Chapter XI. On the Paradise Described by Moses

As Moses in some mystic words says that in the beginning of the constitution of the world there had been a certain Paradise of God, and that therein man had been deceived by the serpent through the woman, hear now what Plato, all but directly translating the words, and on his part also speaking allegorically, has set down in the Symposium.Instead of the Paradise of God he called it the garden of Zeus, and instead of the serpent and the deception wrought by it he supposed Penia (Poverty) to lay the plot, and instead of the first man, whom the counsel and providence of God had set forth as it were for His new-born son, he spake of a son ot Metis (Counsel) called Poros (Plenty), and instead of saying ‘when this world was being constituted,’ he said ‘when Aphrodite was born,’ speaking in this allegorical way of the world, because of the beauty with which it is clothed. He speaks, however, word for word as follows:

[P] [1] ‘When Aphrodite was born, the gods were holding a feast, and among the rest was Poros the son of Metis. And after dinner, Penia, as there was a feast, came to beg and stood about the doors. So Poros being drunk with nectar, for there was no wine as yet, went into the garden of Zeus, where he was weighed down with sleep. So then Penia, to relieve her destitution, plotted to get a child by Poros, and lay down beside him, and conceived Eros.’

Such then were the thoughts which in this passage also Plato obscurely hinted in imitation of Moses.