Before BOOK III.
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Plato and Benjamin Jowett
I agree with you, he replied, and am ready to give my assent to the law.
Let this then be one of our rules and principles concerning the gods, to which our poets and reciters will be expected to conform,—that God is not the author of all things, but of good only.
That will do, he said.
DAnd what do you think of a second principle? Shall I ask you whether God is a magician, and of a nature to appear insidiously now in one shape, and now in another—sometimes himself changing and passing into many forms, sometimes deceiving us with the semblance of such transformations; or is he one and the same immutably fixed in his own proper image? 64
I cannot answer you, he said, without more thought.
Things must be changed either by another or by themselves. Well, I said; but if we suppose a change in anything, that Echange must be effected either by the thing itself, or by some other thing?
Most certainly.
And things which are at their best are also least liable to be altered or discomposed; for example, when healthiest and strongest, the human frame is least liable to be affected by meats and drinks, and the plant which is in the fullest vigour also suffers least from winds or the heat of the sun or any similar causes.
Of course.
381And will not the bravest and wisest soul be least confused or deranged by any external influence?
True.
And the same principle, as I should suppose, applies to all composite things—furniture, houses, garments: when good and well made, they are least altered by time and circumstances.
Very true.
BThen everything which is good, whether made by art or nature, or both, is least liable to suffer change from without?
True.
But surely God and the things of God are in every way perfect?
Of course they are.
But God cannot be changed by other; and will not be changed by himself. Then he can hardly be compelled by external influence to take many shapes?
He cannot.
But may he not change and transform himself?
Clearly, he said, that must be the case if he is changed at all.
And will he then change himself for the better and fairer, or for the worse and more unsightly?
CIf he change at all he can only change for the worse, for we cannot suppose him to be deficient either in virtue or beauty.
Very true, Adeimantus; but then, would any one, whether God or man, desire to make himself worse?
Impossible.
Then it is impossible that God should ever be willing to 65 change; being, as is supposed, the fairest and best that is conceivable, every God remains absolutely and for ever in his own form.
That necessarily follows, he said, in my judgment.
D Then, I said, my dear friend, let none of the poets tell us that
‘The gods, taking the disguise of strangers from other lands, walk up and down cities in all sorts of forms13;’
and let no one slander Proteus and Thetis, neither let any one, either in tragedy or in any other kind of poetry, introduce Here disguised in the likeness of a priestess asking an alms
‘For the life-giving daughters of Inachus the river of Argos;’
E—let us have no more lies of that sort. Neither must we have mothers under the influence of the poets scaring their children with a bad version of these myths—telling how certain gods, as they say, ‘Go about by night in the likeness of so many strangers and in divers forms;’ but let them take heed lest they make cowards of their children, and at the same time speak blasphemy against the gods.
Heaven forbid, he said.
But although the gods are themselves unchangeable, still by witchcraft and deception they may make us think that they appear in various forms?
Perhaps, he replied.
Nor will he make any false representation of himself. Well, but can you imagine that God will be willing to lie, whether in word or deed, or to put forth a phantom of himself?
Source notes
10 Iliad, xxiv. 527.
11 Iliad, ii. 69.
12 Ib. xx.
13 Hom. Od. xvii. 485.