proposed solutions in philosophical religion from the Presocratics to early Christianity. A good
discussion of Presocratic theology is Broadie 1999. Still worth reading is the longer, more
discursive account by Jaeger (1947), covering the same period. The material relevant to the
study of the religion and theology of the Presocratics and Plato receives an excellent scholarly
analysis in Burkert 1985:305–37, and 465–72. The philosopher’s task of making himself
similar to god as much as is humanly possible is taken seriously and discussed in its implications
in Sedley 1999; the response by Mahoney 2005 does not necessarily mark progress. The recent
collection of translations of some of Plato’s most important myths by Partenie (2004) contains
useful bibliographical references. Of the detailed treatments of Plato’s theology, Solmsen 1942
deserves special mention. Gerson 1990 contains chapters on ‘‘The Presocratic Origins of
Natural Theology,’’ ‘‘Plato on God and the Forms,’’ ‘‘Aristotle’s God of Motion,’’ ‘‘Stoic
Materialist Theology,’’ and ‘‘Plotinus on the God Beyond God’’; it is a good example of an
account that interprets the history of philosophy from its end. On the nature of the myth of the
demiurge in Plato, the incisive article by Hackforth (1936) stands out. For the demiurge in
Plato and potential precursors in earlier Greek philosophy, Classen (1962) is fundamental.
Specialist treatments of ‘‘god in Plato’s thought’’ are Menn 1995 and Carone 2005. On
religious metaphor in Plato in general see Pender 2000. Herrmann 2003 examines metaphor
in the ontology and ethics of theTimaeus, while Herrmann 2004 investigates Socrates’ veiled
agnosticism and Plato’s distance from Orphico-Pythagorean beliefs, including the doctrine of
recollection, from theApologyto thePhaedo. For an examination of the notion of cause in Plato
see e.g. Strange 1999. The relevant chapters in Algra et al. (1999) offer a good starting point
for theology in the hellenistic period. Chadwick 1966 and Stead 1994 are excellent introduc-
tions to the influence of the theology of Plato (and indeed other Greek and Roman philo-
sophers) on early Christian thought. Mawson 2005 attempts a discussion of God in the three
major modern monotheistic religions which does not make reference to Plato or indeed to
Greek antiquity; but what is presented as a modern, quasia prioriaccount of belief in God
could not even have been begun without the rational theology of Plato, as a glance at the
book’s Table of Contents will show.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTSTo Ceri Davies, Swansea, and Daniel Ogden sincere thanks for friendly advice and helpful
criticism in matters of style and content. I should like to repay long-standing debts of gratitude
by dedicating this essay to Pra ̈lat Dr. Peter Prassel, Bonn, and Dr. med. Johannes Chevalier,
Mainz.
Greek Religion and Philosophy 397