The greatest of all ideals may, or rather must be conceived by us under
similitudes derived from human qualities; although sometimes, like the
Jewish prophets, we may dash away these figures of speech and describe the
nature of God only in negatives. These again by degrees acquire a positive
meaning. It would be well, if when meditating on the higher truths either
of ccxxxi} philosophy or religion, we sometimes substituted one form of
expression for another, lest through the necessities of language we should
become the slaves of mere words.
There is a third ideal, not the same, but akin to these, which has a place
in the home and heart of every believer in the religion of Christ, and in
which men seem to find a nearer and more familiar truth, the Divine man,
the Son of Man, the Saviour of mankind, Who is the first-born and head of
the whole family in heaven and earth, in Whom the Divine and human, that
which is without and that which is within the range of our earthly
faculties, are indissolubly united. Neither is this divine form of
goodness wholly separable from the ideal of the Christian Church, which is
said in the New Testament to be 'His body,' or at variance with those
other images of good which Plato sets before us. We see Him in a figure
only, and of figures of speech we select but a few, and those the
simplest, to be the expression of Him. We behold Him in a picture, but He
is not there. We gather up the fragments of His discourses, but neither do
they represent Him as He truly was. His dwelling is neither in heaven nor
earth, but in the heart of man. This is that image which Plato saw dimly
in the distance, which, when existing among men, he called, in the
language of Homer, 'the likeness of God' (Rep. vi. 501 B), the likeness of
a nature which in all ages men have felt to be greater and better than
themselves, and which in endless forms, whether derived from Scripture or
nature, from the witness of history or from the human heart, regarded as a
person or not as a person, with or without parts or passions, existing in
space or not in space, is and will always continue to be to mankind the
Idea of Good.
THE REPUBLIC.
BOOK I
_PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE._
Socrates, _who is the narrator_. Cephalus.
Glaucon. Thrasymachus.
Adeimantus. Cleitophon.
Polemarchus.
_And others who are mute auditors._
The scene is laid in the house of Cephalus at the Piraeus; and the whole
dialogue is narrated by Socrates the day after it actually took place to
Timaeus, Hermocrates, Critias, and a nameless person, who are introduced
in the Timaeus.
*Ed. Steph. 327* [Sidenote: _Republic I_. Socrates, Glaucon. Meeting of
Socrates and Glaucon with Polemarchus at the Bendidean festival.]