286 Justin'S Hortatory Address
JUSTIN'S HORTATORY ADDRESS
But Plato, as it seems, unwillingly entered into these strange dissertations concerning the gods, for he feared those who were attached to polytheism.
And whatever he thinks fit to tell of all that he had learned from Moses and the prophets concerning one God, the preferred delivering in a mystical style, so that those who desired to be worshippers of God might have an inkling of his own opinion.
For being charmed with that saying of God to Moses, "I am the really existing," and accepting with a great deal of thought the brief participial expression, he understood that God desired to signify to Moses His eternity, and therefore said, "I am the really existing ;" for this word " existing" expresses not one time only, but the three—the past, the present, and the future.
For when Plato says, "and which never really is,' he uses the verb "is" of time indefinite.
For the word "never" is not spoken, as some suppose, of the past, but of the future time.
And this has been accurately understood even by profane writers.
And therefore, when Plato wished, as it were, to interpret to the uninitiated what had been mystically expressed by the participle concerning the eternity of God, he employed the following language: "God indeed, as the old tradition runs, includes the beginning, and end, and middle of all things."
In this sentence he plainly and obviously names the law of Moses " the old tradition," fearing, through dread of the hemlock-cup, to mention the name of Moses; for he understood that the teaching of the man was hateful to the Greeks ; and he clearly enough indicates Moses by the antiquity of the tradition.
And we have sufficiently proved from Diodorus and the rest of the historians, in the foregoing chapters, that the law of Moses is not only old, but even the first.
For Diodorus says that he was the first of all lawgivers; the letters which belong to the Greeks, and which they employed in the writing of their histories, having not yet been discovered.
Cuap. xxv1.—FPlato indebted to the prophets.
And let no one wonder that Plato should believe Moses regarding the eternity of God.
For you will find him
TO THE GREEKS.
mystically referring the true knowledge of realities to the prophets, next in order after the really existent God.
For, discoursing in the Timeus about certain first principles, he wrote thus: " This we lay down as the first principle of fire and the other bodies, proceeding according to probability and necessity.
But the first principles of these again God above knows, and whosoever among men is beloved of Him."! And what men does he think beloved of God, but Moses and the rest of the prophets?
For their prophecies he read, and, having learned from them the doctrine of the judgment, he thus proclaims it in the first book of the Republic: " When aman begins to think he is soon to die, fear invades him, and concern about things which had never before entered his head. And those stories about what goes on in Hades, which tell us that the man who has here been unjust must there be punished, though formerly ridiculed, now torment his soul with apprehensions that they may be true.
And he, either through the feebleness of age, or even because he is now nearer to the things of the other world, views them more attentively.
He becomes, therefore, full of apprehension and dread, and begins to call himself to account, and to consider whether he has done any one an injury.
And that man who finds in his life many iniquities, and who continually starts from his sleep as children do, lives in terror, and with a forlorn prospect.
But to him who is conscious of no wrong-doing, sweet hope is the constant companion and good nurse of old age, as Pindar says."
For this, Socrates, he has elegantly expressed, that 'whoever leads a life of holiness and justice, him sweet hope, the nurse of age, accompanies, cheering his heart, for she powerfully sways the changeful mind of mortals.'"? This Plato wrote in the first book of the Republic.
1 Plato, Tiin. p. 53 D.
2 Pind. Fr. 233, a fragment preserved in this place.
8 Plato, Rep. p. 830 D.
JUSTIN'S HORTATORY ADDRESS
Crap. xxvit.—Plato's knowledge of the judgment.
And in the tenth book he plainly and manifestly wrote what he had learned from the prophets about the judgment, not as if he had learned it from:them, but, on account of his fear of the Greeks, as if he had heard it from a man who had been slain in battle—for this story he thought fit to invent— and who, when he was about to be buried on the twelfth day, and was lying on the funeral pile, came to life again, and described the other world. The following are his very words:'
"For he said that he was present when one was asked by another person where the great Aridzus was.
This Aridzeus had been prince in a certain city of Pamphylia, and had killed his aged father and his elder brother, and done many other unhallowed deeds, as was reported. He said, then, that the person who was asked said: He neither comes nor ever will come hither.
For we saw, among other terrible sights, this also. When we were close to the mouth [of the pit], and were about to return to the upper air, and had suffered everything else, we suddenly beheld both him and others likewise, most of whom were tyrants. But there were also some private sinners who had committed great crimes.
And these, when they thought they were to ascend, the mouth would not permit, but ellen when any of thse who were so incurably pikes attempted to ascend, unless they had paid the full penalty.
Then fierce men, fon to look at, stood close by, and hearing the din,' took some and led them away; but Aridzeus and the rest, having bound hand and foot, and striking their heads down, and flaying, they dragged to the road outside, tearing them with thorns, and signifying to those who were present the cause of their suffering these things, and that they were leading them away to cast them into Tartarus. Hence, he said, that amidst all their various fears, this one was the greatest, lest the mouth should bellow when they ascended, since if it were silent each one would most gladly ascend; and that the punishments and torments were
1 Plato, Rep. p. 615.
2 The bellowing of the mouth of the pit.
TO THE GREEKS.
31d a such as these, and that, on the other hand, the rewards were the reverse of these." Here Plato seems to me to have learnt from the prophets not only the doctrine of the judgment, but also of the resurrection, which the Greeks refuse to believe.
For his saying that the soul is judged along with the body, proves nothing more clearly than that he believed the doctrine of the resurrection.
Since how could Aridzus and the rest have undergone such punishment in Hades, had they left on earth the body, with its head, hands, feet, and skin?
For certainly they will never say that the soul has a head and hands, and feet and skin.
But Plato, having fallen in with the testimonies of the prophets in Egypt, and having accepted what they teach concerning the resurrection of the body, teaches that the soul is judged in company with the body.
CHAP. xxvu1.— Homer's obligations to the sacred writers.
And not only Plato, but Homer also, having received similar enlightenment in Egypt, said that Tityus was in like manner punished. For Ulysses speaks thus to Alcinous when he is recounting his divination by the shades of the dead :*
'""There Tityus, large and long, in fetters bound, O'erspread nine acres of infernal ground ;
Two ravenous vultures, furious for their food, Scream o'er the fiend, and riot in his blood,
Incessant gore the liver in his breast, Th' immortal liver grows, and gives th' immortal feast."
For it is plain that it is not the soul, but the body, which has a liver.
And in the same manner he has described both Sisyphus and Tantalus as enduring punishment with the body.
And that Homer had been in Egypt, and introduced into his own poem much of what he there learnt, Diodorus, the most esteemed of historians, plainly enough teaches us.
For he said that when he was in Egypt he had learnt that Helen, having received from Theon's wife, Polydamna, a drug, "lulling all sorrow and melancholy, and causing forgetfulness of all ills," brought it to Sparta.
And Homer said 1 Odyssey, xi. 576 (Pope's translation, line 709).
2 Odyssey, iv. 221.
JUSTIN'S HORTATORY ADDRESS
that by making use of that drug Helen put an end to the lamentation of Menelaus, caused by the presence of Telemachus.
And he also called Venus " golden," from what he had seen in Egypt.
For he had seen the temple which in Egypt is called " the temple of golden Venus," and the plain which is named "the plain of golden Venus."
And why do I now make mention of this?
To show that the poet transferred to his own poem much of what is contained in the divine writings of the prophets.
And first he transferred what Moses had related as the beginning of the creation of the world.
For Moses wrote thus: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,' then the sun, and the moon, and the stars.
For having learned this in Egypt, and having been much taken with what Moses had written in the Genesis of the world, he fabled that Vulcan had made in the shield of Achilles a kind of representation of the creation of the world.
For he wrote thus:?
''There he described the*arth, the heaven, the sea, The sun that rests not, and the moon full-orb'd ;
There also, all the stars which round about, As with a radiant frontlet, bind the skies."
And he contrived also that the garden of Alcinous should preserve the likeness of Paradise, and through this likeness he represented it as ever-blooming and full of all fruits.
For thus he wrote :?
'Tall thriving trees confess'd the fruitful mould ; The reddening apple ripens here to gold.
Here the blue fig with luscious juice o'erflows, With deeper red the full pomegranate glows ;
The branch here bends beneath the weighty pear, And verdant olives flourish round the year.
The balmy spirit of the western gale Eternal breathes on fruits, untaught to fail ;
Each dropping pear a following pear supplies, On apples apples, figs on figs arise.
The same mild season gives the blooms to blow, The buds to harden, and the fruits to grow.
Gen. Sark, 2 Tliad, xviii. 483.
° Odyssey, vii. 114 (Pope's translation, line 146).
TO THE GREEKS.
é Here order'd vines in equal ranks appear, With all th' united labours of the year.
Some to unload the fertile branches run, Some dry the blackening clusters in the sun,
Others to tread the liquid harvest join.
The groaning presses foam with floods of wine.
Here are the vines in early flower descry'd, Here grapes discoloured on the sunny side,
And there in autumn's richest purple dy'd."
Do not these words present a manifest and clear imitation of what the first prophet Moses said about Paradise?
And if any one wish to know something of the building of the tower by which the men of that day fancied they would obtain access to heaven, he will find a sufficiently exact allegorical imitation of this in what the poet has ascribed to Otus and Ephialtes.
For of them he wrote thus:?
"Proud of their strength, and more than mortal size, The gods they challenge, and affect the skies.
Heay'd on Olympus tottering Ossa stood ; On Ossa, Pelion nods with all his wood."
And the same holds good regarding the enemy of mankind who was cast out of heaven, whom the sacred Scriptures call the Devil,? a name which he obtained from his first devilry against man; and if any one would attentively consider the matter, he would find that the poet, though he certainly never mentions the name of "the devil," yet gives him a name from his wickedest action.
For the poet, calling him Ate,' says that he was hurled from heaven by their god, just as if he had a distinct remembrance of the expressions which Isaiah the prophet had uttered regarding him.
He wrote thus in his own poem :* " And, seizing by her glossy locks The goddess Ate, in his wrath he swore That never to the starry skies again, 1 Odyssey, xi. 812 (Pope's translation, line 385).
2 The false accuser; one who does injury by slanderous accusations.
3 "Arn, the goddess of mischief, from whom spring all rash, blind deeds and their results.
4 Iliad, xix. 126.
JUSTIN'S HORTATORY ADDRESS
And the Olympian heights, he would permit The universal mischief to return.
Then, whirling her around, he cast her down To earth.
She, mingling with all works of men, Caused many a pang to Jove."
CHAP. Xx1x.— Origin of Plato's doctrine of form.
And Plato, too, when he says that form is the third original principle next to God and matter, has manifestly received this suggestion from no other source than from Moses, having learned, indeed, from the words of Moses the name of form, but not having at the same time been instructed by the initiated, that without mystic insight it is impossible to have any distinct knowledge of the writings of Moses.
For Moses wrote that God had spoken to him regarding the tabernacle in the following words: "And thou shalt make for me according to all that I show thee in the mount, the pattern of the tabernacle."* And again: "And thou shalt erect the tabernacle according to the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shalt thou make it."* And again, a little afterwards:
"Thus then thou shalt make it according to the pattern which was showed to thee in the mount.'"?
Plato, then, reading these passages, and not receiving what was written with the suitable insight, thought that form had some kind of separate existence before that which the senses perceive, and he often calls it the pattern of the things which are made, since the writing of Moses spoke thus of the tabernacle:
" According to the form showed to thee in the mount, so shalt thou make it."
Cuap. xxx.—Homer's knowledge of man's origin.
And he was obviously deceived in the same way regarding the earth and heaven and man; for he supposes that there are "ideas" of these.
For as Moses wrote thus, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," and then subjoins this sentence, "And the earth was invisible and unfashioned," he thought that it was the pre-existent earth which was spoken of in the words, " The earth was," because
1 Wxnxxye 9.
Ex. xxv. 40.
TO THE GREEKS.
Moses said, " And the earth was invisible and unfashioned 7 and he thought that the earth, concerning which he says,
"God created the heaven and the earth," was that earth which we perceive by the senses, and which God made according to the pre-existent form.
And so also, of the heaven which was created, he thought that the heaven which was created—and which he also called the firmament—was that creation which the senses perceive ; and that the heaven which the intellect perceives is that other of which the prophet said, " The heaven of heavens is the Lord's, but the earth hath He given to the children of men."'
And so also concerning man:
Moses first mentions the name of man, and then after many other creations he makes mention of the formation of man, saying, "And God made man, taking dust from the earth."'
He thought, accordingly, that the man first so named existed before the man who was made, and that he who was formed of the earth was afterwards made according to the pre-existent form.
And that man was formed of earth, Homer, too, having discovered from the ancient and divine history which says, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,"® calls the lifeless body of Hector dumb clay.
For in condemnation of Achilles dragging the corpse of Hector after death, he says somewhere :*
"* On the dumb clay he cast indignity, Blinded with rage."
And again, somewhere else,' he introduces Menelaus, thus addressing those who were not accepting Hector's challenge to single combat with becoming alacrity :
"To earth and water may you all return," resolving them in his violent rage into their original and pristine formation from earth.
These things Homer and Plato, having learned in Egypt from the ancient histories, wrote in their own words.
IPSs CX yLOe 2 Gen. i. 7.
° Gen. ili. 19.
* Iliad, xxi.
5 Thad, vii. 99.
JUSTIN'S HORTATORY ADDRESS
Cua. xxx1.—Further proof of Plato's acquaintance with Scripture.
For from what other source, if not from his reading the writings of the prophets, could Rlato have derived the information he gives us, that Jupiter drives a winged chariot in heaven?
For he knew this from the following expressions of the prophet about the cherubim: " And the glory of the Lord went out from the house and rested on the cherubim; and the cherubim lift up their wings, and the wheels beside them; and the glory of the Lord God of Israel was over them above."* And borrowing this idea, the magniloquent
Plato shouts aloud with vast assurance, "The great Jove, indeed, driving his winged chariot in heaven."
For from what other source, if not from Moses and the prophets, did he learn this and so write?
And whence did he receive the suggestion of his saying that God exists in a fiery substance ?
Was it not from the third book of the history of the Kings, where it is written, "The Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice ?"?
But these things pious men must understand in a higher sense with profound and meditative insight.
But Plato, not attending to the words with the suitable insight, said that God exists in a fiery substance.
Cuap, xxxu.—Plato's doctrine of the heavenly gift.
And if any one will attentively consider the gift that descends from God on the holy men,—which gift the sacred prophets call the Holy Ghost,—he shall find that this was announced under another name by Plato in the dialogue with Meno.
For, fearing to name the gift of God "the Holy Ghost," lest he should seem, by following the teaching of the prophets, to be an enemy to the Greeks, he acknowledges, indeed, that it comes down from God, yet does not think fit to name it the Holy Ghost, but virtue.
For so in 1 Vizek, xi. 22, Bol Kings xixqddi ale.
TO THE GREEKS,
the dialogue with Meno, concerning reminiscence, after he had put many questions regarding virtue, whether it could be taught or whether it could not be taught, but must be gained by practice, or whether it could be attained neither by practice nor by learning, but was a natural gift in men, or whether it comes in some other way, he makes this declaration in these very words: " But if now through this whole dialogue we have conducted our inquiry and discussion aright, virtue must be neither a natural gift, nor what one can receive by teaching, but comes to those to whom it does come by divine destiny."
These things, I think, Plato having learned from the prophets regarding the Holy Ghost, he has manifestly transferred to what he calls virtue.
For as the sacred prophets say that one and the same spirit is divided into seven spirits, so he also, naming it one and the same virtue, says this is divided into four virtues; wishing by all means to avoid mention of the Holy Spirit, but clearly declaring in a kind of allegory what the prophets said of the Holy Spirit.
For to this effect he spoke in the dialogue with Meno towards the close: " From this reasoning, Meno, it appears that virtue comes to those to whom it does come by a divine destiny.
But we shall know clearly about this, in what kind of way virtue comes to men, when, as a first step, we shall have set ourselves to investigate, as an independent inquiry, what virtue itself is."
You see how he calls only by the name of virtue, the gift that descends from above; and yet he counts it worthy of inquiry, whether it is right that this [gift] be called virtue or some other thing, fearing to name it openly the Holy Spirit, lest he should seem to be following the teaching of the prophets.
CuHaPp. xxx111.—Plato's idea of the beginning of time drawn from Moses.
And from what source did Plato draw the information that time was created along with the heavens?
For he wrote thus: "Time, accordingly, was created along with the heavens; in order that, coming into being together, they might also be together dissolved, if ever their dissolution
VOL. II. x
JUSTIN'S HORTATORY ADDRESS
should take place."
Had 'he not learned this from the divine history of Moses?
For he knew that the creation of time had received its original constitution from,days and months and years.
Since, then, the first day which was created along with the heavens constituted the beginning of all time
(for thus Moses wrote, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,' and then immediately subjoins,
" And one day was made," as if he would designate the whole of time by one part of it), Plato names the day "time," lest, if he mentioned the "day," he should seem to lay himself open to the accusation of the Athenians, that he was completely adopting the expressions of Moses.
And from what source did he derive what he has written regarding the dissolution of the heavens?
Had he not learned this, too, from the sacred prophets, and did he not think that this was their doctrine ?
CHAP. Xxx1v.— Whence men attributed to God human form.
And if any person investigates the subject of images, and inquires on what ground those who first fashioned your gods conceived that they had the forms of men, he will find that this also was derived from the divine history.
For seeing that Moses' history, speaking in the person of God, says, " Let us make man in our image and likeness," these persons, under the impression that this meant that men were like God in form, began thus to fashion their gods, supposing they would make a likeness from the likeness.
But why, ye men of Greece, am I now induced to recount these things? That ye may know that it is not possible to learn the true religion from those who were unable, even on those subjects by which they won the admiration of the heathen,' to write anything original, but merely propounded by some allegorical device in their own writings what they had learned from Moses and the other prophets.
1 Literally, '' those without."
TO THE GREEKS.
CHAP. xxxv.—A ppeal to the Greeks.
The time, then, ye men of Greece, is now come, that ye, having been persuaded by the secular histories that Moses and the rest of the prophets were far more ancient than any of those who have been esteemed sages among you, abandon the ancient delusion of your forefathers, and read the divine histories of the prophets, and ascertain from them the true religion ; for they do not present to you artful discourses, nor speak speciously and plausibly—for this is the property of those who wish to rob you of the truth—but use with simplicity the words and expressions which offer themselves, and declare to you whatever the Holy Ghost, who descended upon them, chose to teach through them to those who are desirous to learn the true religion.
Having then laid aside all false shame, and the inveterate error of mankind, with all its bombastic parade and empty noise, though by means of it you fancy you are possessed of all advantages, do you give yourselves to the things that profit you.
For neither will you commit any offence against your fathers, if you now show a desire to betake yourselves to that which is quite opposed to their error, since it is likely enough that they themselves are now lamenting in Hades, and repenting with a too late repentance; and if it were possible for them to show you thence what had befallen them after the termination of this life, ye would know from what fearful ills they desired to deliver you.
But now, since it is not possible in this present life that ye either learn from them, or from those who here profess to teach that philosophy which is falsely so called, it follows as the one thing that remains for you to do, that, renouncing the error of your fathers, ye read the prophecies of the sacred writers,' not requiring from them unexceptionable diction (for the matters of our religion lie in works, not in words), and learn from them what will give you life everlasting.
For those who bootlessly disgrace the name of philosophy are convicted of knowing nothing at all, as they are themselves forced, though unwillingly, to confess, since
1 Literally, '' sacred men."