The Transfiguration on Lycabettus

Gospel of Plato 2 · Fourth Witness: The Eternal Return, and the Ascent of the Bird

The sentences of this book are long, because what is told here cannot be exhausted in short ones.

2.1I record the sermon on Lycabettus as a moment of cosmic revelation.

2.2When Socrates preached the "free soul" to the weary people, his plain cloak seemed to shine with a pale light.

2.3His words ran on like the perfect geometry of the courses of the stars.

2.4He said to the crowd:

2.5"Your bodies are a momentary gathering of star-dust, subject to time and to decay."

2.6"But your minds are the eternal law — the Logos."

2.7"Hold your suffering lightly. It is no more than the scaffolding of your eternity."

2.8He laid his hand on the brow of a man blinded in mind by grief.

2.9And the man cried out: "Teacher! The shadows of the world are gone! I see the perfect forms of beauty and justice hanging in the vault of heaven!"

2.10In that instant all who were present understood: their earthly life was only a shadow cast by an eternal fire.

2.11Someone asked me afterward: on that day, was there wine on the mountain, or ice?

2.12I answered: on the mountain there was Law. Wine and ice are two of its garments.

2.13Those who quarrel over the garment have never seen the one who wore it.