© Gunnar Tómasson

30 August 2016

Introduction: Plato’s Translator

Benjamin Jowett, Theologian

(Wikipedia)

Benjamin Jowett [1817-1893] was renowned as an influential tutor and administrative reformer in the University of Oxford, a theologian and translator of Plato and Thucydides. He was Master of Balliol College, Oxford.

Quotes:

Never retreat. Never explain. Get it done and let them howl.

You must believe in God, in spite of what the clergy say.

Logic is neither a science nor an art, but a dodge.

I. Timaeus – Alpha

1904387

Socrates.

30293 = One, two, three; but where, my dear Timaeus, is the fourth of those

29430 = who were yesterday my guests and are to be my entertainers to-day?

Timaeus.

11711 = He has been taken ill, Socrates;

28902 = for he would not willingly have been absent from this gathering.

Socrates

32750 = Then, if he is not coming, you and the two others must supply his place.

Timaeus

18219 = Certainly, and we will do all that we can;

20387 = having been handsomely entertained by you yesterday,

36009 = those of us who remain should be only too glad to return your hospitality.

Socrates

33880 = Do you remember what were the points of which I required you to speak?

Timaeus

10992 = We remember some of them,

31767 = and you will be here to remind us of anything which we have forgotten:

37800 = or rather, if we are not troubling you, will you briefly recapitulate the whole,

29982 = and then the particulars will be more firmly fixed in our memories?

Socrates

8577 = To be sure I will:

25625 = the chief theme of my yesterday’s discourse was the State-

25886 = how constituted and of what citizens composed it

17230 = would seem likely to be most perfect.

Timaeus

29958 = Yes, Socrates; and what you said of it was very much to our mind.

Socrates

25513 = Did we not begin by separating the husbandmen and the artisans

16818 = from the class of defenders of the State?

Timaeus

1549 = Yes.

Socrates

23946 = And when we had given to each one that single employment

25285 = and particular art which was suited to his nature,

29343 = we spoke of those who were intended to be our warriors,

27955 = and said that they were to be guardians of the city against attacks

20458 = from within as well as from without,

13617 = and to have no other employment;

23149 = they were to be merciful in judging their subjects,

17101 = of whom they were by nature friends,

27836 = but fierce to their enemies, when they came across them in battle.

Timaeus

3620 = Exactly.

Socrates

26295 = We said, if I am not mistaken, that the guardians should be gifted

29161 = with a temperament in a high degree both passionate and philosophical;

19871 = and that then they would be as they ought to be,

23396 = gentle to their friends and fierce with their enemies.

Timaeus

4417 = Certainly.

Socrates

16751 = And what did we say of their education?

22219 = Were they not to be trained in gymnastic, and music,

29613 = and all other sorts of knowledge which were proper for them?

Timaeus

5344 = Very true.

Socrates

29091 = And being thus trained they were not to consider gold or silver

24195 = or anything else to be their own private property;

28044 = they were to be like hired troops, receiving pay for keeping guard

19250 = from those who were protected by them-

29446 = the pay was to be no more than would suffice for men of simple life;

23634 = and they were to spend in common, and to live together

35958 = in the continual practice of virtue, which was to be their sole pursuit.

Timaeus

8914 = That was also said.

Socrates

15237 = Neither did we forget the women;

27991 = of whom we declared, that their natures should be assimilated

21596 = and brought into harmony with those of the men,

24369 = and that common pursuits should be assigned to them

19019 = both in time of war and in their ordinary life.

Timaeus

11024 = That, again, was as you say.

Socrates

19239 = And what about the procreation of children?

27508 = Or rather not the proposal too singular to be forgotten?

21225 = for all wives and children were to be in common,

27943 = to the intent that no one should ever know his own child,

23499 = but they were to imagine that they were all one family;

38280 = those who were within a suitable limit of age were to be brothers and sisters,

28872 = those who were of an elder generation parents and grandparents,

19019 = and those of a younger children and grandchildren.

Timaeus

21372 = Yes, and the proposal is easy to remember, as you say.

Socrates

12379 = And do you also remember how,

26140 = with a view of securing as far as we could the best breed,

19529 = we said that the chief magistrates, male and female,

24665 = should contrive secretly, by the use of certain lots,

14942 = so to arrange the nuptial meeting,

33270 = that the bad of either sex and the good of either sex might pair with their like;

23376 = and there was to be no quarrelling on this account,

25635 = for they would imagine that the union was a mere accident,

16464 = and was to be attributed to the lot?

Timaeus

3951 = I remember.

Socrates

13106 = And you remember how we said

24356 = that the children of the good parents were to be educated,

30917 = and the children of the bad secretly dispersed among the inferior citizens;

35570 = and while they were all growing up the rulers were to be on the look-out,

33376 = and to bring up from below in their turn those who were worthy,

24619 = and those among themselves who were unworthy

20677 = were to take the places of those who came up?

Timaeus

2921 = True.

Socrates

31115 = Then have I now given you all the heads of our yesterday’s discussion?

27600 = Or is there anything more, my dear Timaeus, which has been omitted?

Timaeus

8793 = Nothing, Socrates;

13656 = it was just as you have said.

1904437

II. Timaeus – Omega

143553

                Timaeus

36318 = We may now say that our discourse about the nature of the universe has an end.

34283 = The world has received animals, mortal and immortal, and is fulfilled with them,

20294 = and has become a visible animal containing the visible

22725 = — the sensible God who is the image of the intellectual,

18396 = the greatest, best, fairest, most perfect –

  11537 = the one only begotten heaven.

143553

I + II = 1904437 + 143553 = 2047990

III + IV = 1927965 + 120025 = 2047990¹

***

Calculator for converting letters to cipher values is at:

http://www.light-of-truth.com/ciphersaga.htm

¹ Details in Plato’s Timaeus in Saga Cipher – II of II.