Continuing my reading notes on Plato’s Tetralogy (see previous here):
Notes on Plato’s Crito (translated by F. J. Church):
Parallels between Platonic and Christian views of civil law:
The setting: Socrates’s older friend Crito offers to arrange for
Socrates’s escape from prison, but Socrates refuses.
Socrates’s refusal is based on his view of the necessity of
the “rule of law”: “Do you think that a state can exist and not be overthrown,
in which decisions of law are no force, and are disregarded by private
individuals?”
Socrates has an imaginary dialogue with the law-bearing
state. If he escaped the state might well ask, “Are you not breaking your
contracts and agreements with us?” (42).
He asks, “for who would be satisfied with a state which had
no laws?”
Question: What would Plato say about obedience to contemporary
state sanctioned rules (e.g., vaccine or mask mandates, etc.)?
Compare this to Jesus’s retort: “Render therefore unto Caesar
the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matt
22:21). See Paul’s teaching on civil government: “Let every soul be subject
unto the higher powers….” (Rom 13:1-7). And also Peter’s: “Submit yourselves to
every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake….” (1 Peter 2:13-15).
Parallels between Platonic and Christian views on an ethic of
non-retaliation:
In the dialogue with the state, it asks, “But if you repay
evil with evil, and injustice with injustice… and break your agreements and
covenants with us…. then we shall be angry with you.”
Compare this to Jesus’s ethic of non-retaliation in the
Sermon on the Mount (e.g., Matt 5:38-39), with Paul’s admonition not to seek
vengeance (Rom 12:19-21), and Peter’s admiration of Jesus who “when he was
reviled, reviled not again” (1 Peter 2:23).
JTR
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