Eusebius, Preparation of the Gospels

§ 13.13.32 And then he adds: " Ἅπαντα δ' ἀγαθὸν εἶναι τὸν Θεόν," meaning either “that every god is good,” or, what is the truer meaning, “that in all things God is good.”'Again, Aeschylus, the Tragic poet, in setting forth the power of God does not hesitate to call Him the Most High in the following passage: “Set God apart from mortals in thy thought, Nor deem that, like thyself, He too is flesh. Thou know'st. Him not: as fire He now appears. A mighty force, now water, now dark storm. Again in likeness of the beasts He comes, Of wind, or lightning, thunder, cloud, or rain. The seas, and sea-girt rocks, the springing wells, The gathering floods, obey His sovereign will. The pillars of the earth, the vast abyss Of Ocean, and the mountain-tops do shake, If the dread Master's eye but look on them: So glorious is the power of God Most High.”

§ 13.13.33 Does it not seem to you that he is paraphrasing that passage: “At the presence of the LORD the earth trembles.”'Besides this, the chief prophet Apollo is compelled, in testimony to the glory of God, to say of Athena, when the Medes were marching against Greece, that she entreated and supplicated Zeus for Attica. And the oracle is as follows: “ Pallas with many words and counsel wise May pray, but ne'er appease Olympian Zeus. For he to the consuming fire will give The shrines of many gods, who now perchance Stand bathed in chilling sweat, and shake with fear,” and so forth.

§ 13.13.34 [CLEMENT]' Thearidas, in his book On Nature, writes, “The first cause of things that exist, the real and true cause, is one. For that is in the beginning one and alone.” “There is none other save the mighty King,”

§ 13.13.35 as Orpheus says. And with him the Comic poet Diphilus agrees in a very sententious manner, when he says: “Him never cease to honour and adore, Father of all, sole source of every good.”'With good reason, therefore, Plato trains “the noblest natures to attain that learning which in the former part of our discussion we declared to be the highest, both to discern the good and to make the great ascent.” “This then, as it seems, would be no mere turning of an oyster-shell, but the conversion of a soul passing from a kind'of darkness visible' to the true upward path of being, which we shall call true philosophy”;198 and those who have partaken thereof he judges to belong to the golden race, when he says, “Ye are doubtless all brethren”;199 but those who are of the golden race can judge most accurately, and in every way....'Instinctively, therefore, and without teaching, all things derive from all a conception of the Father and Maker of all, things inanimate by suffering with the animal creation, and of living beings those which are already immortal by working in the light of day, and of those still mortal some (perceive Him) in fear while carried by their mother in the womb, but others by independent reasoning. And of mankind both Greeks and Barbarians all have this conception; and nowhere is there any race either of husbandmen or of shepherds, nay not even of the dwellers in cities, who can live without being prepossessed by the belief in that higher power. Wherefore every nation of the east, and every one that touches the western shores, the northern also, and all upon the south, have one and the same presentiment of Him who established the government of the world, inasmuch as the most universal of His operations have pervaded all things alike.'Much more did the inquisitive philosophers among the Greeks, by an impulse from the Barbarian philosophy, ascribe the pre-eminence to the One invisible most mighty and most skilful chief cause of all things most beautiful, without understanding the consequences of this, unless they were instructed by us, nay, not even understanding how God Himself is naturally to be conceived, but only, as we have said many times already, in a true but indirect way.'

§ 13.13.36 So far Clement. But since the Philosophy of Plato was shown by us at some length to be in very many things in agreement with the doctrines of the Hebrews (for which we admire the man's wisdom and his candour also in regard to the truth), it is time to consider what the points are in which, as we say, we are no longer so favourably disposed towards him, but prefer that which is accounted the Barbarian philosophy to his.

§ 13.14.1 THE oracles of the Hebrews containing prophecies and responses of a divine power beyond that of man, and claiming God as their author, and confirming their promise by the prediction of things to come, and by the results corresponding to the prophecies, are said to be free from all erroneous thought. For instance,'the words of God are declared to be pure words, and silver tried in the fire, tested by earth, purified seven times.'

§ 13.14.2 But not such are the words of Plato, nor yet of any other of the wise among men, who with the eyes of mortal thought and with feeble guesses and comparisons, as in a dream, and not awake, attained to a notion of the nature of all things, but superadded to the truth of nature a large admixture of falsehood, so that one can find in them no learning free from error.

§ 13.14.3 Now, for example, if you would suppress a little of this self-admiration, and contemplate the true light itself by the faculty of reason, you would perceive that even that wonderful philosopher, who alone of all the Greeks touched the threshold of truth, dishonours the name of the gods by applying it to perishable matter and carved images fashioned by mechanic hands into a human shape; and after the lofty height of his magniloquence, wherein he contended that he knew the Father and Maker of this universe, is thrust down from his place on high among the supramundane circles, and sinks with the common people of Athens into the lowest depth of their God-detested idolatry; so that he does not shrink from saying that Socrates had gone down to the Peiraeus to pray to the goddess, and to see his fellow citizens then for the first time celebrating their barbarous festival; acknowledging also that he had enjoined the offering of a cock to Aesculapius, and regarded as a god the ancestral prophet of the Greeks, the daemon who sits enshrined at Delphi.

§ 13.14.4 Wherefore also the blame of the superstitious delusion of the unphilosophical multitude might with good reason be ascribed to him. Take up again for instance his discourse a little farther back, and after his incorporeal and imperishable'ideas,' and after a first god and a second cause, and after intelligent and immortal essences, observe what kind of laws the all-wise philosopher would enact concerning the belief of the common people, speaking thus:

§ 13.14.5 [ Plato ]'To tell of the other divinities and to learn their origin is beyond us; but we must give credence to those who have spoken in former times, who being, as they said, the offspring of gods, had, I suppose, a clear knowledge of their own ancestors. It is impossible therefore to disbelieve children of the gods, even though they speak without certain or probable proofs: but as they assert that they are reporting family histories, we must in obedience to the law believe them.'On their authority then let the origin of these gods be as follows and so stated. The children of Earth and Heaven were Oceanus and Tethys; and their children Phorcys and Kronos and Rhea, and all the others with them: and of Kronos and Rhea came Zeus and Hera, and all whom we know as their reputed brethren, and still others who were their offspring.'

§ 13.14.6 For these reasons then we must give up the great philosopher, as having misrepresented the fabulous theogonies of the poets, not like a philosopher, nor in a self-consistent manner. For you had the opportunity of hearing himself speak in the Republic as follows:'In the greater fables, said I, we shall also discern the less: for there must be the same type, and the same tendency in both the greater and the less: do you not think so?'Yes, I do, said he: but I do not even understand which you call the greater.'Those, said I, which Hesiod and Homer and the other poets told us: for they, I suppose, were the composers of fictitious tales, which they told and still tell to mankind'; meaning the stories which we have quoted a little above.

§ 13.14.7 Again there was that passage of his in which he said,'We shall begin then, said I, with the following verse, and strike out it and all that are like it: " Fain would I serve some master in the field,"

§ 13.14.8 and the rest; also the passage wherein he adds:'Once more then we shall entreat Homer and the other poets not to represent Achilles, the son of a goddess, " Now turning on his side, and now again Upon his back,"

§ 13.14.9 and the rest that follows. To this he adds:'Or to say that Zeus, while all the other gods and men were asleep, and he alone awake, lightly forgot all the plans he had devised, through the eagerness of desire, and was so smitten at sight of Hera that he would not even wait to go into his chamber, but wished to lie with her there on the ground like a lark, and said that he was possessed by a stronger passion than even when they first used to meet “without the knowledge of their dear parents.” Nor shall we admit the tale of Ares and Aphrodite being bound by Hephaestus for acts of the same kind!'

§ 13.14.10 And then after having told these tales in such a manner, what does he mean in the saying which comes after, by calling the poets'children of the gods,' and asserting that'to disbelieve them is impossible,' although he protested that they had invented the fictitious stories about the gods'without necessary or probable proofs'?

§ 13.14.11 And what is the meaning of this unreasonable belief, put forward in fear of punishment from the laws? And how can Uranus and Ge be first of the gods, then their offspring Oceanus and Tethys, and after all these Kronos, and Rhea, and Zeus, and Hera, and all their sons and brothers and descendants mentioned in fables by Homer and Hesiod, when he was refuting these very stories by speaking thus:'The fault, said I, which we ought to reprove before all and above all, especially if a man lies in unseemly fashion.'What fault is that?'When a man in his discourse concerning gods and heroes misrepresents their nature, just as when an artist paints what is not at all like the things which he may wish to imitate.'

§ 13.14.12 And again:'In the first place, said I, it was no seemly lie that was told by the author of that greatest lie about the greatest gods, how Uranus wrought what Hesiod says he did, and how Kronos took revenge upon him,' and what follows this.

§ 13.14.13 But how could the same poets who are here called false and untruthful be spoken of on the other hand as offspring of the gods? However, for these reasons we must abandon this philosopher, as having through fear of death played false with the Athenian democracy: but must honour Moses, and the Hebrew oracles, as everywhere shining out from the one true religion that is free from error. Look then at another point.

§ 13.15.1 THE Hebrews say that the intermediate nature of rational beings is generated and not without beginning. And in their account they distinguish this nature into intelligent beings whom they call spirits, and powers, and God's ministering angels and archangels: and from their fall and transgression they derive the race of daemons, and the whole species of the adverse and wicked agency.

§ 13.15.2 For which reason they forbid us to regard as gods those who are not possessed of virtue and goodness as inseparable from their nature, but have received their very existence not from themselves but from the Cause of all, and also acquire their well-being, and their virtue, and their immortality itself not in the same manner as either He who is God over all, or He by whom all things were made.

§ 13.15.3 But Plato although, like the Hebrews, he supposes the rational natures to be incorporeal and intelligible essences, yet falls away from consistency, by first asserting that they, as well as every soul, are unoriginated, and then saying that they were formed out of an effluence of the First Cause. For he does not mean to admit that they have arisen out of nothing.

§ 13.15.4 Wherefore also he supposes that there is a numerous race of gods, assuming in his argument certain effluences and emissions of the First and Second Causes: and that they are in nature good and in no way capable of departing from their proper virtue, whence also he supposes them to be gods.

§ 13.15.5 But the tribe of daemons he believes to be different from these, as being capable of baseness and wickedness, and change for the worse: and some of these are called, and are, good and some evil. But while he thus makes these suppositions contrary to the Hebrew doctrines, he does not explain from what source it may reasonably be said that the daemons arose.

§ 13.15.6 For that they arose from the matter of the corporeal elements no one in his senses would assert: for this matter is irrational, but rational things can never be born of an irrational, and the daemons are rational. If, however, these come from an effluence of the greater gods, how then are they not themselves gods as much as those who have begotten them? And how if the source is good are the things which flow from it not like it? And whence in these latter did a shoot of wickedness grow up, if the root comes originally from good and passes through good? Of how can bitter come from the sweet?

§ 13.15.7 If then the race of the wicked daemons is worse than any darkness and any bitterness, how can it be said to come from an effluence of the nature of the better powers? If it was from this, it would not have turned aside from its proper lot: and if it has been changed, then it was not at first impassible in its nature: and if it was not such, how then could they be gods who are capable of participating in an evil destiny?

§ 13.15.8 If, however, they were neither from the effluence of the better powers, nor yet from the matter of the corporeal elements, we must now either say that they were unoriginated, and must set over against God in addition to the unoriginated matter of the corporeal elements a third group of unoriginated rational beings, thus no longer representing God as being the Maker of all, and Framer of the Universe, or, if we admit this, we must also admit that He made the non-existent, according to the statements of the Hebrews, For what do these teach on this subject? They say that the intermediate nature of rational beings arose neither from the matter of the corporeal elements, nor from an effluence of the essence which is unbegotten and ever remains in the same mode and relations; but that having no previous existence it has come into being by the effective power of the Cause of all.

§ 13.15.9 And thus they are no gods, nor have been properly dignified with the title, because they are not equalized in nature with their Maker, nor have goodness inseparably attached to them, like God, but sometimes would even admit the contrary to that which is good through disregard of that study of the higher power, which everyone has wrought out for himself, who is by nature master of his own movement and purpose. So much then for this subject; and now let us pass to another.

§ 13.16.1 CHAPTER, XVI Plato, although he agreed with the Hebrews in supposing the soul immortal, and saying that it was like unto God, no longer follows them when he sometimes says that its essence is composite, as if involving a certain part of the indivisible and immutable Cause, and a part of the divisible nature belonging to bodies.

§ 13.16.2 He speaks, for instance, in the Timaeus in these very words: [PLATO]'But to the soul, as a mistress to rule over a subject, He gave priority and precedence over the body both in origin and excellence, and made her out of the following constituents and in the following manner. Of the indivisible and ever immutable essence, and of the other divisible essence belonging to bodies, He compounded a third intermediate species of essence out of both the nature of'the same' and the nature of'the other,' and in this way set it midway between the indivisible part and the divisible part which belongs to bodies. And he took the three, as they now were, and mingled them all together into one “idea,” and as the nature of “the other” was hard to combine, he fitted it by force into “the same.”'

§ 13.16.3 Hence also he has naturally connected the passible part with the rational part of the essence. But though at one time he has given this decision concerning the essence of soul, at another he involves it in a different and worse absurdity, by declaring that the divine and heavenly essence, which is incorporeal and rational and like unto God, and which by virtue of its great excellence soars above the celestial circles, comes down from above out of the supramundane regions upon asses, and wolves, and ants, and bees, and calls upon us to believe this account without any proof.

§ 13.16.4 He speaks accordingly in the discourse Concerning the Soul as follows:'So they continue to wander until, by the craving of that corporeal nature which still accompanies them, they are again imprisoned in a body: and probably they are imprisoned in animals of such moral nature as the habits which they may themselves happen to have followed in life.'What kind of natures do you mean, Socrates?'For example, those who have practised gluttony, and wantonness, and drunkenness, and have taken no good heed, probably sink into the class of asses and other beasts of that kind: do you not think so?'Yes, what you say is quite probable.'And those who have preferred a course of injustice and tyranny and plunder go into the classes of wolves, and hawks, and kites: or whither else should we say that such souls go?'Certainly into such as these, said Cebes.'Well then, said he, as to the other cases it is evident what way each soul will go, according to the affinities of their habits.'Quite evident, said he, for how could it be otherwise?'Well then, said he, are not the happiest among them and those who pass into the best place the men who have practised the civil and political virtue which is called temperance and justice, produced by habit and attention, without the aid of philosophy and intellect?'How now are these the happiest?'Because it is probable that these pass again into some social and gentle race, of bees perhaps or wasps or ants, or even back again into the human race itself.'

§ 13.16.5 In the Phaedrus also hear how he discourses:'For to the same state from which each soul has come she does not attain within ten thousand years; for before this time none grows wings except the soul of the guileless philosopher, or of the philosophic lover. These in the third period of a thousand years, if they have chosen this life thrice successively, so get their wings and fly away in the three-thousandth year. But the others receive judgement when they have finished their first life: and after judgement some go to the houses of correction beneath the earth and suffer punishment, and others, lifted by the judgement to some place in heaven, live in a manner worthy of the life which they lived in human form. But in the thousandth year both good and evil souls come to an allotment and choice of their second life, and choose whichever each may wish. And there both a human soul may pass into the life of a beast, and from a beast he who was once a man may pass back into a man again.'

§ 13.16.6 This is what he says in the Phaedrus; but now listen to him writing in the Republic in the following style:'For he said that he saw the soul which was once that of Orpheus choosing the life of a swan, out of hatred of the female sex, because he had been killed by them, and would not be conceived and born of woman. Then he saw the soul of Thamyras choose the life of a nightingale: he saw also a swan changing and making choice of a man's life, and other musical animals in like manner, as was natural. And the soul that gained the twentieth lot chose a lion's life; and it was the soul of Ajax, son of Telamon, which shrank from becoming a man because he remembered the judgement concerning the arms.'And the soul of Agamemnon which came next, and also hated the human race because of his sufferings, changed for the life of an eagle. The soul of Atalanta, whose lot was about the middle, having observed the great honours of an athlete, could not pass by without choosing that life. Next after her he saw the soul of Epeius, the son of Panopeus, passing into the nature of a female artist. Far off among the hindmost he saw the soul of Thersites, the buffoon, entering into an ape.'The soul of Odysseus, having by chance obtained the last lot of all, came forward to choose; and having been cured of ambition by remembrance of his former troubles, went about for a long time seeking for the life of a private person free from business, and with difficulty found one lying somewhere neglected by all the rest, and when he saw it he said that he would have done the same even if he had gained the first lot, and so chose it gladly. Of the other animals also some in like manner passed into men and into one another, the unjust changing into the savage, and the just into the gentle, and formed all kinds of mixtures.'

§ 13.16.7 In these discourses concerning the soul it is evident that Plato is following the Egyptian doctrines: for his statement is not that of the Hebrews, since it is not in accordance with truth. There is, however, no occasion to refute this, because he did not himself attempt the problem in the way of demonstration. But thus much one may reasonably remark, that it was not consistent for the same person to say that at the moment of decease the souls of the ungodly departing hence suffer in Hades the just penalties of their deeds, and there undergo eternal punishment, and then to assert that they choose again their modes of life here according to their own will.

§ 13.16.8 For he says that they become imprisoned in a body through desire of what is bodily; and that some of them who have been reared in wantonness and gluttony become asses, and enter into the bodies of other beasts, choosing them at will and not according to just desert; and the unjust and rapacious become wolves, and kites, having entered into this nature of their own accord. Then he says that the soul of Orpheus wished to be a swan; and the soul of Thamyras chose the life of a nightingale, and Thersites that of an ape.

§ 13.16.9 But where then would be that judgement after their departure hence, which he describes in the dialogue On the Soul, saying:'When the deceased have arrived at the place to which each is brought by his daemon,... then those who may be thought to have lived an ordinary life proceed to Acheron, and having embarked in such vessels as there are for them, they arrive in these at the lake; and there they dwell, and are purged and punished for their crimes, and so absolved from any offence which each has committed: and for their good deeds they receive rewards each according to his desert. But any who may be thought to be incurable because of the greatness of their sins, having perpetrated either many great acts of sacrilege or many wicked and lawless murders, or any other crimes of this kind, these, I say, are cast by their suitable destiny into Tartarus, whence they never come out.

§ 13.16.10 Thus he described the fate of the ungodly; and now hear how he speaks of the pious:'And of this class those who have thoroughly purified themselves by philosophy live for the time to come altogether free from troubles, and attain to abodes still more beautiful than the former, to describe which is neither easy, nor is the time at present sufficient.'

§ 13.16.11 In the Gorgias also observe what he says:'The man who has lived a just and holy life departs after death to the Islands of the Blessed, and there dwells in perfect happiness beyond the reach of ills. But he who has lived an unjust and godless life goes to the prison-house of vengeance and punishment, which they call Tartarus,... and whoever may have committed the worst misdeeds, and because of such crimes have become incurable, of these the examples are made. And, being incurable, they receive no more benefit themselves; but others receive benefit, who see them for their great sins enduring the most painful and terrible sufferings for all time, hung up simply as examples there in the prison-house in Hades, a spectacle and warning to the wicked who are continually arriving.'

§ 13.16.12 How can this agree with the statements concerning an exchange of bodies, which the soul, they say, seeks after and chooses? For how can the same soul after its departure hence endure tortures, and prisons, and all this punishment for ever, and on the other hand as one released and free from bonds choose whatever modes of life it will? And if it were likely to choose again the life of pleasure, where then is the prison-house of vengeance and punishment? At leisure one might attack the argument at a thousand other points, on the thought of which there is no time to enlarge.

§ 13.16.13 So the first error in Plato's opinion on this subject has been thus detected; but the second slip in the exposition of his doctrine, wherein he laid down that one part of the soul is divine and rational and another part of it irrational and passible, has been condemned even by his own friends, as one may learn from statements of the following kind:

§ 13.17.1 [SEVERUS]'WITH regard to the soul as described by Plato, which he says was composed by God of an impassible and a passible essence, as some intermediate colour from white and black, this is what we have to say, that when in time a separation of them takes place the soul must necessarily disappear, like the composition of the intermediate colour, when each of its constituents is naturally separated in time into its proper colour. But if this is so we shall show the soul to be perishable and not immortal.'For if this is admitted, that nothing in nature is without its opposite, and that all things in the world have been arranged by God out of the nature of these opposites, He having impressed upon them a friendship and communion, as of dry with moist, and hot with cold, heavy with light, white with black, sweet with bitter, hard with soft, and on all qualities of this kind one other combination including them all, and then upon the impassible essence a combination with the passible, and if the combined and mingled elements naturally in time undergo a separation from each other, and if it is to be assumed that the soul has been produced out of an impassible and a passible essence, then, in the same way as the intermediate colour, so also this must naturally disappear in time, when the opposite elements in its composition press towards their proper nature.'For do we not see that what is naturally heavy, even though it be lifted up by us, or by any natural lightness being added to it from without, presses down as before in its own natural direction? How in like manner also that which is by nature light, if borne downward by similar external causes, presses upward itself as before? For things which have been combined into one out of two mutual opposites cannot possibly remain always in the same state, unless there is always in them some third kind of natural substance.'But soul in fact is not any third thing compounded of two mutual opposites, but simple and in its sameness of nature impassible and incorporeal: whence Plato and his School said that it was immortal.'Since, however, it is a doctrine common to all that man is made of soul and body, and the motions which take place within us apart from the body, whether voluntary or involuntary, are said to be affections of the soul, most of the philosophers, guessing hereby that its substance is passible, say that it is mortal and of a corporeal nature, not incorporeal. But Plato was driven to interweave the passible element with its naturally impassible essence. That neither, however, is the case we shall endeavour to demonstrate by arguing from what Plato and the others have severally said, and explaining the powers which operate within us.'

§ 13.17.2 Let this suffice for my quotation from Severus the Platonist On the Soul.

§ 13.17.3 But in addition to what has been already said consider also the following point in regard to the origin of heaven and the luminaries therein.

§ 13.18.1 Plato agrees with the Hebrews in the account which he gives of the heaven and its phenomena, according to which it was settled that they have had a beginning, as having been made by the Author of the universe, and that they partake of the corporeal and perishable substance; but he no longer agrees with the Hebrews when he enacts a law that men should worship them and believe them to be gods, speaking thus in the Epinomis:

§ 13.18.2 [PS.-PLATO]'Whom then, O Megillus and Cleinias, do I ever with reverence speak of as god? Heaven, I suppose, which it is most right for us, like all others, daemons as well as gods, to honour, and to pray especially to it: and that it has also been the author of all other blessings to us all men would agree.'

§ 13.18.3 Then lower down in the same work he adds this:'But of the visible gods, who are the greatest and most honourable, and have the keenest sight in all directions, the first we must declare to be the nature of the stars, and all things that we perceive to have been created with them; and next to these and under them the daemons in order, and, as occupying a third and intermediate abode, an aerial race acting as our interpreters, whom we ought to honour much with prayers for the sake of their favourable intervention.'

§ 13.18.4 Having hereby declared that the aforesaid beings are gods, he gives in the Timaeus a physical explanation of their original constitution, in the following description:

§ 13.18.5 [PLATO]'(Having arranged that) as fire is to air, so is air to water, and as air to water, so is water to earth, of these He combined and constituted a visible and tangible heaven. And for these reasons and out of these elements, such as I have described, being four in number, the body of the world was formed in harmony by due proportion, and from them gained a friendliness such that after having coalesced in itself it became indissoluble by any other except the author of its combination.'

§ 13.18.6 Then he adds:'And in the centre of it He set a soul, which He not only spread throughout, but also wrapped it round the body on the outside, and so formed one single and solitary heaven as a circle revolving in a circle.'

§ 13.18.7 And again lower down he says in addition:'In accordance then with reason and this purpose of God for the birth of time, that time might begin, sun, and moon, and five other luminaries, which are surnamed planets, have been created in order to define and preserve the reckonings of time: and, after having made their several bodies, God set them in the orbits traversed by the revolution of “the other.”'

§ 13.18.8 Also he adds:'And the bodies bound together by animated bonds became living beings, and learned the law appointed for them.'

§ 13.18.9 In the tenth Book also of the Laws he gives a general explanation concerning every kind of soul, speaking as follows:'All things, however, that partake of soul are subject to change, as possessing in themselves the cause of change. And when they have changed they move on in the order and law of their destiny: if they have made only small change in their moral characters, they make small changes of place on the surface of the ground; but if they have fallen away more frequently and culpably, they pass into the abyss.'

§ 13.18.10 So then if'all things which partake of soul are liable to change, as possessing the cause of change in themselves,' and if heaven, and sun, and moon are, according to Plato himself, partakers of soul, then these also must change,'as possessing the cause of change in themselves,' according to his statement. How then does he say on the other hand that they are eternal and therefore gods, although existing in a mortal body, and liable to be dissolved? At least he says again in the Timaeus:'When therefore all gods, both those which are visible in their revolutions and those which appear only as far as they choose, had been created, the author of this universe spake to them as follows:'Ye gods and sons of gods, the works whereof I am the creator and father, are indissoluble save by My will. Therefore though all that is bound may be dissolved, yet only an evil being would wish to dissolve that which is well composed and in right condition. Wherefore also since ye have come into existence, though ye are not altogether immortal nor indissoluble, nevertheless ye shall not be dissolved nor incur the fate of death, since in My will ye have found a still stronger and more valid bond than those by which ye were bound together at the time of your creation.'

§ 13.18.11 So speaks Plato. With good reason therefore do Moses and the Hebrew oracles forbid to worship these and to regard them as gods; but leading us upward to the God who is King of all, the very creator of sun and moon and stars and the whole heaven and world, who by a divine word combined and fitted all things together, he bids us by his law to believe in Him alone as God, and to ascribe the honour of worship to Him only, saying,'Lest, when thou see the sun and moon and all the stars and all the host of heaven, thou be deceived and worship them.'

§ 13.18.12 This command is interpreted and explained at large by Philo, the man so learned in the affairs of the Hebrews, speaking thus word for word:

§ 13.18.13 [PHILO]'Some supposed that sun and moon and the other luminaries are gods of absolute power, to whom they attributed the causes of all things that are made. But Moses thought that the world was both created, and was the greatest of all States, having rulers and subjects, the rulers being all in heaven, such as are planets and fixed stars, and the subjects being the natures beneath the moon, in the air, and near the earth.'But the so-called rulers, he thought, were not independent, but deputies of one universal Father, by imitating whose superintendence they succeed in ruling every thing in creation in accordance with justice and law. But they who did not discern Him who sits as charioteer ascribed the causes of all things which are done in the world to those who are yoked under Him, as if they worked independently. But the most sacred Lawgiver changes their ignorance into knowledge, when He speaks thus: “Lest, when thou beholdest the sun and the moon and the stars and all the host of heaven, thou be deceived and worship them.”'With well-directed aim and nobly did he call the acceptance of the above-mentioned as gods a deception. For they saw that the seasons of the year, in which the generations of animals and plants and fruits are brought to completion in definite periods, of time are settled by the advance and retreat of the Sun; they saw also that the Moon as handmaid and successor of the Sun had taken up by night the care and superintendence of the same as the Sun by day, and that the other luminaries in accordance with their sympathy towards things terrestrial were working and doing countless services for the permanence of the whole; and so they fell into an endless delusion in supposing that these were the only gods.'Whereas if they had been attentive to walk by the unerring path they would have learned at once that in the same way as sense is the servant of mind, so also were all who can be perceived by sense made ministers of Him whom mind alone can perceive.'

§ 13.18.14 Also he further says:'So having transcended by reason all visible being, let us go on to the dignity of Him who is without bodily form and invisible, and can be apprehended by thought alone, who is not only the God of the worlds both of thought and sense, but also the Creator of all things. But if any one assign the worship of the Eternal Maker to another younger and begotten being, let him be written down as a madman and guilty of the greatest impiety.'

§ 13.18.15 These are the truly genuine and divine teachings of the Hebrew religion which we have preferred to their vain philosophy. Why need I enlarge further, and bring to light the other errors of Plato, when it is easy from what has been already said to guess also what points I have now passed over in silence? It was not, however, for the sake of accusing him that I was led to speak of these things, since for my part I very greatly admire the man, and esteem him as a friend above all the Greeks, and honour him as one whose sentiments are dear and congenial to myself, although not the same throughout; but I wished to show in what his intelligence falls short in comparison with Moses and the Hebrew prophets.

§ 13.18.16 And yet to one prepared to find fault it were easy to pass censure on countless points, such as his solemn and sapient regulations with regard to women in the Republic, or such as his fine phrases about unnatural love in the Phaedrus. If, however, you desire to listen to these subjects also, take and read his utterances which follow:

§ 13.19.1 [PLATO]'PERHAPS now, said I, many points connected with our present subject will appear more than usually ridiculous, if they are to be carried out as described.'Certainly, said he.'What then, said I, is the most ridiculous thing that you see in them? Is it not, of course, that the women are to practise gymnastics naked in the palaestra with the men, and not only the young women but even the elder also; just as the old men in the gymnasia, when though wrinkled and not pleasing in appearance, they nevertheless love to practise gymnastics.'

§ 13.19.2 And next he adds:'But the man who laughs at the women taking exercise naked for the best of purposes, as though forsooth he were “reaping fruit of wisdom” in his laughter, seems not even to know at what he is laughing.'

§ 13.19.3 He says also in the seventh Book of the Laws:'It will therefore evidently be necessary for the boys and girls to learn dancing and gymnastics; and there will be dancing-masters for the boys and mistresses for the girls, that they may go through the exercise with the greater advantage.'

§ 13.19.4 He also writes therein as follows:'Again, I suppose, our virgin Queen, who delighted in the practice of the dance, did not think fit to play with empty hands, but to be arrayed in full armour and so perform the dance: an example which most surely it would become both youths and maidens alike to imitate.'

§ 13.19.5 He also enacts a law that women should even go to war, in the following words:'And in all these schools teachers of the several subjects, being resident foreigners, should be induced by payments to give fill instructions relating to war to those who come as pupils, and all relating to music, not merely to one who may come at his father's wish, while another, without such wish, neglects his education; but, as the saying is, every man and boy, as far as possible, must receive compulsory education, as belonging more to the State than to their parents. All the same rules my law would enjoin for women as much as for men, that the females also should practise the same exercises. And neither as to horsemanship nor gymnastics should I have any fear in making this statement, that, though becoming to men, it would not be becoming to women.'

§ 13.19.6 And again a little lower down he says:'Let us consider as gymnastics all bodily exercises relating to war, in archery, and in throwing all kinds of missiles, and the use of the target, and all fighting in heavy armour, and tactical evolutions, and all kinds of marching, camps and encamping, and all instructions pertaining to horsemanship. For there must be public teachers of all these arts, earning pay from the State, and their pupils, all the boys and men in the city and girls and women, must be skilled in all these matters; having while still girls practised every kind of dancing and fighting in heavy armour, and as women having applied themselves to evolutions, and tactics, and grounding and taking up arms.'

§ 13.19.7 But neither to these rules would the Hebrew doctrine assent, but would assert the very opposite, ascribing success in war not even to the strength of men, much less to that of women, but attributing all to God and to His aid in battle. And so it says:'Except the Lord build the house, their labour is but lost that build it. Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.'

§ 13.19.8 But observe how the wonderful philosopher also brings the women into the gymnastic contests, speaking thus:'But as to women, let girls who are still young contend naked in the foot-race, and double course, and horse-race, and long race on the race-course itself: but those of thirteen years are to go on until their union in marriage, but not beyond twenty years nor less than eighteen; and they must come down to contend in these races clothed in befitting dress.'So let these be our rules of racing for both men and women. But as to trials of strength, instead of wrestling and all such contests which now are severe, let there be fighting in armour, both single combats, and two against two.'

§ 13.19.9 And next, after saying,'So also we must call to our aid those who excel in fighting in armour, and bid them help us to frame the like laws,'

§ 13.19.10 he adds these words:'Let also the same laws be in force in regard to the females until the time of marriage.'

§ 13.19.11 Then after having appended immediately to these laws those concerning the training of peltasts and the pancratium, and archery, and throwing stones from the hand and with a sling, and concerning the horserace, here again he adds these words concerning the females:'But it is not right to force females by laws and ordinances to participate in these contests; if, however, just from their former training passing into a habit their natural, constitution without inconvenience allows children or maidens to take part, we must permit it and not blame them.'

§ 13.19.12 So far the laws of Plato concerning women. But the following extraordinary law is also his:'If any have left female children, let the judge go back through brothers and brothers' sons, first on the male side, and afterwards on the female, in one and the same family: and let him judge by examination the fitness or unfitness of the time for marriage, inspecting the males naked, and the females naked as far as the navel.'

§ 13.19.13 Moreover at the festivals he says that they must dance naked, speaking in the sixth Book of the Laws as follows:'For this so serious purpose therefore they ought to perform their sports and dance together youths and maidens, both seeing and being seen within bounds of reason and of a certain age implying suitable causes, both sexes being naked so far as sober modesty in each permits.'

§ 13.19.14 In addition to all this hear also the following passages in the Republic on the law that the women should be in common:'This law, said I, and the others which went before have, I suppose, the following law as their consequence.'What is that?'These women must all be common to all these men, and none live with any man as his own: and the children too must be common, and neither any parent know his own offspring, nor any child his father.'

§ 13.19.15 Next he adds:'It is probable, said he. You therefore, said I, as their lawgiver will select the women as well as the men, and, as far as possible assign those who are of like nature: and they, as having houses and meals in common, and none possessing anything of this kind privately, will of course be together, and being mixed up together both in the gymnasia and in their general mode of life will be led, I suppose, by the necessity of nature to intercourse with each other. Or do you think that what I say will not necessarily occur?'Not by any mathematical necessity, said he, but by constraints of love, which are likely to be keener than the other kind in persuading and drawing the mass of mankind.'

§ 13.19.16 But some one perhaps will explain the meaning of these passages in a different way, and will say that they do not suggest what is commonly supposed; since he does not say that all the women without distinction are to be in common, so that wantonness may be allowed to every chance-comer, but that the assignment of them among the men is to lie in the power of the magistrates. For they are to be common in the same way as one may say that the public money is common, being distributed to the proper persons by those who are entrusted with it. Suppose then that this is so.

§ 13.19.17 But what would you say on learning that he also bids them not to bring forth into light what they conceive, speaking as follows?'For a woman, said I, let the law be that beginning from the twentieth year she should bear children for the State until the fortieth year: and for a man, after he has passed the most vigorous prime of his course, henceforward to beget children for the State until his fifty-fifth year.'

§ 13.19.18 After which he says:'But when both the women and the men, I suppose, have passed the age for begetting children, we shall let them go free perhaps to have intercourse with whomsoever they please.'

§ 13.19.19 And he adds:'Having strictly charged them, if possible, to bring forth no embryo to light, if such there should be; but should any force its way, to deal with it on the understanding that there is no maintenance for such a child.'

§ 13.19.20 Such are his directions concerning the conduct of women: and concerning unnatural love how unlike are his sentiments to those of Moses, who in laws expressly contrary pronounces with loud voice the fit sentence against sodomites.

§ 13.19.21 Why need we still urge the charge that this most wise philosopher after acquitting such sinners, against whom he did not think it fit to prescribe sentence of death, directs in his Laws that the slave who failed to give information of a treasure discovered by another should be punished with death. But that you may not suspect me of bearing false witness, listen also to what follows:

§ 13.20.1 On Love [ Plato Phaedrus 255d] “And as this intimacy continues and the lover comes near and touches the beloved in the gymnasia and in their general intercourse, [255c] then the fountain of that stream which Zeus, when he was in love with Ganymede, called ”desire" flows copiously upon the lover; and some of it flows into him, and some, when he is filled, overflows outside; and just as the wind or an echo rebounds from smooth, hard surfaces and returns whence it came, so the stream of beauty passes back into the beautiful one through the eyes, the natural inlet to the soul, where it reanimates the passages of the feathers, waters them and makes the feathers begin to grow, filling the soul of the loved one with love. So he is in love, but he knows not with whom; he does not understand his own condition and cannot explain it."

§ 13.20.2 And he says, “Like the lover, though less strongly, he desires to see his friend, to touch him, kiss him, and lie down by him; and naturally these things are soon brought about. Now as they lie together, the unruly horse of the lover has something to say to the charioteer, and demands a little enjoyment in return for his many troubles; [256a] and the unruly horse of the beloved says nothing, but teeming with passion and confused emotions he embraces and kisses his lover, caressing him as his best friend; and when they lie together, he would not refuse his lover any favor, if he asked it.”

§ 13.20.3 “If now the better elements of the mind, which lead to a well ordered life and to philosophy, prevail, they live a life of happiness and harmony here on earth, self controlled and orderly.” but the affection of the non-lover, which is alloyed with mortal prudence and follows mortal and parsimonious rules of conduct, will beget in the beloved soul the narrowness which the common folk praise as virtue; it will cause the soul [257a] to be a wanderer upon the earth for nine thousand years and a fool below the earth at last. There, dear Love, thou hast my recantation, which I have offered and paid as beautifully and as well as I could, especially in the poetical expressions which I was forced to employ on account of Phaedrus. Pardon, I pray, my former words and accept these words with favor; be kind and gracious to me; do not in anger take from me the art of love which thou didst give me, and deprive me not of sight, but grant unto me to be even more than now esteemed by the beautiful. [257b] And if in our former discourse Phaedrus and I said anything harsh against thee, blame Lysias, the father of that discourse, make him to cease from such speeches, and turn him, as his brother Polemarchus is turned, toward philosophy, that his lover Phaedrus may no longer hesitate, as he does now, between two ways, but may direct his life with all singleness of purpose toward love and philosophical discourses.

§ 13.20.4 Then with some other things he says: If however they live a life less noble and without philosophy, but yet ruled by the love of honor, probably, [256c] when they have been drinking, or in some other moment of carelessness, the two unruly horses, taking the souls off their guard, will bring them together and seize upon and accomplish that which is by the many accounted blissful; and when this has once been done, they continue the practice, but infrequently, since what they are doing is not approved by the whole mind.

§ 13.20.5 both at the time of their love and afterwards, believing that they have exchanged the most binding pledges of love, and that they can never break them and fall into enmity.

§ 13.20.6 And at last, when they depart from the body, they are not winged, to be sure, but their wings have begun to grow, so that the madness of love brings them no small reward; for it is the law that those who have once begun their upward progress shall never again pass into darkness and the journey under the earth, but shall live a happy life in the light as they journey together, and because of their love shall be alike in their plumage when they receive their wings. [256e] These blessings, so great and so divine, the friendship of a lover will confer upon you, dear boy."

§ 13.20.7 This then is what Plato said, but not Moses, who explicitly legislates against this, proclaiming in a loud voice condign punishment against paederasts. Indeed he says, “Whichever man sleeps with a man as if bedding a woman, both have committed an abomination. Let them be put to death — they are guilty.” And “Cursed be every man who sleeps with a man as with a woman.”

§ 13.20.8 What need to refute these now this wisest man who skips over the paederast and in the Laws doesn't demand the penalty of death against paederasts but orders the death penalty for servants who fail to inform on the discovery of a treasure by some other person. Listen to this, so you won't suspect me of slander.

§ 13.21.1 CXXI'WHATEVER answer the god may give in regard to the property and the man who removed it, that let the city execute in obedience to the oracles of the god. And if the informer be a free man, let him have the reputation of goodness; but if he fail to inform, of baseness. But if he be a slave, the informer may rightly be made free by the city, on payment of his value to his master; but if he fail to give information, let him be punished by death.'

§ 13.21.2 Here again the punishment of death is enacted not against the man who has purloined some forbidden property, but against him who failed to inform against another who had done wrong: and in another case too he declares a master free from guilt if he kill his own slave in anger. He says in fact:'If he have killed a slave of his own, let him undergo purification; but if he have killed another man's slave in anger, let him pay the owner twofold for the loss.'

§ 13.21.3 Listen also to this passage of the laws which he enacted in regard to murderers:'If therefore any one with his own hand slay a free man, and the deed have been done in a passion without premeditation, let him suffer all other penalties that were deemed right for one who slew another without anger to suffer, but let him undergo compulsory exile for two years to correct his passion.'

§ 13.21.4 And then he appends to this another law of the following kind:'But let the man who has slain another in anger, yet with premeditation, suffer all other the same penalties as the former offender; but just as the other was banished for two years, let him be banished for three, being punished for a longer term because of the violence of his passion.'

§ 13.21.5 Then next he enacts such laws as the following in regard to one who has committed homicide a second time:'But if ever after returning from exile either of them be overcome by anger and commit this same offence again, let him be banished and never return.'

§ 13.21.6 And again afterwards he says:'But if, as occurs sometimes, though not often, a father or mother from anger kill a son or a daughter by blows or any manner of violence, let them undergo the same purifications as the others, and spend three years in exile. But when the homicides have returned from exile, let the wife be separated from her husband and the husband from the wife, and not beget children together any more.'

§ 13.21.7 To this also he adds:'But if any man in anger slay his wedded wife, or a wife do the same in like manner to her own husband, let them undergo the same purifications, but continue three years in banishment. And when the author of such a deed has returned, let him have no communion in sacred rites with his children, nor ever sit at the same table with them.

§ 13.21.8'And if a brother or sister slay brother or sister in anger, be it enacted that the same purifications and banishments as have been appointed for parents and children be undergone by them; and let them never have the same home with those whom they have deprived of brothers, or of children, nor share in their sacred rites.'But if brother slay brother in a faction fight, or in other like manner, while defending himself against an assault, let him be guiltless, as if he had slain an enemy in war. And in like manner if a citizen slay a fellow citizen, or a foreigner a foreigner. But if a foreigner slay a citizen, or a citizen a foreigner in self-defence, let him be in the same position as to being guiltless: and in like manner if a slave kill a slave. But if on the other hand a slave kill a free man in self-defence, let him be subject to the same laws as the slayer of a father.

§ 13.21.9'Whosoever designedly and wrongfully slays with his own hand any one of his kinsmen, in the first place let him be excluded from legal rights, polluting neither agora, nor temples, nor harbours, nor any other public assembly, whether any one interdict the doer of these deeds or not: for the law interdicts him.... And let the man who fails to prosecute him, when he ought, or fails to proclaim him be excluded from kinship:... and in the second place let him be liable to prosecution by any one who wishes to exact retribution for the deceased. And if a woman has wounded her husband, or a man his wife, with design to kill, let either suffer perpetual banishment.'

§ 13.21.10 Such are the laws of the philosopher: and if we are to bring those of Moses into comparison with them, hear what sort of ordinances he makes concerning cases of homicide.'If one smite a man and he die, let him surely be put to death. And if he did it not purposely, but God delivered him'into his hands, I will give thee a place whither the slayer shall flee. But if a man set upon his neighbour to slay him with guile, and flee for refuge, thou shalt take him from Mine altar to put him to death. He that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.... And if two men revile one another, and one smite his neighbour with a stone or with his fist, and he die not, but be laid upon his bed, if the man rise again, and walk abroad upon his staff, then shall he that smote him be quit: only he shall pay for his loss of time, and the fees of his physician. And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a staff, and he die under his hands, he shall surely be punished. But if he live a day or two he shall not be punished; for he is his money.... And if a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his handmaiden, and blind him utterly, he shall send them forth free for their eyes' sake.'

§ 13.21.11 Such then are the laws of Moses. Now hear again in what way, and for what kind of offences, Plato orders that the slave shall be punished with scourging without hope of pardon:'"When a man wishes to gather the vintage of what are now called fine grapes, or the so-called fine figs, if he be taking them from his own property, let him gather the fruit however and whenever he will: but if from the property of others without having gained permission, let that man always be punished, in accordance with the principle of not taking up what one laid not down. But if a slave touch any of such things without having gained permission of the owner of the farms, for every berry of the grapes and every fig of the fig-tree let him be scourged with an equal number of stripes.'

§ 13.21.12 Such are the enactments against these offences, unworthy of the magnanimity of Plato. But how noble and humane those of Moses are you may learn by listening to him while he speaks as follows:'When thou art come into thy neighbour's vineyard, thou shalt eat grapes until thy soul be satisfied, but shalt not put any into thy vessel.' And again:'If thou come into thy neighbour's standing corn, and pluck the ears with thy hands, then thou shalt not put a sickle to thy neighbour's standing corn.' And again:'If thou reapest thy harvest in thy field, and hast forgotten a sheaf in thy field, thou shalt not turn back again to take it: it shall be for the poor, for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow, that the LORD thy God may bless thee in every work of thine hands. And if thou gather thine olives, thou shalt not turn back to glean what is left behind thee: it shall be for the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow. And if thou gather the grapes of thy vineyard, thou shalt not glean over again what is left behind thee: this shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless and for the widow.'