But as Celsus makes a jest also of the serpent, as counteracting the
injunctions given by God to the man, taking the narrative to be an old
wife’s fable,[637] and has purposely neither mentioned the paradise[638]
of God, nor stated that God is said to have planted it in Eden towards
the east, and that there afterwards sprang up from the earth every tree
that was beautiful to the sight, and good for food, and the tree of life
in the midst of the paradise, and the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, and the other statements which follow, which might of themselves
lead a candid reader to see that all these things had not
inappropriately an allegorical meaning, let us contrast with this the
words of Socrates regarding Eros in the Symposium of Plato, and which
are put in the mouth of Socrates as being more appropriate than what was
said regarding him by all the others at the Symposium. The words of
Plato are as follow: “When Aphrodite was born, the gods held a banquet,
and there was present, along with the others, Porus the son of Metis.
And after they had dined, Penia[639] came to beg for something (seeing
there was an entertainment), and she stood at the gate. Porus meantime,
having become intoxicated with the nectar (for there was then no wine),
went into the garden of Zeus, and being heavy with liquor, lay down to
sleep. Penia accordingly formed a secret plot, with a view of freeing
herself from her condition of poverty,[640] to get a child by Porus, and
accordingly lay down beside him, and became pregnant with Eros. And on
this account Eros has become the follower and attendant of Aphrodite,
having been begotten on her birth-day feast,[641] and being at the same
time by nature a lover of the beautiful, because Aphrodite too is
beautiful. Seeing, then, that Eros is the son of Porus and Penia, the
following is his condition.[642] In the first place, he is always poor,
and far from being delicate and beautiful, as most persons imagine; but
is withered, and sunburnt,[643] and unshod, and without a home, sleeping
always upon the ground, and without a covering; lying in the open air
beside gates, and on public roads; possessing the nature of his mother,
and dwelling continually with indigence.[644] But, on the other hand, in
conformity with the character of his father, he is given to plotting
against the beautiful and the good, being courageous, and hasty, and
vehement;[645] a keen[646] hunter, perpetually devising contrivances;
both much given to forethought, and also fertile in resources;[647]
acting like a philosopher throughout the whole of his life; a
terrible[648] sorcerer, and dealer in drugs, and a sophist as well;
neither immortal by nature nor yet mortal, but on the same day, at one
time he flourishes and lives when he has plenty, and again at another
time dies, and once more is recalled to life through possessing the
nature of his father. But the supplies furnished to him are always
gradually disappearing, so that he is never at any time in want, nor yet
rich; and, on the other hand, he occupies an intermediate position
between wisdom and ignorance.” Now, if those who read these words were
to imitate the malignity of Celsus—which be it far from Christians to
do!—they would ridicule the myth, and would turn this great Plato into a
subject of jest; but if, on investigating in a philosophic spirit what
is conveyed in the dress of a myth, they should be able to discover the
meaning of Plato, [they will admire][649] the manner in which he was
able to conceal, on account of the multitude, in the form of this myth,
the great ideas which presented themselves to him, and to speak in a
befitting manner to those who know how to ascertain from the myths the
true meaning of him who wove them together. Now I have brought forward
this myth occurring in the writings of Plato, because of the mention in
it of the garden of Zeus, which appears to bear some resemblance to the
paradise of God, and of the comparison between Penia and the serpent,
and the plot against Porus by Penia, which may be compared with the plot
of the serpent against the man. It is not very clear, indeed, whether
Plato fell in with these stories by chance, or whether, as some think,
meeting during his visit to Egypt with certain individuals who
philosophized on the Jewish mysteries, and learning some things from
them, he may have preserved a few of their ideas, and thrown others
aside, being careful not to offend the Greeks by a complete adoption of
all the points of the philosophy of the Jews, who were in bad repute
with the multitude, on account of the foreign character of their laws
and their peculiar polity. The present, however, is not the proper time
for explaining either the myth of Plato, or the story of the serpent and
the paradise of God, and all that is related to have taken place in it,
as in our exposition of the book of Genesis we have especially occupied
ourselves as we best could with these matters.
Footnote 637:
“μῦθόν τινα” παραπλήσιον τοῖς παραδιδομένοις ταῖς γραυσὶν.
Footnote 638:
παράδεισος.
Footnote 639:
Penia, poverty; Porus, abundance.
Footnote 640:
διὰ τὴν αὑτῆς ἀπορίαν.
Footnote 641:
ἐν τοῖς ἐκείνης γενέθλιοις.
Footnote 642:
ἐν τοιαύτῃ τύχῃ καθέστηκε.
Footnote 643:
σκληρὸς καὶ αὐχμηρὸς.
Footnote 644:
ἐνδείᾳ.
Footnote 645:
σύντονος.
Footnote 646:
δεινός.
Footnote 647:
καὶ φρονήσεως ἐπιθυμητὴς καὶ πόριμος.
Footnote 648:
δεινὸς γόης.
Footnote 649:
Boherellus, quem Ruæeus sequitur, in notis; “Ante voces: τίνα τρόπον,
videtur deesse: θαυμάσονται, aut quid simile.”—LOMMATZSCH.