[Footnote 75: Plato, Republic, iii. p. 389 B. [Greek: e)n pharma/kou ei)/dei]. Compare De Legg. ii. p. 663 D.
Eusebius enumerates this as one of the points of conformity between Plato and the Hebrew records: in which, Eusebius says, you may find numberless similar fictions ([Greek: muri/a toiau=ta]), such as the statements of God being jealous or angry or affected by other human passions, which are fictions recounted for the benefit of those who require such treatment (Euseb. Præpar. Evan. xii. 31).]
Plato lays down his own individual preconception respecting the characters of the Gods, as orthodoxy for his Republic: directing that the poets shall provide new narratives conformable to that type. What is more, he establishes a peremptory censorship to prevent the circulation of any narratives dissenting from it. As to truth or falsehood, all that he himself claims is that his general preconception of the character of the Gods is true, and worthy of their dignity; while those entertained by his contemporaries are false; the particular narratives are alike fictitious in both cases. Fictitious as they are, however, Plato has fair reason for his confident assertion, that if they could once be imprinted on the minds of his citizens, as portions of an established creed, they would maintain themselves for a long time in unimpaired force and credit. He guards them by the artificial protection of a censorship, stricter than any real Grecian city exhibited: over and above the self-supporting efficacy, usually sufficient without farther aid, which inheres in every established religious creed.
[Side-note: Main points of dissent between Plato and his countrymen, in respect to religious doctrine.]
The points upon which Plato here chiefly takes issue with his countrymen, are--the general character of the Gods--and the extent to which the Gods determine the lot of human beings. He distinctly repudiates as untrue, that which he declares to be the generally received faith: though in other parts of his writings, we find him eulogising the merit of uninquiring faith--of that age of honest simplicity when every one believed what was told him from his childhood, and when no man was yet clever enough to suspect falsehood.[76]