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EUTHYPHRO: INTRODUCTORY NOTES Exerpted from The Online Library of Liberty A Project Of Liberty Fund, Inc. Plato, Dialogues, vol. 2 - Meno, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Gorgias, Appendix I - Lesser, Hippias, Alcibiades I, Menexenus, Appendix II - Alcibiades II, Eryxias [1892], pp. 84-88.

In the Meno, Anytus had parted from Socrates with the significant words: ‘That in any city, and

particularly in the city of Athens, it is easier to do men harm than to do them good’ (94 E);

and Socrates was anticipating another opportunity of talking with him (99 E). In the Euthyphro,

Socrates is awaiting his trial for impiety. But before the trial begins, Plato would like to put the world

on their trial, and convince them of ignorance in that very matter touching which Socrates is

accused. An incident which may perhaps really have occurred in the family of Euthyphro, a learned

Athenian diviner and soothsayer, furnishes the occasion of the discussion.

This Euthyphro and Socrates are represented as meeting in the porch of the King Archon. (Cp.

Theaet. sub fin.) Both have legal business in hand. Socrates is defendant in a suit for impiety which

Meletus has brought against him (it is remarked by the way that he is not a likely man himself to

have brought a suit against another); and Euthyphro too is plaintiff in an action for murder, which

he has brought against his own father. The latter has originated in the following manner:—A poor

dependant of the family had slain one of their domestic slaves in Naxos. The guilty person was

bound and thrown into a ditch by the command of Euthyphro’s father, who sent to the interpreters

of religion at Athens to ask what should be done with him. Before the messenger came back, the

criminal had died from hunger and exposure.

This is the origin of the charge of murder which Euthyphro brings against his father. Socrates is

confident that before he could have undertaken the responsibility of such a prosecution, he must

have been perfectly informed of the nature of piety and impiety; and as he is going to be tried for

impiety himself, he thinks that he cannot do better than learn of Euthyphro (who will be admitted

by everybody, including the judges, to be an unimpeachable authority) what piety is, and what is

impiety.

What then is piety? Euthyphro, who, in the abundance of his knowledge, is very willing to undertake

all the responsibility, replies: That piety is doing as I do, prosecuting your father (if he is guilty) on a

charge of murder; doing as the gods do—as Zeus did to Cronos, and Cronos to Uranus. Socrates

has a dislike to these tales of mythology, and he fancies that this dislike of his may be the reason why

he is charged with impiety. ‘Are they really true?’ ‘Yes, they are;’ and Euthyphro will gladly tell

Socrates some more of them. But Socrates would like first of all to have a more satisfactory answer

to the question, ‘What is piety?’ ‘Doing as I do, charging a father with murder,’ may be a single

instance of piety, but can hardly be regarded as a general definition.

Euthyphro replies, that ‘Piety is what is dear to the gods, and impiety is what is not dear to them.’

But may there not be differences of opinion, as among men, so also among the gods? Especially,

about good and evil, which have no fixed rule; and these are precisely the sort of differences which

give rise to quarrels. And therefore what may be dear to one god may not be dear to another, and

the same action may be both pious and impious; e. g., your chastisement of your father, Euthyphro,

may be dear or pleasing to Zeus (who inflicted a similar chastisement on his own father), but not

equally pleasing to Cronos or Uranus (who suffered at the hands of their sons). Euthyphro answers

that there is no difference of opinion, either among gods or men, as to the propriety of punishing a

murderer. Yes, rejoins Socrates, when they know him to be a murderer; but you are assuming the

point at issue. If all the circumstances of the case are considered, are you able to show that your

father was guilty of murder, or that all the gods are agreed in approving of our prosecution of him?

And must you not allow that what is hated by one god may be liked by another? Waiving this last,

however, Socrates proposes to amend the definition, and say that ‘what all the gods love is pious,

and what they all hate is impious.’ To this Euthyphro agrees.

Socrates proceeds to analyze the new form of the definition. He shows that in other cases the act

precedes the state; e.g., the act of being carried, being loved, etc. precedes the state of being carried,

being loved, etc., and therefore that which is dear to the gods is dear to the gods because it is first

loved of them, not loved of them because it is dear to them. But the pious or holy is loved by the

gods because it is pious or holy, which is equivalent to saying, that it is loved by them because it is

dear to them. Here then appears to be a contradiction,—Euthyphro has been giving an attribute or

accident of piety only, and not the essence. Euthyphro acknowledges himself that his explanations

seem to walk away or go round in a circle, like the moving figures of Daedalus, the ancestor of

Socrates, who has communicated his art to his descendants.

Socrates, who is desirous of stimulating the indolent intelligence of Euthyphro, raises the question in

another manner: ‘Is all the pious just?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Is all the just pious?’ ‘No.’ ‘Then what part of justice is

piety?’ Euthyphro replies that piety is that part of justice which ‘attends’ to the gods, as there is

another part of justice which ‘attends’ to men. But what is the meaning of ‘attending’ to the gods?

The word ‘attending,’ when applied to dogs, horses, and men, implies that in some way they are

made better. But how do pious or holy acts make the gods any better? Euthyphro explains that he

means by pious acts, acts of service or ministration. Yes; but the ministrations of the husbandman,

the physician, and the builder have an end. To what end do we serve the gods, and what do we help

them to accomplish?

Euthyphro replies, that all these difficult questions cannot be resolved in a short time; and he would

rather say simply that piety is knowing how to please the gods in word and deed, by prayers and

sacrifices. In other words, says Socrates, piety is ‘a science of asking and giving’—asking what we

want and giving what they want; in short, a mode of doing business between gods and men. But

although they are the givers of all good, how can we give them any good in return? ‘Nay, but we give

them honor.’

Then we give them not what is beneficial, but what is pleasing or dear to them; and this is the point

which has been already disproved. Socrates, although weary of the subterfuges and evasions of

Euthyphro, remains unshaken in his conviction that he must know the nature of piety, or he would

never have prosecuted his old father. He is still hoping that he will condescend to instruct him. But

Euthyphro is in a hurry and cannot stay. And Socrates’s last hope of knowing the nature of piety

before he is prosecuted for impiety has disappeared. As in the Euthydemus the irony is carried on to

the end.

The Euthyphro is manifestly designed to contrast the real nature of piety and impiety with the popular

conceptions of them. But when the popular conceptions of them have been overthrown, Socrates

does not offer any definition of his own: as in the Laches and Lysis, he prepares the way for an

answer to the question which he has raised; but true to his own character, refuses to answer himself.

Euthyphro is a religionist, and is elsewhere spoken of, if he be the same person, as the author of a

philosophy of names, by whose ‘prancing steeds’ Socrates in the Cratylus is carried away. He has the

conceit and self-confidence of a Sophist; no doubt that he is right in prosecuting his father has ever

entered into his mind. Like a Sophist too, he is incapable either of framing a general definition or of

following the course of an argument. His wrong-headedness, one-sidedness, narrowness,

positiveness, are characteristic of his priestly office. His failure to apprehend an argument may be

compared to a similar defect which is observable in the rhapsode Ion. But he is not a bad man, and

he is friendly to Socrates, whose familiar sign he recognizes with interest. Though unable to follow

him he is very willing to be led by him, and eagerly catches at any suggestion which saves him from

the trouble of thinking. Moreover he is the enemy of Meletus, who, as he says, is availing himself of

the popular dislike to innovations in religion in order to injure Socrates; at the same time he is

amusingly confident that he has weapons in his own armory which would be more than a match for

him. He is quite sincere in his prosecution of his father, who has accidentally been guilty of

homicide, and is not wholly free from blame. To purge away the crime appears to him in the light of

a duty, whoever may be the criminal.

Thus begins the contrast between the religion of the letter, or of the narrow and unenlightened

conscience, and the higher notion of religion which Socrates vainly endeavors to elicit from him.

‘Piety is doing as I do’ is the idea of religion which first occurs to him, and to many others who do

not say what they think with equal frankness. For men are not easily persuaded that any other

religion is better than their own; or that other nations, e. g. the Greeks in the time of Socrates, were

equally serious in their religious beliefs and difficulties. The chief difference between us and them is

that they were slowly learning what we are in process of forgetting. Greek mythology hardly

admitted of the distinction between accidental homicide and murder: that the pollution of blood was

the same in both cases is also the feeling of the Athenian diviner. He had not as yet learned the

lesson, which philosophy was teaching, that Homer and Hesiod, if not banished from the state, or

whipped out of the assembly, as Heracleitus more rudely proposed, at any rate were not to be

appealed to as authorities in religion; and he is ready to defend his conduct by the examples of the

gods.

These are the very tales which Socrates cannot abide; and his dislike of them, as he suspects, has

branded him with the reputation of impiety. Here is one answer to the question, ‘Why Socrates was

put to death,’ suggested by the way. Another is conveyed in the words, ‘The Athenians do not care

about any man being thought wise until he begins to make other men wise; and then for some

reason or other they are angry:’ which may be said to be the rule of popular toleration in most other

countries, and not at Athens only. In the course of the argument Socrates remarks that the

controversial nature of morals and religion arises out of the difficulty of verifying them. There is no

measure or standard to which they can be referred.

The next definition, ‘Piety is that which is loved of the gods,’ is shipwrecked on a refined distinction

between the state (of being loved) and the act (of being loved), corresponding respectively to the

adjective and the participle, or rather perhaps to the participle and the verb. The act is prior to the

state; and the state of being loved is preceded by the act of being loved. But piety or holiness is

preceded by the act of being pious, not by the act of being loved; and therefore piety and the state of

being loved are different.

Through such subtleties of dialectic Socrates is working his way into a deeper region of thought and

feeling. He means to say that the words ‘loved of (or by) the gods’ express an attribute only, and not

the essence of piety. Then follows the third and last definition, ‘Piety is a part of justice.’ Thus far

Socrates has proceeded in placing religion on a moral foundation. He is seeking to realize the

harmony of religion and morality, which the great poets Æschylus, Sophocles, and Pindar had

unconsciously anticipated, and which is the universal want of all men. To this the soothsayer adds

the ceremonial element, ‘attending upon the gods.’ When further interrogated by Socrates as to the

nature of this ‘attention to the gods,’ he replies, that piety is an affair of business, a science of giving

and asking, and the like. Socrates points out the anthropomorphism of these notions. (Cp. Symp. 202

E; Rep. ii. 365 E; Politicus 290 C, D.) But when we expect him to go on and show that the true service

of the gods is the service of the spirit and the co-operation with them in all things true and good, he

stops short; this was a lesson which the soothsayer could not have been made to understand, and

which everyone must learn for himself.

There seem to be altogether three aims or interests in this little Dialogue: (1) the dialectical

development of the idea of piety; (2) the antithesis of true and false religion, which is carried to a

certain extent only; (3) the defense of Socrates. The subtle connection with the Apology and the Crito;

the holding back of the conclusion, as in the Charmides, Lysis, Laches, Protagoras, and other Dialogues;

the deep insight into the religious world; the dramatic power and play of the two characters; the

inimitable irony, are reasons for believing that the Euthyphro is a genuine Platonic writing. The spirit

in which the popular representations of mythology are denounced recalls Republic II (378 ff.) The

virtue of piety has been already mentioned as one of five in the Protagoras, but is not reckoned

among the four cardinal virtues of Republic IV (428 ff.). The figure of Daedalus has occurred in the

Meno (97 D); that of Proteus (15 D) in the Euthydemus (288 B) and Io (541 E). The kingly science has

already appeared in the Euthydemus, and will reappear in the Republic and Statesman. But neither from

these nor any other indications of similarity or difference, and still less from arguments respecting

the suitableness of this little work to aid Socrates at the time of his trial or the reverse, can any

evidence of the date be obtained. [Notes by Greek scholar, Benjamin Jowett, 1817-1893.]