The New Gospel

Allow anyone to condemn you as a fool and foully maltreat you if he chooses; yes, by Heaven, suffer undaunted the shock of that ignominious cuff; for you will come to no harm if you be really a good and upright man, practicing virtue.  

… we must require that the men of your Fair City shall never neglect geometry, for even the by-products of such study are not slight … its uses in war, and also we are aware that for the better reception of all studies there will be an immeasurable difference between the student who has been imbued with geometry and the one who has not.

I believe that the earth is very large and that we who dwell between the pillars of Heracles [at the entrance from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea] and the river Phasis [the modern day Roni River flowing from the Caucasus Mountains in western Georgia into the eastern coast of the Black Sea], live in a small part of the sea, like ants or frogs about a pond, and many other people live in many other regions.

I am convinced, then that in the first place, if the earth is round and in the middle of the heavens, it needs neither the air nor any other similar force to keep it from falling, but its own equipoise and the homogeneous nature of the heavens on all sides suffice to hold it in place; for a body which is in equipoise and is placed in the center of something which is homogeneous cannot change its inclination in any direction, but will remain always in the same position.

Socrates:  Then we ought not to do wrong at all.

Crito:  Why, no.

Socrates:  And we ought not even to requite wrong with wrong, as the world thinks, since we must not do wrong at all.

Crito:  Apparently not.

Socrates:   Well, Crito, ought one to do evil or not?

Crito:  Certainly not, Socrates.

Socrates:  Well, then, is it right to requite evil with evil, as the world says it is, or not right?

Crito:  Not right, certainly.

Socrates:  For doing evil to people is the same as wronging them.

Crito:  That is true.

Socrates:  Then we ought neither to requite wrong with wrong nor to do evil to anyone, no matter what he may have done to us. 

Of all men of his time … Socrates was the wisest and justest and best.

[We must set up the just man] — a simple and noble man who … does not wish to seem but be good.  Then we must deprive him of seeming.  For if he is going to be thought just he will have honors and gifts because of that esteem.  We cannot be sure in that case whether he is just for justice’ sake or for the sake of the gifts and honors.  So we must strip him bare of everything but justice and make his state the opposite of his imagined counterpart.  Though doing no wrong he must have the repute of the greatest injustice, so that he may be put to the test as regards justice through not softening because of ill repute and the consequences thereof … that such being his disposition, the just man will have to endure the lash, the rack, chains, the branding iron in his eyes, and finally after every extremity of suffering, he will be crucified, and so will learn the lesson that not to seem just but to be just is what we ought to desire.

Just consider this question: — Is that which is holy loved by the gods because it is holy, or is it holy because it is loved by the gods?

... had we never seen the stars, and the sun, and the heaven, none of the words which we have spoken about the universe would ever have been uttered.  By now the sight of day and night, and the months and revolutions of the years, have created number, and have given us a conception of time; and the power of enquiring about the nature of the universe; and from this source we have derived philosophy, than which no greater good ever was or will be given by the gods to mortal man. 

The lovers of knowledge … perceive that when philosophy first takes possession of the their soul it is entirely fastened and welded to the body and is compelled to regard realities through the body as through prison bars, not with its own unhindered vision, and is wallowing in utter ignorance.  And philosophy sees that the most dreadful thing about the imprisonment is the fact that it is caused by the lusts of the flesh, so that the prisoner is the chief assistant in his own imprisonment.  The lovers of knowledge, then, I say, perceive that philosophy, taking possession of the soul when it is in this state, encourages it gently and tries to set it free, pointing out that the eyes and the ears and the other senses are full of deceit, and urging it to withdraw from these, except in so far as their use is unavoidable, and exhorting it to collect and concentrate itself within itself, and to trust to nothing except itself and its own abstract thought of abstract existence … 

In all cases of evils which men deem to have befallen their neighbors by nature or fortune, nobody is wroth with them or reproves or lectures or punishes them, when so afflicted, with a view to their being other than they are; one merely pities them.  Who, for instance, is such a fool as to try to do anything of the sort to the ugly, the puny, or the weak?  Because, I presume, men know that it is by nature and fortune that people get these things, the graces of life and their opposites … [Likewise] no one punishes a wrong-doer from the mere contemplation or on account of his wrong-doing, unless one takes unreasoning vengeance like a wild beast.  But he who undertakes to punish with reason does not avenge himself for the past offence, since he cannot make what was done as though it had not come to pass; he looks rather to the future, and aims at preventing that particular person and others who see him punished from wrong again.

Proper treatment of servants [slaves] consists in using no violence towards them, and in hurting them even less, if possible, than our own equals.  For it is his way of dealing with men whom it is easy for him to wrong that shows most clearly whether a man is genuine or hypocritical in his reverence for justice and hatred of injustice.  He, therefore, that in dealing with slaves proves himself, in his character and action, undefiled by what is unholy or unjust will best be able to sow a crop of goodness, — and this we may say, and justly say, of every master, or king, and of everyone who possesses any kind of absolute power over a person weaker than himself.

Picture men dwelling in a sort of subterranean cavern with a long entrance open to the light on its entire width.  Conceive them as having their legs and necks fettered from childhood.  So that they remain in the same spot, able to look forward only, and prevented by the fetters from turning their heads.  Picture further the light from a fire burning higher up and at a distance behind them … tell me do you think that these men would have seen anything of themselves or one another except the shadows [of the “forms” which are behind them] cast from the fire on the wall of the cave that fronted them? … Then in every way such prisoners would deem reality to be nothing else than the shadows of the artificial objects.  Consider, then, what would be the manner of the release and healing from these bonds and this folly if in the course of nature something of this sort should happen to them:  when one was freed from his fetters and compelled to stand up suddenly and turn his head around and walk and lift up his eyes to the light … And so, finally, I suppose, he would be able to look upon the sun itself and see its true nature, not by reflections in water or phantasms of it in an alien setting, but in and by itself in its own place.  And at this point he would infer and conclude that this it is that provides the seasons … and is in some sort the cause of all these things they had seen.  Well then, if he recalled to mind his first habitation and what passed for wisdom there, and his fellow-bondsmen, do you not think that he would count himself happy in the change and pity them?  He would indeed. 

Now when it [the soul] is perfect and fully winged, it mounts upward and governs the whole world; but the soul which has lost its wings is borne along until it gets hold of something solid, when it settles down, taking upon itself an earthly body, which [only] seems to be self-moving, because of the power of the soul within it; and the whole compounded of the soul and body, is called a living thing, and is further designated as mortal … The natural function of the wing is to soar upwards and carry that which is heavy up to the place where dwells the race of the gods.  But the divine is beauty, wisdom, goodness, and all such qualities; by these then the wings of the soul are nourished and grow, but by the opposite qualities, such as vileness and evil, they are wasted away and destroyed … For the colorless, formless, and intangible truly existing essence [God], with which all true knowledge is concerned, holds this [upper] region and is visible only to the mind, the pilot of the soul … and the intelligence of every soul which is capable of receiving that which benefits it, rejoices in seeing reality for a space of time and by gazing upon truth [the beatific vision] is nourished and made happy …