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]
[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.
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]
[25] Plato, Euthyphron, c. 11, p. 9.
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]
[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.