1

PLATO union, so that having entered into unity with itself it became indissoluble by everything else except Him who bound it together.'

d

Then afterwards he says:

'So then time has come into existence together with the heaven, that having been produced together they may also be dissolved together, if there should ever be any dissolution of them.'

And again he adds:

"Ye gods and sons of gods, the works whereof I am the Creator and Father are indissoluble save by my will.'

Afterwards he adds:

"Therefore though all that is bound may be dissolved, yet only an evil being would wish to dissolve that which is well combined and in right condition. Wherefore also since ye have been created, though ye are not altogether immortal nor indissoluble, nevertheless ye shall not be dissolved, nor incur the fate of death, since in my will ye have found a still stronger and more valid bond than those by which ye were bound together at the time of your creation.'

Also in the Politicus or Statesman the same author speaks as follows:

For there is a time when God Himself goes round with the universe, which He helps to guide and wheel; and there is a time when the revolutions having now completed their proper measure of time, He lets it go, and the universe, being a living creature and having received intelligence from Him who arranged it at first, revolves again of its own accord in the opposite P. 560 direction. And this retrogression has of necessity been implanted in its nature for the following reason.

'For what reason, pray?

'Because it is a property of none but the most divine things to be always changeless in condition and self-consistent and the same, and bodily nature is not of this class. And though that which we have called the heaven and the world has been endowed by its

5509 Plato, Timaeus, 38 B d 12 Plato, Politicus, 269 Ờ

0 14 ibid. 41 A

da ibid.

Creator with many blessings, nevertheless it also partakes of PLATO body; whence it is impossible for it to be always free from change; as far as possible however, and in a very great degree, it moves in the same orbit in one and the same relative course, b because the reversal to which it is subject is the least possible alteration of its proper motion.

'But it is almost impossible for anything to continue for ever turning itself, except for the Ruler of all things that are moved. And for Him to move anything now one way, and now again in the opposite way, would not be right. From all this then we must neither say that the world always turns itself, nor that it is all turned by God in two opposite courses, nor again that some two gods, who are of opposite minds, turn it, but, as was said just now, and this alone remains possible, that at one time it is c guided in its course by another divine cause, acquiring again its life, and receiving from its Creator a restored immortality, and at another time when let go it moves of itself, having been let go at such a time that it travels backwards during countless periods, because being of vast size and most perfectly balanced it moves upon the smallest pivot.

'Certainly all the details which you have described seem to be very probable.

'Let us then draw our conclusions and consider closely the effect produced from what I have just mentioned, which effect we said was the cause of all the wonders: for surely it is this d very thing.

'What thing?

'The fact that the course of the world at one time is guided in the direction of its present revolution, and at another time in the opposite direction.

'How then?

'This change we must believe to be the greatest and most complete of all variations in the heavenly motions.

'It seems so indeed.

'We must suppose therefore that very great changes occur at that time to us who dwell under the heaven.

"This too is probable.

'But do we not know that animal nature ill endures many p. 561 great and various changes occurring at the same time?

PLATO 'Of course.

'Very great destruction therefore of all other animals necessarily occurs at that time, and moreover very little of the human race survives. And with regard to these survivors, among many other marvellous and strange effects which occur the greatest is this, which also follows immediately upon the reversal of the motion of the universe at the time when the revolution opposite to that which is at present established takes place.'

Afterwards lower down he adds to all this the following remarks on the restoration of the dead to life, taking a b similar course to the opinions of the Hebrews.

CHAPTER XXXIII

'BUT how were animals produced in those days, Stranger, and in what way were they begotten one of another? c 'It is evident, Socrates, that the generation of one animal from another did not exist in the order of nature at that time, but the earth-born race which was said to exist formerly-this it was that in this other period sprang up out of the earth again. The tradition was recorded by our earliest ancestors, who in the following period were not far from the end of the former revolution, but were born in the beginning of the present: for they were the heralds to us of these traditions, which are now disbelieved by many without good reason.

'For we ought, I think, to observe what follows therefrom. d With the fact that old men pass on to the natural condition of the child it is consistent, that from those who have died and been laid in the earth, some being brought together again there and restored to life should follow the changed order, the wheel of generation being at the same time turned back in the opposite direction and so in this manner necessarily springing up out of the earth they are thus named, and accounted earth-born, except any whom God reserved for another destiny.

'This is certainly quite consistent with what was said before.' Then again, as he goes on further, he discourses in the

561 b a Plato, Politicus, 271 A

following manner concerning the consummation of the world, in agreement with the doctrines of the Hebrews:

CHAPTER XXXIV

FOR when the period of all these events was completed, and P. 562 PLATO a change was to take place, and moreover the earth-born race had now all perished, each soul having fulfilled all its generations, and fallen into the earth for as many sowings as were appointed for each, then at length the pilot of the universe let go, b as it were, the handle of the rudder, and withdrew into his own watch-tower, and Fate and an innate desire began to turn the course of the world back again.

'So all the gods who locally share the government of the chief divinity, as soon as they learnt what was going on, let go in turn the portions of the world belonging to their charge. And the world turning back and clashing together, as having received an opposite impulse from before and from behind, was mightily convulsed in itself, and wrought another destruction of animals C of all kinds.

'And after this in long process of time the world ceasing from tumults and confusion and convulsions welcomed a calm, and entered in orderly array upon its own accustomed course, having charge and control over itself and all things in it.'

Again after a little while he says:

'Wherefore God, who had first set the world in order, when at length He saw that it was in helpless strait, being anxious that it should not be shattered in the confusion of the storm, and sink down into the infinite gulf of disorder, again takes His d' seat at the helm, and having turned back what had suffered harm and dissolution into the former circuit appointed by Himself, He arranges and restores it, and endows it with immortality and perpetual youth. Here then the story of the end of all things is told.'

CHAPTER XXXV

'THESE things, then, said I, are nothing in number nor in greatness in comparison with those other rewards which await • 8 ibid. 273 D d 7 Plato, Republic,

562 a 1 Plato, Politicus, 272 D

'(2) ·

K

609

P. 563 each of them after death. And you ought to hear them, in order PLATO that each may receive in full what is due to be told to them by our argument.

'You may speak, said he, as to one who will not find the story too long, but listen all the more gladly.

'But indeed, said I, it is not the story of Alcinous that I am going to tell you, but that of a brave man Er the son of Armenius, a Pamphylian by birth, who was killed in battle, and when the dead were gathered up after ten days in a state of putrefaction, his body was taken up undecayed and carried home to be buried, and on the twelfth day when laid on the funeral pile, he came back to life, and after his revival told what he had seen in the other world.

b⚫And he said that when his soul had departed from his body,

it travelled with many others, until they came to a certain wonderful place, in which were two chasms in the earth close to each other, and others opposite to them in the heaven above.

'And between them there sat judges, who, after they had decided each case, commanded the just to proceed by the way on the right hand leading upward through the heaven, having hung around them on their breast the records of the judgements given, and the unjust by the way leading downwards on the left, these also having on their backs the records of all their deeds.

'And when he himself came forward, they said that he must C be the messenger to mankind of what was done there, and they commanded him to hear and see everything in that place.'

So Plato speaks. And Plutarch also in the first Book Concerning the Soul tells a story similar to this:

CHAPTER XXXVI

d

:

'WE were present ourselves with this Antyllus but let me

PLUTARCH tell the story to Sositeles and Heracleon. For he was ill not

long ago, and the physicians thought that he could not live: but having recovered a little from a slight collapse, though he neither did nor said anything else showing derangement, he

568 d 1 Plutarch, On the Soul, Fragment iii, preserved by Eusebius