[42] Plato, Timæus, p. 40 B. ὅσ’ ἀπλανῆ τῶν ἄστρων ζῶα θεῖα ὄντα καὶ ἀΐδια, &c.
[43] Plato, Timæus, p. 40 D. τὸ λέγειν ἄνευ διόψεως τούτων αὖ τῶν μιμημάτων μάταιος ἂν εἴη πόνος. Plato himself here acknowledges the necessity of diagrams: the necessity was hardly less in the preceding part of his exposition.
Secondary and generated Gods — Plato’s dictum respecting them. His acquiescence in tradition.
Such were all the primitive Gods visible and generated[44] by the Demiurgus, to preside over and regulate the Kosmos. By them are generated, and from them are descended, the remaining Gods.
[44] Plato, Timæ. p. 40 D. θεῶν ὁρατῶν καὶ γεννητῶν.
Respecting these remaining Gods, however, the Platonic Timæus holds a different language. Instead of speaking in his own name and delivering his own convictions, as he had done about the Demiurgus and the cosmical Gods — with the simple reservation, that such convictions could be proclaimed only as probable and not as demonstratively certain — he now descends to the Sokratic platform of confessed ignorance and incapacity. “The generation of these remaining Gods (he says) is a matter too great for me to understand and declare. I must trust to those who have spoken upon the subject before me — who were, as they themselves said, offspring of the Gods, and must therefore have well known their own fathers. It is impossible to mistrust the sons of the Gods. Their statements indeed are unsupported either by probabilities or by necessary demonstration; but since they here profess to be declaring family traditions, we must obey the law and believe.[45] Thus then let it stand and be proclaimed, upon their authority, respecting the generation of the remaining Gods. The offspring of Uranus and Gæa were, Okeanus and Tethys: from whom sprang Phorkys, Kronus, Rhea, and those along with them. Kronus and Rhea had for offspring Zeus, Hêrê, and all these who are termed their brethren: from whom too, besides, we hear of other offspring. Thus were generated all the Gods, both those who always conspicuously revolve, and those who show themselves only when they please.”[46]
[45] Plato, Timæus, pp. 40 D-E. Περὶ δὲ τῶν ἄλλων δαιμόνων εἰπεῖν καὶ γνῶναι τὴν γένεσιν μεῖζον ἢ καθ’ ἡμᾶς, πειστέον δὲ τοῖς εἰρηκόσιν ἔμπροσθεν, ἐκγόνοις μὲν θεῶν οὖσιν, σαφῶς δέ που τούς γε αὐτων προγόνους εἰδόσιν· ἀδύνατον οὖν θεῶν παισὶν ἀπιστεῖν, καίπερ ἄνευ τε εἰκότων καὶ ἀναγκαίων ἀποδείξεων λέγουσιν, ἀλλ’ ὡς οἰκεῖα φάσκουσιν ἀπαγγέλλειν, ἐπομένους τῷ νόμῳ πιστευτέον. Οὕτως οὖν κατ’ ἐκείνους ἡμῖν ἡ γένεσις περὶ τούτων τῶν θεῶν ἐχέτω καὶ λεγέσθω.
So, too, in the Platonic Epinomis, attached as an appendix to the Treatise De Legibus, we find (p. 984) Plato — after arranging his quintuple scale of elemental animals (fire, æther, air, water, earth), the highest and most divine being the stars or visible Gods, the lowest being man, and the three others intermediate between the two; after having thus laid out the scale, he leaves to others to determine, ὁπῇ τις ἐθέλει, in which place Zeus, Hêrê, and the other Gods, are to be considered as lodged. He will not contradict any one’s feeling on that point; he strongly protests (p. 985 D) against all attempts on the part of the lawgiver to innovate (καινοτομεῖν) in contravention of ancient religious tradition — this is what Aristophanes in the Nubes, and Melêtus before the Dikasts, accuse Sokrates of doing — but he denounces harshly all who will not acknowledge with worship and sacrifice the sublime divinity of the Sun, Moon, Stars, and Planets.
The Platonic declaration given here — ἐπομένους τῷ νόμῳ πιστευτέον — is illustrated in the lines of Euripides, Bacchæ, 202 —
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οὐδὲν σοφιζόμεσθα τοῖσι δαίμοσιν· πατρίους παραδοχάς, ἅς θ’ ὁμήλικας χρόνῳ κεκτήμεθ’, οὐδεὶς αὐτὰ καταβαλεῖ λόγος, οὐδ’ ἢν δι’ ἀκρῶν τὸ σοφὸν εὕρηται φρενῶν. |