Arguments of Celsus, Porphyry, and the Emperor Julian, Against the Christians: Also Extracts from Diodorus Siculus, Josephus, and Tacitus, Relating to the Jews, Together with an Appendix — Plato — John Shaqi
Arguments of Celsus, Porphyry, and the Emperor Julian, Against the Christians: Also Extracts from Diodorus Siculus, Josephus, and Tacitus, Relating to the Jews, Together with an Appendix
Plato · en
"I shall, indeed, appear to many to undertake a matter full of danger
in pleading with you for the temples, that they may suffer no injury, as
they now do. But they who have such apprehensions seem to me to be very
ignorant of your true character. For I esteem it the part of an angry
and severe disposition, for any one to resent the proposal of counsel
which he does not approve of: but the part of a mild and gentle and
equitable disposition, such as yours is, barely to reject counsel not
approved of. For when it is in the power of him to whom the address is
made to embrace any counsel or not, it is not reasonable to refuse a
hearing which can do no harm; nor yet to resent and punish the proposal
of counsel, if it appear contrary to his own judgment;
* The office of Praefectus Praetorio.
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when the only thing that induced the adviser to mention it, was a
persuasion of its usefulness.
"I entreat you, therefore, O Emperor, to turn your countenance to me
while I am speaking, and not to cast your eyes upon those who in many
things aim to molest both you and me; forasmuch as oftentimes a look is
of greater effect than all the force of truth. I would further insist,
that they ought to permit me to deliver my discourse quietly and without
interruption; and then, afterwards, they may do their best to confute us
by what they have to say. [Here is a small breach in the Oration. But
he seems to have begun his argument with an account of the origin of
temples, that they were first of all erected in country places.] Men
then having at first secured themselves in dens and cottages, and having
there experienced the protection of the gods, they soon perceived how
beneficial to mankind their favour must be: they therefore, as may be
sup-, posed, erected to them statues and temples, such as they could
in those early times. And when they began to build cities, upon the
increase of arts and sciences, there were many temples on the sides of
mountains and in plains: and in every city [as they built it] next to
the walls were temples and sacred edifices raised, as the beginning of
the rest of the body. For from such governors they expected the
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