SOCRATES OF ATHENS -- A MAN WHO CHANGED THE WORLD

Socrates, (469-399 B.C.), unlike Alexander the Great, (356-323 B.C.), who conquered and changed the world with his military might, conquered and changed the world with his intellectual might. Although Socrates was physically fit and even served admirably as a soldier in the Peloponnesian War, he was even more intellectually fit, and yes, spiritually fit.

His was a humble birth. His father was a stonemason and Socrates may have learned some of that trade, but soon his efforts turned from physical to intellectual. In his native Athens he was soon to be found in the gymnasia and covered porches of the agora (marketplace) teaching young and old, making inquiries and asking probing questions.

He apparently didn't marry until he was about fifty. His wife, Xianthippe, perhaps was a midwife, and with her he had three children. She is said to have had a bad temper, due in part, quipped one historian, that Socrates never earned enough money to support the family. Despite the false charges of Aristophanes in his plays that Socrates was a Sophist (who took money for teaching), he denied ever taking money for teaching. He said knowledge was not a commodity to be bought and sold. (Imagine that! He would never get rich off a best seller! Besides, he, like Jesus, never wrote anything.)

In fact, Socrates often went barefoot year round and wore the same robe winter and summer. He seemed to have had little concern for creature comforts. Besides he was ugly. He was short with bulging eyes, fat protruding lips, a flat upturned nose and a paunch. (Incidentally, by contrast, we have no description of Jesus' physical appearance.) He was not an ascetic. His friends said of him he was "all glorious within, the most upright man of that city (Athens)."

But he was, nevertheless, in high demand for solons and dinner parties where he could be "the soul of merriment." He would often stay until the wee hours of the morning, still going strong with questions and philosophical wit. His was a totally engaging personality. In Plato's Symposium, the aristocratic politician, Alcibiades, says of Socrates:

"When I listen to him, my heart pounds....It's a sort of frenzy...

possessed... and tears stream out of me at what he says.

Alcibiades goes on to say:

I've heard other speakers but "my soul wasn't turned upside down by them

and it didn't suffer from the feeling I'm dirt."

That was Socrates' attempt, namely, to turn the soul upside down. He was a gadfly. He went out of his way to make people feel uncomfortable by repeatedly questioning their assumptions and pretensions to knowledge. To live is not important, but to live rightly is all that matters, said Socrates.

The goal of life should be to tend one's soul, to make one's soul as good as possible. One should not ruin his life by putting care for the body or possessions before care of the soul. The soul is the man. And the most important question is the moral one: how should I live? He emphasized the need for virtue to the materialistic, imperialistic Athenians. The true purpose of education is to learn how to live, not how to earn a living. Money does not guarantee goodness, yet goodness is the real wealth of life. He taught the importance of guarding the welfare of the soul. (He was anticipating Jesus in many ways.)

The Oracle of Delphi is said to have proclaimed that Socrates was the wisest of men. And Socrates replied, "Ah yes, but that';s only because I know that I know nothing (for certain)." He went on to say that "the unexamined life is not worth living." And he made it his point to force people to examine their own souls. He made them uncomfortable, even angry. But he insisted the mark of a wise man is to realize how ignorant he is.

And of course he was brought to trial by his fellow Athenians. They charged him with "atheism," which meant not teaching the authenticity of the traditional Greek gods. And he was charged with teaching insubordination to the young. At the trial Socrates said one should avoid the temptation to escape death. Rather, one should resist the temptation to do evil. He thought the soul to be immortal--to go on after death to talk with the heroes of the past, or, to enter into a deep, eternal sleep. (Not much soul-consciousness there!) All his life Socrates referred to "the voice" which spoke to him, to tell him what to do, and what not to do, namely, enter politics! He was one of the greatest philosophers of history. His "Socratic method" of questioning and cross-examination is still central to our education and culture and religion. To Socrates we owe an immeasurable debt.