Plato insists, not less strenuously than Lucretius, upon preserving the minds of his Guardians from the frightful pictures of Hades, which terrify all hearers — φρίττειν δὴ ποιεῖ ὡς οἷόν τε πάντας τοὺς ἀκούοντας (Repub. iii. p. 387 C). Lucret. iii. 37:
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“metus ille foras præceps Acheruntis agendus Funditus, humanam qui vitam turbat ab imo”. |
Type of character prescribed by Plato, to which all poets must conform, in tales about Gods and Heroes.
These and other condemnations are passed by Plato upon the current histories respecting Gods, and respecting heroes the sons or immediate descendants of Gods. He entirely forbids such histories, as suggesting bad examples to his Guardians. He prohibits all poetical composition, except under his own censorial supervision. He lays down, as a general doctrine, that the Gods are good; and he will tolerate no narrative which is not in full harmony with this predetermined type. Without giving any specimens of approved narratives — which he declares to be the business not of the lawgiver, but of the poet — he insists only that all poets shall conform in their compositions to his general standard of orthodoxy.[64]
[64] Compare also Plato de Legg. x. p. 886 C, xii. p. 941 B.
Applying such a principle of criticism, Plato had little difficulty in finding portions of the current mythology offensive to his ideal type of goodness. Indeed he might have found many others, yet more offensive to it than some of those which he has selected.[65] But the extent of his variance with the current views reveals itself still more emphatically, when he says that the Gods are not to be represented as the cause of evil things to us, but only of good things. Most persons (he says) consider the Gods as causes of all things, evil as well as good: but this is untrue:[66] the Gods dispense only the good things, not the evil; and the good things are few in number compared with the evil. Plato therefore requires the poet to ascribe all good things to the Gods and to no one else; but to find other causes, apart from the Gods, for sufferings and evils. But if the poet chooses to describe sufferings as inflicted by the Gods, he must at the same time represent these sufferings as a healing penalty or real benefit to the sufferers.[67]
[65] As one example, Plato cites the story in the Iliad, that Achilles cut off his hair as an offering to the deceased Patroklus, after his hair had been consecrated by vow to the river Spercheius (Rep. iii. p. 391). If we look at the Iliad (xxiii. 150), we find that the vow to the Spercheius had been originally made by Peleus, conditionally upon the return of Achilles to his native land. Now Achilles had been already forewarned that he would never return thither, consequently the vow to Spercheius was void, and the execution of it impracticable.
Plato does not disbelieve the legend of Hippolytus; the cruel death of an innocent youth, brought on by the Gods in consequence of the curse of his father Theseus (Legg. xi. p. 931 B).
[66] Plato, Republ. ii. p. 379 C. Οὐδ’ ἄρα ὁ θεός, ἐπειδὴ ἀγαθός, πάντων ἂν εἴη αἴτιος, ὡς οἱ πολλοὶ λέγουσιν, ἀλλ’ ὀλίγων μὲν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις αἴτιος, πολλῶν δὲ ἀναίτιος· πολὺ γὰρ ἐλάττω τἀγαθὰ τῶν κακῶν ἡμῖν. Καὶ τῶν μὲν ἀγαθῶν οὐδένα ἄλλον αἰτιατέον, τῶν δὲ κακῶν ἄλλ’ ἄττα δεῖ ζητεῖν τὰ αἴτια, ἀλλ’ οὐ τὸν θεόν.
[67] Plato, Rep, ii. p. 380 B. Plutarch, Consolat. ad Apollonium (107 C, 115 E), citation from Pindar — ἓν παρ’ ἐσθλὸν πήματα σύνδυο δαίονται βροτοῖς Ἀθάνατοι — πολλῷ γὰρ πλείονα τὰ κακά· καὶ τὰ μὲν (sc. ἀγαθὰ) μόγις καὶ διὰ πολλῶν φροντίδων κτώμεθα, τὰ δὲ κακά, πάνυ ῥᾳδίως.