Dialogue

 1 Phaedr|            and the other things of God by which the soul is nourished.
 2 Phaedr|       followed in the train of her god and once beheld truth she
 3 Phaedr|          of lovers depend upon the god whom they followed in the
 4 Phaedr|      manner the followers of every god seek a love who is like
 5 Phaedr|           a love who is like their god; and to him they communicate
 6 Phaedr|           have received from their god. The manner in which they
 7 Phaedr|       showing his invention to the god Thamus, who told him that
 8 Phaedr|         higher love of duty and of God, which united them. And
 9 Phaedr|         together in the service of God and man; how their characters
10 Phaedr|         how they saw each other in God; how in a figure they grew
11 Phaedr|         employed in the service of God, every soul fulfilling his
12 Phaedr|            blasphemous towards the god Love, and as worthy only
13 Phaedr|          did I call this “love”? O God, forgive my blasphemy. This
14 Phaedr|     following in the train of some god, from whom she derived her
15 Phaedr|        idealism, or communion with God, which cannot be reduced
16 Phaedr|           bears the character of a god? He may have had no other
17 Phaedr|        essentially moral nature of God; (4) Again, there is the
18 Phaedr|         from an attachment to some god in a former world. The singular
19 Phaedr| self-motive is to be attributed to God only; and on the other hand
20 Phaedr|          back to the nature of the God whom they served in a former
21 Phaedr|           in the habit of praising God ‘without regard to truth
22 Phaedr|          and not for the truth or ‘God’s judgment.’ What would
23 Phaedr|        great name which belongs to God alone;’ or ‘the saying of
24 Phaedr|         reverence to find out what God in this or in another life
25 Phaedr|           adjure you, by Zeus, the god of friendship, to tell me
26 Phaedr|          or rather swear’—but what god will be witness of my oath?—‘
27 Phaedr|            son of Aphrodite, and a god?~PHAEDRUS: So men say.~SOCRATES:
28 Phaedr|         surely known the nature of God, may imagine an immortal
29 Phaedr|           Let that, however, be as God wills, and be spoken of
30 Phaedr|          souls, that which follows God best and is likest to him
31 Phaedr|            truth in company with a god is preserved from harm until
32 Phaedr|           once saw while following God—when regardless of that
33 Phaedr|           to those things in which God abides, and in beholding
34 Phaedr|        face of his beloved as of a god he reverences him, and if
35 Phaedr|       beloved as to the image of a god; then while he gazes on
36 Phaedr|            able to bear the winged god, and can endure a heavier
37 Phaedr|          in the train of any other god, while he is unspoiled and
38 Phaedr|            after the manner of his God he behaves in his intercourse
39 Phaedr|   character, and this he makes his god, and fashions and adorns
40 Phaedr|            the nature of their own god in themselves, because they
41 Phaedr|          as man can participate in God. The qualities of their
42 Phaedr|             The qualities of their god they attribute to the beloved,
43 Phaedr|           as possible to their own god. But those who are the followers
44 Phaedr|         Apollo, and of every other god walking in the ways of their
45 Phaedr|       walking in the ways of their god, seek a love who is to be
46 Phaedr|           themselves imitate their god, and persuade their love
47 Phaedr|           manner and nature of the god as far as they each can;
48 Phaedr|           of themselves and of the god whom they honour. Thus fair
49 Phaedr|            the beloved who, like a god, has received every true
50 Phaedr|           he is yet alive, to be a god?~PHAEDRUS: Very true.~SOCRATES:
51 Phaedr|          footsteps as if he were a god.’ And those who have this
52 Phaedr|         calling dialecticians; but God knows whether the name is
53 Phaedr|          say what is acceptable to God and always to act acceptably
54 Phaedr|        which will be acceptable to God?~PHAEDRUS: No, indeed. Do
55 Phaedr|             there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth;
56 Phaedr|     letters. Now in those days the god Thamus was the king of the
57 Phaedr|           Egyptian Thebes, and the god himself is called by them
58 Phaedr|        great name which belongs to God alone,—lovers of wisdom