Apology by Plato
This post is part of my journey through the classic texts of Western civilization.
Plato's Apology recounts Socrates' trial and his defense against the accusations that have been brought against him. There are two accusations, and Socrates lays them out for the audience:
- "Socrates is an evil-doer, and a curious person, who searches into things under the earth and in heaven, and he makes the worse appear the better cause; and he teaches the aforesaid doctrines to others."
- "Socrates is a doer of evil, who corrupts the youth; and who does not believe in the gods of the state, but has other new divinities of his own."
Socrates claims that the reason he is on trial and so many men hate him is because of his incessant questioning of the "wise" and his exposing of how they really are not. While Socrates does not claim to be wise himself, he alone is the only one who knows and admits that he has no wisdom—this ironically results in Socrates being the wisest man. The young men start to imitate Socrates in this pursuit of questioning others about how wise they are, which is the basis of the accusation that Socrates is corrupting the youth.
Socrates has a plethora of quote-worthy statements in Apology. Here are a few:
"... a man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong—acting the part of a good man or of a bad."
"For wherever a man's place is, whether the place which he has chosen or that in which he has been placed by a commander, there he ought to remain in the hour of danger; he should not think of death or of anything but of disgrace."
"... injustice and disobedience to a better, whether God or man, is evil and dishonourable, and I will never fear or avoid a possible good rather than a certain evil."
"Men of Athens, I honour and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you..."
"... are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honour and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all?"
At the end, Socrates presents the question on whether death is a good or an evil. According to him, "there is great reason to hope that death is a good." The reason for this is because death is either one of two things:
- State of nothing (unconsciousness). In this case, Socrates states that "to die is gain" for death would be an escape from this earth, an eternal sleep.
- A migration of the soul from this world to another. In this case, Socrates thinks that there is no greater good than this.
It is impossible not to immediately recall the words of the Apostle Paul, who stated verbatim those very words, "to die is gain." But unlike Paul, Socrates was incorrect that death would be a gain for him. Socrates was correct that we will migrate from this world to another, but he assumed that said place will be better for all of us. The penalty for a sinful man is eternal hell.
It seems safe to say from the above-mentioned quotes that Socrates was a religious man, devoted to serving God above man; at the very least, he gave the impression of this. And no doubt he seems a man who possessed a great deal of civil virtue/righteousness. But even the most seemingly virtuous among men fall short of the glory of God, the true God who has revealed Himself in these last days by His Son, Jesus Christ. If Socrates thought that his trial in Apology was his last, he would have been mistaken. For after death comes judgment and another trial, except this time the charges brought will be valid ones, brought by God Himself who is also the judge.
The only reason to have hope in the face of death is that the perfect righteousness of the one who is truly God and truly man is accounted to all who would believe in Him. Only in light of this glorious truth can we have peace and say "to die is gain" in the manner of the Apostle Paul.