Primary source documents

chapter 4: Christianity and culture: The encounter with Hellenist philosophy

Plato, The Republic, Book VII – the Allegory of the Cave

Source: The Republic of Plato. Translated into English by Benjamin Jowett. (Third Edition). Vol II. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908. 514A-517C.

The Allegory of the Cave is one of the most famous documents in the history of Western philosophy. It describes, in form of a fictitious dialogue between Socrates (the narrator) and Glaucon, the brother of Plato, the process of increasing knowledge and wisdom. It depicts the acquiring of knowledge as liberation from the chains of illusion.

The allegory is part of a larger argument about what kind of person would be the most appropriate person to lead the republic.

   And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened: – Behold! human beings living in a underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.

    I see.

    And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent.

   You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.

   Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave?

   True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?

   And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the shadows?

   Yes, he said.

   And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them?

   Very true.

   And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow?

   No question, he replied.

   To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.

   That is certain.

   And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive some one saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision, – what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them, – will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?

   Far truer.

   And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take refuge in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him?

   True, he said.

   And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he is forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities.

   Not all in a moment, he said.

   He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; and he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day?

   Certainly.

   Last of all he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is.

   Certainly.

   He will then proceed to argue that this is he who gives the season and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and in a certain way the cause of all things which he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold?

   Clearly, he said, he would first see the sun and then reason about him.

   And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them?

   Certainly, he would.

   And if they were in the habit of conferring honours among themselves on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before, and which followed after, and which were together; and who were therefore best able to draw conclusions as to the future, do you think that he would care for such honours and glories, or envy the possessors of them? Would he not say with Homer,

   ‘Better to be the poor servant of a poor master,’

and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their manner?

   Yes, he said, I think that he would rather suffer anything than entertain these false notions and live in this miserable manner.

   Imagine once more, I said, such a one coming suddenly out of the sun to be replaced in his old situation; would he not be certain to have his eyes full of darkness?

   To be sure, he said.

   And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the den, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable) would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death.

   No question, he said.

   This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to the previous argument; the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed whether rightly or wrongly God knows. But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally, either in public or private life must have his eye fixed.

   I agree, he said, as far as I am able to understand you.

Plato, Phaedo – on the immortality of the soul

Source: The Apology, Phaedo and Crito of Plato. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. The Golden Sayings of Epictetus. Translated by Hastings Crossley. The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Translated by George Long. With Introduction and Notes. Volume 2. New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1937, 70-73.

This extract from Plato’s Phaedo introduces Plato’s theory of the soul. It is one of the most influential texts in occidental intellectual and religious history, for it tries to explain why the soul, in contrast to the body, is immortal. This theory has deeply influenced Christian tradition and has caused many people to see the human being as a body-soul dualism. The widespread Christian belief in the soul’s immortality – in clear contrast to Biblical teaching – has its origin in this theory of Plato. Plato’s argument proceeds by linking the soul to the realm of the invisible and the body to the changing physical realm.

As usual, Plato presents his philosophy in the form of a fictitious dialogue between Socrates and Cebes, one of Socrates’ disciples..

   Then now let us return to the previous discussion. Is that idea or essence, which in the dialectical process we define as essence of true existence – whether essence of equality, beauty, or anything else: are these essences, I say, liable at times to some degree of change? or are they each of them always what they are, having the same simple, self-existent and unchanging forms, and not admitting of variation at all, or in any way, or at any time?

   They must be always the same, Socrates, replied Cebes.

   And what would you say of the many beautiful – whether men or horses or garments or any other things which may be called equal or beautiful – are they all unchanging and the same always, or quite the reverse? May they not rather be described as almost always changing and hardly ever the same either with themselves or with one another?

   The latter, replied Cebes? they are always in a state of change.

   And these you can touch and see and perceive with the senses, but the unchanging things you can only perceive with the mind – they are invisible and are not seen?

   That is very true, he said.

   Well, then, he added, let us suppose that there are two sorts of existences, one seen, the other unseen.

   Let us suppose them.

   The seen is the changing, and the unseen is the unchanging.

   That may be also supposed.

   And, further, is not one part of us body, and the rest of us soul?

   To be sure. And to which class may we say that the body is more alike and akin?

   Clearly to the seen: no one can doubt that.

   And is the soul seen or not seen?

   Not by man, Socrates.

   And by "seen" and "not seen" is meant by us that which is or is not visible to the eye of man?

   Yes, to the eye of man.

   And what do we say of the soul? is that seen or not seen?

   Not seen.

   Unseen then?

   Yes.

   Then the soul is more like to the unseen, and the body to the seen?

   That is most certain, Socrates.

   And were we not saying long ago that the soul when using the body as an instrument of perception, that is to say, when using the sense of sight or hearing or some other sense (for the meaning of perceiving through the body is perceiving through the senses) were we not saying that the soul too is then dragged by the body into the region of the changeable, and wanders and is confused? the world spins round her, and she is like a drunkard when under their influence?

   Very true.

   But when returning into herself she reflects? then she passes into the realm of purity, and eternity, and immortality, and unchangeableness, which are her kindred, and with them she ever lives, when she is by herself and is not let or hindered? then she ceases from her erring ways, and being in communion with the unchanging is unchanging. And this state of the soul is called wisdom?

   That is well and truly said, Socrates, he replied.

   And to which class is the soul more nearly alike and akin, as far as may be inferred from this argument, as well as from the preceding one?

   I think, Socrates, that, in the opinion of everyone who follows the argument, the soul will be infinitely more like the unchangeable – even the most stupid person will not deny that.

   And the body is more like the changing?

   Yes.

   Yet once more consider the matter in this light: When the soul and the body are united, then nature orders the soul to rule and govern, and the body to obey and serve.

   Now which of these two functions is akin to the divine? and which to the mortal? Does not the divine appear to you to be that which naturally orders and rules, and the mortal that which is subject and servant?

   True.

   And which does the soul resemble?

   The soul resembles the divine and the body the mortal – there can be no doubt of that, Socrates.

  Then reflect, Cebes: is not the conclusion of the whole matter this – that the soul is in the very likeness of the divine, and immortal, and intelligible, and uniform, and indissoluble, and unchangeable? and the body is in the very likeness of the human, and mortal, and unintelligible, and multiform, and dissoluble, and changeable. Can this, my dear Cebes, be denied?

   No, indeed.

   But if this is true, then is not the body liable to speedy dissolution? and is not the soul almost or altogether indissoluble?

   Certainly.

   And do you further observe, that after a man is dead, the body, which is the visible part of man, and has a visible framework, which is called a corpse, and which would naturally be dissolved and decomposed and dissipated, is not dissolved or decomposed at once, but may remain for a good while, if the constitution be sound at the time of death, and the season of the year favorable? For the body when shrunk and embalmed, as is the custom in Egypt, may remain almost entire through infinite ages? and even in decay, still there are some portions, such as the bones and ligaments, which are practically indestructible. You allow that?

   Yes.

   And are we to suppose that the soul, which is invisible, in passing to the true Hades, which like her is invisible, and pure, and noble, and on her way to the good and wise God, whither, if God will, my soul is also soon to go – that the soul, I repeat, if this be her nature and origin, is blown away and perishes immediately on quitting the body as the many say? That can never be, dear Simmias and Cebes. The truth rather is that the soul which is pure at departing draws after her no bodily taint, having never voluntarily had connection with the body, which she is ever avoiding, herself gathered into herself (for such abstraction has been the study of her life). And what does this mean but that she has been a true disciple of philosophy and has practised how to die easily? And is not philosophy the practice of death?

   Certainly.

   That soul, I say, herself invisible, departs to the invisible world – to the divine and immortal and rational: thither arriving, she lives in bliss and is released from the error and folly of men, their fears and wild passions and all other human ills, and forever dwells, as they say of the initiated, in company with the gods. Is not this true, Cebes?
Philo of Alexandria, On the Creation, VI: 23-25

Source: Philo. Volume I. Translated by F.H. Colson and G.H. Whitaker. Cambridge, Mass.  And London, England: Harvard University Press, 1991 [1929], 18-21.

The Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria is one of the most important links between Greek philosophy and Jewish tradition. His theory of God’s creation through the Logos, written around 40 A.D., anticipates the prologue of the Gospel of John.  The text excerpted below is not easily understandable, but it shows how Philo uses Gen 1:27 to argue that the whole world has been created in the image of God, which is the Word of God.

   VI. (23) Now God, with no counselor to help Him (who was there beside Him?) determined that it was meet to confer rich and unrestricted benefits upon that nature which apart from Divine bounty could obtain of itself no good thing. But not in proportion to the greatest of His own bounties does He confer benefits — for these are without end or limit — but in proportion to the capacities of the recipients. For it is not the nature of creation to receive good treatment in like manner as it is the nature of God to bestow it, seeing that the powers of God are overwhelmingly vast, whereas creation, being too feeble to entertain their abundance, would have broken down under the effort to do so, had not God with appropriate adjustment dealt out to each his due portion.

   (24) Should a man desire to use words in a more simple and direct way, he would say that the world discerned only by the intellect is nothing else than the Word of God when He was already engaged in the act of creation. For (to revert to our illustration) the city discernible by the intellect alone is nothing else than the reasoning faculty of the architect in the act of planning to found the city.

   (25) It is Moses who lays down this, not I. Witness his express acknowledgement in the sequel, when setting on record the creation of man, that he was moulded after the image of God (Gen. i. 27). Now if the part is an image of an image, it is manifest that the whole is so too, and if the whole creation, this entire world perceived by our senses (seeing that it is greater than any human image) is a copy of the Divine image, it is manifest that the archetypal seal also, which we aver to be the world descried by the mind, would be the very Word of God.

Plotinus, Ennead V. 2 – about the origin of all beings and the One

Source: Plotinus V, translation by A. H. Armstrong (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966-1988), 56-65.

This excerpt from Plotin’s Enneads offers a beautiful description of the system of emanation and how all of life is rooted in the One, how life extends through all the descending stages from the One, and how the One is still present in the lower ranks of being.

Synopsis

   The One is all things and none of them. How Intellect comes from the One and Soul from Intellect, and how higher soul generates its own image, the sensitive and vegetative life-principle which extends as far as plants (ch.1). The different levels of soul; a difficulty about the plant-soul: what happens to it when a piece of the plant is cut off?  Again, all things are the One and not the One: it is all like one long continuous life (ch. 2).

On the origin and order of the beings which come after the first

   1. The One is all things and not a single one of them: it is the principle of all things, not all things, but all things have that other kind of transcendent existence; for in a way they do occur in the One; or rather they are not there yet, but they will be. How then do all things come from the One, which is simple and has in it no diverse variety, or any sort of doubleness? It is because there is nothing in it that all things come from it: in order that being may exist, the One is not being, but the generator of being. This, we may say, is the first act of generation: the One, perfect because it seeks nothing, has nothing, and needs nothing, overflows, as it were, and its superabundance makes something other than itself. This, when it has come into being, turns back upon the One and is filled, and becomes Intellect by looking towards it. Its halt and turning towards the One constitutes being, its gaze upon the One, Intellect. Resembling the One thus, Intellect produces in the same way, pouring forth a multiple power – this is a likeness of it – just as that which was before it poured it forth. This activity springing from the substance of Intellect is Soul, which comes to be this while Intellect abides unchanged: for Intellect too comes into being while that which is before it abides unchanged. But Soul does not abide unchanged when it produces: it is moved and so brings forth an image. It looks to its source and is filled, and going forth to another opposed movement generates its own image, which is sensation and the principle of growth in plants. Nothing is separated or cut off from that which is before it. For this reason the higher soul seems to reach as far as plants; and in a way it does reach so far, for the life-principle in plants belongs to it; it is certainly not all in plants, but it has come to be in plants in the sense that it has extended itself down to their level, and produced another degree of being by that extension, in desire of its inferior. The part before this, which is immediately dependent on Intellect, leaves Intellect alone, abiding in itself.

   2. So it goes on from the beginning to the last and lowest, each [generator] remaining behind in its own place, and that which is generated taking another, lower, rank ; and yet each becomes  the same as that upon which it follows, as long as it does continue to follow upon it. When therefore soul comes to exist in a plant, what is in the plant is a kind of different part of it, the most audacious and stupid part of it and the one which has proceeded this far; when it comes to exist in an irrational animal, the power of sense-perception has prevailed and brought it there: but when it comes to a man, either the movement is wholly in the soul's reasoning part or it comes from Intellect, since the soul has an intellect of its own and a self-originated will to think, or in general to be in motion. Now let us go back [to plant-souls]: when someone cuts off either the side-shoots or the tops of the branches, where has the soul in this part gone? Where it came from; for it did not move spatially away; so it is in its principle. But if you were to cut up or burn the root, where would the soul in the root be?  In soul, for it has not gone to another place; but it could be in the same place – but in another if it ran up again [to the higher soul]; if it did not, it would be in another plant-soul, for it is not cramped for room: but if it ran up again, it would be in the power before it. But where is that power? In the power before itself; but that reaches as far as Intellect, not spatially; for none [of these soul-parts] was in space; but Intellect is still more emphatically not in space, so that neither is this [higher] soul. Since therefore it is nowhere, but in that which is nowhere, it is in this way also everywhere, but if as it proceeds upwards it stops in the middle before completely reaching the highest, it has a medium life and stays in that [middle] part of itself. All these things are the One and not the One: they are he because they come from him; they are not he, because it is in abiding by himself that he gives them. It is then like a long life stretched out at length; each part is different from that which comes next in order, but the whole is continuous with itself, but with one part differentiated from another, and the earlier does not perish in the later. What, then, about the soul which comes to exist in plants? Does it not generate anything? Yes, that in which it is. But we must investigate how it does so by taking a different starting-point.

Justin Martyr, Second Apology, Chapter X (Christ compared to Socrates)

Source: Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 4. Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe; translated by William Wilson (Grand Rapids, Michigan 1956), 191-2.

This famous passage, which compares Christ with Socrates, demonstrates the early apologists’ argument of continuity between Greek philosophy and Jesus Christ. It presents the death of Socrates as a parallel to that of Jesus.

Chapter X. Christ compared with Socrates

   Our doctrines, then, appear to be greater than all human teaching; because Christ, who appeared for our sakes, became the whole rational being, both body, and reason, and soul. For whatever either lawgivers or philosophers uttered well, they elaborated by finding and contemplating some part of the Word. But since they did not know the whole of the Word, which is Christ, they often contradicted themselves. And those who by human birth were more ancient than Christ, when they attempted to consider and prove things by reason, were brought before the tribunals as impious persons and busybodies. And Socrates, who was more zealous in this direction than all of them, was accused of the very same crimes as ourselves. For they said that he was introducing new divinities, and did not consider those to be gods whom the state recognised. But he cast out from the state both Homer and the rest of the poets, and taught men to reject the wicked demons and those who did the things which the poets related; and he exhorted them to become acquainted with the God who was to them unknown, by means of the investigation of reason, saying, “That it is neither easy to find the Father and Maker of all, nor, having found Him, is it safe to declare Him to all.” But these things our Christ did through His own power. For no one trusted in Socrates so as to die for this doctrine, but in Christ, who was partially known even by Socrates (for He was and is the Word who is in every man, and who foretold the things that were to come to pass both through the prophets and in His own person when He was made of like passions, and taught these things), not only philosophers and scholars believed, but also artisans and people entirely uneducated, despising both glory, and fear, and death; since He is a power of the ineffable Father, not the mere instrument of human reason.

Justin Martyr, Hortatory Address to the Greeks, Chapter XXV – On Plato’s knowledge of God’s eternity

Source: From Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2. Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. Translated by William Wilson. Grand Rapids, Mich., 1956, 283.

The apologetic theologians engaged with the Greek tradition in two main ways: first, by showing points of connection between Christian belief and Hellenist thought; second, by pointing out errors and contradictions among Greek intellectuals. In the following text, Justin Martyr discusses the Greek philosopher Plato and points out some inconsistencies in Plato’s teaching.

Chapter 25. Plato's knowledge of God's eternity

   How, then, does Plato blame Homer for saying that the gods are not inflexible, although, as is obvious from the expressions used, Homer said this for a useful purpose? For it is the property of those who expect to obtain mercy by prayer and sacrifices, to cease from and repent of their sins. For those who think that the Deity is inflexible, are by no means moved to abandon their sins, since they suppose that they will derive no benefit from repentance. How, then, does Plato the philosopher condemn the poet Homer for saying, “Even the gods themselves are not inflexible,” and yet himself represent the maker of the gods as so easily turned, that he sometimes declares the gods to be mortal, and at other times declares the same to be immortal? And not only concerning them, but also concerning matter, from which, as he says, it is necessary that the created gods have been produced, he sometimes says that it is uncreated, and at other times that it is created; and yet he does not see that he himself, when he says that the maker of the gods is so easily turned, is convicted of having fallen into the very errors for which he blames Homer, though Homer said the very opposite concerning the maker of the gods. For he said that he spoke thus of himself:—

   “For ne'er my promise shall deceive, or fail,

   Or be recall'd, if with a nod confirm'd.”

   But Plato, as it seems, unwillingly entered not 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, he 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.

Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, Book I, Chapter 5 – Philosophy the handmaid of theology

Source: Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2. Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. Translated by William Wilson. Grand Rapids, Mich., 1956, 305.

This extract from the fifth chapter of Clement’s Stromata, Book I, offers a historically important interpretation of Greek philosophy as preparation for the reception of the gospel. Interpreted in this way, Greek philosophy parallels the Law of Moses and thus also leads to the reception of the gospel.

Chapter 5. – Philosophy the Handmaid of Theology

   Accordingly, before the advent of the Lord, philosophy was necessary to the Greeks for righteousness. And now it becomes conducive to piety; being a kind of preparatory training to those who attain to faith through demonstration. “For thy foot,” it is said, “will not stumble, if thou refer what is good, whether belonging to the Greeks or to us, to Providence.” [Proverbs 3:23] For God is the cause of all good things; but of some primarily, as of the Old and the New Testament; and of others by consequence, as philosophy. Perchance, too, philosophy was given to the Greeks directly and primarily, till the Lord should call the Greeks. For this was a schoolmaster to bring “the Hellenic mind,” as the law, the Hebrews, “to Christ.” [Galatians 3:24] Philosophy, therefore, was a preparation, paving the way for him who is perfected in Christ.

   “Now,” says Solomon, “defend wisdom, and it will exalt thee, and it will shield thee with a crown of pleasure.” [Proverbs 4:8-9] For when thou hast strengthened wisdom with a cope by philosophy, and with right expenditure, thou wilt preserve it unassailable by sophists. The way of truth is therefore one. But into it, as into a perennial river, streams flow from all sides. It has been therefore said by inspiration: “Hear, my son, and receive my words; that thine may be the many ways of life. For I teach thee the ways of wisdom; that the fountains fail thee not,” [Proverbs 4:10-11.21] which gush forth from the earth itself. Not only did He enumerate several ways of salvation for any one righteous man, but He added many other ways of many righteous, speaking thus: “The paths of the righteous shine like the light.” [Proverbs 4:18] The commandments and the modes of preparatory training are to be regarded as the ways and appliances of life.
(…)

Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Heathen, Chapter 6

Source: From Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2. Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. Translated by William Wilson. Grand Rapids, Mich., 1956, 191-192.

This section from Exhortation to the Heathen by Clement of Alexandria shows a typical pattern of how early Patristic theologians tried to positively, yet critically, relate to Hellenist philosophy. On one hand, Clement discovers in the teaching of Plato references to the one, unbegotten and indestructible God. On the other hand, he makes use of the Greek philosophers’ own denunciation of popular religion to criticize such religiosity.

   Well done, Plato! You have touched on the truth. But do not flag. Undertake with me the inquiry respecting the Good. For into all men whatever, especially those who are occupied with intellectual pursuits, a certain divine effluence has been instilled; wherefore, though reluctantly, they confess that God is one, indestructible, unbegotten, and that somewhere above in the tracts of heaven, in His own peculiar appropriate eminence, whence He surveys all things, He has an existence true and eternal.

   “Tell me what I am to conceive God to be,

   Who sees all things, and is Himself unseen,”

   Euripides says. Accordingly, Menander seems to me to have fallen into error when he said:—

   “O sun! For you, first of gods, ought to be worshipped,

   By whom it is that we are able to see the other gods.”

   For the sun never could show me the true God; but that healthful Word, that is the Sun of the soul, by whom alone, when He arises in the depths of the soul, the eye of the soul itself is irradiated. Whence accordingly, Democritus, not without reason, says, “that a few of the men of intellect, raising their hands upwards to what we Greeks now call the air (???), called the whole expanse Zeus, or God: He, too, knows all things, gives and takes away, and He is King of all.”

   Of the same sentiments is Plato, who somewhere alludes to God thus: “Around the King of all are all things, and He is the cause of all good things.” Who, then, is the King of all? God, who is the measure of the truth of all existence. As, then, the things that are to be measured are contained in the measure, so also the knowledge of God measures and comprehends truth. And the truly holy Moses says: “There shall not be in your bag a balance and a balance, great or small, but a true and just balance shall be to thee,” deeming the balance and measure and number of the whole to be God. For the unjust and unrighteous idols are hid at home in the bag, and, so to speak, in the polluted soul. But the only just measure is the only true God, always just, continuing the self-same; who measures all things, and weighs them by righteousness as in a balance, grasping and sustaining universal nature in equilibrium. “God, therefore, as the old saying has it, occupying the beginning, the middle, and the end of all that is in being, keeps the straight course, while He makes the circuit of nature; and justice always follows Him, avenging those who violate the divine law.

   Whence, O Plato, is that hint of the truth which thou givest? Whence this rich copiousness of diction, which proclaims piety with oracular utterance? The tribes of the barbarians, he says, are wiser than these; I know thy teachers, even if thou wouldst conceal them. You have learned geometry from the Egyptians, astronomy from the Babylonians; the charms of healing you have got from the Thracians; the Assyrians also have taught you many things; but for the laws that are consistent with truth, and your sentiments respecting God, you are indebted to the Hebrews,

   “Who do not worship through vain deceits

   The works of men, of gold, and brass, and silver, and ivory,

   And images of dead men, of wood and stone,

   Which other men, led by their foolish inclinations, worship;

   But raise to heaven pure arms:

   When they rise from bed, purifying themselves with water,

   And worship alone the Eternal, who reigns for ever more.”

   And let it not be this one man alone— Plato; but, O philosophy, hasten to produce many others also, who declare the only true God to be God, through His inspiration, if in any measure they have grasped the truth.

Origen, Contra Celsus, I: 28 and III: 55 – Origen quotes from the philosopher Celsus

Source: Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 4. Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe; translated by William Wilson (Grand Rapids, Michigan 1956), 408 and 486.

The second-century philosopher Celsus was a famous critic of Christianity. In the following passages, Origen quotes Celsus and thus shows us how early intellectual critics of Christianity argued, for Celsus’ writing has survived only in Origen’s quotations. The first section contains a long quotation of Celsus’ criticism of Jesus for his low origins. The second section contains Celsus’ scathing attack against Christians.

Book I, Chapter 28

   And since, in imitation of a rhetorician training a pupil, he [i.e. Celsus] introduces a Jew, who enters into a personal discussion with Jesus, and speaks in a very childish manner, altogether unworthy of the grey hairs of a philosopher, let me endeavour, to the best of my ability, to examine his statements, and show that he does not maintain, throughout the discussion, the consistency due to the character of a Jew. For he represents him disputing with Jesus, and confuting Him, as he thinks, on many points; and in the first place, he accuses Him of having “invented his birth from a virgin,” and upbraids Him with being “born in a certain Jewish village, of a poor woman of the country, who gained her subsistence by spinning, and who was turned out of doors by her husband, a carpenter by trade, because she was convicted of adultery; that after being driven away by her husband, and wandering about for a time, she disgracefully gave birth to Jesus, an illegitimate child, who having hired himself out as a servant in Egypt on account of his poverty, and having there acquired some miraculous powers, on which the Egyptians greatly pride themselves, returned to his own country, highly elated on account of them, and by means of these proclaimed himself a God.” Now, as I cannot allow anything said by unbelievers to remain unexamined, but must investigate everything from the beginning, I give it as my opinion that all these things worthily harmonize with the predictions that Jesus is the Son of God.

Book III, Chapter 55

   But as Celsus delights to heap up calumnies against us, and, in addition to those which he has already uttered, has added others, let us examine these also, and see whether it be the Christians or Celsus who have reason to be ashamed of what is said. He asserts, “We see, indeed, in private houses workers in wool and leather, and fullers, and persons of the most uninstructed and rustic character, not venturing to utter a word in the presence of their elders and wiser masters; but when they get hold of the children privately, and certain women as ignorant as themselves, they pour forth wonderful statements, to the effect that they ought not to give heed to their father and to their teachers, but should obey them; that the former are foolish and stupid, and neither know nor can perform anything that is really good, being preoccupied with empty trifles; that they alone know how men ought to live, and that, if the children obey them, they will both be happy themselves, and will make their home happy also. And while thus speaking, if they see one of the instructors of youth approaching, or one of the more intelligent class, or even the father himself, the more timid among them become afraid, while the more forward incite the children to throw off the yoke, whispering that in the presence of father and teachers they neither will nor can explain to them any good thing, seeing they turn away with aversion from the silliness and stupidity of such persons as being altogether corrupt, and far advanced in wickedness, and such as would inflict punishment upon them; but that if they wish (to avail themselves of their aid) they must leave their father and their instructors, and go with the women and their playfellows to the women's apartments, or to the leather shop, or to the fuller's shop, that they may attain to perfection; — and by words like these they gain them over."

 
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