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Socrates in Purgatory

by Jonathan McCormack

2/28/13



Socrates: Excuse me sir, my name is Socrates of Greece. I am embarrassed to admit

that my mind has gone limp; the last thing I recall, after sipping my cup of poison, was

being surrounded by my disciples and waiting for death to free me, and now I find

myself in this barren land, and, seeing I still wear my body, I conclude that this be not

Hades, but nevertheless know not where !

Gregory of Nyssa : Socrates ? Be this the same Greek famed for his wisdom, made

known to the world through his disciple Plato ?

Socrates : I am the philosopher.

Gregory of Nyssa: My stars but I am blessed to meet you ! My name is Gregory from

Nyssa. I cannot say where we are, but only know that we all here are deceased, from

points of history many varied, though we speak many languages somehow we are all

understood, and that we still are bodied I know not how. Perhaps we will conceive some

clue together though. Come, I will take you to the others, where we speculate on such

things. As we go perhaps we might speak on love, as I have serendipitously just

finished hearing about your own fine orations given to the symposium and later to

Phaedrus and wish to have a few things clarified so that I might fuller appreciate your

wisdom.

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Socrates : Not my wisdom, since no man owns the truth, but say rather you wish to

know things as they are. Let us go then, and you may question me as we walk.

Gregory of Nyssa: Thank you Socrates ! Now, to begin, my understanding is that you

tell us it is not the boy himself, in his own particular beauty that truly moves us, but

simply the remembrance of some otherworldly beauty that he inspires in us, yes ?

Socrates: Indeed, which is why a beautiful boy ought to point us to this higher thing, and

not be valued in himself, for does his beauty not vanish, and become corrupt ?

Gregory of Nyssa : Indeed it is so. As the youth does age, does he thereby grow to

remind the lover less and less of the great Being itself, and therefore becomes less

valuable in himself ?

Socrates : A noble soul will by then have his eyes fixed on heavenly things, so that the

boy’s appearance less and less affects the soul in erotic agitation, and in friendship

rather they grow.

Gregory of Nyssa : So then, as the soul ascends in contemplation to the divine form

itself, less will it be a lover of boys’ beauties and more so of Beauty itself; then would we

not expect the sexual urge to disappear completely ?

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Socrates: No, for the sexual urge still urges one on to Beauty, and therefore to other

boys still in the bloom of youth, for it is not for themselves, but for their beauty that eros

is stirred, and the knowing one will no longer be deluded in thinking it will find

satisfaction in the boy, and this knowledge, which is knowing what best to love, results

in sexual mastery, for one will no longer be possessed by Eros, but will use eros in

accord with ones reason, which is no more than simply to do philosophy.

Gregory of Nyssa : But how can one refuse a demi-god ? For it is the very nature of

madness that it is beyond reason - yet you say that very faculty you say steers the

unreasonable itself ?

Socrates : It is only madness to the many, who do not know; to the philosopher it is

lucidity itself, for are not the greatest prophet’s and poets so inspired, and do they not

soar closer to what is most true ? Indeed, Eros possess who he will, but has only the

power of locomotion, it is our task to aim such movement to it’s true target - Being itself.

So though the impetus be not under our reason, as it gallops the philosopher will direct

it, and so not not lodge his arrow in any beautiful boy, thereby getting stuck in his holy

beauty, but, like the moon uses the earth the sling itself about in its own mad dance, will

use the boy to catapult himself to heaven. Only by ordering this unruly desire, can one

avoid the slavish consequences of eros, for being a slave only to truth allows true

freedom, for how can it be called freedom, if one does a thing freely that only enslaves

him to the terrible wheel of existence the more ? That which free’s us from mortality,

when we align ourselves to it, can only be called true freedom.

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Gregory of Nyssa: Then it is a matter of the will and not knowledge, for one often knows

wrong yet does it still. Also, it may take will to eros aim aright.

Socrates: By knowing what the Beautiful in it’s true reality, one will naturally realize that

it is the Beautiful itself that one yearns for ultimately, and therefore will love it most.

Loving Beauty will therefore order ones soul; for one desires that which it loves most,

and who desires a thing he loves less, such as a boy?

Gregory of Nyssa : I cannot argue Socrates. And then the value of the boy himself ?

Socrates : He and his beauty is a means and nothing more, those that get stuck in him

will perish with the body only to be reborn again.

Gregory of Nyssa : Ah, but then, if that is so, does it not therefore follow that to grieve at

the death of such a beautiful boy would be an absurdity ?

Socrates: Only in so far as it is a loss of a thing that reminded you of one’s true love, as

the lose of a neckless that one’s lover was fond of wearing.

Gregory of Nyssa: Can we really equate a boy with a mere ornament of fashion?

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Socrates : Does it not follow that, as fashion changes, so does our body? For what does

a 3 yr old child have in common with his 80 yr old self? Or a man alive in common with

his corpse transformed into dust ? Man so embodied is nothing more than forms of

fashion!

Gregory of Nyssa : But think of a grieving mother ? Surly to say as much to her would

be inhuman, and who would call such wisdom ?!

Socrates: Wisdom does not always accord with social niceties, and so to unduly grieve

is a sign of ignorance. The one with true knowledge will know that the thing for which

one loved the boy initially, namely great Being itself, is immortal and so never passes

away, and is ultimately the thing to which the soul longs.

Gregory of Nyssa : Why that sounds monstrous Socrates !

Socrates : To whom ? But let me give further proof. How can one love the boy as an

end, who is a mere person? Person’s are not ultimate, they cannot be intrinsically

valuable, but only the thing which is the source of their being. For the thing to which

one’s heart longs, and in which only it will find delight, cannot possibly be a person. For

persons, as well as everything else, proceed from this thing, which I imperfectly call

Reality, and no poet has described with due reverence. Nor can it be a god, since they

too find the source of their being in this sublime thing. Mere persons are but rungs on a

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ladder, and when we love we leap from rung to rung, hopping finally to glimpse the

ultimate thing that beauty calls us to.

Gregory of Nyssa: Nevertheless, I would call a man that acts so towards anyone either

less a man, or too much one; for there is certainly something wrong with this account,

though I cannot say what.

Socrates : But look about you. Do not the wisest men conduct themselves with stolid

indifference, eschewing the tumultuous waves of emotion that toss the ignorant about,

especially when confronted with death, now in grieving, now despair ?

Gregory of Nyssa : Ah, here is one who lived at about the same time as you, and

worships gods under the cult named ‘Buddah.’ from the east. Tell us, having been close

enough to have heard our conversation, what say you ?

Sariputta : There is a story of a much grieved mother who went to Buddha to ask that

he bring back to life somehow her dead son. He told her to go to the city, there find

some seeds from a house that has never known grief, and from those seeds he would

mix a potion. Many years she searched, only to return to the Buddha empty handed.

From that she learned from Buddha that all things must pass, we are as transient as the

dew on the grass.

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Socrates: There is wisdom here. Just so, and have not always wise men acted which

such equanimity in the face of death?

Gregory of Nyssa : I knew a teacher much revered who, having heard the news of his

friends death, did fall to his knees and wept.

Socrates : He did not know. Further proof : persons are particular, the source of reality,

outside even the heavens, is by necessity universal. For the Many must come from the

One, and to be reconciled the individual must lose it’s individuality to partake in the One;

or else the very One would needs be parted within, in which case, what would hold

them together, and could it be One ?

Gregory of Nyssa But your account fails to make sense of the Good as we experience

it in our lives. Is it not so that you give your counsel freely, just as the Good gives freely

of itself ?

Socrates : Thus so.

Gregory of Nyssa : And is it not also true that those whom we honor as good are known

for selflessness, of giving their very lives to the Good, as they may perceive it embodied

whether in person, the sate, or cause ?

Socrates : Many with courage has, and by doing honors the source of All well.

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Gregory of Nyssa : In so much as they give of themselves, and in so doing, participate

in the essence of this Reality, does not it stand to reason that the Being also acts in

such a way ?

Socrates : In which way is that ?

Gregory of Nyssa : In a selfless way ?

Socrates : Nay, for how can this thing, which is beyond description, do so when it has

no self to sacrifice ? And what cause greater than itself could it sacrifice for ? Thirdly, if it

is the source of all, how could it sacrifice anything, when being the source, it possess

all ?

Gregory of Nyssa : Then how does one explain the glory of sacrifice, which implies

courage and yields honor, and in which we all recognize the appearance of Good ? As

to what cause, would it not be an even greater act to sacrifice for something lesser than

itself, but a thing which is in itself still a great good and benefit to those things lesser

still ? And indeed, could it not, being so great and mightily, not abandon it’s own

greatness, empty itself of its glory, in order to make the sacrifice ? And that this is the

only solution to the mysterious nobility in self-sacrifice ?

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Socrates : In sacrificing one’s self to the nation, one honors the Good even more, since

that which orders a nation, namely peace and virtuous citizens, is more beautiful than

any individual, and therefore more partaking in the Good. A well-ordered society is

therefore more valuable than a mere individual, which is why the sacrifice of a few for

the many is justified.

Gregory of Nyssa : Then using people is justified if it serves that which has more of the

Good within it, such as society at large?

Socrates : That is akin to asking what is more good - the greater good or the lesser ?!

Gregory of Nyssa : That men can be used, even for ennobling virtuous causes, even to

make the world more beautiful and therefore bringing men closer to this Ultimate vision

you speak of, seems to me to lead to and perhaps justify villainous political

machinations. I only pray none of your students gain power in the polis, and feed men to

Good cause...

Socrates : If by sacrificing individuals they should make the state a more ordered place,

thereby birthing in beauty a more virtuous citizenly, it must be considered a gain not a

loss !

Gregory of Nyssa: So do you say that love is an essence of this great Reality, since our

whole being is aimed to love it ?

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Socrates : Certainly love is one of it’s essence.

Gregory of Nyssa : But how can that be ? For love to exist requires a subject who loves,

and then a subject to love. This then implies that the great Reality is not complete in

itself, but needs to create subjects, and if it is not sufficient onto itself, then this great

Being itself is lacking ! And a being that is lacking cannot be perfect. The only other

alternative is that love in fact does not make up it’s essence. That love is not a

necessary condition of it’s being - is unessential, and it’s essence cannot contain love in

any of it’s forms.

Finally, I submit to you, that it is not merely an eternal longing to love within us, which is

simply a desire for right order, that is, relating yourself correctly to reality, in a manner

congruent with the way the world is, but also every person has a deep thirst to BE

loved, from where else does our desire for honer come ? Our reverence for courage ?

And without this need, how could shame exist ? Without shame there could be no

society, and did you yourself not cite lack of shame as the main reason that one part of

our soul is so unruly ? Indeed, perhaps love exists merely for the sake of shame, that is

to say, for order among men and spirits.

Socrates : Indeed I am sure I know not ! Neither do I possess any wisdom. But I

perceive you are leading me to a conclusion already formed in your mind.

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Gregory of Nyssa : I will make a proposal to explain all the philosophical fragments your

mind has given birth too- and smooth their jagged edges. For it is just this : the universe

long ago was created by a singular God, who is one, and who is all good, and a certain

person of His creation, a lesser god, broke with him, bringing evil and the spirit of

rebellion into being. The universe being sustained by love, and since only persons can

love, God then created man to bless the universe, gifted it to him to sacrimentalize it by

offering it freely back to Him who freely gave it; until one day these rebellious gods

manipulated man into rebellious behavior, some say even mating with their woman

generating this odd blood line of embodied half goat/half sheep like creature, in spirit at

least, thereby did man neglect his priestly duty, and so the universe decays and chaos

reigns.

Socrates : And this is the Being that eros leads us to, by way of beauty, which love can

leads us to if only we use beautiful boys wisely ?

Gregory of Nyssa : You are ontologically confused: one uses forks, shovels, or other

things, but a boy is not an object merely but a subject as well.

Socrates: Even so, does not his beauty, not stopping at his fair form, lead us upwards,

toward this God you speak of, that our souls before birth must have somehow beheld ?

Gregory of Nyssa: Nay, for this boy’s beauty is a promise. Beauty itself, which is not a

thing but an experience, is a promise of things to come, though it does speak of things

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to come we yet paradoxically seem to remember. Made in God’s image man can know

the true, the good, and recognize beauty. Because every boy, and man and woman and

child, be made in divine image, we must honor their person in it’s freedom thusly.

Socrates: But, you must admit, the boy is a mere mist, ready to disperse, and to love a

thing so unstable as one loves God surly is dishonoring !

Gregory of Nyssa: No, for every person is immortal.

Socrates : Every soul perhaps, but while we walk the earth we are made of so many

incidentals, historical factors, changing fancies engendered by the accidents of time.

Not to mention we are here trapped in the flesh, which is imprinted with all these

accidentals, which on our death day will drop off as a stained shirt is put off after it’s

corruption bears it unwearable.

Gregory of Nyssa: Man, though now he dies, will one day be raised from the dead, put

then in a material form incorruptible. Further more, God was made man - the abstract

absolute become the personal, so that Truth could be loved as a person because truth

is a person, the absolute became the particular, the unconditioned entered historical

contingent reality, so by this one doctrine, if it be true, all your odd contraries are

reconciled !

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Think also that when one is in love one will do anything for his beloved, even sacrificing

his own life . It is this very love that the eternally self-giving God who is one in three

embodies. Now, you say it is the form of beauty in the boy you love Socrates, not the

person of the boy himself, for when he matures to adulthood you lose all romantic

attachment. In my society it is to women only one makes bed with, with a holy vow that

is unbreakable before God and man, and sex is simply a mirror of God’s promise to wed

He and us together. I love a person because God Himself shares that form. A person is

made in His image, to love the individual IS to love Him. Our prophets go so far as to

say one cannot love God if one loves not his neighbor. And that this is an act of will, not

knowledge, that God helps one to achieve.

Socrates : But is not the love for women the same ? A maiden of twelve is very sweet

indeed, but she too ages and by twenty three repulses the manhood of the most horned

man.

Gregory of Nyssa: True, but consider the poetry of the thing. Most men, you must admit,

to use your own allegory, are drawn by that wild pridefull mare you speak of; and, even

if they had the time and disposition, and such a thing could be accomplished, still I say,

how many would want to or even could tame this animal, because of ignorance or not ?

Thus, ingeniously, does God put this erotic longing for Himself in the heart of man.

Society and tradition make rituals to keep this wild horse corralled, and I will grant many

men get married only to let loose the pent up beast, and this madness of love has him

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do a thing which otherwise no sane man would - yoke himself forever with this girl, who,

as you say, will surly age and cease to quench his erotic burnings.

But, after a year or two, this form of beauty, which likely was indeed his reason and

motivation for marriage, is now dissipated. Eros has died, the beauty he once loved is

no more, and he is left with the person herself. He realizes she cannot complete him. It

is at this point that he now has a choice. For where before eros did force his actions

with violent desire, now he may choose love. Choose to love freely socrates, without the

erotic force. Now he can choose to love, not the form of the beautiful, but the person

herself. How ? Why, only by giving his time, his labor, and himself freely without needing

- though he may still want it- any satisfaction she might bestow on him. Thereby does

erotic love become transfigured into self-sacrificial love. Not only that, but sex itself is

changed, devoid of lust, it now reconstitutes that holy promise to love one another, and

mirrors the promise that God will never abandon us, but that we are His faithful bride,

and death will be the consummation of His love for us.

Socrates : Would a wise man be then most agitated, still attached to his beloved,

watching them die?

Gregory of Nyssa:That prophet I earlier mentioned was the God-man Christ and he

wept for his dead friend Lazuras because death is an evil, our enemy. Death, as you

wrongly think Socrates, is not a good to free us from this tomb of flesh. Or else it would

be a greater good than life. Else the wise would commit suicide ! Everywhere death is

fought as an evil - by medicine, warriors, and all others. Christ wept because death is

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unnatural - and does it not strike us so ? Are we not shocked when it happens and feel

a great injustice?

And in the resurrection we will still retain our unique personality, as God Himself is three

unique persons. Who truly wishes to lose his personality completely and be lost in the

One ? Look how we cling to this “fleshly tomb” as you put it. It is clear that we wish to

have our nature, but have it purified.

Even if it were possible to love this Ultimate Reality of yours, would it love us back ?

Every person has an unquenchable need to love and be loved, for in love we are

vouchsafed our true significance. In truth, we are given the the option of becoming

adopted sons and daughters of God ! Then we are motivated not by alien eros, but

because we love God and wish to please Him as we would a wise father. Only acts born

from love are truly free since they are not conditioned, they are not reactions to the

outside world, but transcend it.

Again still, gift being a high good, this gift is given freely to all, as you gave freely the

truth to everyone, and in doing so acknowledged the good of gifting, and so one need

not be a philosopher laboriously bringing his ugly horse under reign to soar and meet

God, rather God comes down to meet us. You must admit that this is a vision nobler and

more just then the one you describe; and if God truly is Just, it stands to reason that this

must be so. Also, who can save oneself as you describe Socrates, is there even one

such in every million ? Is not the task of mastery over ones soul almost superhuman?

Even if achievable, how many innocents born with dispositions or talents, or

intelligence's not conducive to a philosophers life are doomed ! And, can one really

believe, looking about at the solid rocks, the very real sun, the hard ground below, that

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truly, through sheer will power or remembrance, a man can overcome death and the

wheel of existence ? And who would want to, if it meant giving up the very beautiful

personality, merged into the One, that results in such efforts ! We tremble to keep safe

our precious selves.

Sariputta : But when one meditates deeply and looks within, one finds there is no self,

only a constant ceaseless change of attributes.

Gregory of Nyssa : Indeed if one were to sit alone and isolated one might find some

basis for an individual, some constant that binds experiences in time, but not a self. For

one’s self is in others under God. Your Buddhist experience can be explained when you

see God Himself is relational, one but triune, and the three persons sharing one

substance are in a constant circulation of love - of self-giving and receiving. God IS

society, therefore all reality is relationally conditioned. No man is an island, ontologically

speaking.

[As an interesting aside, Fr. Hopko says “See So, ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’

However, in certain modern editions of the Bible, I have seen this translated as, ‘You

shall love your neighbor as you love yourself.’ But that’s not what it says.”—from his

essay On Forgiveness . His point is that although we maintain our individuality, our

selves are formed inter-relationally within community and so we find our self in the

other, the two in relation to a third term, namely God.)

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So another secret, and reason why we love a person for themselves, is that

personhood, although never appearing without it, is ontologically prior to being; so that

being itself springs from personhood, and not the other way around. The soul is not

some impersonal abstract energy, but a person one with flesh. And for persons to exist

you need another to love, to relate to - such is why we can speak of the sovereignty of a

triune God. He does not need a creation, as I pointed out to you earlier your ultimate

reality does, for the true triune God loves eternally in an economy of mutual self-giving

between three distinct persons. Personhood is ultimately the ground of being, and

Christ is a particular, ultimate, historical eternal person.

Thus is reconciled spirit to matter, accidental to universal, god to man; in this way there

is only one world, not two, although made both of material and immaterial things,

intertwined intricately, and not some other magic place where bodiless human souls

function. Plus, the next life, the new life, we will still love, forever reaching toward God,

forever celebrating bodies, flowers, and dirt, and forever taking joy in the ultimate

beloved, with no contradiction or choosing between them. In affirming these things by

blessings we honor Him, and thereby are all things reconciled in Him.

Socrates : Quite a myth ! But you know, I doubt, for all the truth I still believe is

contained in my own myth, that anyone will actually believe it. The fact that you place

these ideas in real places with real people makes it more fantastic. For none of us

greeks ever sought to climb Olympus, or look for the house of Aphrodite, or seek the

bathhouse of Zeus. I think your story is hardly myth like, and even more miraculous

would be for anyone besides yourself to take it seriously.

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No, only a hand few of wise, disciplined philosophers will have the knowledge to seek

and believe in these things. The rest of the world labors in storied indifference.

Gregory of Nyssa :That centuries later men should give labour to these things over the

broken body of an obscure itinerant middle eastern peasant is miracle enough.

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