close similarity which exists between them and the Scriptures, especially the books of the Pentateuch. The picture of the ideal Socrates preaching justice and temperance, and opposing to the self-assertion of the Pharisees of his age the humility of the earnest inquirer and the soberness of truth—his declaration at his trial that he will obey God rather than man, and fears not those who are only able to kill the body—the description of the just man persecuted, scourged, tortured, and finally crucified,[1]—such passages serve to explain the prayer of Erasmus, who added to the invocation of Christian saints in his litany, "Sancte Socrates, ora pro nobis;" and the belief of so many of the Fathers that Plato, like St John the Baptist, was a forerunner of Christ. Again, the strong faith in the immortality of the soul—the no less strong sense of the pollution of sin—the belief that virtue is likeness to God—the idea in the "Phædrus" of a word sown in the heart, and bringing forth fruit in due season-the parable of the "Cave" and the Light of the upper world,—are a few instances out of many which might be quoted to show the foreshadowings of Christianity so often traced in Plato. Once, indeed—in the last conversation held by Socrates with his friends—a passage occurs which seems to point even more directly than any we have quoted to a Revelation hereafter to be granted. Simmias, one of the speakers in the Dialogue, thinks it impossible to hope for exact knowledge in the great question they are dis-
- ↑ The literal Greek is "impaled."
A. C. vol. xix. N
