His theology, which is a part of his philosophy, has many striking features that have commanded the astonishment of the Christian world. “God the Creator changes not; He deceives not.” It is wrong to do good to friends and injure enemies, for the injury of another can be in no case just. If you have a quarrel with any one, become reconciled before you sleep. In heaven is the pattern of the perfect city. All things will work together for good to the just. He advocates the severest abstract piety that, as in the conduct of the sternest Roman or the severest Puritan, swerves not from duty. The myth of Er, the Armenian, reminds us in many points of the judgment day; and his exhortation to pursue the heavenly way that it may be well with us here and hereafter, may be our salvation if we are obedient, is one of the most striking in the history of religious belief.
In the fifth book of the “Laws” is an exhortation to right living that partakes of the spirit of the Christian philosophy. Every man is to honor his own soul with an honor that regards divine good, to value principle higher than life, to place virtue above all gold, to glory in following the better course, to count reverence in children a greater heritage than riches, to regard a contract as a holy thing, to avoid excess of self-love and to adhere to the truth as the beginning of every good. We need no further illustration of the fact that Platonism was naturally welcomed by the early Christian Church.
The ethical ideals of Plato are the most valuable phase of his writings. In the First Book of the “Republic,” Thrasymachus, in a dialogue with Socrates, defines justice to be Sublime Simplicity, and argues that the unjust are discreet and wise, as some may argue to-day that shrewd dishonesty is commendable. The ethics of Plato is the opposite pole of this philosophy, and as such stands for the rational and moral order of the world. His system is not hedonistic, but ideal. It aims at a good, but the good is attained by a life of virtue.
In a famous passage of the “Republic,” the transcendently just man is described. He is to be clothed in justice only. Being the best of men, he is to be esteemed the worst, and so continue to the hour of his death. He is to be bound, scourged, and suffer every kind of evil, and even be crucified; still he is to be just for righteousness’ sake. No wonder some Christian fathers believed this referred to Him who was to come, as described in the celebrated chapter of Isaiah. The best man is also the happiest, whether seen or unseen by gods and men. In the “Crito” Socrates will not escape from prison if it is not right, though he suffer death or any other calamity. “Virtue is the health and beauty and well-being of the soul, and vice is the disease and weakness and deformity of the soul.” He is a fool who laughs at aught but folly and vice. The possession of the whole world is of no value without the good. No pleasure except that of the wise is quite true and pure. “Is not the noble that which subjects the beast to the man, or rather to the god in man?” “How would a man profit if he received gold and silver on the condition that he was to enslave the noblest part of him to the worst?” “The Holy is loved of God because it is Holy.” Not pleasure, but wisdom and knowledge and right opinions and true reasonings are better, both now and forever. The good ruler considers not his own interest, but that of the state. The governing class are to be told that gold and silver they have from God; the divine metal is in them.
Any one who finds in these views a doctrine of pleasure must seek with a prejudiced eye. Plato, as usual, anticipates later ethical discussions, and points to the fact that there is a quality in pleasure; and quality in conduct is the very contention of absolute moralists. He speaks of the soul whose dye of good quality is washed out by pleasure. The attainment of genuine well-being, the development of divine qualities within men, was the aim, and the consciousness of this priceless possession of rational manhood was the incidental reward. His doctrine places before men abstract ideals of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness, which invite the better nature by their supreme excellence.
Plato enumerates four virtues: Wisdom, Courage, Temperance, Justice. Professor Green interprets them in modern form, and maintains their fixed standard of excellence and universal application. Any modern analysis of the principles of conduct which contribute to health of soul and are favorable to success in life, would confirm the enumeration of the Greek virtues. Professor Green says: The Good Will is the will (1) to know what is true and to make what is beautiful; (2) to endure pain and fear; (3) to resist the allurements of pleasure; (4) to take for one’s self and to give to others, not what one is inclined to, but what is due. Not only does he enjoin the spirit of justice, but the cultivation of moral courage, and, as contrasted with lazy ignorance, the growth in wisdom which is realization of virtue.
Wisdom played a peculiar and important part in the Greek ethics. Vice was ignorance, because the wise man could but live according to his best knowledge. And the Greeks, properly interpreted, were right. Did we see virtue in all its truth and beauty, and vice in all its deformity, we could but choose the best. Growth in wisdom was a gradual realization in the soul of the heavenly ideas that were the true heritage of man, and in this development the soul was gradually perfected. This beautiful and satisfying philosophy reappears to-day in some of the most ennobling systems of ethics the world has produced. It makes individual and race progress an increase in consciousness of the knowledge of truth and virtue, a revelation of the divine within us.
The Jewish and the Christian conception of divine law as binding man to the performance of his moral obligations was not strongly characteristic of the Greek mind. But responsibility, without which conduct can have no ethical significance, was by no means foreign to Plato’s system. In the myth of Er the soul has its choice of the lot of life, and its condition at the end of the earthly career is a requital for the deeds done in the body. Throughout Plato’s writings the implications of personal merit or guilt are prominent.
It is a doctrine of virtue rather than of duty. He who sees the right and does not do it is a fool, but that is his matter. He is not bound by any moral law to be wise. If he is virtuous it is well; if not, so much the worse for him. Love of God is the essential of the Christian ethics; knowledge of the Good, of the Greek. To pursue the Good was virtue, and virtue he sets forth in world-wide contrast with vice. Plato’s conception of justice, or right, was so exalted that some have thought he attained in later years an insight into the nature of conscience, or the Moral Faculty.