question is one concerning human behavior, and insofar as Socrates and Euthyphro
talk about gods, it is within those ‘‘ethical’’ parameters. Nevertheless, something
can be said about Socrates’ conception of these gods of tradition. Unlike Euthyphro,
who seems to accept wholesale the gods of mythology, i.e. the gods of poetry, and
whose theological considerations coexist with the tradition he has inherited, Socrates
seems uncomfortable with the notion of gods quarrelling and feuding. And, unlike
Euthyphro, Socrates is presented as being puzzled by the practice of sacrifice, if not
prayer. Prayer, says Socrates, can be understood as our asking for something from the
gods; but sacrifice, our giving of something to the gods, does not make sense as either
a tending to the gods,therapeia, as one would tend domesticated animals, or as a
serving of the gods,hype ̄resia, as a slave would serve his master: for what could we
give to the gods that would be useful,chre ̄simon, to them? The question is left
unanswered and the dialogue moves in a different direction. The reader is therefore
left with the last point Socrates and Euthyphro genuinely seemed to agree on; this is
that piety is a certain form of justice, that part of justice that pertains to a human
being’s dealing with the gods (12). But making piety a part of the interpersonal virtue
of justice allows for an unexpected inference, not actually made explicit by Plato: if
piety is a form of justice, and if that which had been agreed for piety is also true for
justice, namely that it is always the same, regardless of the passage of time and
regardless of circumstances, then the same rules and standards apply in man’s dealings
with the gods as in man’s dealings with his fellow men. There is no fundamental
distinction between dealing with men and dealing with the gods. This result will have
repercussions, notably in theRepublic.
In theEuthyphro, in which a hexameter couplet is quoted that refers to Zeus as
having created everything (12), the notion of the gods as perfect and in need of
nothing is thus mooted for the first time. But Socrates and Euthyphro do not on
grounds of principle dispute that – as a gesture of gratitude – sacrifice may be dear,
philon, to the gods, even if it is not useful,chre ̄simon(15). This question is also
pursued in theLysis, a dialogue between Socrates and the two youths Lysis and
Menexenos, which has as its subject ‘‘what is dear,’’philon. While this dialogue is
aporetic (i.e. ending with questions unresolved) so far as the relationship between
what is dear and what is useful is concerned, it raises a number of interesting
questions concerning the divine. In the context of reciprocity as a necessary condition
of friendship, Socrates wonders jocularly if somebody devoted to the breeding and
riding of horses, a horse-lover,phil(h)ippos, will be loved in turn by the horse, a wine-
lover,philoinos, by the wine, and a wisdom-lover,philosophos, by wisdom,sophia
(212). This, of course, is a Sophistic argument, exploiting the syntax of the Greek
adjectivephilos, dear. But it opens up an interesting possibility once one assumes a
highest wisdom that transcends human approximations to wisdom, and once this
highest wisdom, which is equivalent to real knowledge of everything, is attributed to
the gods. And this very step is taken in theLysis, in which it is suggested that for a
human being to be good is to be wise, i.e. to know whatever there is to know, and
that those who are not completely stupid and ignorant and bad are striving to be
good and are striving to know. That is to say, while they are not in possession of
wisdom, they love wisdom and are thus wisdom-lovers,philosophoi; by contrast, those
who already have knowledge no longer strive for wisdom; they are wise,sophoi, not
wisdom-loving,philosophoi, be they gods or men (218). This is significant because the
390 Fritz-Gregor Herrmann