The Logos Scripture · Acts of the Apostles

The Gospel of Plato in the Western Lands

Acts of the Apostles 2 · A Record of the Great Scattering

2.1Plato crossed the raging sea to Sicily and entered the court of Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse.

2.2A realm ruled by iron and gold.

2.3The tyrant sat at ease upon his ivory throne and demanded:

2.4"To a man who already owns the lives and bodies of ten thousand subjects, what can your philosophy give?"

2.5Plato looked at him with the Teacher's unbending gaze and answered:

2.6"Your ten thousand subjects are shadows in a dark cave."

2.7"And you, tyrant, are the chief gaoler, bound to the same wall as they."

2.8"You own their clay, and live every day in mortal terror of a single free thought."

2.9The tyrant raged, and threatened him with chains.

2.10Plato smiled faintly, walked out of the court, and was in no way bound by the majesty of kings.

2.11He returned to Athens and founded the great Academy outside the walls, a sanctuary of geometry and dialectic.

2.12Over its gate he carved: "Let no one enter who does not know geometry."

2.13The geometry he meant was the geometry of mathematics, for it is the root of the law of the universe.

2.14And it was also the wider discipline of rational thought and logical inference.

2.15There he trained men to see through the ever-changing, rotting illusion of matter.

2.16And taught them to pursue the inner blueprint of the universe — the eternal forms of the Logos.