2. Plato’s Euthyphro and Cratylus

I. Zeus and his father and grandfather in the Euthyphro

In the Euthyphro Socrates asks Euthyphro: ‘And what is piety, and what is impiety?’ Euthyphro: ‘Piety is doing as I am doing; that is to say, prosecuting any one who is guilty of murder, sacrilege, or of any similar crime – whether he be your father or mother, or whoever he may be – that makes no difference; and not to prosecute them is impiety. And please to consider, Socrates, what a notable proof I will give you of the truth of my words, a proof which I have already given to others: – of the principle, I mean, that the impious, whoever he may be, ought not to go unpunished. For do not men regard Zeus as the best and most righteous of the gods? – and yet they admit that he bound his father (Cronos) because he wickedly devoured his sons, and that he [i.e. Cronos] too punished his own father (Uranus) for a similar reason, in a nameless manner [Jowett’s ‘punished his own father in a nameless manner’ stands for Plato’s to\n au9tou= pate/ra e0ktemei=n, i.e. (Zeus’ father) “castrated his own father”]. And yet when I proceed against my father, they are angry with me. So inconsistent are they in their way of talking when the gods are concerned, and when I am concerned.’

Socrates: ‘May not this be the reason, Euthyphro, why I am charged with impiety – that I cannot away with these stories about gods?’ (5d7-6a8, translation B. Jowett)

II. Zeus and his father and grandfather in the Cratylus

In the Cratylus, Zeus, Cronos, and Uranus are presented in a different light.

Socrates: ‘The name of Zeus has an excellent meaning, although hard to be understood, because really like a sentence, which is divided into two parts, for some call him Zena (Zh=na), and use the one half, and others who use the other half call him Dia (Di/a); the two together signify the nature of the God, and the business of the name, as we were saying, is to express the nature. For there is none who is more the author of life (ai1tioj ma=llon tou= zh=n) to us and to all, than the king and lord of all. Wherefore we are right in calling him Zena and Dia, which are one name, although divided, meaning the God through whom all creatures always have life (di’ o4n zh=n a0ei\ pa=si toi=j zw~sin u9pa/rxei). There is an irreverence, at first sight, in calling him son of Cronos (who is a proverb for stupidity), and we might rather expect Zeus to be the child of a mighty intellect. Which is the fact, for this is the meaning of his father’s name: Kro/noj quasi Ko/roj, not in the sense of a youth, but signifying to\ kaqaro\n kai\ a0kh/raton tou= nou=, the pure and undefiled mind. He, as we are informed by tradition, was begotten by Uranus, rightly so called from looking upwards (a0po\ tou= o9ra=n ta\ a1nw); which, as philosophers (oi9 metewrolo/goi ‘those who talk of heavenly bodies /ta\ metew&ra/) tell us, is the way to have a pure mind (to\n kaqaro\n nou=n paragi/gnesqai), and the name of Uranus is therefore correct. If I could remember the genealogy of Hesiod, I would have gone on and tried more conclusions of the same sort on the remoter ancestors of the Gods – then I might have seen whether this wisdom, which has come to me all in an instant, I know not whence, will or will not hold good to the end.’

Hermogenes (Socrates’ main interlocutor): ‘You seem to me, Socrates, to be quite like a prophet newly inspired, and to be uttering oracles.’

Socrates: ‘Yes, Hermogenes, and I believe that I caught the inspiration from the great Euthyphro of the Prospaltian deme, who gave me a long lecture which commenced at dawn (e3wqen): he talked and I listened, and his wisdom and enchanting ravishment has not only filled my ears but taken possession of my soul, and to-day I shall let his superhuman power work and finish the investigation of names – that will be the way; but tomorrow, if you are so disposed, we will conjure him away, and make a purgation of him, if we can only find some priest or sophist who is skilled in purifications of this sort.’ (396a1-397a1, tr. B. Jowett)

Thanks to the discussion between Socrates and Cratylus, with which the dialogue ends, no ‘purification tomorrow’ was needed.