suffered all the terrible things which Plato enumerated: for they were scourged, endured bonds and the rack, and indeed had their very eyes gouged out, and finally, after suffering every kind of horror, were impaled. Among the Greeks you would find no one like any of them, so that one might fittingly say that the philosopher did nothing else than prophesy through these words concerning those among us who are distinguished for piety and true righteousness.
Since Moses, according to certain secret sayings, said that at the beginning of the world's formation a certain paradise of God came to be, and that in it man was deceived through the woman by the serpent — Plato, having transposed the very words almost outright, hear what things he himself has likewise set forth allegorically in the Symposium: instead of the paradise of God he names the garden of Zeus; instead of the serpent and the deceit wrought by him, he posits Penia (Poverty) plotting; instead of the first man, whom the counsel and providence of God had put forward as a son, newly born as it were, he calls him Poros, son of Metis; and instead of saying, 'when this world was being formed,' he says, 'when Aphrodite came to be' — thus allegorizing the world for the sake of the beauty about it. He speaks then in these very words:
When Aphrodite was born, the gods held a feast, among others Poros, the son of Metis. And when they had dined, Penia came to beg, as one might expect when there was a banquet, and she stood about the doors. Now Poros, having become drunk with nectar — for wine did not yet exist — went into the garden of Zeus, and being weighed down, fell asleep. Then Penia, plotting, because of her own destitution, to have a child by Poros, lay down beside him and conceived Eros. Such things, then, did Plato likewise hint at in these matters, in a manner resembling Moses.
Again, Moses having said, 'But for Adam there was not found a helper like him. And God cast a trance upon Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and filled up the flesh in its place. And the Lord God built the rib which He had taken from Adam into a woman' — Plato, not understanding in what sense this was said, is clearly not ignorant of the account, yet he attributes it to Aristophanes, as being one accustomed, as a comic poet, to mock even solemn matters, introducing him in the Symposium saying the following:
'You must first learn human nature and its experiences. For our nature long ago was not the same as it is now, but different. First of all, there were three kinds of human beings, not two as now, male and female, but a third besides was present, common to both of these, whose name still remains, though the thing itself has vanished; for at that time the androgynous was both a form and a name common from both, from the male and the female alike.'
Then, next, mocking in his own habitual manner, he continues, saying: 'Having said this, the Zeus of his tale cut human beings in two, just as people cut sorb-apples that are to be pickled, or as an egg is cut with a hair. And whomever he cut, he bade Apollo turn his face and the half of his neck around toward the incision, so that the man, beholding his own cutting, might be the more orderly for it, and he bade him heal the rest.'
Since Moses, in describing the first life of the earthborn, wrote that it took place in the paradise of God, and that they regarded God as their leader, living a life without money or possessions, and that all things grew for them without sowing or plowing, and that they were naked, before the covering that came afterward — hear the philosopher, in almost the very same words, rendering these same things in the Greek tongue. He speaks then thus:
'A god tended them, presiding over them himself, just as men now — being another, more divine kind of creature — herd other, inferior kinds. And while he was tending them, there were no constitutions, nor possessions of wives and children; for they all rose up again out of the earth, remembering nothing of their former life; but such things as these were all absent, while they had abundant fruits from trees and much timber, growing not by cultivation but of the earth's own accord bringing them forth. And being naked and without bedding, they dwelt for the most part in the open air; for the seasons were tempered for them without distress, and they had soft beds, since abundant grass sprang up out of the earth. This life, then, O Socrates, you hear of as that under Cronos; but this present one, said to be under Zeus, you yourself, being present, have experienced.'
Again, Moses having recorded that the serpent was more cunning than all the beasts, and what things the serpent said to the woman and the woman to the serpent, and having set forth the conversations of the serpent — hear what things Plato writes:
'Now the nurslings of Cronos, having so much leisure and such power available to them, not only to associate with men but also with beasts by means of speech, used all these things for the pursuit of philosophy, conversing both with beasts and with one another, and inquiring of every nature whether any creature, possessing some particular faculty, had perceived anything different from the rest for the gathering of wisdom; and it is easy to judge that those of that time differed immeasurably from those of the present in respect to happiness.'
'But whether, being filled to satiety with food and drink, they conversed with one another and with the beasts in myths — such as indeed are now told about them — this too, at least in my own opinion, would be quite easy to declare to be so. However, let us leave these matters aside, until some adequate informant should appear to us, as to which way those of that time held their desires concerning knowledge and the use of speech.'
Moses, having laid down legislation for men, thought it necessary for himself to give an account of ancient history in his preambles; he mentions the flood and the life of men after it, then the ancient men beloved of God among the Hebrews, and he narrates the polity of those, on the other hand, who were examined and found wanting in transgressions — considering that a history of these matters would correspond fittingly to the laws he was laying down.