[427c]
we neither know anything nor in the
founding of our city if we are wise shall we entrust them to any other or
make use of any other interpreter1 than the
God of our fathers.2 For this God surely is in such matters for all mankind the
interpreter of the religion of their fathers who from his seat in the middle
and at the very navel3 of the
earth delivers his interpretation.” “Excellently
said,” he replied; “and that is what we must
do.”
1 For the exegete as a special religious functionary at Athens. cf. L. and S. s.v. and Laws 759 C-D. Apollo in a higher sense is the interpreter of religion for all mankind. He is technically πατρῷος at Athens (Euthydemus 302 D) but he is πάτριος for all Greeks and all men. Plato does not, as Thümser says (p. 301), confuse the Dorian and the Ionian Apollo, but rises above the distinction.
2 Plato prudently or piously leaves the deatils of ceremonial and institutional religion to Delphi. Cf. 540 B-C, Laws 759 C, 738 B-C, 828 A, 856 E, 865 B, 914 A, 947 D.
3 This “navel” stone, supposed to mark the center of the earth, has now been found. Cf. Poulsen's Delphi , pp. 19, 29, 157, and Frazer on Pausanias x. 16.
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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