And now having spoken of assaults, let us sum up all acts ofviolence under a single law, which shall be as follows:-No one shalltake or carry away any of his neighbour"s goods, neither shall heuse anything which is his neighbour"s without the consent of theowner; for these are the offences which are and have been, and willever be, the source of all the aforesaid evils. The greatest of themare excesses and insolences of youth, and are offences against thegreatest when they are done against religion; and especially greatwhen in violation of public and holy rites, or of the partly-commonrites in which tribes and phratries share; and in the second degreegreat when they are committed against private rites and sepulchres,and in the third degree (not to repeat the acts formerly mentioned),when insults are offered to parents; the fourth kind of violence iswhen any one, regardless of the authority of the rulers, takes orcarries away or makes use of anything which belongs to them, nothaving their consent; and the fifth kind is when the violation ofthe civil rights of an individual demands reparation. There shouldbe a common law embracing all these cases. For we have already said ingeneral terms what shall be the punishment of sacrilege, whetherfraudulent or violent, and now we have to determine what is to bethe punishment of those who speak or act insolently toward the Gods.
But first we must give them an admonition which may be in thefollowing terms:-No one who in obedience to the laws believed thatthere were Gods, ever intentionally did any unholy act, or uttered anyunlawful word; but he who did must have supposed one of threethings-either that they did not exist,-which is the first possibility,or secondly, that, if they did, they took no care of man, orthirdly, that they were easily appeased and turned aside from theirpurpose, by sacrifices and prayers.
Cleinias. What shall we say or do to these persons?
Athenian Stranger. My good friend, let us first hear the jests whichI suspect that they in their superiority will utter against us.
Cle. What jests?
Ath. They will make some irreverent speech of this sort:-"Oinhabitants of Athens, and Sparta, and Cnosus," they will reply, "inthat you speak truly; for some of us deny the very existence of theGods, while others, as you say, are of opinion that they do not careabout us; and others that they are turned from their course bygifts. Now we have a right to claim, as you yourself allowed, in thematter of laws, that before you are hard upon us and threaten us,you should argue with us and convince us-you should first attempt toteach and persuade us that there are Gods by reasonable evidences, andalso that they are too good to be unrighteous, or to be propitiated,or turned from their course by gifts. For when we hear such thingssaid of them by those who are esteemed to be the best of poets, andorators, and prophets, and priests, and by innumerable others, thethoughts of most of us are not set upon abstaining from unrighteousacts, but upon doing them and atoning for them. When lawgivers professthat they are gentle and not stern, we think that they should first ofall use persuasion to us, and show us the existence of Gods, if not ina better manner than other men, at any rate in a truer; and whoknows but that we shall hearken to you? If then our request is afair one, please to accept our challenge."Cle. But is there any difficulty in proving the existence of theGods?
Ath. How would you prove it?
Cle. How? In the first place, the earth and the sun, and the starsand the universe, and the fair order of the seasons, and thedivision of them into years and months, furnish proofs of theirexistence; and also there is the fact that all Hellenes and barbariansbelieve in them.
Ath. I fear, my sweet friend, though I will not say that I muchregard, the contempt with which the profane will be likely to assailus. For you do not understand the nature of their complaint, and youfancy that they rush into impiety only from a love of sensualpleasure.
Cle. Why, Stranger, what other reason is there?
Ath. One which you who live in a different atmosphere would neverguess.
Cle. What is it?
Ath. A very grievous sort of ignorance which is imagined to be thegreatest wisdom.
Cle. What do you mean?
Ath. At Athens there are tales preserved in writing which the virtueof your state, as I am informed, refuses to admit. They speak of theGods in prose as well as verse, and the oldest of them tell of theorigin of the heavens and of the world, and not far from the beginningof their story they proceed to narrate the birth of the Gods, andhow after they were born they behaved to one another. Whether thesestories have in other ways a good or a bad influence, I should notlike to be severe upon them, because they are ancient; but, looking atthem with reference to the duties of children to their parents, Icannot praise them, or think that they are useful, or at all true.
Of the words of the ancients I have nothing more to say; and Ishould wish to say of them only what is pleasing to the Gods. But asto our younger generation and their wisdom, I cannot let them off whenthey do mischief. For do but mark the effect of their words: whenyou and I argue for the existence of the Gods, and produce the sun,moon, stars, and earth, claiming for them a divine being, if wewould listen to the aforesaid philosophers we should say that they areearth and stones only, which can have no care at all of human affairs,and that all religion is a cooking up of words and a make-believe.
Cle. One such teacher, O Stranger, would be bad enough, and youimply that there are many of them, which is worse.