[380d]
“And what of this, the
second. Do you think that God is a wizard and capable of manifesting himself
by design, now in one aspect, now in another, at one time1 himself changing and altering his shape in many transformations
and at another deceiving us and causing us to believe such things about him;
or that he is simple and less likely than anything else to depart from his
own form?” “I cannot say offhand,” he replied.
“But what of this: If anything went out from2 its own form, would it not be
displaced and changed, either by itself
1 The two methods, (1) self-transformation, and (2) production of illusions in our minds, answer broadly to the two methods of deception distinguished in the Sophist 236 C.
2 Cf. Tim.50 B, Cratylus 439 E. Aristotle, H. A. i. 1. 32, applies it to biology:τὸ γενναῖόν ἐστι τὸ μὴ ἐξιστάμενον ἐκ τῆς αὑτοῦ φύσεως. Plato's proof from the idea of perfection that God is changeless has little in common with the Eleatic argument that pure being cannot change.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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