Note (return) — Chapter XIV

It was, however, the matured dialectic of Plato which gave the death-blow to polytheism. "Plato, the poet-philosopher, sacrificed Homer himself to monotheism. We may measure the energy of his conviction by the greatness of the sacrifice. He could not pardon the syren whose songs had fascinated Greece, the fresh brilliant poetry that had inspired its religion. He crowned it with flowers, but banished it, because it had lowered the religious ideal of conscience." He was sensible of the beauty of the Homeric fables, but he was also keenly alive to their religious falsehood, and therefore he excluded the poets from his ideal republic. In the education of youth, he would forbid parents and teachers repeating "the stories which Hesiod and Homer and the other poets told us." And after instancing a number of these stories "which deserve the gravest condemnation," he enjoins that God must be represented as he is in reality. "God," says he, "is, beyond all else, good in reality, and therefore so to be represented;" "he can not do evil, or be the cause of evil;" "he is of simple essence, and can not change, or be the subject of change;" "there is no imperfection in the beauty or goodness of God;" "he is a God of truth, and can not lie;" "he is a being of perfect simplicity and truth in deed and word." 883 The reader can not fail to recognize the close resemblance between the language of Plato and the language of inspiration.