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| Chapter VIII
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Chapter
VIII.
In the next place, after other Platonic
declarations, which demonstrate that “the good” can be
known by few, he adds: “Since the multitude, being puffed
up with a contempt for others, which is far from right, and being
filled with vain and lofty hopes, assert that, because they have come
to the knowledge of some venerable doctrines, certain things are
true.” “Yet although Plato predicted these things, he
nevertheless does not talk marvels,4319
nor shut the
mouth of those who wish to ask him for information on the subject of
his promises; nor does he command them to come at once and believe that
a God of a particular kind exists, and that he has a son of a
particular nature, who descended (to earth) and conversed with
me.” Now, in answer to this we have to say, that with
regard to Plato, it is Aristander, I think, who has related that he was
not the son of Ariston, but of a phantom, which approached Amphictione
in the guise of Apollo. And there are several other of the
followers of Plato who, in their lives of their master, have made the
same statement. What are we to say, moreover, about Pythagoras,
who relates the greatest possible amount of wonders, and who, in a
general assembly of the Greeks, showed his ivory thigh, and asserted
that he recognised the shield which he wore when he was Euphorbus, and
who is said to have appeared on one day in two different cities!
He, moreover, who will declare that what is related of Plato and
Socrates belongs to the marvellous, will quote the story of the swan
which was recommended to Socrates while he was asleep, and of the
master saying when he met the young man, “This, then, was the
swan!”4320
| 4320 The night before
Ariston brought Plato to Socrates as his pupil, the latter dreamed that
a swan from the altar of Cupid alighted on his bosom. Cf.
Pausanias in Atticis, p. 58. | Nay, the
third eye which Plato saw that he himself possessed, he will refer to
the category of prodigies.4321
| 4321 “Alicubi forsan
occurrit: me vero uspiam legisse non memini. Credo Platonem
per tertium oculum suam πολυμάθειαν
et scientiam, quâ ceteris anteibat, denotare
voluisse.”—Spencer. | But occasion
for slanderous accusations will never be wanting to those who are
ill-disposed, and who wish to speak evil of what has happened to such
as are raised above the multitude. Such persons will deride as a
fiction even the demon of Socrates. We do not, then, relate
marvels when we narrate the history of Jesus, nor have His genuine
disciples recorded any such stories of Him; whereas this Celsus, who
professes universal knowledge, and who quotes many of the sayings of
Plato, is, I think,
intentionally silent on the discourse concerning the Son of God which
is related in Plato’s Epistle to Hermeas and Coriscus.
Plato’s words are as follows: “And calling to witness
the God of all things—the ruler both of things present and things
to come, father and lord both of the ruler and cause—whom, if we
are philosophers indeed, we shall all clearly know, so far as it is
possible for happy human beings to attain such
knowledge.”4322
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