James Adam, Commentary on Plato, Republic, ed. James Adam, 2.380B

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[380B] ὠνίναντο κολαζόμενοι . An earlier generation looked upon punishment as retributory— δράσαντι παθεῖν. This view appears in Hes. Fr. 217, ed. Goettling, and especially in Aeschylus, e.g. Ag. 1563 f., Choeph. 309—314, 400 —404, 886, 927: in Sophocles and Euripides it is rarer ( Ant. 1074—1076, El. 1411 f., 1495 f., Andr. 438, Suppl. 614 —616), and Euripides expressly argues against it in Or. 508 ff. Traces of a milder theory were however contained in the doctrine πάθος μάθος ( Ag. 176 ff.), as well as in the use of words like σωφρονίζειν, δικαιοῦν, εὐθύνειν, for ‘punish.’ In Plato punishment is remedial. Ignorance or vice is in the soul what disease is in the body (IV 444 C, cf. IX 591 A, B), and the judge is the soul's physician (III 409 E ff., Gorg. 478 D ): hence ( Gorg. 480 B ff.) the sinner should go before the judge as a patient visits his doctor, and we should even prosecute our guilty friends and relations. See also Laws 854 D, 862 E, 934 A, 944 D τὸν γὰρ κακὸν ἀεὶ δεῖ κολάζειν, ἵν’ ἀμείνων ᾖ. The punishment, again, which awaits the wicked after death is intended to cure their souls, unless they are incurable: and such as are themselves incurable, help to cure others by their deterrent example (X 616 A): so that in its deepest relations this doctrine reaches to the very roots of Plato's philosophy, with all due deference to Mr W. S. Lilly, who with much intemperance of language denounces those who attribute such a view to Plato ( Fortnightly Review N.S. XLVI p. 116).

ἐν τῇ αὑτοῦ πόλει : ‘in one's own city,’ with reference to the subject of διαμαχετέον, not to τινα. Plato implies that the preachers of such theology must be suppressed in his ideal city. In all this Teichmüller ( Lit. Fehd. I p. 114) detects an assault upon Isocrates, but his evidence is of the slightest.

Commentary on Plato, Republic. James Adam. ed. James Adam. Cambridge. 1926-1929.

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Funding provided by National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

Commentary on Plato, Republic (English) (Plato. The Republic, Vol 1-2. Adam, James, editor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902-1903.)

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Πολιτεία Perseus (Platonis Opera Tomus IV: Tetralogia VIII. Burnet, John, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905.) — 2.380 focus

[380] τὴν δὲ τῶν ὅρκων καὶ σπονδῶν σύγχυσιν, ἣν ὁ Πάνδαρος συνέχεεν, ἐάν τις φῇ διʼ Ἀθηνᾶς τε καὶ Διὸς γεγονέναι, οὐκ ἐπαινεσόμεθα, οὐδὲ θεῶν ἔριν τε καὶ κρίσιν 380a διὰ Θέμιτός τε καὶ Διός, οὐδʼ αὖ, ὡς Αἰσχύλος λέγει, ἐατέον ἀκούειν τοὺς νέους, ὅτι—

θεὸς μὲν αἰτίαν φύει βροτοῖς,

ὅταν κακῶσαι δῶμα παμπήδην θέλῃ.

Aesch. Fr. ἀλλʼ ἐάν τις ποιῇ ἐν οἷς ταῦτα τὰ ἰαμβεῖα ἔνεστιν, τὰ τῆς Νιόβης πάθη, ἢ τὰ Πελοπιδῶν ἢ τὰ Τρωικὰ ἤ τι ἄλλο τῶν τοιούτων, ἢ οὐ θεοῦ ἔργα ἐατέον αὐτὰ λέγειν, ἢ εἰ θεοῦ, ἐξευρετέον αὐτοῖς σχεδὸν ὃν νῦν ἡμεῖς λόγον ζητοῦμεν, καὶ 380b λεκτέον ὡς ὁ μὲν θεὸς δίκαιά τε καὶ ἀγαθὰ ἠργάζετο, οἱ δὲ ὠνίναντο κολαζόμενοι· ὡς δὲ ἄθλιοι μὲν οἱ δίκην διδόντες, ἦν δὲ δὴ ὁ δρῶν ταῦτα θεός, οὐκ ἐατέον λέγειν τὸν ποιητήν. ἀλλʼ εἰ μὲν ὅτι ἐδεήθησαν κολάσεως λέγοιεν ὡς ἄθλιοι οἱ κακοί, διδόντες δὲ δίκην ὠφελοῦντο ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ, ἐατέον· κακῶν δὲ αἴτιον φάναι θεόν τινι γίγνεσθαι ἀγαθὸν ὄντα, διαμαχετέον παντὶ τρόπῳ μήτε τινὰ λέγειν ταῦτα ἐν τῇ αὑτοῦ πόλει, εἰ μέλλει εὐνομήσεσθαι, μήτε τινὰ ἀκούειν, 380c μήτε νεώτερον μήτε πρεσβύτερον, μήτʼ ἐν μέτρῳ μήτε ἄνευ μέτρου μυθολογοῦντα, ὡς οὔτε ὅσια ἂν λεγόμενα εἰ λέγοιτο, οὔτε σύμφορα ἡμῖν οὔτε σύμφωνα αὐτὰ αὑτοῖς.
σύμψηφός σοί εἰμι, ἔφη, τούτου τοῦ νόμου, καί μοι ἀρέσκει.
οὗτος μὲν τοίνυν, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, εἷς ἂν εἴη τῶν περὶ θεοὺς νόμων τε καὶ τύπων, ἐν ᾧ δεήσει τούς τε λέγοντας λέγειν καὶ τοὺς ποιοῦντας ποιεῖν, μὴ πάντων αἴτιον τὸν θεὸν ἀλλὰ τῶν ἀγαθῶν.
καὶ μάλʼ, ἔφη, ἀπόχρη. 380d
τί δὲ δὴ ὁ δεύτερος ὅδε; ἆρα γόητα τὸν θεὸν οἴει εἶναι καὶ οἷον ἐξ ἐπιβουλῆς φαντάζεσθαι ἄλλοτε ἐν ἄλλαις ἰδέαις τοτὲ μὲν αὐτὸν γιγνόμενον, καὶ ἀλλάττοντα τὸ αὑτοῦ εἶδος εἰς πολλὰς μορφάς, τοτὲ δὲ ἡμᾶς ἀπατῶντα καὶ ποιοῦντα περὶ αὑτοῦ τοιαῦτα δοκεῖν, ἢ ἁπλοῦν τε εἶναι καὶ πάντων ἥκιστα τῆς ἑαυτοῦ ἰδέας ἐκβαίνειν;
οὐκ ἔχω, ἔφη, νῦν γε οὕτως εἰπεῖν.
τί δὲ τόδε; οὐκ ἀνάγκη, εἴπερ τι ἐξίσταιτο τῆς αὑτοῦ 380e ἰδέας, ἢ αὐτὸ ὑφʼ ἑαυτοῦ μεθίστασθαι ἢ ὑπʼ ἄλλου;
ἀνάγκη.
οὐκοῦν ὑπὸ μὲν ἄλλου τὰ ἄριστα ἔχοντα ἥκιστα ἀλλοιοῦταί τε καὶ κινεῖται;

Translations (1)

Republic Perseus (Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 5-6. Shorey, Paul, translator. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1935-37 (printing).) — 2.380 focus

[380]
But as to the violation of the oaths¹ and the truce by Pandarus, if anyone affirms it to have been brought about by the action of Athena and Zeus, we will not approve, nor that the strife and contention² of the gods 380a was the doing of Themis and Zeus; nor again must we permit our youth to hear what Aeschylus says—

A god implants the guilty cause in men

When he would utterly destroy a house,

Aesch. ³ but if any poets compose a Sorrows of Niobe, the poem that contains these iambics, or a tale of the Pelopidae or of Troy , or anything else of the kind, we must either forbid them to say that these woes are the work of God, or they must devise some such interpretation as we now require, and must declare that what God 380b did was righteous and good, and they were benefited⁴ by their chastisement. But that they were miserable who paid the penalty, and that the doer of this was God, is a thing that the poet must not be suffered to say; if on the other hand he should say that for needing chastisement the wicked were miserable and that in paying the penalty they were benefited by God, that we must allow. But as to saying that God, who is good, becomes the cause of evil to anyone, we must contend in every way that neither should anyone assert this in his own city if it is to be well governed, nor anyone hear it, 380c neither younger nor older, neither telling a story in meter or without meter; for neither would the saying of such things, if they are said, be holy, nor would they be profitable to us or concordant with themselves. I cast my vote with yours for this law, he said, and am well pleased with it. This, then, said I, will be one of the laws and patterns concerning the gods⁵ to which speakers and poets will be required to conform, that God is not the cause of all things, but only of the good. And an entirely satisfactory one, he said. 380d And what of this, the second. Do you think that God is a wizard and capable of manifesting himself by design, now in one aspect, now in another, at one time⁶ himself changing and altering his shape in many transformations and at another deceiving us and causing us to believe such things about him; or that he is simple and less likely than anything else to depart from his own form? I cannot say offhand, he replied. But what of this: If anything went out from⁷ its own form, would it not be displaced and changed, either by itself 380e or by something else? Necessarily. Is it not true that to be altered and moved⁸ by something else happens least to things that are in the best condition,

James Adam Commentary on Plato, Republic 2.380B

ed. James Adam

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