Plato lays down his own individual preconception respecting the characters of the Gods, as orthodoxy for his Republic: directing that the poets shall provide new narratives conformable to that type. What is more, he establishes a peremptory censorship to prevent the circulation of any narratives dissenting from it. As to truth or falsehood, all that he himself claims is that his general preconception of the character of the Gods is true, and worthy of their dignity; while those entertained by his contemporaries are false; the particular narratives are alike fictitious in both cases. Fictitious as they are, however, Plato has fair reason for his confident assertion, that if they could once be imprinted on the minds of his citizens, as portions of an established creed, they would maintain themselves for a long time in unimpaired force and credit. He guards them by the artificial protection of a censorship, stricter than any real Grecian city exhibited: over and above the self-supporting efficacy, usually sufficient without farther aid, which inheres in every established religious creed. [Side-note: Main points of dissent between Plato and his countrymen, in respect to religious doctrine.] The points upon which Plato here chiefly takes issue with his countrymen, are--the general character of the Gods--and the extent to which the Gods determine the lot of human beings. He distinctly repudiates as untrue, that which he declares to be the generally received faith: though in other parts of his writings, we find him eulogising the merit of uninquiring faith--of that age of honest simplicity when every one believed what was told him from his childhood, and when no man was yet clever enough to suspect falsehood.[76] [Footnote 76: Plato, Legg. iii. p. 679; compare x. p. 887 C, xi. p. 913 C. So again in the Timæus (p. 40 E), he accepts the received genealogy of the Gods, upon the authority of the sons and early descendants of the Gods. These sons must have known their own fathers; we ought therefore "to follow the law and believe them" ([Greek: e)pome/nous tô=| no/mô| pisteute/on]) though they spoke without either probable or demonstrative proof ([Greek: a)du/naton ou)=n theô=n paisi\n a)pistei=n, kai/per a)/neu te ei)ko/tôn kai\ a)nagkai/ôn a)podei/xeôn le/gousin]). That which Plato here enjoins to be believed is the genealogy of Hesiod and other poets, though he does not expressly name the poets. Julian in his remark on the passage (Orat. vii. p. 237) understands the poets to be meant, and their credibility to be upheld, by Plato--[Greek: kai\ toiau=ta e(/tera e)n Timai/ô|; pisteu/ein ga\r a(plô=s a)xioi= kai\ chôri\s a)podei/xeôs legome/nois, o(/sa u(pe\r tô=n theô=n phasi\n oi( poiêtai/.] See Lindau's note on this passage in his edition of the Timæus, p. 62.] [Side-note: Theology of Plato compared with that of Epikurus--Neither of them satisfied the exigencies of a believing religious mind of that day.]