Notes on Plato's Crito

 

Image: Marble bust of Socrates, Roman copy, c. 1-2 century, AD.

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

Notes on Plato's Apology

 

Image: The death of Socrates, Jacques Louis David, 1787.

Last week I started re-reading the tetralogy from Plato’s dialogues regarding the last days of Socrates (Apology, Crito, Euthyphro, and Phaedo).

Notes from Apology (Benjamin Jowett translation):

Parallels between Socrates and the apostles:

On dealing with efforts to suppress teaching:

Socrates tells the men of Athens, “I honor and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy….”

He later says, “For I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought of your persons or your properties, but first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul.”

And adds, “but whichever you do, understand that I shall never alter my ways, not even if I have to die many times.”

Compare this to Luke’s account of the apostles and their persistence in public preaching and teaching the gospel in the face of attempted suppression at the hands of the Jewish religious leaders in Jerusalem:

“But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:19-20).

“Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).

 

On death:

Socrates: “But I see clearly that the time had arrived when it was better for me to die and to be released from trouble….”

“The hour of departure has arrived…”

Compare Paul’s testament:

“For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand….” (2 Tim 4:6-8).

 

Were the NT accounts influenced by Plato (or Jowett’s translation of Plato by the NT)?

 

JTR