Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Chapter XXVII.—Plato’s knowledge of the judgment.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
And in the tenth book he plainly
and manifestly wrote what he had learned from the prophets about the
judgment, not as if he had learned it from them, but, on account of his
fear of the Greeks, as if he had heard it from a man who has been slain
in battle—for this story he thought fit to invent—and
who, when he was about to be buried on the twelfth day, and was lying on
the funeral pile, came to life again, and described the other world. The
following are his very words:2563
| 2563 Plato, Rep., p. 615, [lib. x. p. 325. Ed. Bipont,
1785.] | “For he said that he was present when one was
asked by another person where the great Ardiæus was. This Ardiæus had
been prince in a certain city of Pamphylia, and had killed his aged
father and his elder brother, and done many other unhallowed deeds, as
was reported. He said, then that the person who was asked said: He
neither comes nor ever will come hither. For we saw, among other terrible
sights, this also. When we were close to the mouth [of the pit], and were
about to return to the upper air, and had suffered everything else, we
suddenly beheld both him and others likewise, most of whom were tyrants.
But there were also some private sinners who had committed great crimes.
And these, when they thought they were to ascend, the mouth would not
permit, but bellowed when any of those who were so incurably wicked
attempted to ascend, unless they had paid the full penalty. Then fierce
men, fiery to look at, stood close by, and hearing the din,2564
| 2564 The bellowing of the mouth of
the pit. | took some and led them away; but Ardiæus and the
rest, having bound hand and foot, and striking their heads down, and
flaying, they dragged to the road outside, tearing them with thorns, and
signifying to those who were present the cause of their suffering these
things, and that they were leading them away to cast them into Tartarus.
Hence, he said, that amidst all their various fears, this one was the
greatest, lest the mouth should bellow when they ascended, since if it
were silent each one would most gladly ascend; and that the punishments
and torments were such as these, and that, on the other hand, the rewards
were the reverse of these.” Here Plato seems to me to have learnt
from the prophets not only the doctrine of the judgment, but also of the
resurrection, which the Greeks refuse to believe. For his saying that the
soul is judged along with the body, proves nothing more clearly than that
he believed the doctrine of the resurrection. Since how could Ardiæus
and the rest have undergone such punishment in Hades, had they left on
earth the body, with its head, hands, feet, and skin? For certainly they
will never say that the soul has a head and hands, and feet and skin. But
Plato, having fallen in with the testimonies of the prophets in Egypt,
and having accepted what they teach concerning the resurrection of the
body, teaches that the soul is judged in company with the body.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
