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Other Socrates was a Catholic?

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Greetings and warm regards to everyone!

I was reading the article about my master, Socrates, when I came across the following passages near the bottom:

“The Catholic Church has long used Socratic attitudes to promote life-denial, resentment, and complete deprivation—attitudes that shaped the idealized model of the isolated monk.”

When I discussed this with my Christian friends, I discovered something rather strange! They believe that Socrates was actually a monotheist! According to them, he only spoke of multiple gods in front of the people of Athens to make his ideas more understandable to the people of his time.

After hearing their arguments, I realized that I couldn't provide any solid evidence to support the claim that Socrates was a polytheist.

Here is how our conversation went:

— Socrates was also a monotheist. He spoke of a place where all the people of the past are present. Well, that is simply the Heaven of our God!

— But the Greeks also believed in an afterlife!

— No, that belief was not widespread everywhere...

Another point they raised was that if Socrates had merely introduced a new god, the temple could have welcomed that idea. However, once you speak of a single God, there is no longer any room for other gods.

They also argued that the idea of unity can be found in the philosophies of his students and successors, such as Plato's concept of the Demiurge and the concept of the Supreme Good, as well as Aristotle's philosophy.

How should I respond to these arguments?

2) What arguments, examples, or approaches can I use to establish that Socrates was indeed a polytheist?

Thank you for your time and consideration!

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#1

Firstly, Socrates refers to the Gods (plural) endless times in his writings. There is an endless section in the Cratylus where he discusses their functions and where their names come from. The Temple of Zeus does not believe in basic 'polytheism' either.

Secondly, the afterlives Socrates describes have nothing to do with Christian concepts of heaven and hell. That is most obviously outlined by what he says about Tartarus that only a minority go there. The entire belief in reincarnation that he outlines in the Phaedo, the Republic and other works is completely contrary to Christian doctrine. The mechanism of how Tartarus works and why people go there is nothing like Christian Hell (failure to receive Christ's salvation, choosing by God or failure "to aid the least of [Jesus's] brothers aka Christians" in Matthew 25:41–43). The Gorgias narrative is not like Christianity either.

The Apology's meeting place of all the dead in Hades has nothing to do with Christian heaven or hell either. The people there are not put into places of judgement, nor are they called to judgement other than self-analysis. Even Sisyphus, who is ordinarily interpreted as undergoing eternal punishment, is there.

Thirdly, Socrates never mentions Jesus or any figure like Jesus at any point in his dialogues. Believing in the redemption of Christ is the central point of being Christian, period.

Aristotle's writings possess major discrepancies with Christianity. For instance, he states the universe must exist eternally (Physics 251b10–28) for motion to even exist.

Be clear on what the facts are before debating with Christians.

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#2

If you read Plato's Socrates, he refers to the Gods all the time.

Even when was accused of impiety and corrupting the youth, it wasn't because he was erasing the Gods, but questioning Homer's mythology of them. It was never a debate on whether or not there are no Gods, one God, or many Gods.

As for the philosophical "One God," that is Zeus. Xenophanes also referred to One God, along with Plato and Aristotle, using different descriptions (Demiurge, Unmoved Mover, etc).

But the philosophical tradition embraced both the One and the Many, with former articulating itself in multitudes.

Socrates knew the Gods existed.

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Ask Zeus Operator
This is the targeted reply.

Yes but they say socrates talked about gods because he couldn't do that infront of the people ...

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Arcadia [NG]

Yes but they say socrates talked about gods because he couldn't do that infront of the people ...

Why would this matter? Greeks encountered religious systems foreign to Greece already, like that of the Egyptians. They would even first encounter very early Jewish culture a mere 70 years after Socrates' lifetime (as established by scholarship).

Some elements of recent academia go even further, that the writing of the Torah as we know it was directly influenced by Plato's Laws, which wasn't published until over 50 years after Socrates' passing. This isn't a fringe conspiracy either, but a notion which has only gained more academic traction. So how would Socrates be espousing Abrahamic thought, then?

If his dialogues use only Greek philosophy, Greek terms, and Greek language, and do not mention any Abrahamic character or event, where is the "Biblical" nature of his character or works? How would he go back in time to promote a religious structure which did not even exist yet? A religious structure which may have even been influenced by his own works? This is a paradox.

Even in this hypothetical where Socrates "was a Catholic" and "couldn't do that infront of people", Socrates was sentenced to death anyway. Why would it matter at that stage what he said?

You shouldn't even need to argue this far, however. Christians will forever provide you with "ifs" and "buts" and waste your time and breath. This has been a tactic since Justin Martyr during the Roman times, where he tried to pass off the blatant copying of Pagan practices in Christianity as "demons" somehow "reading the Torah" and thus getting ideas and telling Pagans to do them centuries in the past.

At some point you simply have to see it as lunacy. Some people simply do not want facts.

#3

Just consider that, chronologically, it’s impossible, because Christianity emerged in the latest 1st century, much more than 400 years after the death of Socrates.

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#4

No.

Technically you must study the most basic things. Socrates existed and was a proponent of the Ancient Greek religion. He was called "The bird of Apollo", and he was considered literally, a philosopher of the Gods. He existed many centuries before Christianity was even an idea.

Christians literally do manipulation on this. When Socrates was speaking, the ideas of God etc, were authored by sources before "Christianity". Before it even existed. Ie, the ownership of these, is of Socrates, not of the later byproducts and forgeries.

The church took his works, put them severely out of context, and dragged his lessons into extremes, to try to "create a link" with his wisdom (Which was from the Gods, not from the Church).

They do illogical and dumb arguments without even knowing him or his religion, or his works, to present him as a "herald" for this. That is called appropriation, theft and forgery, and not what Socrates wanted.

The above statements are therefore inaccuracies and deceptions. They don't represent him, nor his works.

Socrates was Initiated in the Eleusinian Mysteries and his religion was the Ancient Gods and the Hellenic Religion of the time. This is not something you even need to prove, these are in his works. He invokes Zeus, the Muses etc.

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