And this skill he will not attain without a great deal of trouble, which a good man ought to undergo, not for the sake of speaking and acting before men, but in order that he may be able to say what is acceptable to God and always to act acceptably to Him as far as in him lies; for there is a saying of wiser men than ourselves, that a man of sense should not try to please his fellow-servants (at least this should not be his first object) but his good and noble masters; and therefore if the way is long and circuitous, marvel not at this, for, where the end is great, there we may take the longer road, but not for lesser ends such as yours.
Truly, the argument may say, Tisias, that if you do not mind going so far, rhetoric has a fair beginning here.
Phaedr.
I think, Socrates, that this is admirable, if only practicable.
Soc.
But even to fail in an honourable object is honourable.
Phaedr.
True.
Soc.
Enough appears to have been said by us of a true and false art of speaking.
Phaedr.
Certainly.
Soc.
But there is something yet to be said of propriety and impropriety of writing.
Phaedr.
Yes.
Soc.
Do you know how you can speak or act about rhetoric in a manner which will be acceptable to God?
Phaedr.
No, indeed.
Do you?
Soc.
I have heard a tradition of the ancients, whether true or not they only know; although if we had found the truth ourselves, do you think that we should care much about the opinions of men?
Phaedr.
Your question needs no answer; but I wish that you would tell me what you say that you have heard.
Soc.
At the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis is sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters.
Now in those days the god Thamus was the king of the whole country of Egypt; and he dwelt in that great city of Upper Egypt which the Hellenes call Egyptian Thebes, and the god himself is called by them Ammon.
To him came Theuth and showed his inventions, desiring that the other Egyptians might be allowed to have the benefit of them; he enumerated them, and Thamus enquired about their several uses, and praised some of them and censured others, as he approved or disapproved of them.
It would take a long time to repeat all that Thamus said to Theuth in praise or blame of the various arts.
But when they came to letters, This, said Theuth, will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the memory and for the wit.
Thamus replied: O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them.
And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves.
Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.
The critique of letters frames forgetfulness as a lack of proper memory rather than an independent positive evil.
The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.
The goal of speaking and acting acceptably to God implies a transformation into a state of divine alignment.