Praeparatio Evangelica (The Preparation of the Gospel)

PLATO, although he agreed with the Hebrews in supposing the soul immortal, and saying that it was like unto God, no longer follows them when he sometimes says that its essence is composite, as if involving a certain part of the indivisible and immutable Cause, and a part of the divisible nature belonging to bodies.

He speaks, for instance, in the Timaeus in these very words:

[PLATO] 'But to the soul, as a mistress to rule over a subject, He gave priority and precedence over the body both in origin and excellence, and made her out of the following constituents and in the following manner. Of the indivisible and ever immutable essence, and of the other divisible essence belonging to bodies, He compounded a third intermediate species of essence out of both the nature of 'the same' and the nature of 'the other,' and in this way set it midway between the indivisible part and the divisible part which belongs to bodies. And he took the three, as they now were, and mingled them all together into one "idea," and as the nature of "the other" was hard to combine, he fitted it by force into "the same."'

Hence also he has naturally connected the passible part with the rational part of the essence. But though at one time he has given this decision concerning the essence of soul, at another he involves it in a different and worse absurdity, by declaring that the divine and heavenly essence, which is incorporeal and rational and like unto God, and which by virtue of its great excellence soars above the celestial circles, comes down from above out of the supramundane regions upon asses, and wolves, and ants, and bees, and calls upon us to believe this account without any proof.

He speaks accordingly in the discourse Concerning the Soul as follows:

'So they continue to wander until, by the craving of that corporeal nature which still accompanies them, they are again imprisoned in a body: and probably they are imprisoned in animals of such moral nature as the habits which they may themselves happen to have followed in life.

'What kind of natures do you mean, Socrates?

'For example, those who have practised gluttony, and wantonness, and drunkenness, and have taken no good heed, probably sink into the class of asses and other beasts of that kind: do you not think so?

'Yes, what you say is quite probable.

'And those who have preferred a course of injustice and tyranny and plunder go into the classes of wolves, and hawks, and kites: or whither else should we say that such souls go?

'Certainly into such as these, said Cebes.

'Well then, said he, as to the other cases it is evident what way each soul will go, according to the affinities of their habits.

'Quite evident, said he, for how could it be otherwise?

'Well then, said he, are not the happiest among them and those who pass into the best place the men who have practised the civil and political virtue which is called temperance and justice, produced by habit and attention, without the aid of philosophy and intellect?

'How now are these the happiest?

'Because it is probable that these pass again into some social and gentle race, of bees perhaps or wasps or ants, or even back again into the human race itself.'

In the Phaedrus also hear how he discourses:

'For to the same state from which each soul has come she does not attain within ten thousand years; for before this time none grows wings except the soul of the guileless philosopher, or of the philosophic lover. These in the third period of a thousand years, if they have chosen this life thrice successively, so get their wings and fly away in the three-thousandth year. But the others receive judgement when they have finished their first life: and after judgement some go to the houses of correction beneath the earth and suffer punishment, and others, lifted by the judgement to some place in heaven, live in a manner worthy of the life which they lived in human form. But in the thousandth year both good and evil souls come to an allotment and choice of their second life, and choose whichever each may wish. And there both a human soul may pass into the life of a beast, and from a beast he who was once a man may pass back into a man again.'

This is what he says in the Phaedrus; but now listen to him writing in the Republic in the following style:

'For he said that he saw the soul which was once that of Orpheus choosing the life of a swan, out of hatred of the female sex, because he had been killed by them, and would not be conceived and born of woman. Then he saw the soul of Thamyras choose the life of a nightingale: he saw also a swan changing and making choice of a man's life, and other musical animals in like manner, as was natural. And the soul that gained the twentieth lot chose a lion's life; and it was the soul of Ajax, son of Telamon, which shrank from becoming a man because he remembered the judgement concerning the arms.

'And the soul of Agamemnon which came next, and also hated the human race because of his sufferings, changed for the life of an eagle. The soul of Atalanta, whose lot was about the middle, having observed the great honours of an athlete, could not pass by without choosing that life. Next after her he saw the soul of Epeius, the son of Panopeus, passing into the nature of a female artist. Far off among the hindmost he saw the soul of Thersites, the buffoon, entering into an ape.

'The soul of Odysseus, having by chance obtained the last lot of all, came forward to choose; and having been cured of ambition by remembrance of his former troubles, went about for a long time seeking for the life of a private person free from business, and with difficulty found one lying somewhere neglected by all the rest, and when he saw it he said that he would have done the same even if he had gained the first lot, and so chose it gladly. Of the other animals also some in like manner passed into men and into one another, the unjust changing into the savage, and the just into the gentle, and formed all kinds of mixtures.'

In these discourses concerning the soul it is evident that Plato is following the Egyptian doctrines: for his statement is not that of the Hebrews, since it is not in accordance with truth. There is, however, no occasion to refute this, because he did not himself attempt the problem in the way of demonstration. But thus much one may reasonably remark, that it was not consistent for the same person to say that at the moment of decease the souls of the ungodly departing hence suffer in Hades the just penalties of their deeds, and there undergo eternal punishment, and then to assert that they choose again their modes of life here according to their own will.

For he says that they become imprisoned in a body through desire of what is bodily; and that some of them who have been reared in wantonness and gluttony become asses, and enter into the bodies of other beasts, choosing them at will and not according to just desert; and the unjust and rapacious become wolves, and kites, having entered into this nature of their own accord. Then he says that the soul of Orpheus wished to be a swan; and the soul of Thamyras chose the life of a nightingale, and Thersites that of an ape.

But where then would be that judgement after their departure hence, which he describes in the dialogue On the Soul, saying:

'When the deceased have arrived at the place to which each is brought by his daemon, . . . then those who may be thought to have lived an ordinary life proceed to Acheron, and having embarked in such vessels as there are for them, they arrive in these at the lake; and there they dwell, and are purged and punished for their crimes, and so absolved from any offence which each has committed: and for their good deeds they receive rewards each according to his desert. But any who may be thought to be incurable because of the greatness of their sins, having perpetrated either many great acts of sacrilege or many wicked and lawless murders, or any other crimes of this kind, these, I say, are cast by their suitable destiny into Tartarus, whence they never come out.

Thus he described the fate of the ungodly; and now hear how he speaks of the pious:

'And of this class those who have thoroughly purified themselves by philosophy live for the time to come altogether free from troubles, and attain to abodes still more beautiful than the former, to describe which is neither easy, nor is the time at present sufficient.'

In the Gorgias also observe what he says:

'The man who has lived a just and holy life departs after death to the Islands of the Blessed, and there dwells in perfect happiness beyond the reach of ills. But he who has lived an unjust and godless life goes to the prison-house of vengeance and punishment, which they call Tartarus, . . . and whoever may have committed the worst misdeeds, and because of such crimes have become incurable, of these the examples are made. And, being incurable, they receive no more benefit themselves; but others receive benefit, who see them for their great sins enduring the most painful and terrible sufferings for all time, hung up simply as examples there in the prison-house in Hades, a spectacle and warning to the wicked who are continually arriving.'

How can this agree with the statements concerning an exchange of bodies, which the soul, they say, seeks after and chooses? For how can the same soul after its departure hence endure tortures, and prisons, and all this punishment for ever, and on the other hand as one released and free from bonds choose whatever modes of life it will? And if it were likely to choose again the life of pleasure, where then is the prison-house of vengeance and punishment? At leisure one might attack the argument at a thousand other points, on the thought of which there is no time to enlarge.

So the first error in Plato's opinion on this subject has been thus detected; but the second slip in the exposition of his doctrine, wherein he laid down that one part of the soul is divine and rational and another part of it irrational and passible, has been condemned even by his own friends, as one may learn from statements of the following kind: