Chapter I. That the Hebrews, According to Plato, Were Right in Imparting to Beginners the Belief in Their Instructions in a Simple Form Because of Their Incapacity

OUR twelfth Book of the Preparation for the Gospelwill now from this point supply what was lacking in the preceding Book in proof of Plato’s accordance with the Hebrew Oracles, like the harmony of a well-tuned lyre. We shall begin with a defence of our Faith, that is reviled among the multitude.

[P] [1] ‘It would be another question therefore whether one is right or wrong in finding fault with the constitutions of Lacedaemon and Crete: perhaps, however, I should be better able than either of you to tell what most people say of them. For if your laws are even moderately well framed, one of the best of them must be a law allowing none of the young to inquire what is right or wrong in them, but bidding all with one Yoice and one mouth to agree that everything is well settled by the appointment of the gods; and if any one says otherwise, they must not endure to listen to him at all. But if an old man observes any fault in your laws, he may discuss such subjects with a ruler and one of his own age, no young man being present.’

‘What you enjoin, Stranger, is perfectly right.’

With good reason then the Hebrew Scriptures at an earlier time require faith before either the understanding or examination of the sacred writings, where it says, ‘If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not understand,’ [2] and again, ‘I believed, and therefore have I spoken.’ [3]

For which cause also among us those who are newly admitted and in an immature condition, as if infants in soul, have the reading of the sacred Scriptures imparted to them in a very simple way, with the injunction that they must believe what is brought forward as words of God. But those who are in a more advanced condition, and as it were grown grey in mind, are permitted to dive into the deeps, and test the meaning of the words: and these the Hebrews were wont to name ‘Deuterotists,’ as being interpreters and expounders of the meaning of the Scriptures.