[43] Aristot. Metaphys. M. 1078, b. 30, 1086, b. 4.
The Holy — it has an essential characteristic — what is this? — not the fact that it is loved by the Gods — this is true, but is not its constituent essence.
In the Euthyphron, however, we have not yet passed into this Platonic world, of self-existent Forms — objects of conception — concepts detached from sensible particulars. We are still with Sokrates and with ordinary men among the world of particulars, only that Sokrates introduced a new mode of looking at all the particulars, and searched among them for some common feature which he did not find. The Holy (and the Unholy) is a word freely pronounced by every speaker, and familiarly understood by every hearer, as if it denoted something one and the same in all these particulars.[44] What is that something — the common essence or idea? Euthyphron cannot tell; though he agrees with Sokrates that there must be such essence. His attempts to explain it prove failures.
[44] Plato, Euthyphron, p. 5 D, 6 E.
The definition of the Holy — that it is what the Gods love — is suggested in this dialogue, but rejected. The Holy is not Holy because the Gods love it: on the contrary, its holiness is an independent fact, and the Gods love it because it is Holy. The Holy is thus an essence, per se, common to, or partaken by, all holy persons and things.
Views of the Xenophontic Sokrates respecting the Holy — different from those of the Platonic Sokrates — he disallows any common absolute general type of the Holy — he recognises an indefinite variety of types, discordant and relative.
So at least the Platonic Sokrates here regards it. But the Xenophontic Sokrates, if we can trust the Memorabilia, would not have concurred in this view: for we read that upon all points connected with piety or religious observance, he followed the precept which the Pythian priestess delivered as an answer to all who consulted the Delphian oracle on similar questions — You will act piously by conforming to the law of the city. Sokrates (we are told) not only acted upon this precept himself, but advised his friends to do the like, and regarded those who acted otherwise as foolish and over-subtle triflers.[45] It is plain that this doctrine disallows all supposition of any general essence, called the Holy, to be discovered and appealed to, as type in cases of doubt; and recognises the equal title of many separate local, discordant, and variable types, each under the sanction of King Nomos. The procedure of Sokrates in the Euthyphron would not have been approved by the Xenophontic Sokrates. It is in the spirit of Plato, and is an instance of that disposition which he manifests yet more strongly in the Republic and elsewhere, to look for his supreme authority in philosophical theory and not in the constituted societies around him: thus to innovate in matters religious as well as political — a reproach to him among his own contemporaries, an honour to him among various subsequent Christian writers. Plato, not conforming to any one of the modes of religious belief actually prevalent in his contemporary world, postulates a canon, suitable to the exigencies of his own mind, of that which the Gods ought to love and must love. In this respect, as in others, he is in marked contrast with Herodotus — a large observer of mankind, very pious in his own way, curious in comparing the actual practices consecrated among different nations, but not pretending to supersede them by any canon of his own.
[45] Compare Xen. Mem. i. 3, 1. ἥ τε γὰρ Πυθία νόμῳ πόλεως ἀναιρεῖ ποιοῦντας εὐσεβῶς ἂν ποιεῖν· Σωκράτης τε οὕτως καὶ αὐτὸς ἐποίει καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις παρῄνει, τοὺς δὲ ἄλλως πως ποιοῦντας περιέργους καὶ ματαίους ἐνόμιζεν εἶναι.
The Holy a branch of the Just — not tenable as a definition, but useful as bringing to view the subordination of logical terms.