Hortatory Address to the Greeks 14–27

You must, then, men of Greece, foreseeing what is to come and looking to the judgment proclaimed by all, not only the godly but also those outside, not give heed to the unexamined error of your ancestors, nor think that whatever they handed down to you in their own mistake is true; but, looking to the danger of so terrible a failure, seek and search out carefully what was said even by those whom you yourselves call your teachers. For they too, even against their will, were compelled by the divine providence for men to say many things in our favour, especially those who had been in Egypt and had profited from the religion of Moses and his ancestors. For I think some of you are not unaware, having surely read the history of Diodorus and those of others who have written about these matters, that Orpheus and Homer and Solon, who wrote laws for the Athenians, and Pythagoras and Plato and some others, having been in Egypt and having profited from the history of Moses, afterwards declared the opposite of what they had earlier wrongly thought about the gods.

Orpheus, then, who was, as one might say, the first teacher of your polytheism, what he later proclaims to his son Musaeus and his other genuine hearers about one and only God, it is necessary to remind you. He said thus: "I will speak to those for whom it is lawful; shut the doors, you profane, all alike. But you, hear, Musaeus, child of the light-bearing Moon, Musaeus; for I will declare the truth; and let not what appeared before in your breast rob you of your dear life. Look to the divine Word and attend to it, directing the intelligent vessel of your heart; walk well on the path, and look only to the King of the world. He is one, self-begotten; from him alone all things are made, and he himself goes about among them; nor does any mortal see him, but he himself sees all. He gives to mortals evil after good, and chilling war and tearful pains; nor is there any other besides the great King. Him I do not see, for a cloud is set about him; for in mortal eyes there are mortal pupils, too weak to see Zeus who rules all. For he is established in the bronze heaven on a golden throne, and treads the earth with his feet; and he has stretched out his right hand over all the bounds of Ocean; and around him the great mountains tremble, and the rivers, and the depth of the grey-blue sea." And again elsewhere he says thus: "One Zeus, one Hades, one Helios, one Dionysus, one God in all; why should I speak of these to you separately?" And in the Oaths thus: "I adjure you by heaven, the wise work of the great God; I adjure you by the voice of the Father, which he first uttered, when he established the whole world by his counsels." What does he mean by saying, "I adjure you by the voice of the Father, which he first uttered"? Here he calls "voice" the Word of God, through whom heaven and earth and the whole creation came to be, as the divine prophecies of the holy men teach us; to these he himself paid some attention in Egypt, and learned that the whole creation came to be by the Word of God. Therefore, after saying, "I adjure you by the voice of the Father, which he first uttered," he adds to it, saying, "when he established the whole world by his counsels." Here he calls the Word "voice" because of the poetic metre. And that this is so is plain from what he said a little before, where the metre allowed him to call it Word. For he said: "Look to the divine Word, and attend to it."

And what the ancient and very old Sibyl, whom Plato and Aristophanes and many others mention as a prophetess, teaches you through her oracles about one and only God, it is necessary to remind you. She speaks thus: "One God, who alone is, exceedingly great, unbegotten, almighty, invisible, himself alone seeing all things, but himself not seen by any mortal flesh." Then elsewhere thus: "But we had wandered from the paths of the Immortal, and honour with foolish heart handmade works, idols and carved images of men who have perished." And again elsewhere thus: "Blessed on earth will be those men who love the great God, blessing him before they eat and drink, trusting in godliness; who, when they see them, will renounce all temples and altars, vain foundations of dumb stones, defiled with the blood of living creatures and with sacrifices of four-footed beasts, and will look to the great glory of the one God." So, then, the Sibyl.

And the poet Homer, using the licence of poetry and emulating at the beginning the opinion of Orpheus about the plurality of gods, mentions many gods in a mythical way, lest he seem to depart from the poetry of Orpheus, which he chose to emulate so closely as to indicate his relation to him even by the first line of his poem. For whereas Orpheus said at the beginning of his poem, "Sing, goddess, the wrath of Demeter of the glorious fruit," he wrote, "Sing, goddess, the wrath of Achilles son of Peleus," choosing, as it seems to me, even to fall out of correct metre at the beginning, lest he seem not to mention the name of the gods first. But a little later he sets out clearly and plainly his own opinion about one and only God, at one point saying through Phoenix to Achilles, "Not even if God himself should promise me, scraping off old age, to make me young again in my prime," indicating by the pronoun the God who truly is; and at another point through Odysseus, speaking thus to the multitude of the Greeks: "The rule of many is not good; let there be one ruler." And that the rule of many is not good, but on the contrary bad, he chose to show in deed, recounting the wars caused by the multitude (of rulers), and battles and factions and plots against one another. For monarchy happens to be free of strife. So much, then, for the poet Homer.

And if we must also add the (testimonies) from the stage about one God, hear Sophocles too, speaking thus: "One in truth, one is God, who made heaven and the broad earth, the grey-blue swell of the sea and the might of the winds. But we mortals, much deceived in heart, set up as a consolation for our pains images of gods of stone and wood, or figures wrought of gold or ivory; and furnishing these with sacrifices and vain festivals, we think that so we are pious." So, then, Sophocles.

And Pythagoras son of Mnesarchus, who set out the doctrines of his philosophy mystically through symbols, as those who have written his life show, he too, from his journey to Egypt, evidently holds (the doctrine) of one God. For in calling the monad the principle of all things, and saying that it is the cause of all good things, he teaches through allegory that God is one and only. That this is so is plain from his saying that the monad and the one differ greatly from each other: for he says that the monad is among the intelligible things, but the one among the numbers. And if you long to know a clearer proof of Pythagoras's opinion about one God, hear his own opinion; for he said thus: "God is one; and he himself is not, as some suppose, outside the ordering (of the world), but within it, wholly in the whole circle, overseeing all generations; he is the blending of all the ages, and the worker of his own powers and works; the principle of all things, the light-giver in heaven, and Father of all, mind and soul of the whole, the motion of all the circles." So, then, Pythagoras.

Plato, having accepted, as it seems, the teaching of Moses and the other prophets about one and only God, which he learned when he was in Egypt, but fearing, because of what happened to Socrates, that he too might raise up against himself some Anytus or Meletus to accuse him before the Athenians, saying, "Plato does wrong and meddles, not believing in the gods that the city believes in," out of fear of the hemlock presents an intricate and veiled discourse about gods, establishing by argument both that there are gods, for those who wish it, and that there are not, for those who think the opposite, as it will be easy to know from what he himself said. For having first declared that everything that has come to be is mortal, he later says that gods have come to be. If, then, he holds that God and matter are the principle of all things, it is plain that one must think that the gods came from matter; this he left for the sensible to consider. For this reason too he said that matter is unbegotten, lest he seem to say that God is the maker of evil. And about the gods fashioned by God he evidently said this: "Gods of gods, of whom I am the maker." But about the God who truly is he held the right opinion. For having heard in Egypt that God had said to Moses, "I am He Who Is," when he was about to send him to the Hebrews, he knew that God had not told him his own proper name.

For no name can be applied to God in the proper sense; for names are given to indicate and distinguish the things they refer to, which are many and different. But for God there was no one before him to give him a name, nor did he think he should name himself, being one and only, as he himself bears witness through his own prophets, saying: "I, God, am first"; and after that: "And besides me there is no other God." For this reason, then, as I said before, God, in sending Moses to the Hebrews, does not mention any name, but by means of a participle teaches in a hidden way that he is the one and only God. For "I am," he says, "He Who Is," contrasting himself, plainly, as "He Who Is," with those who are not, so that those who had formerly been deceived might know that they had given heed not to beings but to non-beings. Since, then, God knew that the first men remembered the old deceit of their forefathers, by which … deceived them, (saying): "If you obey me and transgress the commandment of God, you will be as gods," calling gods those that are not, so that men, thinking that there are other gods too, might believe that they themselves could become gods; for this reason he said to Moses, "I am He Who Is," so that by the participle "being" he might teach the difference between God who is and those who are not. Persuaded, then, by the demon that deceived them, and daring to disobey God, men went out of paradise, remembering the name of gods, but no longer taught by God that there are no other gods. For it was not just to go on teaching those who had not kept the first commandment, which was easy to keep, but rather to bring just punishment upon them. Cast out, then, from paradise, and thinking they had been cast out only for their disobedience, not knowing that it was also because they had been persuaded that gods who are not exist, they handed down the name of gods to those who were born of them afterwards too. This, then, was the first false fancy about gods, having its origin from the father of lies. God, then, knowing that the false opinion of polytheism troubled the soul of men like a disease, and wishing to remove and overthrow it, first appeared to Moses and said to him: "I am He Who Is." For it was necessary, I think, that the one who was to be ruler and general of the race of the Hebrews should first of all know the God who is. Therefore, appearing to him first, as far as it was possible for God to appear to a man, he said to him: "I am He Who Is"; then, being about to send him to the Hebrews, he commands him to say the same things to them: "He Who Is has sent me to you."

Having learned these things in Egypt, then, Plato, greatly pleased with what was said about one God, did not think it safe to mention the name of Moses among the Athenians, because he taught one and only God, fearing the Areopagus; but what was well said by Moses he wrote, not as having learned it from him, but as setting out his own opinion, in his most elaborate discourse, the Timaeus, in which he also undertook to speak of God, the same thing that Moses wrote about God. For he said: "In my opinion, then, we must first distinguish what is that which always is and has no becoming, and what is that which is always becoming but never is." Does not this, men …, differ only in the article? For Moses said "He who is," and Plato "that which is." Both of these expressions evidently fit the God who always is. For he alone is the one who always is and has no becoming. What, then, the other thing is that is contrasted with that which always is, of which he said, "And what is that which is always becoming but never is," we must consider carefully. For we shall find him saying clearly and plainly that the unbegotten is eternal, but that the begotten or fashioned (as he said about the gods that came to be: "Gods of gods, of whom I am the craftsman") come to be and perish. For he says this: "In my opinion, then, we must first distinguish what is that which always is and has no becoming, and what is that which becomes but never is. The one is grasped by thought with reason, being always the same; the other is the object of opinion with irrational sensation, coming to be and perishing, but never truly being." These words proclaim to those able to understand rightly the destruction and perishing of the gods that have come to be. And I think it necessary also to attend to this: that Plato calls him not the maker but the craftsman of the gods, although according to Plato's own opinion there is much difference between these. For the maker, needing nothing else, makes what is made by his own power and authority; but the craftsman, having received the capacity for his craft from matter, constructs what comes to be.

But perhaps some, unwilling to depart from the doctrines of polytheism, will say that the craftsman himself said these things to the gods he had fashioned: "Since you have come to be, you are not immortal nor wholly indissoluble; yet you will not be dissolved nor meet the fate of death, having obtained my will, a still greater and stronger bond." Here Plato, fearing those who embrace polytheism, brings in his craftsman saying things contrary to himself. For having said before that everything that has come to be is perishable, now he cannot escape the charge of lying. For either in saying before that everything that has come to be is perishable he lies, or now, in promising the opposite of what he said before about them. For if, according to his former definition, it is wholly necessary that what is begotten is perishable, how does he allow what is impossible by necessity to become possible? So Plato seems vainly to grant impossibilities to his craftsman, promising that those who once became perishable because they came from matter would through him be imperishable and indissoluble. For the power of matter, which according to his opinion is unbegotten and of equal time and age with the craftsman, would likely resist his will. For one who did not make has no authority over what did not come to be; so that it is not even possible to force it, since it is free of all external necessity. For this reason Plato himself, looking to these things, wrote thus: "Not even God can be said to force necessity."

How, then, does Plato expel Homer from his republic because in the embassy to Achilles he made Phoenix say to Achilles, "Even the gods themselves can be turned," although Homer said this not about the king and, according to Plato, craftsman of the gods, but about some of the gods who are thought by the Greeks to be many, as we can learn also from Plato, who says "gods of gods"? For to the one and first God Homer ascribes the authority and power over all things through that golden chain; and the other gods he said to be so far removed from that one's deity that he thinks fit to name them even together with men. At any rate (he represents) Odysseus saying to Achilles about Hector: "He rages terribly, trusting in Zeus, and honours neither men nor gods." Here Homer too, it seems to me, having like Plato learned in Egypt about one God, shows this clearly and plainly: that one who trusts in the God who is pays no heed to those who are not. For thus the poet, elsewhere too, using another word of equivalent meaning, the pronoun, has used this participle spoken by (Moses), proclaiming the God who is, about whom Plato said, "what is that which is …". … it seems to me, is what was said by Phoenix: "Not even if God himself should promise me, scraping off old age, to make me young again in my prime." For the pronoun "himself" signifies the God who truly is. So too the oracle spoken to you about the Chaldeans and the Hebrews signifies. For when someone asked what men had ever been godly, you say it said thus: "Only the Chaldeans obtained wisdom, and the Hebrews, worshipping the self-begotten King, God himself."

How, then, does Plato blame Homer for saying that the gods can be turned, although Homer said this for a useful purpose, as is plain from the very words spoken? For it is characteristic of those who think fit to obtain kindness through prayer and sacrifices to cease from and repent of their sins. For those who think the divine cannot be turned have by no means chosen to depart from their sins, thinking that they will have no profit from repentance. How, then, does the philosopher Plato, condemning the poet Homer for saying "Even the gods themselves can be turned," himself bring in the craftsman of the gods turning so easily that he says at one time that the gods are mortal and at another that the same are immortal? And not only about them, but also about matter, from which, as he says, the fashioned gods must have come to be, he says at one time that it is unbegotten and at another that it is begotten; not knowing that he himself is convicted of falling into the very things for which he blames Homer, when he says that the craftsman of the gods turns so easily, although Homer said the opposite about him. For he represents him as saying thus about himself: "For no word of mine can be taken back, nor is it deceitful, nor unfulfilled, whatever I confirm with a nod of my head." But these strange things about gods Plato evidently sets out unwillingly, it seems, fearing those who embrace polytheism. But whatever he thinks he ought to say of what he learned from Moses and the prophets about one God, he chose to say in a hidden way, signifying his own opinion to those who wish to be godly. For pleased by what was said by God to Moses, "I am He Who Is," and receiving with much contemplation the short saying expressed through the participle, he knew that God, wishing to signify his eternity to Moses, said, "I am He Who Is"; for the word "is" indicates not one time only but all three, the past, the present, and the future. For so Plato too uses "is" of indefinite time, saying "but never is." For the "never" is said not of past time, as some think, but of future time; this has been precisely established also among those outside. For this reason, as if wishing to explain to those who do not know what was said in a hidden way about God's eternity through the participle, Plato wrote thus in these very words: "God, as the ancient word also says, holding the beginning and end and middle of all things." Here Plato clearly and plainly calls the law of Moses "the ancient word," fearing to mention the name of Moses for fear of the hemlock; for he knew that the man's teaching was hateful to the Greeks; but by the antiquity of the word he clearly indicates Moses. That the law of Moses is ancient and first has been sufficiently shown to us in what precedes from Diodorus and the other histories. For Diodorus says that he was the first lawgiver of all, when not even the letters used by the Greeks, with which they wrote their histories, had yet been found.

Let no one wonder that Plato was persuaded by Moses about the eternity of God. For you will find him, in a hidden way, referring the true knowledge of beings, after the God who truly is, to the prophets as well. For thus in the Timaeus, discussing certain principles, he wrote: "The principle of fire and of the other bodies we lay down, proceeding according to the probable account joined with necessity; but the principles still higher than these God knows, and of men whoever is dear to him." Whom else does he think to be men dear to God but Moses and the other prophets? Having read their prophecies, and learned from them the doctrine of the judgment, in the first book of the Republic he proclaims thus: "When someone comes near to thinking that he will die, fear and anxiety come over him about things that did not occur to him before. For the stories told about those in Hades, that one who did wrong here must pay the penalty there, laughed at until then, now torment his soul lest they be true. And he himself, either from the weakness of old age or as being nearer to things there, sees them more clearly. He becomes full of suspicion and dread, and now reckons up and considers whether he has wronged anyone. He who finds many wrongs of his own in his life, often waking from sleep like children, is afraid and lives with evil foreboding. But to him who is conscious of no wrong, sweet hope is always present, a good nurse of old age, as Pindar also says. For gracefully, Socrates, he said this: that whoever passes his life holily and justly, sweet Hope accompanies him, cheering his heart, the nurse of his old age, Hope who most of all steers the much-turning mind of mortals." And these things he wrote in the first book of the Republic.

And in the tenth (book) he wrote clearly and plainly what he had learned from the prophets about the judgment, not as having learned it from them, because of his fear of the Greeks, but as having heard it from someone, as he thought fit to invent, who had been killed in war and was to be buried on the twelfth day, and who, lying on the pyre, came back to life and told what is there. He wrote thus in these very words: "For he said that he was present when one was asked by another where Ardiaeus the Great was. This Ardiaeus had been tyrant in a certain city of Pamphylia, having killed his aged father and his elder brother and done many other unholy deeds, as was said. He said, then, that the one who was asked replied: He has not come, nor will he come here. For this too was one of the terrible sights we saw: when we were near the mouth, about to go up, and had gone through everything else, we suddenly caught sight of him and of others, nearly all of them tyrants; and there were also some private persons among those who had sinned greatly. These, when they thought they would now go up, the mouth would not receive, but it bellowed whenever one of those so incurably given to wickedness, or one who had not paid the penalty sufficiently, tried to go up. Then savage men, fiery to look at, standing by and perceiving the sound, seized some and led them away; but Ardiaeus and others they bound hand and foot and head, threw them down and flayed them, and dragged them along the way outside, carding them on thorns, and showing to those who passed by why they suffered this, and that they were being led away to be thrown into Tartarus. There, he said, of the many fears of every kind they had, this surpassed all: lest the mouth should bellow when they went up; and each went up most gladly when it was silent. And the penalties and punishments were such as these, and the rewards were their counterparts." Here Plato seems to me to have learned from the prophets not only the doctrine of the judgment but also that of the resurrection, which is disbelieved among the Greeks. For his saying that the soul is judged with the body shows nothing else than that he believed the doctrine of the resurrection. Otherwise how did Ardiaeus and the others, having left on earth the body that has head and hands and feet and skin, undergo such punishment in Hades? For surely they will not say that the soul has head and hands and feet and skin.