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| Chapter XXII.—Plato’s Opinion, that the Chief Good Consists in Assimilation to God, and Its Agreement with Scripture.
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Chapter XXII.—Plato’s Opinion, that the Chief Good Consists in Assimilation to God, and Its Agreement with Scripture.
Further, Plato the philosopher says that the end is twofold:
that which is communicable, and exists first in the ideal forms
themselves, which he also calls “the good;” and that which
partakes of it, and receives its likeness from it, as is the case in
the men who appropriate virtue and true philosophy. Wherefore also
Cleanthes, in the second book, On Pleasure, says that Socrates
everywhere teaches that the just man and the happy are one and the
same, and execrated the first man who separated the just from the
useful, as having done an impious thing. For those are in truth impious
who separate the useful from that which is right according to the law.
Plato himself says that happiness
(εὐδαιμονία)
is to possess rightly the dæmon, and that the
ruling faculty of the soul is called the dæmon;
and he terms happiness (εὐδαιμονία)
the most perfect and complete good. Sometimes he calls it a consistent
and harmonious life, sometimes the highest perfection in accordance
with virtue; and this he places in the knowledge of the Good, and in
likeness to God, demonstrating likeness to be justice and holiness with
wisdom. For is it not thus that some of our writers have understood that
man straightway on his creation received what is “according to the
image,” but that what is according “to the likeness”
he will receive afterwards on his perfection? Now Plato, teaching that
the virtuous man shall have this likeness accompanied with humility,
explains the following: “He that humbleth himself shall be
exalted.”2411
He says, accordingly, in The Laws:
“God indeed, as the ancient saying has it, occupying the beginning,
the middle, and the end of all things, goes straight through while He
goes round the circumference. And He is always attended by Justice, the
avenger of those who revolt from the divine law.” You see how he
connects fear with the divine law. He adds, therefore: “To which he,
who would be happy, cleaving, will follow lowly and beautified.”
Then, connecting what follows these words, and admonishing by fear, he
adds: “What conduct, then, is dear and conformable to God? That
which is characterized by one word of old date: Like will be dear to
like, as to what is in proportion; but things out of proportion are
neither dear to one another, nor to those which are in proportion. And
that therefore he that would be dear to God, must, to the best of his
power, become such as He is. And in virtue of the same reason, our
self-controlling man is dear to God. But he that has no self-control
is unlike and diverse.” In saying that it was an ancient dogma,
he indicates the teaching which had come to him from the law. And having
in the Theatœtus admitted that evils make the circuit of
mortal nature and of this spot, he adds: “Wherefore we must try
to flee hence as soon as possible. For flight is likeness to God as far
as possible. And likeness is to become holy and just with wisdom.”
Speusippus, the nephew of Plato, says that happiness is a perfect state
in those who conduct themselves in accordance with nature, or the state
of the good: for which condition all men have a desire, but the good
only attained to quietude; consequently the virtues are the authors of
happiness. And Xenocrates the Chalcedonian defines happiness to be the
possession of virtue, strictly so called, and of the power subservient
to it. Then he clearly says, that the seat in which it resides is the
soul; that by which it is effected, the virtues; and that of these as
parts are formed praiseworthy actions, good habits and dispositions,
and motions, and relations; and that corporeal and external objects
are not without these. For Polemo, the disciple of Xenocrates, seems
of the opinion that happiness is sufficiency of all good things, or of
the most and greatest. He lays down the doctrine, then, that happiness
never exists without virtue; and that virtue, apart from corporeal and
external objects, is sufficient for happiness. Let these things be so.
The contradictions to the opinions specified shall be adduced in
due time. But on us it is incumbent to reach the unaccomplished end,
obeying the commands—that is, God—and living according
to them, irreproachably and intelligently, through knowledge of the
divine will; and assimilation as far as possible in accordance with
right reason is the end, and restoration to perfect adoption by the
Son, which ever glorifies the Father by the great High Priest who
has deigned to call us brethren and fellow-heirs. And the apostle,
succinctly describing the end, writes in the Epistle to the Romans:
“But now, being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye
have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.”2412
And
viewing the hope as twofold—that which is expected, and that which
has been received—he now teaches the end to be the restitution of
the hope. “For patience,” he says, “worketh experience,
and experience hope: and hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of
God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit that is given to
us.”2413
On account of which love and the restoration to hope,
he says, in another place, “which rest is laid up for
us.”2414
You will find in Ezekiel the like, as follows:
“The soul that sinneth, it shall die. And the man who shall be
righteous, and shall do judgment and justice, who has not eaten on the
mountains, nor lifted his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, and
hath not defiled his neighbour’s wife, and hath not approached to
a woman in the time of her uncleanness (for he does not wish the seed
of man to be dishonoured), and will not injure a man; will restore the
debtor’s pledge, and will not take usury; will turn away his hand
from wrong; will do true judgment between a man and his neighbour; will
walk in my ordinances, and keep my commandments, so as to do the truth;
he is righteous, he shall surely live, saith Adonai the
Lord.”2415
Isaiah too, in exhorting him that hath
not believed to gravity of life, and the Gnostic to attention, proving
that man’s virtue and God’s are not the same, speaks thus:
“Seek the Lord, and on finding Him call on Him. And when
He shall draw near to you, let the
wicked forsake his ways, and the unrighteous man his ways; and let him
return to the Lord, and he shall obtain mercy,” down to “and
your thoughts from my thoughts.”2416
“We,”
then, according to the noble apostle, “wait for the hope
of righteousness by faith. For in Christ neither circumcision
availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh
by love.”2417
And we desire that every one of
you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope,”
down to “made an high priest for ever, after the order of
Melchizedek.”2418
Similarly with Paul “the
All-virtuous Wisdom” says, “H, that heareth me shall dwell
trusting in hope.”2419
For the restoration of hope is called by the
same term “hope.” To the expression “will dwell”
it has most beautifully added “trusting,” showing that
such an one has obtained rest, having received the hope for which he
hoped. Wherefore also it is added, “and shall be quiet, without fear
of any evil.” And openly and expressly the apostle, in the first
Epistle to the Corinthians says, “Be ye followers of me, as also
I am of Christ,”2420
in order that that may take place. If ye are
of me, and I am of Christ, then ye are imitators of Christ, and Christ
of God. Assimilation to God, then, so that as far as possible a
man becomes righteous and holy with wisdom he lays down as the aim
of faith, and the end to be that restitution of the promise which is
effected by faith. From these doctrines gush the fountains, which we
specified above, of those who have dogmatized about “the end.”
But of these enough.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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