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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. 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, 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." 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. 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;" 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."
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