Übersetzung ausblenden
The City of God

Chapter 11.--How Plato Has Been Able to Approach So Nearly to Christian Knowledge.

Certain partakers with us in the grace of Christ, wonder when they hear and read that Plato had conceptions concerning God, in which they recognize considerable agreement with the truth of our religion. Some have concluded from this, that when he went to Egypt he had heard the prophet Jeremiah, or, whilst travelling in the same country, had read the prophetic scriptures, which opinion I myself have expressed in certain of my writings. ¹ But a careful calculation of dates, contained in chronological history, shows that Plato was born about a hundred years after the time in which Jeremiah prophesied, and, as he lived eighty-one years, there are found to have been about seventy years from his death to that time when Ptolemy, king of Egypt, requested the prophetic scriptures of the Hebrew people to be sent to him from Judea, and committed them to seventy Hebrews, who also knew the Greek tongue, to be translated and kept. Therefore, on that voyage of his, Plato could neither have seen Jeremiah, who was dead so long before, nor have read those same scriptures which had not yet been translated into the Greek language, of which he was a master, unless, indeed, we say that, as he was most earnest in the pursuit of knowledge, he also studied those writings through an interpreter, as he did those of the Egyptians,--not, indeed, writing a translation of them (the facilities for doing which were only gained even by Ptolemy in return for munificent acts of kindness, ² though fear of his kingly authority might have seemed a sufficient motive), but learning as much as he possibly could concerning their contents by means of conversation. What warrants this supposition are the opening verses of Genesis: "In the beginning God made the heaven and earth. And the earth was invisible, and without order; and darkness was over the abyss: and the Spirit of God moved over the waters." ³ For in the Timaeus, when writing on the formation of the world, he says that God first united earth and fire; from which it is evident that he assigns to fire a place in heaven. This opinion bears a certain resemblance to the statement, "In the beginning God made heaven and earth." Plato next speaks of those two intermediary elements, water and air, by which the other two extremes, namely, earth and fire, were mutually united; from which circumstance he is thought to have so understood the words, "The Spirit of God moved over the waters." For, not paying sufficient attention to the designations given by those scriptures to the Spirit of God, he may have thought that the four elements are spoken of in that place, because the air also is called spirit. ⁴ Then, as to Plato's saying that the philosopher is a lover of God, nothing shines forth more conspicuously in those sacred writings. But the most striking thing in this connection, and that which most of all inclines me almost to assent to the opinion that Plato was not ignorant of those writings, is the answer which was given to the question elicited from the holy Moses when the words of God were conveyed to him by the angel; for, when he asked what was the name of that God who was commanding him to go and deliver the Hebrew people out of Egypt, this answer was given: "I am who am; and thou shalt say to the children of Israel, He who is sent me unto you;" ⁵ as though compared with Him that truly is, because He is unchangeable, those things which have been created mutable are not,--a truth which Plato zealously held, and most diligently commended. And I know not whether this sentiment is anywhere to be found in the books of those who were before Plato, unless in that book where it is said, "I am who am; and thou shalt say to the children of Israel, who is sent me unto you."

Edition ausblenden
De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput XI: Unde Plato eam intellegentiam potuerit adquirere, qua Christianae scientiae propinquauit.

Mirantur autem quidam nobis in Christi gratia sociati, cum audiunt uel legunt Platonem de deo ista sensisse, quae multum congruere ueritati nostrae religionis agnoscunt. unde nonnulli putauerunt eum, quando perrexit in Aegyptum, Hieremiam audisse prophetam uel scripturas propheticas in eadem peregrinatione legisse; quorum quidem opinionem in quibusdam libris meis posui. sed diligenter subputata temporum ratio, quae chronica historia continetur, Platonem indicat a tempore, quo prophetauit Hieremias, centum ferme annos postea natum fuisse; qui cum octoginta et unum uixisset, ab anno mortis eius usque ad id tempus, quo Ptolemaeus rex Aegypti scripturas propheticas gentis Hebraeorum de Iudaea poposcit et per septuaginta uiros Hebraeos, qui etiam Graecam linguam nouerant, interpretandas habendasque curauit, anni reperiuntur ferme sexaginta. quapropter in illa peregrinatione sua Plato nec Hieremiam uidere potuit tanto ante defunctum, nec easdem scripturas legere, quae nondum fuerant in Graecam linguam translatae, qua ille pollebat; nisi forte, quia fuit acerrimi studii, sicut Aegyptias, ita et istas per interpretem didicit, non ut scribendo transferret - quod Ptolemaeus pro ingenti beneficio, qui a regia potestate etiam timeri poterat, meruisse perhibetur - , sed ut conloquendo quid continerent, quantum capere posset, addisceret. hoc ut existimetur, illa suadere uidentur indicia, quod liber geneseos sic incipit: in principio fecit deus caelum et terram. terra autem erat inuisibilis et inconposita, et tenebrae erant super abyssum, et spiritus dei superferebatur super aquam; in Timaeo autem Plato, quem librum de mundi constitutione conscripsit, deum dicit in illo opere terram primo ignemque iunxisse. manifestum est autem, quod igni tribuat caeli locum: habet ergo haec sententia quandam illius similitudinem, qua dictum est: in principio fecit deus caelum et terram. deinde illa duo media, quibus interpositis sibimet haec extrema copularentur, aquam dicit et aerem; unde putatur sic intellexisse quod scriptum est: spiritus dei superferebatur super aquam. parum quippe adtendens quo more soleat illa scriptura appellare spiritum dei, quoniam et aer spiritus dicitur, quattuor opinatus elementa loco illo commemorata uideri potest. deinde quod Plato dicit amatorem dei esse philosophum, nihil sic illis sacris litteris flagrat; et maxime illud - quod et me plurimum adducit, ut paene adsentiar Platonem illorum librorum expertem non fuisse - , quod, cum ad sanctum Moysen ita uerba dei per angelum perferantur, ut quaerenti quod sit nomen eius, qui eum pergere praecipiebat ad populum Hebraeum ex Aegypto liberandum, respondeatur: ego sum qui sum, et dices filiis Israel: qui est, misit me ad uos, tamquam in eius conparatione, qui uere est quia incommutabilis est, ea quae mutabilia facta sunt non sint, uehementer hoc Plato tenuit et diligentissime commendauit. et nescio utrum hoc uspiam reperiatur in libris eorum, qui ante Platonem fuerunt, nisi ubi dictum est: ego sum qui sum, et dices eis: qui est, misit me ad uos.