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  • From: "Rick Frommich" <eugor3 AT hotmail.com>
  • To: gmark AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Paul and Socrates by way of Plato
  • Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 08:15:18 +0000



Through a glass darkly

360 BC PHAEDO by Plato

I should very much like to hear that, he replied.
Socrates proceeded: I thought that as I had failed in the contemplation of true existence, I ought to be careful that I did not lose the eye of my soul; as people may injure their bodily eye by observing and gazing on the sun during an eclipse, unless they take the precaution of only looking at the image reflected in the water, or in some similar medium. That occurred to me, and I was afraid that my soul might be blinded altogether if I looked at things with my eyes or tried by the help of the senses to apprehend them. 1Cor13 And I thought that I had better have recourse to ideas, and seek in them the truth of existence. I dare say that the simile is not perfect-for I am very far from admitting that he who contemplates existence through the medium of ideas, sees them only "through a glass darkly," any more than he who sees them in their working and effects. However, this was the method which I adopted: I first assumed some principle which I judged to be the strongest, and then I affirmed as true whatever seemed to agree with this, whether relating to the cause or to anything else; and that which disagreed I regarded as untrue. But I should like to explain my meaning clearly, as I do not think that you understand me.

KJV 1Co 13:12 For now we see through a glass,
darkly; but then face to face: now I know in
part; but then shall I know even as also I am
known.

Many have declared that Paul's thought concerning the physical body and the soul were derived from Plato. Here is stong evidence that Paul did indeed read Plato.

Rick Richmond


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