Chapter 34

337Plato, Legg. x. p. 885.

Punishment for these three heretical beliefs, with or without overt act.

If a person displays impiety, either by word or deed, in either of these three ways, he shall be denounced to the archons by any citizen who becomes acquainted with the fact. The archons, on pain of taking the impiety on themselves, shall assemble the dikastery, and put the person accused on trial. If found guilty, he shall be put in chains and confined in one or other of the public prisons. These public prisons are three in number: one in the market-place, for ordinary offenders: a second, called the House of Correction (σωφρονιστήριον), attached to the building in which the Supreme Board of Magistrates hold their nocturnal sittings: a third, known by some designation of solemn penalty, in the centre of the territory, but in some savage and desolate spot.338

338Plato, Legg. x. p. 908. δεσμὸς μὲν οὖν ὑπαρχέτω πᾶσι· δεσμωτηρίων δὲ ὄντων ἐν τῇ πόλει τριῶν, &c.Imprisonment included chains round the prisoner’s legs. Sokrates was put in chains during his thirty days’ confinement, arising from the voyage of the Theôric ship to Delos (Plat. Phædon, p. 60 B).

338Plato, Legg. x. p. 908. δεσμὸς μὲν οὖν ὑπαρχέτω πᾶσι· δεσμωτηρίων δὲ ὄντων ἐν τῇ πόλει τριῶν, &c.

Imprisonment included chains round the prisoner’s legs. Sokrates was put in chains during his thirty days’ confinement, arising from the voyage of the Theôric ship to Delos (Plat. Phædon, p. 60 B).

Heretic, whose conduct has been virtuous and faultless, to be imprisoned for five years, perhaps more.

Suppose the heretic, under either one of the three heads, to be found guilty of heresy pure and simple — but that his conduct has been just, temperate, unexceptionable, and his social dispositions steadily manifested, esteeming the society of just men, and shunning that of the unjust.339There is still danger that by open speech or scoffing he should shake the orthodox belief of others: he must therefore be chained in the house of Correction for a term not less than five years. During thisterm no citizen whatever shall be admitted to see him, except the members of the Nocturnal Council of Magistrates. These men will constantly commune with him, administering exhortations for the safety of his soul and for his improvement. If at the expiration of the five years, he appears to be cured of his heresy and restored to a proper state of mind, he shall be set at liberty, and allowed to live with other proper-minded persons. But if no such cure be operated, and if he shall be found guilty a second time of the same offence, he shall suffer the penalty of death.340

339Plato, Legg. p. 908 B-E. ᾧ γὰρ ἄν, μὴ νομίζοντι θεοὺς εἶναι τὸ παράπαν, ἦθος φύσει προσγένηται δίκαιον, μισοῦντές τε γίγνονται τοὺς κακούς, καὶ τῷ δυσχεραίνειν τὴν ἀδικίαν οὔτε τὰς τοιαύτας πράξεις προσίενται πράττειν, τούς τε μὴ δικαίους τῶν ἀνθρώπων φεύγουσι, καὶ τοὺς δικαίους στέργουσι, &c.

340Plato, Legg. x. p. 909 A. ἐν τούτῳ δὲ τῷ χρόνῳ μηδεὶς τῶν πολιτῶν αὐτοῖς ἄλλος ξυγγιγνέσθω, πλὴν οἱ τοῦ νυκτερινοῦ ξυλλόγου κοινωνοῦντες, ἐπὶ νουθετήσει τε καὶ τῇ τῆς ψυχῆς σωτηρίᾳ ὁμιλοῦντες.

Heretic with bad conduct — punishment to be inflicted.

Again — the heretic may be found guilty, not of heresy pure and simple in one of its three varieties, but of heresy manifesting itself in bad conduct and with aggravating circumstances. He may conceal his real opinion, and acquire the reputation of the best dispositions, employing that reputation to overreach others, and combining dissolute purposes with superior acuteness and intelligence: he may practise stratagems to succeed as a despot, a public orator, a general, or a sophist: he may take up, and will more frequently take up, the profession of a prophet or religious ritualist or sorcerer, professing to invoke the dead or to command the aid of the Gods by prayer and sacrifice. He may thus try to bring ruin upon citizens, families, and cities.341A heretic of this description (says Plato) deserves death not once or twice only, but several times over, if it were possible.342If found guilty he must be kept in chains for life in the central penal prison — not allowed to see any freemen — not visited by any one, except the slave who brings to him his daily rations. When he dies, his body must be cast out of the territory without burial: and any freeman who may assist in burying it, shall himself incur the penalty of impiety. From the day that the heretic is imprisoned, he shall be considered as civilly dead; his children being placed under wardship as orphans.343

341Plato, Legg. x. pp. 908-909.

342Plato, Legg. x. p. 908 E. ὧν τὸ μὲν εἰρωνικὸν οὐχ ἑνὸς οὐδὲ δυοῖν ἄξια θανάτοιν ἁμαρτάνον, &c.

343Plato, Legg. x. p. 909 C.

No private worship or religious rites allowed. Every citizen must worship at the public temples.

As a still farther assurance for reaching and punishing thesedangerous heretics, Plato enacts — No one shall erect any temple or altar, no one shall establish any separate worship or sacrifice, in his own private precincts. No one shall propitiate the Gods by secret prayer and sacrifice of his own. When a man thinks fit to offer prayer and sacrifice, he must do it at the public temples, through and along with recognised priests and priestesses. If a man keep in his house any sacred object to which he offers sacrifice, the archons shall require him to bring it into the public temples, and shall punish him until he does so. But if he be found guilty of sacrificing either at home or in the public temples, after the commission of any act which the Dikastery may consider grave impiety — he shall be condemned to death.344

344Plato, Legg. x. pp. 909-910.

Uncertain and mischievous action of the religious sentiment upon individuals, if not controuled by public authority.

In justifying this stringent enactment, Plato not only proclaims that the proper establishment of temples and worship can only be dictated by a man of the highest intelligence, but he also complains of the violent and irregular working of the religious feeling in the minds of individuals. Many men (he says) when sick, or in danger and troubles of what kind soever, or when alarmed by dreams or by spectres seen in their waking hours, or when calling to mind and recounting similar narratives respecting the past, or when again experiencing unexpected good fortune — many men under such circumstances, and all women, are accustomed to give a religious colour to the situation, and to seek relief by vows, sacrifices, and altars to the Gods. Hence the private houses and villages become full of such foundations and proceedings.345Such religious sentiments and fears, springing up spontaneously in the minds of individuals, are considered by Plato to require strict repression. He will allow no religious worship or manifestation, except that which is public and officially authorised.

345Plato, Legg. x. p. 909 E-910 A. ἔθος τε γυναιξί τε δὴ διαφερόντως πάσαις καὶ τοῖς ἀσθενοῦσι πάντῃ καὶ κινδυνεύουσι καὶ ἀποροῦσιν, ὅπῃ τις ἂν ἀπορῇ, … καθιεροῦν τε τὸ παρὸν ἀεί, καὶ θυσίας εὔχεσθαι καὶ ἱδρύσεις ὑπισχνεῖσθαι θεοῖς, &c.If, however, we turn back to v. p.738 C, we shall see that Plato ratifies these καθιερώσεις, when they have once got footing, and rejects only the new ones. The rites, worship, and sacrifices, in his city, are assumed to have been determined by local or oracular inspiration (v. p. 738 B): the orthodox creed is set out by himself.

If, however, we turn back to v. p.738 C, we shall see that Plato ratifies these καθιερώσεις, when they have once got footing, and rejects only the new ones. The rites, worship, and sacrifices, in his city, are assumed to have been determined by local or oracular inspiration (v. p. 738 B): the orthodox creed is set out by himself.

Intolerant spirit of Plato’s legislation respecting uniformity of belief.

Such is the Act of Uniformity promulgated by Plato for his new community of the Magnêtes, and such the terrible sanctions by which it is enforced. The lawgiver is the supreme and exclusive authority, spiritual as well as temporal, on matters religious as well as on matters secular. No dissenters from the orthodoxy prescribed by him are admitted. Those who believe more than he does, and those who believe less, however blameless their conduct, are condemned alike to pass through a long solitary imprisonment to execution. Not only the speculations of enquiring individual reason, but also the spontaneous inspirations of religious disquietude or terror, are suppressed and punished.346

346Plato himself is here the Νόμος Πόλεως, which the Delphian oracle, in its responses, sanctioned as the proper rule for individual citizens, Xenophon, Memor. iv. 3, 16. Compare iv. 6. 2, and i. 3, 1; Lysias, Or. xxx. 21-26. θύειν τὰ πάτρια — θύειν τὰ ἐκ τῶν κύρβεων, is εὐσεβεία.See K. F. Hermann, Gottesdienstliche Alterthümer der Griechen, sect. 10: Nägelsbach, Nach-Homerische Theologie, pp. 201-204.Cicero also enacts, in his Treatise De Legibus (ii. 8-10):— “Separatim nemo habessit Deos: neve novos, sed ne advenas, nisi publicé adscitos, privatim colunto.” Compare Livy, xxxix. 16, about the Roman prohibitions ofsacra externa. But Cicero does not propose to inflict such severe penalties as Plato.

See K. F. Hermann, Gottesdienstliche Alterthümer der Griechen, sect. 10: Nägelsbach, Nach-Homerische Theologie, pp. 201-204.

Cicero also enacts, in his Treatise De Legibus (ii. 8-10):— “Separatim nemo habessit Deos: neve novos, sed ne advenas, nisi publicé adscitos, privatim colunto.” Compare Livy, xxxix. 16, about the Roman prohibitions ofsacra externa. But Cicero does not propose to inflict such severe penalties as Plato.

We seem to be under a legislation imbued with the persecuting spirit and self-satisfied infallibility of mediaeval Catholicism and the Inquisition. The dissenter is a criminal, and among the worst of criminals, even if he do nothing more than proclaim his opinions.347How striking is the contradictionbetween this spirit and that in which Plato depicts the Sokrates of the Phædon, the Apology, and the Gorgias! How fully does Sokrates in the Phædon348recognise and respect the individual reason of his two friends, though dissenting fromhis own! How emphatically does he proclaim, in the Apology and Gorgias, not merely his own individual dissent from his fellow-citizens, but also his resolution to avow and maintain it against one and all, until he should hear such reasons as convinced him that it was untrue! How earnestly does he declare (in the Apology) that he has received from the Delphian God a mission to cross-examine the people of Athens, and that he will obey the God in preference to them:349thus claiming to himself that special religious privilege which his accuser Melêtus imputes to him as a crime, and which Plato, in his Magnêtic colony, also treats as a crime, interdicting it under the severest penalties! During the interval of forty-five years (probably) between the trial of Sokrates and the composition of the Leges, Plato had passed from sympathy with the free-spoken dissenter to an opposite feeling — hatred of all dissent, and an unsparing employment of penalties for upholding orthodoxy. I have already remarked on the Republic, and I here remark it again — if Melêtus lived long enough to read the Leges, he would have found his own accusation of Sokrates amply warranted by the enactments and doctrines of the most distinguished Sokratic Companion.350

347Milton, in his Areopagitica, or Argument for Unlicensed Printing (vol. i. p. 149, Birch’s edition of Milton’s Prose Works), has some strenuous protestations against the rigour of the Platonic censorship in this tenth Book. In the year 1480 Hermolaus Barbarus wrote to George Merula as follows:— “Plato, in Institutione De Legibus, inter prima commemorat, in omni republicâ præscribi caverique oportere, ne cui liceat, quæ composuerit, aut privatim ostendere, aut in usum publicum edere, antequam ea constitute super id judices viderint, nec damnarint. Utinam hodieque haberetur hæc lex: neque enim tam multi scriberent, neque tam pauci bonas litteras discerent. Nunc et copiâ malorum librorum offundimur, et omissis eminentissimis autoribus, plebeios et minutulos consectamur. Et, quod calamitosissimum est, periti juxta imperitique de studiis impuné ac promiscué judicant” (Politiani Opera, 1553, p. 197).I transcribe the above passage from an interesting article upon Book-Censors, in Beckmann’s History of Inventions (Ed. 1817, vol. iii. p. 93 seq.), where numerous examples are cited of the prohibition, combustion, or licensing of books by authority, from the burning of the work of Protagoras by decree of the Athenian assembly, down to modern times; illustrating the tendency of different sects and creeds, in proportion as they acquired power, to silence all open contradiction. The Christian Arnobius, at a time when his creed was under disfavour by the Emperors, protests against this practice, in a liberal and comprehensive phrase which would have much offended Plato (at the time when he wrote the Leges) and Hermolaus:— “Alios audio mussitare indignanter et dicere:— Oportere statui per Senatum, aboleantur ut hæc scripta quibus Christiana religio comprobetur et vetustatis opprimatur auctoritas. … Nam intercipere scripta, et publicatam velle submergere lectionem, non est Deos defendere, sed veritatis testificationem timere” (Arnob. adv. Gentes, iii. p. 104. Also iv. p. 152).“We are told by Eusebius (Beckmann, ed. 1817, vol. iii. p. 96; Bohn’s ed., vol. ii. p. 514) that Diocletian caused the sacred Scriptures to be burnt. After the spreading of the Christian religion, the clergy exercised against books that were either unfavourable or disagreeable to them, the same severity which they had censured in the heathens as foolish and prejudicial to their own cause. Thus were the writings of Arius condemned to the flames at the Council of Nice; and Constantine threatened with the punishment of death those who should conceal them. The clergy assembled at the Council of Ephesus requested the Emperor Theodosius II. to cause the works of Nestorius to be burnt; and this desire was complied with. The writings of Eutyches shared the like fate at the Council of Chalcedon: and it would not be difficult to collect examples of the same kind from each of the following centuries.”Dr. Vaughan observes, in criticising the virtuous character and sincere persecuting spirit of Sir Thomas More:— “If there be anyopinionwhich it would be just to punish as acrime, it is the opinion which makes it to bea virtue not to tolerate opinion." (Revolutions in English History, vol. ii. p. 178.)I find the following striking anecdote in the transactions of the Académie Royale de Belgique, 1862; Bulletins, 2me Sér., tom. xiii. p. 567 seq.; Vie et Travaux deNicolas Cleynaertspar M. Thonissen. Cleynaerts (or Clenardus) was a learned Belgian (born 1495 — died 1543), professor both at Louvain and at Salamanca, and author ofGrammaticæ Institutiones, both of the Greek and the Hebrew languages. He acquired, under prodigious difficulties and disadvantages, a knowledge of the Arabic language; and he employed great efforts to organise a course of regular instruction in that language at Louvain, with a view to the formation of missionaries who would combat the doctrines of Islam.At Grenada, in Spain (1538), “Clenardus ne réussit pas mieux à arracher aux bûchers de l’inquisition les manuscrits et les livres” (Moorish and Arabic books which had been seized after the conquest of Grenada by the Spaniards) “qu’elle avait entassés dans sa succursale de Grenade. Ce fut en vain que Cleynaerts, faisant valoir le but éminemment chrétien qu’il voulait atteindre, prodigua les démarches et les prières, pour se faire remettre ‘ces papiers plus nécessaires à lui qu’à Vulcain’.… L’inexorable inquisition refusa de lâcher sa proie. Un savant théologien, Jean-Martin Silicæus, précepteur de Philippe II., fit cependant entendre à notre compatriote, que ses vœux pourraient être exaucés, s’il consentait à fonder son école, non à Louvain, mais à Grenade, où une multitude de néophytes faisaient semblant de professer le Christianisme, tout en conservant les préceptes de Mahomet au fond du cœur. Mais le linguiste Belge lui fit cette réponse, doublement remarquable à cause du pays et de l’époque où elle fut émise: ‘C’est en Brabant, et nullement en Espagne, que je poserai les fondements de mon œuvre. Je cherche descompagnons d’armes pour lutter là où la lutte peut être loyale et franche. Les habitants du royaume de Grenade n’oseraient pas me répondre, puisque la terreur de l’inquisition les force à se dire chrétiens. Le combat est impossible, là où personne n’ose assumer le rôle de l’ennemi’ — .” Galen calls for a strict censorship, even over medical books — ad Julianum — Vol. xviii. p. 247 Kühn.

I transcribe the above passage from an interesting article upon Book-Censors, in Beckmann’s History of Inventions (Ed. 1817, vol. iii. p. 93 seq.), where numerous examples are cited of the prohibition, combustion, or licensing of books by authority, from the burning of the work of Protagoras by decree of the Athenian assembly, down to modern times; illustrating the tendency of different sects and creeds, in proportion as they acquired power, to silence all open contradiction. The Christian Arnobius, at a time when his creed was under disfavour by the Emperors, protests against this practice, in a liberal and comprehensive phrase which would have much offended Plato (at the time when he wrote the Leges) and Hermolaus:— “Alios audio mussitare indignanter et dicere:— Oportere statui per Senatum, aboleantur ut hæc scripta quibus Christiana religio comprobetur et vetustatis opprimatur auctoritas. … Nam intercipere scripta, et publicatam velle submergere lectionem, non est Deos defendere, sed veritatis testificationem timere” (Arnob. adv. Gentes, iii. p. 104. Also iv. p. 152).

“We are told by Eusebius (Beckmann, ed. 1817, vol. iii. p. 96; Bohn’s ed., vol. ii. p. 514) that Diocletian caused the sacred Scriptures to be burnt. After the spreading of the Christian religion, the clergy exercised against books that were either unfavourable or disagreeable to them, the same severity which they had censured in the heathens as foolish and prejudicial to their own cause. Thus were the writings of Arius condemned to the flames at the Council of Nice; and Constantine threatened with the punishment of death those who should conceal them. The clergy assembled at the Council of Ephesus requested the Emperor Theodosius II. to cause the works of Nestorius to be burnt; and this desire was complied with. The writings of Eutyches shared the like fate at the Council of Chalcedon: and it would not be difficult to collect examples of the same kind from each of the following centuries.”

Dr. Vaughan observes, in criticising the virtuous character and sincere persecuting spirit of Sir Thomas More:— “If there be anyopinionwhich it would be just to punish as acrime, it is the opinion which makes it to bea virtue not to tolerate opinion." (Revolutions in English History, vol. ii. p. 178.)

I find the following striking anecdote in the transactions of the Académie Royale de Belgique, 1862; Bulletins, 2me Sér., tom. xiii. p. 567 seq.; Vie et Travaux deNicolas Cleynaertspar M. Thonissen. Cleynaerts (or Clenardus) was a learned Belgian (born 1495 — died 1543), professor both at Louvain and at Salamanca, and author ofGrammaticæ Institutiones, both of the Greek and the Hebrew languages. He acquired, under prodigious difficulties and disadvantages, a knowledge of the Arabic language; and he employed great efforts to organise a course of regular instruction in that language at Louvain, with a view to the formation of missionaries who would combat the doctrines of Islam.

At Grenada, in Spain (1538), “Clenardus ne réussit pas mieux à arracher aux bûchers de l’inquisition les manuscrits et les livres” (Moorish and Arabic books which had been seized after the conquest of Grenada by the Spaniards) “qu’elle avait entassés dans sa succursale de Grenade. Ce fut en vain que Cleynaerts, faisant valoir le but éminemment chrétien qu’il voulait atteindre, prodigua les démarches et les prières, pour se faire remettre ‘ces papiers plus nécessaires à lui qu’à Vulcain’.… L’inexorable inquisition refusa de lâcher sa proie. Un savant théologien, Jean-Martin Silicæus, précepteur de Philippe II., fit cependant entendre à notre compatriote, que ses vœux pourraient être exaucés, s’il consentait à fonder son école, non à Louvain, mais à Grenade, où une multitude de néophytes faisaient semblant de professer le Christianisme, tout en conservant les préceptes de Mahomet au fond du cœur. Mais le linguiste Belge lui fit cette réponse, doublement remarquable à cause du pays et de l’époque où elle fut émise: ‘C’est en Brabant, et nullement en Espagne, que je poserai les fondements de mon œuvre. Je cherche descompagnons d’armes pour lutter là où la lutte peut être loyale et franche. Les habitants du royaume de Grenade n’oseraient pas me répondre, puisque la terreur de l’inquisition les force à se dire chrétiens. Le combat est impossible, là où personne n’ose assumer le rôle de l’ennemi’ — .” Galen calls for a strict censorship, even over medical books — ad Julianum — Vol. xviii. p. 247 Kühn.

348Plato, Apol. Sokr. p. 29. Gorgias, p. 472 A-B: καὶ νῦν περὶ ὧν σὺ λέγεις ὀλίγου σοι πάντες συμφήσουσι ταὐτὰ Ἀθηναῖοι καὶ ξένοι …Ἀλλ’ ἐγώ σοι εἷς ὢν οὐχ ὁμολογῶ.Compare also p. 482 B of the same dialogue, where Sokrates declares his anxiety to maintain consistency with himself, and his indifference to other authority.

348Plato, Apol. Sokr. p. 29. Gorgias, p. 472 A-B: καὶ νῦν περὶ ὧν σὺ λέγεις ὀλίγου σοι πάντες συμφήσουσι ταὐτὰ Ἀθηναῖοι καὶ ξένοι …Ἀλλ’ ἐγώ σοι εἷς ὢν οὐχ ὁμολογῶ.

Compare also p. 482 B of the same dialogue, where Sokrates declares his anxiety to maintain consistency with himself, and his indifference to other authority.

349Plato, Apol. Sokr. p. 29 D. πείσομαι δὲ μᾶλλον τῷ θεῷ ἢ ὑμῖν. Comp. pp. 30 A, 31 D, 33 C.

350The indictment of Melêtus against Sokrates ran thus — Ἀδικεῖ Σωκράτης, οὓς μὲν ἡ πόλις νομίζει θεούς, οὐ νομίζων,ἕτεραδὲκαινὰ δαιμόνιαεἰσηγούμενος· ἀδικεῖ δὲ καὶ τοὺς νέους διαφθείρων· τίμημα, θάνατος (Diog. Laert. ii. 40; Xenoph. Memor. i. 1). The charge as to introduction of καινὰ δαιμόνια was certainly well founded against Sokrates (compare Plato, Republic, vi. p. 496 C). Whoever was guilty of promulgating καινὰ δαιμόνια in the Platonic city De Legibus, would have perished miserably long before he reached the age of 70; which Sokrates attained at Athens.Compare my ‘History of Greece,’ ch. xxviii.I have in one passage greatly understated the amount of severity which Plato employs against heretics. I there affirm that he banishes them: whereas the truth is, that he imprisons them, and ultimately, unless they recant, puts them to death.

Compare my ‘History of Greece,’ ch. xxviii.

I have in one passage greatly understated the amount of severity which Plato employs against heretics. I there affirm that he banishes them: whereas the truth is, that he imprisons them, and ultimately, unless they recant, puts them to death.

The persons denounced by Plato as heretics, and punished as such, would have included a majority of the Grecian world.

It is true that the orthodoxy which Plato promulgates, and forbids to be impugned, in the Magnêtic community, is an orthodoxy of his own, different from that which was recognised at Athens; but this only makes the case more remarkable, and shows the deep root of intolerance in the human bosom — esteemed as it frequently is, by a sincere man, among the foremost of his own virtues. Plato marks out three varietiesof heresy, punishable by long imprisonment, and subsequent death in case of obstinate persistence. Now under one or other of the three varieties, a large majority of actual Greeks would have been included. The first variety — those who did not believe the Gods to exist — was doubtless confined to a small minority of reflecting men; though this minority (according to Plato351), not contemptible even in number, was distinguished in respect to intellectual accomplishments. The second variety — that of those who believed the Gods to exist, but believed them to produce some results only, not all — was more numerous. And the third variety — that of those who believed them to be capable of being appeased or won over by prayer and sacrifice — was the most numerous of all. Plato himself informs us352that this last doctrine was proclaimed by the most eminent poets, rhetors,prophets, and priests, as well as by thousands and tens of thousands besides. That prayer and sacrifice were means of appeasing the displeasure or unfavourable dispositions of the Gods — was the general belief of the Grecian world, from the Homeric times downwards. The oracles or individual prophets were constantly entreated to inform petitioners, what was the nature or amount of expiatory ceremony which would prove sufficient for any specific case; but that there wassomesort of expiatory ceremony which would avail, was questioned by few sincere believers.353All these would have been ranked as heretics by Plato. If the Magnêtic community had become a reality, the solitary cells of the Platonic Inquisition might have been found to include Anaxagoras, and most of the Ionic philosophers, under the first head of heresy; Aristotle and Epikurus under the second; Herodotus and Nikias under the third. Indeed most of the 5040 Magnêtic colonists must have adjusted anew their canon of orthodoxy in order to satisfy the exigence of the Platonic Censors.

351Plato, Legg. x. p. 886 E. πάμπολλοι. Also pp. 888 E, 891 B.Fabricius tells us that Plato himself has been considered and designated as an atheist, by various critics:— “Alii Platonem atheis, alii Spinozæ præcursoribus, adnumerarunt. Utriusque criminis reum eum fecit Nic. Henr. Gundling… At alii bené defenderunt philosophum ab illo crimine.” (Bibliothec. Græc. tom. iii. pp. 69, not.hh, ed. Harles.)This illustrates the loose manner in which the epithet ἄθεος has been applied in philosophical and theological controversies: a practice forcibly exposed in the following acute note of Wyttenbach.Wyttenbach, Præf. ad Plutarch. De Superstit. vol. vi. pars ii. p. 995. “Nam quæ est superstitio? quæ ἀθεότης? quæ harum species? qui gradus? His demum explicitis et inter se comparatis intelligi poterit, quæ ἀθεότητος species cui superstitionis speciei, qui gradus hujus cui gradui illius, anteferri aut postponi debeat. Ac primum in ipsis illis de quibus agitur rebus definiendis magna est difficultas. Quamquamatheumquidem definire non difficile videtur; quippe quo ipso nomine significetur isqui nullum esse deum putet. Atqui hæc etiam definitio non intelligatur, nisi antea declaretur quid sit id quodDeivocabulo significemus — omnino quæ sit definitioDei. Jam nemo ignorat quantopere in notione ac definitione Dei dissentiant non modo universi populi, sed et singuli homines: nec solum vulgus, sed et sapientes: ita quidem, ut quo plures partes sint, ex quibus hæc notio constituatur, eo minus in ea consentiant. Sed fac esse qui eam paucissimis complectatur proprietatibus, ut dicatDeum esse mentem æternam, omnium rerum creatricem et gubernatricem. Erunt qui eum parum, erunt qui nimium, dixisse putent: neutri se atheos volent, utrique et hunc et se invicem atheos dicent. . . Ita se res habet. Quotidié jactatur tralatitium illud,verus Deus: quo suam quisque de Deo notionem significat, sæpe illam ineptam et summi numinis majestate indignam. Et bene nobiscum ageretur, si non nisi ab indocto vulgo jactaretur. Nunc philosophi, certe qui se philosophos haberi volunt, item crepant. Disputant devero Deo, nec ab ejus definitione proficiscuntur, quasi vero hæc nemini ignota sit. … Pervulgata illaveri Deiappellatio nobis venit a consuetudine Ecclesiæ, cujus diversæ quondam sectæ notionem Dei diverso modo informantes, ejus ignorationem et ἀθεότητα non modo profanis, sed invicem aliæ aliis sectis exprobrare solebant. Hæc de notioneathei: quæ profecto, nisi constitutâ notione Dei, constitui ipsa nequit.”

351Plato, Legg. x. p. 886 E. πάμπολλοι. Also pp. 888 E, 891 B.

Fabricius tells us that Plato himself has been considered and designated as an atheist, by various critics:— “Alii Platonem atheis, alii Spinozæ præcursoribus, adnumerarunt. Utriusque criminis reum eum fecit Nic. Henr. Gundling… At alii bené defenderunt philosophum ab illo crimine.” (Bibliothec. Græc. tom. iii. pp. 69, not.hh, ed. Harles.)

This illustrates the loose manner in which the epithet ἄθεος has been applied in philosophical and theological controversies: a practice forcibly exposed in the following acute note of Wyttenbach.

Wyttenbach, Præf. ad Plutarch. De Superstit. vol. vi. pars ii. p. 995. “Nam quæ est superstitio? quæ ἀθεότης? quæ harum species? qui gradus? His demum explicitis et inter se comparatis intelligi poterit, quæ ἀθεότητος species cui superstitionis speciei, qui gradus hujus cui gradui illius, anteferri aut postponi debeat. Ac primum in ipsis illis de quibus agitur rebus definiendis magna est difficultas. Quamquamatheumquidem definire non difficile videtur; quippe quo ipso nomine significetur isqui nullum esse deum putet. Atqui hæc etiam definitio non intelligatur, nisi antea declaretur quid sit id quodDeivocabulo significemus — omnino quæ sit definitioDei. Jam nemo ignorat quantopere in notione ac definitione Dei dissentiant non modo universi populi, sed et singuli homines: nec solum vulgus, sed et sapientes: ita quidem, ut quo plures partes sint, ex quibus hæc notio constituatur, eo minus in ea consentiant. Sed fac esse qui eam paucissimis complectatur proprietatibus, ut dicatDeum esse mentem æternam, omnium rerum creatricem et gubernatricem. Erunt qui eum parum, erunt qui nimium, dixisse putent: neutri se atheos volent, utrique et hunc et se invicem atheos dicent. . . Ita se res habet. Quotidié jactatur tralatitium illud,verus Deus: quo suam quisque de Deo notionem significat, sæpe illam ineptam et summi numinis majestate indignam. Et bene nobiscum ageretur, si non nisi ab indocto vulgo jactaretur. Nunc philosophi, certe qui se philosophos haberi volunt, item crepant. Disputant devero Deo, nec ab ejus definitione proficiscuntur, quasi vero hæc nemini ignota sit. … Pervulgata illaveri Deiappellatio nobis venit a consuetudine Ecclesiæ, cujus diversæ quondam sectæ notionem Dei diverso modo informantes, ejus ignorationem et ἀθεότητα non modo profanis, sed invicem aliæ aliis sectis exprobrare solebant. Hæc de notioneathei: quæ profecto, nisi constitutâ notione Dei, constitui ipsa nequit.”

352Plato, Legg. x. p. 885 D. νῦν μὲν γὰρ ταῦτα ἀκούοντές τε καὶ τοιαῦθ’ ἕτερα τῶν λεγομένων ἀρίστων εἶναι ποιητῶν τε καὶ ῥητόρων καὶ μάντεων καὶ ἱερέων καὶ ἄλλων μυριάκις μυρίων, &c.

353See the sections 23 and 24 of the Lehrbuch of K. F. Hermann, Über die Gottesdienstlichen Alterthümer der Griechen: Herodot. vi. 91; Thucydid. i. 134. — Respecting Plato’s aversion for Anaxagoras — and the physical philosophers — see Legg. x. 888 E. xii. 967 A., with Stallbaum’s notes.

Proëm or prefatory discourse of Plato, for these severe laws against heretics.

To these severe laws and penalties against heretics, Plato prefixes a Proëm or Prologue of considerable length, commenting upon and refuting their doctrines. In the earlier part of this dialogue he had taken credit to himself for having been the first to introduce his legal mandates by a prefatory harangue, intended to persuade and conciliate the persons upon whom the mandate was imposed, and to procure cheerful obedience.354For such a purpose the Proëm in the tenth Book would be badly calculated. But Plato here introduces it with a different view:355partly to demonstrate a kosmical and theological theory, partly to excite alarm and repugnance in the heretics whom he marks out and condemns. How many among them might be convinced by Plato’s reasonings, I do not know; but the large majority of them could not fail to be offended and exasperated by the tone of his Proëm or prefatory discourse. Confessing his inabilityto maintain completely the calmness and dignity of philosophical discussion, he addresses them partly with passionate asperity, partly with the arrogant condescension of a schoolmaster lecturing indocile pupils. He describes them now as hateful and unprincipled men — now as presumptuous youths daring to form opinions before they are competent, and labouring under a distemper of reason;356and this too, although he intimates that the first-named variety of heresy was adopted by most of the physical philosophers; and the third variety by many of the best poets, rhetors, prophets, and priests.357Such unusual vehemence is justified by Plato on the ground of a virtuous indignation against the impugners of orthodox belief. We learn from the Platonic and Xenophontic Apologies, that Melêtus and Anytus, when they accused Sokrates of impiety before the Dikastery, indulged in the same invective, announced the same justification, and felt the same confidence that they were righteous champions of the national faith, against an impious and guilty assailant.

354Plato, Legg. iv. pp. 722-723. 723 A: ἵνα γὰρ εὐμενῶς καὶ διὰ τὴν εὐμένειαν εὐμαθέστερον τὴν ἐπίταξιν, ὃ δή ἐστιν ὁ νόμος, δέξηται ᾧ τὸν νόμον ὁ νομοθέτης λέγει, &c.

355Plato, Legg. x. p. 887 A.

356Plato, Legg. x. pp. 887 B-E, 888 B, 891 B, 900 B, 907 A-C. καὶ μὴν εἴρηνταί γέ πωςσφοδρότερον(οἱ λόγοι) διὰ φιλονεικίαν τῶν κακῶν ἀνθρώπων — προθυμία μὲν δὴ διὰ ταῦτανεωτέρωςεἰπεῖν ἡμῖν γέγονεν.

357Plato, Legg. x. pp. 891 D, 885 D.

The third variety of heresy is declared to be the worst — the belief in Gods persuadable by prayer and sacrifice.

Among the three varieties of heresy, Plato considers the third to be the worst. He accounts it a greater crime to believe in indulgent and persuadeable Gods, than not to believe in any Gods at all.358Respecting the entire unbelievers, he acknowledges that a certain proportion are so from intellectual, not from moral, default: and that there are, among them, persons of blameless life and disposition.359It must be remembered that the foremost of these unbelievers, and the most obnoxious to Plato, were the physical astronomers: those who did not agree with him in recognising the Sun, Moon, and Stars as animated and divine Beings — those who studied their movements as if they were mechanical agents. Plato gives a brief summary of various cosmogonic doctrines professed by these heretics, who did not recognise (he says) either God, or reason, or art, in the cosmogonic process; but ascribed to nature, chance, and necessity, the genesis of celestial and terrestrial substances,which were afterwards modified by human art and reason. Among these matters regulated by human art and reason, were included (these men said) the beliefs of each society respecting the Gods and religion, respecting political and social arrangements, respecting the just and the beautiful: though there were (they admitted) certain things beautiful by nature, yet not those which the lawgiver declared to be such. Lastly, these persons affirmed (Plato tells us) that the course of life naturally right was, for each man to seize all the wealth, and all the power over others, which his strength enabled him to secure, without any regard to the requirements of the law. And by such teaching they corrupted the minds of youth.360

358Plato, Legg. x. pp. 907 A, 906 B.

359Plato, Legg. x. pp. 886 A, 908 B.

360Plato, Legg. x. pp. 889-890.

Heretics censured by Plato — Sokrates censured before the Athenian Dikasts.

Who these teachers were, whom Plato groups together as if they taught the same doctrine, we do not know. Having no memorials from themselves, we cannot fully trust the description of their teaching given by an opponent: especially when we reflect, that it coincides substantially with the accusation which Melêtus and Anytus urged against Sokrates before the Athenian Dikastery —viz.: that he was irreligious, and that he corrupted youth by teaching them to despise both the laws and their senior relatives — of which corruption Kritias and Alkibiades were cited as examples. Such allegations, when advanced against Sokrates, are noted both by Plato and Xenophon as the stock-topics, always ready at hand for those who wished to depreciate philosophers.361

361Plato, Apol. Sokr. p. 23. τὰ κατὰ πάντων τῶν φιλοσοφούντων πρόχειρα ταῦτα λέγουσιν, ὅτι τὰ μετέωρα καὶ τὰ ὑπὸ γῆς καὶ θεοὺς μὴ νομίζειν καὶ τὸν ἥττω λόγον κρείττω ποιεῖν. Xenoph. Memor. i. 2, 31. See generally the first two chapters of the Memorabilia, where Xenophon intimates that Sokrates was accused of training youth to a life of lawless and unprincipled ambition and selfishness, and especially of having trained Kritias and Alkibiades.

In so far as these heretics affirmed that right as opposed to wrong, just as opposed to unjust, true belief as opposed to false respecting the Gods, were determined by the lawgiver and not by any other authority — Plato has little pretence for blaming them: because he himself claims such authority explicitly in his Magnêtic community, and punishes severely not merely those who disobey his laws in act, but those who contradict his dogmas in speech or argument. Before he proclaims his intendedpunishments in a penal law, he addresses the heretics in a proëm or prefatory discourse intended to persuade or win them over: a discourse which was the more indispensable, since their doctrines (he tells us) were disseminated everywhere.362If he seriously intended to persuade real dissentients, his attempt is certainly a failure: for the premisses on which he reasons are such as would not have been granted by them — nor indeed by many who agreed in the conclusion which he was himself trying to prove.

362Plato, Legg. x. pp. 890 D, 891 A.

Kosmological and Kosmogonical theory announced in Leges.

The theory here given by Plato, represents the state of his own convictions at the time when the Leges were composed. It is a theory of kosmology of universal genesis: different in many respects from what he propounds in the Timæus, since it comprises no mention of the extra-kosmical Demiurgus — nor of the eternal Ideas — nor of the primordial chaotic movements called Necessity — while it contains (what we do not find in the Timæus) the allegation of a twofold or multiple soul pervading the universe — the good soul (one or more), being co-existent and co-eternal with others (one or more), that are bad.363

363Plato, Legg. x. p. 896 E.

Soul — older, more powerful in the universe than Body. Different souls are at work in the universe — the good soul and the bad soul.

The fundamental principle which he lays down (in this tenth Book De Legibus) is — That soul or mind is older, prior, and more powerful, than body. Soul is the principle of self-movement, activity, spontaneous change. Body cannot originate any movement or change by itself. It is simply passive, receiving movement from soul, and transmitting movement onward. The movement or change which we witness in the universe could never have begun at first, except through the originating spontaneity of soul. None of the four elements — earth, water, air, or fire — is endowed with any self-moving power.364As soul is older and more powerful than body, so the attributes of soul are older and more powerful than those of body: that is, pleasure, pain, desire, fear, love, hatred, volition, deliberation, reason, reflection, judgment true or false — are older and more powerful than heat, cold, heaviness, lightness, hardness, softness, whiteness, sweetness, &c.365The attributes and changes of body are all secondary effects, brought about, determined, modified, or suspended, by the prior and primitive attributes and changes of soul. In all things that are moved there dwells a determining soul: which is thus the cause of all effects however contrary — good and bad, just and unjust, honourable and base. But it is one variety of soul which works to good, another variety which works to evil.366The good variety of soul works under the guidance of Νοῦς or Reason — the bad variety works irrationally.367Now which of the two (asks Plato) directs the movements of the celestial sphere, the Sun, Moon, and Stars? Certainly, the good soul, and not the bad. This is proved by the nature and character of their movements: which movements are rotatory in a circle, and exactly uniform and equable. Now among all the ten different sorts of motion or change, rotatory motion in a circle is the one which is most akinor congenial to Reason.368The motion of Reason, and the motion of the stars, is alike rotatory, and the same, and unchangeable — in the same place, round the same centre, and returning into itself. The bad soul, acting without reason, produces only irregular movements, intermittent, and accompanied by constant change of place.369Though it is the good variety of soul which produces the celestial rotation, yet there are many distinct and separate souls, all of this same variety, which concur to the production of the result. The Sun, the Moon, and each of the Stars, has a distinct soul inherent in itself or peculiar to its own body.370Each of these souls, invested in the celestial substance and in each of the visible celestial bodies, is a God: and thus all things are full of Gods.371

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