Gospel of Xenophon 7 · First Witness: Justice, the Citizen, and Duty
Xenophon, born at Athens about 430 before this era, died about 354. Soldier, historian, student of Socrates. After the Persian civil war ten thousand Greek mercenaries were stranded deep in enemy country and their generals killed under a truce; he was elected to command and brought them from north of Babylon back to the Black Sea, which he set down in the Anabasis. He also wrote the Memorabilia, the Oeconomicus, the Education of Cyrus, and a history of Greece. The Socrates he records is the one who talks of households, of training men, of horses and of money. He himself kept the old rites of the city: he sacrificed, he consulted oracles, he referred matters to the gods. The Order sets that down and does not cover it for him. Of the four witnesses he alone both led men in the field and farmed land himself. This book is written as a record. Where there are numbers, dates, and names, they are set down as they were.
7.1I did not write this down at first.
7.2Not because it was unimportant, but because I was not sure I had it right. The rule of this book is that I do not write what I did not see. (cf. Gospel of Xenophon 1.11)
7.3I am old now. If I do not write it, no one will.
7.4One day a lawyer asked the Teacher in the marketplace: of all the laws, which is the greatest?
7.5He asked it in bad faith. Everyone knew it.
7.6The Teacher thought for a while. He rarely thought that long.
7.7Then he said: "Settle your accounts."
7.8The man laughed and said: what sort of law is that.
7.9The Teacher said: "You owe the baker money, and you will pay it. You owe your father a sentence — have you paid it? You owe the man who once spoke well of you — have you paid him?"
7.10The man stopped laughing.
7.11The Teacher said: "Love is not a feeling. Love is remembering what you owe, and going to pay it."
7.12"Whatever does not intend to pay is not love, however well it is spoken."
7.13I put this at the end because only today am I certain I have it right.
7.14He was still thinking about a cock as he died. (cf. Gospel of Xenophon 6.10) I used to think that was a joke.