Socrates and the Search for Justice

The Greatest Philosopher is Often Compared to Christ

May 10, 2009

The Socratic Method forced young Athenian men to come to an an understanding of justice, virtue, ethics, and the purpose of knowledge, threatening Athenian status quo.

Socrates has been called the greatest philosopher of all time. His pursuit of justice and virtue through the “Socratic Method” of questioning eventually led to his death in Athens in 399 BC. According to former Yale University historian Jaroslav Pelikan, “He was himself a type of forerunner of Christ.” Never having written, his words come through Plato and Xenophon. Socrates’ teachings, however, still challenge a post-modern world.

Ethics, Virtue, and Knowledge

Unless knowledge leads to the formation of an ethical understanding rooted in virtue, it serves no purpose. Socrates challenged contemporary views of knowledge and individual success and inflamed the young aristocratic men of Athens, future leaders, with a new perspective of thought. Hardly unpatriotic, Socrates had served as a hoplite in several battles, yet would be accused by the Athenian leadership of corrupting the youth.

His method was constant questioning, reducing an answer to further scrutiny and forcing his listeners to consider deeper answers to often perplexing questions: from “what is justice” to “how is a man just?” Is the victim of injustice more righteous that he who commits injustice simply because the unrighteous do not understand justice? If justice was fully understood and lived, would there be unrighteousness?

In this regard, as Pelikan demonstrates, Christ could be Socrates’ completely righteous man. Pelikan quotes Glaucon in a discourse with Socrates on righteousness and the fully righteous man. In the end result, “He shall be scourged, tortured, bound, his eyes burnt out, and at last, after suffering every evil, shall be impaled or crucified.” (Plato’s Republic, book 2)

Rejecting the Gods and Democracy

The leaders of Athens also charged Socrates with rejecting the state gods and teaching new gods. By implication, this also meant that his teachings threatened Athenian Democracy. In Athens, justice was dispensed through the Assembly or Ekklesia.

Socrates did not believe that everyman possessed the same level of knowledge or understanding of justice or that every citizen’s opinion should count as heavily as another. Perhaps this helped influence Plato’s Utopia, a state ruled by a Philosopher King.

Death of Socrates

The people of Athens should have listened to the Oracle at Delphi, which declared Socrates to be the wisest of men. Socrates interpreted this to mean that he was the only man who did not know anything. The knowledge of not-knowing stems from the truth of seeing oneself correctly.

So great was their mistrust and fear, that rather than exile, Socrates was ordered to commit suicide by drinking a cup of poison. Even in this final act, Socrates was true to his beliefs and submitted to the unjust state. His death has often been compared to the death of Christ, further illuminating the analogy. Another analogy has been the life and death of abolitionist John Brown, who 19th Century American writers compared to Christ as well.

Does this imply that Socrates was a proto-type Christian? Socrates lived almost 400 years before Christ and to ascribe Christian beliefs to him is redundant. How he lived his life in view of his teachings, however, ties him closely to Christ. Both were “Law Givers;” both taught an ethic that transcended everyday thinking; both suffered deaths solely because their teachings offended contemporary leaders.

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The copyright of the article Socrates and the Search for Justice in Greek History is owned by Michael Streich. Permission to republish Socrates and the Search for Justice in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.