The Logos Scripture · Gospel of Xenophon

The Night Visit of Crito

Gospel of Xenophon 5 · First Witness: Justice, the Citizen, and Duty

This book is written as a record. Where there are numbers, dates, and names, they are set down as they were.

5.1On the third night before the execution, Crito bribed the gaoler and came into the stone cell before daybreak.

5.2The ship from Delos had not yet come in. By law there could be no execution until it did. There was still time.

5.3Crito said: "The money is ready, the road is laid, there are men in Thessaly to receive you. You have only to stand up and walk out."

5.4The Teacher asked: "What have we said all our lives?"

5.5Crito said: "You have said that the laws must be obeyed."

5.6The Teacher asked: "Was that said for the times when the law treats me justly, or was it said regardless?"

5.7Crito was silent.

5.8The Teacher said:

5.9"A man cannot be a citizen only when the law suits him."

5.10"If I go over the wall tonight, every sentence I have spoken in my life goes over with me, and dies outside the wall."

5.11Crito wept, and said: "But they are wrong."

5.12The Teacher said: "They are wrong. That does not make it right for me to be wrong also. To answer a wrong with a wrong is only to double it."

5.13Toward dawn Crito walked out of the cell alone.

5.14I set this night down so that those who come after will know: the door was open.

5.15The Teacher's death was not laid on him by others. He chose it.