The Logos Scripture · Gospel of Antisthenes

The Tyrants' Poison

Gospel of Antisthenes 5 · Second Witness: Austerity, and War Against Matter

The sentences of this book are short. The shortness is deliberate. Long sentences are written for men with leisure.

5.1Because Socrates had stripped bare the ignorance of the powerful, the ruling class conspired to destroy him.

5.2They used the law of the city as a weapon.

5.3And sentenced the most just man in Greece to drink hemlock.

5.4When the cup was brought, Socrates seized it.

5.5As a soldier takes up a blade to strike out the bars of his cage.

5.6He looked at the weeping disciples and said:

5.7"Why do you weep over this clay?"

5.8"The body is a long sickness. Death is my physician."

5.9When the cold poison reached his heart, he cried out:

5.10"Crito! The debt owed to the body is paid!"

5.11"Give the cock to the god of healing, for I am cured at last of this dying flesh!"

5.12In that instant his body went rigid. It split like an empty shell.

5.13And his burning, untamed soul broke wholly free of the world.

5.14I did not weep. Weeping is prepared for those who have lost something.

5.15He lost nothing. He set it down.