or examination of the sacred writings, where it says, 'If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not understand,' and again, 'I believed, and therefore have I spoken.' For which cause also among us those who are newly admitted and in an immature condition, as if infants in soul, have the reading of the sacred Scriptures imparted to them in a very simple way, with the injunction that they must believe what is brought forward as words of God. But those who are in a more advanced condition, P. 574 and as it were grown grey in mind, are permitted to dive into the deeps, and test the meaning of the words: and these the Hebrews were wont to name 'Deuterotists,' as being interpreters and expounders of the meaning of the Scriptures. CHAPTER II 'IN the next place therefore we should say: It seems, Tyrtaeus, b Plato that you praise most highly those who distinguish themselves in foreign and external war. He would admit this, I suppose, and agree? 'Of course. 'But we say that, though these are brave, those are far braver who show their valour conspicuously in the greatest of all wars. And we too have a poet as witness on our side, Theognis, a citizen of Megara in Sicily, who says: "Cyrnus, when factions rage, a faithful man Is worth his weight in silver and in gold." 'Such a man then, we say, is very much braver than the other in a harder warfare, almost as much as justice and temperance and wisdom combined with valour are better than valour by itself alone. For a man would never be found faithful and true in civil wars without possessing all virtue. But there are very many mercenaries who are willing to die in war, standing firm and fighting, as Tyrtacus says, the greater part of whom, with very few exceptions, are violent and unjust and insolent and the d most senseless of mankind. d5 Isa. vii. 9 d 7 Ps. cxv. i o a Theognis, Elegiac Gnomes, v. 77 1. 574 b1 Plato, Laws, i. 639 E PLATO "To what conclusion then does our present argument lead? And what does it wish to make clear by these statements? Evidently this, that before all things both the heaven-sent lawgiver in this country, and every other of the least usefulness, will always enact his laws with a view chiefly to the greatest virtue and this is, as Theognis says, faithfulness in dangers, which one might call perfect justice.' Among us also the Word of salvation, joining wisdom P. 575 with faith, commends the man who is adorned with both, saying, in His own words: 'Who then is the faithful and wise steward?' and again, 'Well done, good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will set thee over many things.' Certainly in these passages He clearly shows that He approves not unreasoning faith, but that which is combined with the greatest virtues, such certainly being wisdom and goodness. CHAPTER III b 'FOR indeed it seems to me that in our former arguments we C stated opportunely that the souls of the dead have a certain power after death, and take an interest in human affairs. There are tales treating of these matters, which are tedious though true: but on such subjects besides the other reports which we ought to believe, as being so many and so ancient, we must also believe the lawgivers who say that these things are true, unless they are shown to be utter fools.' In the Book of the Maccabees also it is said that Jeremiah the Prophet after his departure from life was seen praying for the people, as one who took thought d for men upon earth. And Plato also says that we ought to believe these stories. CHAPTER IV "THERE are two kinds of stories, the one true, and the other false? 575 Matt. xxiv. 45 08 a Macc. XV. 13 a 3 ibid. xxv. 21 b Plato, Laws, xi. 926 E d3 Plato, Republic, ii, 376 E 'Yes. 'And we must instruct children in both, and in the false first? 'I do not understand, said he, what you mean. 'Do you not understand, said I, that what we first tell children is a fable? And this, I suppose, is, generally speaking, fiction, though there is also some truth in it. And we use fables with children earlier than gymnastics. 'That is true.' So Plato writes. And among the Hebrews also it is the custom to teach the histories of the inspired Scriptures to those of infantine souls in a very simple way just like any fables, but to teach those of a trained mental habit the more profound and doctrinal views of the histories by means of the so-called Deuterosis and explanation of the thoughts that are unknown to the multitude. PLATO P. 576 CHAPTER V 'Do you not know then that the beginning is the chief b part of every work, especially for any young and tender mind? For at that age any character that one wishes to impress on each is most easily formed and imparted. 'Quite so. 'Shall we then just carelessly permit our children to listen to casual fables (composed by casual persons), and to receive into their souls opinions for the most part opposite to those which, when they are grown up, we shall think they ought to hold? 'We must by no means permit it. 'In the first place then, it seems, we must supervise the writers of fables, and approve any good fable they may compose, and reject any that are not good. And we must persuade nurses and mothers to tell their children those which are approved, and d to form their souls by the fables much more carefully than their bodies with their hands. But the greater number of the tales which they tell them now must be rejected.' 570 b Plato, Republic, il. 377 B 1 P. 577 These precautions also had been taken by the Hebrews before Plato's time. For those who had a divine spirit fit for discerning of spirits approved what was rightly said or written with help from the Holy Spirit, and the contrary they rejected, just as they rejected the words of the false prophets. Moreover it was the custom of parents and nurses to soothe their infant children by singing the most edifying narratives from the divine. Scriptures, just like any fables, for the sake of preparing beforehand for the religion which they were to learn when approaching to manhood. CHAPTER VI LISTEN then, as they say, to a very pretty story, which you, PLATO I suppose, will regard as a myth, but I as a true story, for what I am going to say I shall tell you as being true.' And after a little more: '(There was a law) that he who had lived a just and holy life should depart after death to the Islands of the Blessed, and dwell' in perfect happiness beyond the reach of all evils. But the man who had lived an unjust and ungodly life must go away to the prison-house of vengeance and punishment, which they call Tartarus.' And again a little farther on: 'Next they must be stripped of all these wrappings and so tried, for their judgement must be after death. The judge also must be naked, that is to say, dead, examining by his very soul C the very soul of each immediately after death, when it is bereft of all its kindred, and has left all that apparel behind on earth, in order that the judgement may be just.' And afterwards he adds: 'This, Callicles, is what I have heard and believe to be true, and from these stories I gather the following conclusion: death, as it seems to me, is nothing else than the separation from each other of two things, the soul and the body. 'And after they are separated, each of them retains its PLATO own condition almost the same as it had when the man was alive, the body having its own nature and the results of its d treatment and sufferings all plainly visible. For instance, if a man's body was large either by nature or by training or both while he was alive, his corpse also after death will be large; and if it was fat, it will be fat also after death, and so on. 'And again, if it was his custom to wear long hair, his corpse also will have long hair; or if a man was often whipped, and bore traces of the stripes in scars on his body either from scourges or from wounds of other kinds, when alive, his body after death may be seen to have these marks. Or if a man's limbs were broken or distorted during life, the same will be visible also after death. 'And in a word, whatever was a man's condition of body during life, the same conditions are also plainly visible after death, either all or most of them for a certain time. This same then seems to me to be the case, Callicles, with refer- P. 578 ence to the soul also. When it is stript of the body, all things are visible in the soul, both its natural qualities, and the effects due to the habits of every kind which the man had contracted in his soul. 'When therefore they have come before the judge, those from Asia before Rhadamanthus, he stops them, and examines the soul of each, without knowing whose it is; but often when he has laid hands on the Great King or some other king or potentate, he b discerns that his soul has no sound part in it, but is scored with scourges, and full of scars from perjuries and injustice, of which each man's deeds have left the print upon his soul, and all crooked from falsehood and imposture, with nothing straight, because it has been reared with no sense of truth: and from power, and luxury, and insolence, and intemperance of conduct he sees the soul full of deformity and ugliness; at sight of which he sends it off c straight to prison in disgrace, where on its arrival it will have to endure its befitting punishments. 'Now every man who is under punishment, if punished rightly by another, ought either to become better and profit by it, or to be made an example to the rest, that others, seeing the sufferings which he endures, may be brought by terror to amendment. "Those who receive benefit when they are punished by gods and men are they whose sins are remediable; but nevertheless it is by pain 635 *.* (2) L |