knowledge._
Certain partakers with us in the grace of Christ, wonder when
they hear and read that Plato had conceptions concerning God, in
which they recognise considerable agreement with the truth of our
religion. Some have concluded from this, that when he went to Egypt
he had heard the prophet Jeremiah, or, whilst travelling in the
same country, had read the prophetic scriptures, which opinion I
myself have expressed in certain of my writings.[301] But a careful
calculation of dates, contained in chronological history, shows
that Plato was born about a hundred years after the time in which
Jeremiah prophesied, and, as he lived eighty-one years, there are
found to have been about seventy years from his death to that time
when Ptolemy, king of Egypt, requested the prophetic scriptures
of the Hebrew people to be sent to him from Judea, and committed
them to seventy Hebrews, who also knew the Greek tongue, to be
translated and kept. Therefore, on that voyage of his, Plato could
neither have seen Jeremiah, who was dead so long before, nor have
read those same scriptures which had not yet been translated into
the Greek language, of which he was a master, unless, indeed, we
say that, as he was most earnest in the pursuit of knowledge, he
also studied those writings through an interpreter, as he did those
of the Egyptians,--not, indeed, writing a translation of them (the
facilities for doing which were only gained even by Ptolemy in return
for munificent acts of kindness,[302] though fear of his kingly
authority might have seemed a sufficient motive), but learning as
much as he possibly could concerning their contents by means of
conversation. What warrants this supposition is the opening verses
of Genesis: "In the beginning God made the heaven and earth. And the
earth was invisible, and without order; and darkness was over the
abyss: and the Spirit of God moved over the waters."[303] For in
the _Timæus_, when writing on the formation of the world, he says
that God first united earth and fire; from which it is evident that
he assigns to fire a place in heaven. This opinion bears a certain
resemblance to the statement, "In the beginning God made heaven and
earth." Plato next speaks of those two intermediary elements, water
and air, by which the other two extremes, namely, earth and fire,
were mutually united; from which circumstance he is thought to have
so understood the words, "The Spirit of God moved over the waters."
For, not paying sufficient attention to the designations given by
those scriptures to the Spirit of God, he may have thought that the
four elements are spoken of in that place, because the air also is
called spirit.[304] Then, as to Plato's saying that the philosopher
is a lover of God, nothing shines forth more conspicuously in those
sacred writings. But the most striking thing in this connection, and
that which most of all inclines me almost to assent to the opinion
that Plato was not ignorant of those writings, is the answer which
was given to the question elicited from the holy Moses when the words
of God were conveyed to him by the angel; for, when he asked what was
the name of that God who was commanding him to go and deliver the
Hebrew people out of Egypt, this answer was given: "I am who am;
and thou shalt say to the children of Israel, He who _is_ sent me
unto you;"[305] as though compared with Him that truly _is_, because
He is unchangeable, those things which have been created mutable
_are_ not,--a truth which Plato vehemently held, and most diligently
commended. And I know not whether this sentiment is anywhere to be
found in the books of those who were before Plato, unless in that
book where it is said, "I am who am; and thou shalt say to the
children of Israel, _Who is_ sent me unto you."