EUTHYPHRON.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Grote, George
Now in the dialogue here before us, Plato retorts this attack. Euthyphron possesses in the fullest measure the virtues of a believer. He believes not only all that orthodox Athenians usually believed respecting the Gods, but more besides.15 His faith is so implicit, that he proclaims it as accurate knowledge, and carries it into practice with full confidence; reproaching other orthodox persons with inconsistency and short-coming, and disregarding the judgment of the multitude, as Sokrates does in the Kriton.16 Euthyphron stands forward as the champion of the Gods, determined not to leave unpunished the man who has committed impiety, let him be who he may.17 These lofty religious pretensions impel him, with full persuasion of right, to indict his own father for homicide, under the circumstances above described. Now in the eyes of the Athenian public, there could hardly be any act more abhorrent, than that of a man thus invoking upon his father the severest penalties of law. It would probably be not less abhorrent than that of a son beating his own father. When therefore we read, in the Nubes of Aristophanes, the dramatic moral set forth against Sokrates, “See the consequences to which free-thinking and the new system of education lead18 — the son Pheidippides beating his own father, and justifying the action as right, by citing the violence of Zeus towards his father Kronus” — we may take the Platonic Euthyphron as an antithesis to this moral, propounded by a defender of Sokrates, “See the consequences to which consistent orthodoxy and implicit faith conduct.
The son Euthyphron indicts his own father for homicide; he vindicates the step as conformable to the proceedings of the gods; he even prides himself on it as championship on their behalf, such as all religious men ought to approve.”19
Sequel of the dialogue — Euthyphron gives a particular example as the reply to a general question.
I proceed now with that which may be called the Platonic purpose in the dialogue — the enquiry into the general idea of Holiness. When the question was first put to Euthyphron, What is the Holy? — he replied, “That which I am now doing.” Sokr. That may be: but many other things besides are also holy. — Euthyph. Certainly. — Sokr. Then your answer does not meet the question. You have indicated one particular holy act, among many. But the question asked was — What is Holiness generally? What is that specific property, by the common possession of which all holy things are entitled to be called holy? I want to know this general Idea, in order that I may keep it in view as a type wherewith to compare each particular case, thus determining whether the case deserves to be called holy or not.20
Here we have a genuine specimen of the dialectic interrogatory in which Xenophon affirms21 Sokrates to have passed his life, and which Plato prosecutes under his master’s name. The question is generalised much more than in the Kriton.
Such mistake frequent in dialectic discussion.
It is assumed that there is one specific Idea or essence — one objective characteristic or fact — common to all things called Holy. The purpose of the questioner is: to determine what this Idea is: to provide a good definition of the word. The first mistake made by the respondent is, that he names simply one particular case, coming under the general Idea. This is a mistake often recurring, and often corrected in the Platonic dialogues. Even now, such a mistake is not unfrequent: and in the time of Plato, when general ideas, and the definition of general terms, had been made so little the subject of direct attention, it was doubtless perpetually made. When the question was first put, its bearing would not be properly conceived. And even if the bearing were properly conceived, men would find it easier then, and do find it easier now, to make answer by giving one particular example than to go over many examples, and elicit what is common to all.
First general answer given by Euthyphron — that which is pleasing to the Gods is holy. Comments of Sokrates thereon.
Euthyphron next replies — That which is pleasing to the Gods is holy: that which is not pleasing, or which is displeasing to the Gods, is unholy. — Sokr. That is the sort of answer which I desired to have: now let us examine it. We learn from the received theology, which you implicitly believe, that there has been much discord and quarrel among the Gods. If the Gods quarrel, they quarrel about the same matters as men. Now men do not quarrel about questions of quantity — for such questions can be determined by calculation and measurement: nor about questions of weight — for there the balance may be appealed to. The questions about which you and I and other men quarrel are, What is just or unjust, honourable or base, good or evil? Upon these there is no accessible standard. Some men feel in one way, some in another; and each of us fights for his own opinions.22 We all indeed agree that the wrong-doer ought to be punished: but we do not agree who the wrong-doer is, nor what is wrong-doing. The same action which some of us pronounce to be just, others stigmatise as unjust.23
So likewise the quarrels of the Gods must turn upon these same matters — just and unjust, right and wrong, good and evil. What one God thinks right, another God thinks wrong. What is pleasing to one God, is displeasing to another. The same action will be both pleasing and displeasing to the Gods.
According to your definition of holy and unholy, therefore, the same action may be both holy and unholy. Your definition will not hold, for it does not enable me to distinguish the one from the other.24
Euthyph. — I am convinced that there are some things which all the Gods love, and some things which all the Gods hate. That which I am doing, for example — indicting my father for homicide — belongs to the former category. Now that which all the Gods love is the holy: that which they all hate, is the unholy.25
To be loved by the Gods is not the essence of the Holy — they love it because it is holy. In what then does its essence consist? Perplexity of Euthyphron.
Sokr. — Do the Gods love the holy, because it is holy? Or is it holy for this reason, because they do love it? Euthyph. — They love it because it is holy.26 Sokr. — Then the holiness is one thing; the fact of being loved by the Gods is another. The latter fact is not of the essence of holiness: it is true, but only as an accident and an accessory. You have yet to tell me what that essential character is, by virtue of which the holy comes to be loved by all the Gods, or to be the subject of various other attributes.27
Euthyph. — I hardly know how to tell you what I think. None of my explanations will stand. Your ingenuity turns and twists them in every way. Sokr. — If I am ingenious, it is against my own will;28 for I am most anxious that some one of the answers should stand unshaken. But I will now put you in the way of making a different answer. You will admit that all which is holy is necessarily just. But is all that is just necessarily holy?
Sokrates suggests a new answer. The Holy is one branch or variety of the Just. It is that branch which concerns ministration by men to the Gods.
Source notes
15 Plato, Euthyphron, c. 6, p. 6 B. καὶ ἔτι γε τούτων θαυμασιώτερα, ἃ οἱ πολλοὶ οὐκ ἴσασιν.
Euthyphron belonged to the class described in Euripides, Hippol. 45:—
Ὅσοι μεν οὖν γραφάς τε τῶν παλαιτέρων Ἔχοισιν, αὐτοί τ’ εἰσὶν ἐν μούσαις ἀεί, Ἴσασιν, &c.
Compare also Euripid. Herakleidæ, 404.
16 Plato, Euthyphron, c. 4, p. 5 A; c. 6, p. 6 A.
17 Plato, Euthyphron, c. 6, p. 5 E. μὴ ἐπιτρέπειν τῷ ἀσεβοῦντι μηδ’ ἂν ὁστισοῦν τυγχάνῃ ὦν.
18 Aristoph. Nubes, 937. τὴν καινὴν παίδευσιν, &c.
19 Schleiermacher (Einleitung zum Euthyphron, vol. ii. pp. 51-54) has many remarks on the Euthyphron in which I do not concur; but his conception of its “unverkennbare apologetische Absicht” is very much the same as mine. He describes Euthyphron as a man “der sich besonders auf das Göttliche zu verstehen vorgab, und die rechtglaubigen aus den alten theologischen Dichtern gezogenen Begriffe tapfer vertheidigte. Diesen nun gerade bei der Anklage des Sokrates mit ihm in Berührung, und durch den unsittlichen Streich, den sein Eifer für die Frömmigkeit veranlasste, in Gegensatz zu bringen — war ein des Platon nicht unwürdiger Gedanke” (p. 54). But when Schleiermacher affirms that the dialogue was indisputably composed (unstreitig) between the indictment and the trial of Sokrates, — and when he explains what he considers the defects of the dialogue, by the necessity of finishing it in a hurry (p. 53), I dissent from him altogether, though Steinhart adopts the same opinion. Nor can I perceive in what way the Euthyphron is (as he affirms) either “a natural out-growth of the Protagoras,” or “an approximation and preparation for the Parmenidês” (p. 52). Still less do I feel the force of his reasons for hesitating in admitting it to be a genuine work of Plato.
I have given my reasons, in a preceding chapter, for believing that Plato composed no dialogues at all during the lifetime of Sokrates. But that he should publish such a dialogue while the trial of Sokrates was impending, is a supposition altogether inadmissible, in my judgment. The effect of it would be to make the position of Sokrates much worse on his trial. Herein I agree with Ueberweg (Untersuch. p. 250), though I do not share his doubts of the authenticity of the dialogue.
The confident assertion of Stallbaum surprises me. “Constat enim Platonem eo tempore, quo Socrati tantum erat odium conflatum, ut ei judicii immineret periculum, complures dialogos composuisse; in quibus id egit, ut viri sanctissimi adversarios in eo ipso genere, in quo sibi plurimum sapere videbantur, inscitiæ et ignorantiæ coargueret. Nam Euthyphronem novimus, ad vates ignorantiæ rerum gravissimarum convincendos, esse compositum; ut in quo eos ne pietatis quidem notionem tenere ostenditur. In Menone autem id agitur, ut sophistas et viros civiles non scientiâ atque arte, sed cœco quodam impetu mentis et sorte divinâ duci demonstretur: quod quidem ita fit, ut colloquium ex parte cum Anyto, Socratis accusatore, habeatur.… Nam Menonem quidem et Euthyphronem Plato eo confecit tempore, quo Socratis causa haud ita pridem in judicio versabatur, nec tamen jam tanta ei videbatur imminere calamitas, quanta postea consecuta est. Ex quo sané verisimiliter colligere licet Ionem, cujus simile argumentum et consilium est, circa idem tempus literis consignatum esse.” Stallbaum, Prolegom. ad Platonis Ionem, pp. 288-289, vol. iv. [Comp. Stallb. ibid., 2nd ed. pp. 339-341].
“Imo uno exemplo Euthyphronis, boni quidem hominis ideoque ne Socrati quidem inimici, sed ejusdem superstitiosi, vel ut hodie loquuntur, orthodoxi, qualis Athenis vulgò esset religionis conditio, declarare instituit. Ex quo nobis quidem clarissimé videtur apparere Platonem hoc unum spectavisse, ut judices admonerentur, ne populari superstitioni in sententiis ferendis plus justo tribuerent.” Stallbaum, Proleg. ad Euthyphron. T. vi. p. 146.
Steinhart also (in his Einleitung, p. 190) calls Euthyphron “ein rechtgläubiger von reinsten Wasser — ein ueberfrommer, fanatischer, Mann,” &c.
In the two preceding pages Stallbaum defends himself against objections made to his view, on the ground that Plato, by composing such dialogues at this critical moment, would increase the unpopularity and danger of Sokrates, instead of diminishing it. Stallbaum contends (p. 145) that neither Sokrates nor Plato nor any of the other Sokratic men, believed that the trial would end in a verdict of guilty: which is probably true about Plato, and would have been borne out by the event if Sokrates had made a different defence. But this does not assist the conclusion which Stallbaum wishes to bring out; for it is not the less true that the dialogues of Plato, if published at that moment, would increase the exasperation against Sokrates, and the chance, whatever it was, that he would be found guilty. Stallbaum refers by mistake to a passage in the Platonic Apology (p. 36 A), as if Sokrates there expressed his surprise at the verdict of guilty, anticipating a verdict of acquittal. The passage declares the contrary: Sokrates expresses his surprise that the verdict of guilty had passed by so small a majority as five; he had expected that it would pass by a larger majority.
20 Plato, Euthyphron, c. 7, p. 6 E.
21 Xenoph. Memor. i. 1, 16.
22 Plato, Euthyphron, c. 8, p. 7 C-D. Περὶ τίνος δὲ δὴ διενεχθέντες καὶ ἐπὶ τίνα κρίσιν οὐ δυνάμενοι ἀφικέσθαι ἐχθροί γε ἂν ἀλλήλοις εἶμεν καὶ ὀργιζοίμεθα; ἴσως οὐ πρόχειρόν σοί ἐστιν, ἀλλ’ ἐμοῦ λέγοντος σκόπει, εἰ τάδ’ ἐστὶ τό τε δίκαιον καὶ τὸ ἄδικον, καὶ καλὸν καὶ αἰσχρόν, καὶ ἀγαθὸν καὶ κακόν. Ἆρ’ οὐ ταῦτα ἐστι περὶ ὧν διενεχθέντες καὶ οὐ δυνάμενοι ἐπὶ ἰκανὴν κρίσιν αὐτῶν ἐλθεῖν ἐχθροὶ ἀλλήλοις γιγνόμεθα, ὅταν γιγνώμεθα, καὶ ἐγὼ καὶ σὺ καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι ἄνθρωποι πάντες;
23 Plato, Euthyphron, c. 9, p. 8 D. Οὐκ ἄρα ἐκεῖνό γε ἀμφισβητοῦσιν, ὡς οὐ τὸν ἀδικοῦντα δεῖ διδόναι δίκην· ἀλλ’ ἐκεῖνο ἴσως ἀμφισβητοῦσι, τὸ τίς ἐστιν ὁ ἀδικων καὶ τί δρῶν, καὶ πότε; Πράξεώς τινος περὶ διαφερόμενοι, οἱ μὲν δικαίως φασὶν αὐτὴν πεπρᾶχθαι, οἱ δὲ ἀδίκως.
24 In regard to Plato’s ethical enquiries generally, and to what we shall find in future dialogues, we must take note of what is here laid down, that mankind are in perpetual dispute, and have not yet any determinate standard for just and unjust, right and wrong, honourable and base, good and evil. Plato had told us, somewhat differently, in the Kriton, that on these matters, though the judgment of the many was not to be trusted, yet there was another trustworthy judgment, that of the one wise man. This point will recur for future comment.
25 Plato, Euthyphron, c. 11, p. 9.
26 Plato, Euthyphron, c. 12, p. 10 A-D. The manner in which Sokrates conducts this argument is over-subtle. Οὐκ ἄρα διότι ὁρώμενον γέ ἐστι διὰ τοῦτο ὁρᾶται, ἀλλὰ τοὐναντίον διότι ὁρᾶται, διὰ τοῦτο ὁρώμενον· οὐδὲ διότι ἀγόμενόν ἐστι, διὰ τοῦτο ἄγεται, ἀλλὰ διότι ἄγεται, διὰ τοῦτο ἀγόμενον· οὐδὲ διότι φερόμενον, φέρεται, ἀλλὰ διότι φέρεται, φερόμενον.
The difference between the meaning of φέρεται and φερόμενόν ἐστι is not easy to see. The former may mean to affirm the beginning of an action, the latter the continuance: but in this case the inference would not necessarily follow.
Compare Aristotel. Physica, p. 185, b. 25, with the Scholion of Simplikius, p. 330, a. 2nd ed. Bekk. where βαδίζων ἔστι is recognised as equivalent to βαδίζει.
27 Plato, Euthyphron, c. 13, p. 11 A. κινδυνεύεις, ἐρωτώμενος τὸ ὅσιον, ὅ, τί ποτ’ ἔστιν, τὴν μὲν οὐσίαν μοι αὐτοῦ οὐ βούλεσθαι δηλῶσαι, πάθος δέ τι περὶ αὐτοῦ λέγειν, ὅ, τι πέπονθε τοῦτο τὸ ὅσιον, φιλεῖσθαι ὑπὸ πάντων τῶν θεῶν· ὅ, τι δὲ ὂν, οὔπω εἶπες.… πάλιν εἰπὲ ἐξ ἀρχῆς, τί ποτε ὂν τὸ ὅσιον εἴτε φιλεῖται ὑπὸ θεῶν, εἴτε ὅτι δὴ πάσχει.
28 Plato, Euthyphron, c. 13, p. 11 D. ἄκων εἰμὶ σοφός, &c.