Chapter XVI. That the Course of Doctrine Rightly Begins With Things Divine and Ends With Things Human. From Plato’s First Book of The Laws

MOSES made all his legislation and the constitution of his state dependent on piety towards the God of the universe, and inaugurated his legislation with the Creator of all, and then taught that from the good that is divine proceeds all good for man, and referred the divine to the ruling mind of the world, that is the very God of all. Now see how our philosopher also, treading in the same steps, finds fault with the lawgivers of the Cretans and Lacedaemonians, and teaches throughout the law approved by Moses, speaking as follows:

[P] [1] ‘May I then explain how I should have liked to hear you define the matter further?

‘By all means, Stranger.

‘You ought to have spoken thus: It is not without reason that the laws of the Cretans are especially celebrated among all the Greeks: for they are rightly framed in that they render those who use them happy; for they provide all good things for them.

‘Now goods are of two kinds: some human, and some divine; and the former are dependent on the divine; and if a city accept the greater, it gains the less also; but otherwise, it is deprived of both. Now there are first the lesser goods, of which the chief is health, and beauty second, and the third strength of body for running and all other movements, and wealth fourth, not blind but keen-sighted wealth, if it accompany wisdom.

‘For this indeed is the first and chief of divine goods, wisdom I mean, and next a temperate habit of soul joined with intelligence, and from these combined with courage a third good would be justice, and a fourth courage. Now all these are by nature set in higher rank than those bodily goods, and the lawgiver too must give them this rank.

‘And next he must direct that all the other ordinances for his citizens are to be regarded by them as looking towards these goods, and among these the human to look to the divine, and all the divine to the ruling mind.

‘With regard also to mutual contracts of marriage, and then in the procreation and nurture of children, both male and female, he must take care of his citizens in youth and maturer years even till old age, duly awarding honour or disgrace, and after having observed and watched over their pains and pleasures and desires in all these kinds of intercourse, and their pursuit of love of all kinds, he must rightly distribute praise or blame by means of the laws themselves.’

Also a little afterwards he says: [2]

‘After careful observation the legislator will appoint guardians over all these matters, some guiding their course by wisdom, and some by true opinion, so. that intelligence may bind all these ordinances together and render them, subservient to temperance and justice, not to wealth or ambition.

‘It is in this way that I, O Strangers, should have wished, and still do wish you to describe how in the so-called laws of Zeus, and those of the Pythian Apollo, which Minos and Lycurgus enacted, all these provisions are contained, and what orderly arrangement in them is discernible to one who by skill and habits has experience about laws, although to the rest of us this is by no means clear.’

Among us also it is said, ‘Seek ye first the kingdom (of God) and (His) righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.’ [3] But long before this Moses also having commenced with the doctrine concerning God, and having next adapted to it his constitution of the state, and the rules about contracts, and the customs of social life, appoints as rulers and guardians over them all those who are consecrated to God, as the scriptures also teach, just men, haters of arrogance, ‘some guiding their course by wisdom and some by true opinion.’