"The Death of Socrates" with TWELVE disciples, is a type of THE ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION IN THE "HOLY" (Gk. "HAGIOS") PLACE (Matt. 24:15) a.k.a. "THE IMAGE OF THE BEAST" (Rev. 13:14)Primary Proof of the Bible: Types (Foreshadowings) of the Antichrist throughout History
--Confucius of ANCIENT CHINA [551-479 (compare with Socrates) BC, lived 72 years] (Author of The Analects)
& Socrates ("saving power") of Athens [469-399 BC, 99=33x3, lived 70 years] (Plato’s Dialogues): "In Christ are all the treasures of wisdom & knoweldge hid." (Colossians 2:3)
---the real Socrates is unknowable today: Plato himself says that he presents a Socrates "embellished & modernized" (Letter II 314b) & Aristophanes presents an almost completely antithetical & unfavorable portrait of Socrates in The Clouds: thus, we should distrust Plato that Socrates is really as virtuous as Jesus as Plato "the false prophet" portrays him to be; remember that Satan is said in the Bible to be "the father of lies"!
---Socrates (claims to hear the voice of a "demon")-Plato ("broad" intellect) (said to be born of a virgin)-Aristotle ("the best") (5th-4th Century Athens) ~ The Holy Trinity are the greatest philosophers!
---Plato's The Republic: how to get to the republic of Heaven & see God the "Idea of the Good" (which Plato compares to the Sun in Book 6!) and help others to get out of the Cave and do the same; what Heaven's people are like ("Perhaps there is a pattern of it [the "city in speech"] laid up in heaven for him who wishes to behold it and so beholding it to constitute himself its citizen." (592b) "The republic ["politeuma"] of us is in heaven." (Phillippians 3:20)]
---Plato's Symposium: about God's love and how to see God "the Beautiful Itself"; the dialogue echoes Jesus' Last Supper with his disciples
---Plato's Apology (Defense of Socrates): Socrates repeatedly reveals that he is directed by a "daimonion," the same word used of the "demons" that Christ casts out in the Gospels!
(there is evidence for Plato being inspired by a demon in over twenty of the dialogues of Plato which I have carefully read)
---Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: the greatest happiness (the subject of my long freshman annual essay at college) comes from knowing & beholding the "highest" things in the universe (Book VI.7, X.7): the visible bodies in the heavens such as the stars and the planets which Thales & Anaxagoras worshipped, rather than God!
---Aristotle's Physics & Metaphysics: claims that his Metaphysics provides the key to the highest knowledge possible to mankind= the seductive attempt of demons to take you on a long wild goose chase so you won't study God's Word, as happened to me for my entire sophomore year when I studied the Metaphysics for months?! seeks to prove the existence of the "prime mover of the universe" through an elaborate argument= the attempt of demons to make people think that there aren't any very convincing arguments for God's existence?! as happened again later through Descartes who imagined being deceived by a demon in his Meditations?!
---GOD'S MESSAGE TO THOSE "LED AWAY [FROM CHRIST] BY PHILOSOPHY" (COLOSSIANS 2:8), AS I & EVEN THE EARLY FATHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH WHO WERE BEWITCHED BY PLATO FOR YEARS: "There is [eternal] salvation in no other name" but Christ (Acts 4:12), not in Socrates (who claims "saving power") & Plato who teach that we can become good solely by hearing music and tales which imitate praiseworthy people's characters (Republic Bk. 3); and by being a philosopher by engaging in intense study of mathematics & astronomy, & in "dialectic" alone for 5 years! (Republic Bk. 7, Symposium, Phaedo, end of Gorgias); without the need of "praying without ceasing" to God to fill us with all goodness and to glorify Jesus (rather than the god of Socrates & Plato) in all we do! Kierkegaard was correct in Philosophical Fragments when he saw Socrates in Plato's Dialogues as presenting an alternate scheme of salvation to Christianity's, just as Crishna & Buddha do!
"The Death of Socrates" with TWELVE disciples, is a type of THE ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION IN THE "HOLY" (Gk. "HAGIOS") PLACE (Matt. 24:15) a.k.a. "THE IMAGE OF THE BEAST" (Rev. 13:14)
Socrates calls himself "the gadfly" who attacks the Athenians
the notoriously ugly snub-nosed Socrates 
Silenus the snub-nosed drunk which Socrates is called
The goatlike satyr, an evil spirit (Isaiah 34), which Socrates is called 
Marsyas the "bewitcher" which Socrates is called
Satan like Socrates: depicted as goat
Plato & Aristotle, Raphael's "image of the beast" located in the Vatican
CONFUCIUS of Ancient China (551-479 BC) and
SOCRATES ("Sos" meaning "safe" is related to the verb "sozo" which means "to save." Thus, "So-crates" means "saving power.") of Ancient Athens (470/469-399 BC)
http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_text_earlychinrel2.htm
Herbert A. Giles, M.A., LL.D., Professor of Chinese at the University of Cambridge, says about Confucius:
Now for many centuries he has been the central figure and object of a cult as sincere as ever offered by man to any being, human or divine. Gradually, the people came to look upon Confucius as a god, and women used to pray to him for children. In 555, temples were placed in all prefectural cities; and later on, in all the important cities and towns of the empire. In the second and eighth months of each year, before dawn, sacrifices to Confucius are still celebrated with considerable solemnity and pomp, including music and dances by bands of either thirty-six or sixty-four performers.
According to Jeffrey Riegel, Chair of the Center of Chinese Studies at the University of Berkeley plato.stanford.edu/entries/confucius/ ,
Confucius' social philosophy largely revolves around the concept of ren, “compassion” or “loving others.” Cultivating or practicing such concern for others involved deprecating oneself. This meant being sure to avoid artful speech or an ingratiating manner that would create a false impression and lead to self-aggrandizement. (Lunyu 1.3) Those who have cultivated ren are, on the contrary, “simple in manner and slow of speech.” (Lunyu 13.27). For Confucius, such concern for others is demonstrated through the practice of forms of the Golden Rule: “What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others;” “Since you yourself desire standing then help others achieve it, since you yourself desire success then help others attain it.” (Lunyu 12.2, 6.30). He regards devotion to parents and older siblings as the most basic form of promoting the interests of others before one's own and teaches that such altruism can be accomplished only by those who have learned self-discipline.
Confucius resembles Socrates and Jesus more than he resembles any other person in the world. There are so many similarities between Confucius and Socrates that it would be absolutely absurd to deny that God made their lives resemble one another and Jesus to support the truthfulness of the Bible’s portrait of Jesus. Here are some things the three men held in common:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_holy_days_in_the_Confucian_religion
At the end of the 4th century, Mencius [a famous Chinese philosopher] says of Confucius: “Ever since man came into this world, there has never been one greater than Confucius.” And in two passages Mencius implies that Confucius was one of the great sage kings who, according to his reckoning, arises every five hundred years. [This is certainly true of Jesus and Socrates too, as I will show in detail when I discuss Socrates alone]
Carl G. Jung wrote, "Confucius and Socrates compete for first place as far as reasonableness and a pedagogic attitude to life are concerned." 31. I Ching, Wilhelm/Baynes edition, Foreword, p. xxxii. [Surely Jesus in whom are “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3) surpasses even these two men in this respect.]
Confucius also claimed that he enjoyed a special and privileged relationship with Heaven and that, by the age of fifty, he had come to understand what Heaven had mandated for him and for mankind. (Lunyu 2.4). Confucius was also careful to instruct his followers that they should never neglect the offerings due Heaven. (Lunyu 3.13) Some scholars have seen a contradiction between Confucius' reverence for Heaven and what they believe to be his skepticism with regard to the existence of ‘the spirits.’ But the Analects passages that reveal Confucius's attitudes toward spiritual forces (Lunyu 3.12, 6.20, and 11.11) do not suggest that he was skeptical. Rather they show that Confucius revered and respected the spirits, thought that they should be worshipped with utmost sincerity, and taught that serving the spirits was a far more difficult and complicated matter than serving mere mortals.
Similarly, Socrates was taught by God what was “Heaven had mandated for him and mankind.” For, he says “God appointed me, as I supposed and believed, to the duty of leading the philosophical life, examining myself and others.” (Apology 28e) “This duty I have accepted...in obedience to God’s commands given in oracles and dreams and in every other way that any other divine dispensation has ever impressed a duty upon a man.” (Apol. 33c) He does not lie when he says that God commanded him, for I can confidently say after having studied about twenty-four dialogues of Plato with the utmost care, that Socrates’ conception of human excellence is completely or almost completely consistent with the conception of human excellence presented by the God of the Bible. For Socrates too teaches that what is most important is to know and love God, as can be seen especially in the discussion of the God “the idea of the Good” in Book VI-VII of the Republic and of the “beautiful itself” at the end of Diotima’s conversation with Socrates in the Symposium, which I discuss below; and he too stresses the importance of loving one’s neighbor as oneself, as can be seen by the divine love he shows toward every person he talks with! Truly was Jesus sent and taught by God the Father as He claimed!
Also, Socrates says in Plato’s Republic Book VII, 540a, that the philosopher-rulers of the ideal city described in this dialogue are not made to “behold the Good Itself [which is God]” and “use it as a pattern for the right ordering of the state and the citizens and themselves” until age 50, as Confucius claims not to have learned the mandate of Heaven until age 50! Apparently, Socrates was describing the age when he, a philosopher, beheld “the Good Itself.” This would mean that before age 50, he was only perhaps guessing at what the will of Heaven was. Given all the other resemblances between Socrates and Confucius, this one cannot be coincidental, for there are tens of other ages (such as 41, 49, 63, 72, 38) at which Socrates could have beheld it!
In the chapter “Confucius and Socrates Compared” of the book CONFUCIUS AND SOCRATES Teaching Wisdom by Sanderson Beck
http://san.beck.org/C%26S-Contents.html, Beck reveals more similarities between these two wisest of men. Here are just a few:
Confucius and Socrates have inspired countless men and women over two dozen centuries.
His mother died in 527 BC, and after a period of mourning he began his career as a teacher, usually traveling about and instructing the small body of disciples that had gathered around him. [So were Socrates and Jesus consistently surrounded by many of the same disciples! Some disciples who frequently accompanied Socrates were Plato, Chaerephon, Alcibiades, Apollodorus, and Phaedrus.]
Confucius is credited with being the first professional teacher of higher education in China, and their first and greatest ethical philosopher. In Greece the professional sophists sprang up during Socrates' lifetime, but though he remained an "amateur" or informal teacher, it was Socrates who was recognized by Aristotle [in the Nicomachean Ethics] for introducing the study of ethics in addition to the use of inductive logic and universal definitions. [So is Jesus the originator of all ethics and the greatest teacher of ethics!]
In the case of Confucius, the primary source used is The Analects which was compiled by disciples within a generation or two of Confucius' death.[Similarly, others who were made by God to resemble Jesus including Buddha, Socrates, Epictetus, as well as Jesus himself, did not write their teachings down, but their teachings and lives were faithfully recorded by their disciples shortly after they died! This is no coincidence, for most wise men in history wrote down their teachings, such as Plato, Aristotle, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aquinas, Shakespeare, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, etc.! So don’t doubt that the Gospels are accurate portraits of Jesus!]
These anecdotes and conversations between Confucius and his disciples (students) are simply and realistically portrayed, as no attempt is made to write a long, philosophical treatise. [So do Plato’s Dialogues about Socrates and the Four Gospels about Jesus consist largely of conversations between each of these men and their respective disciples! This is no coincidence, for almost no philosophers other than Plato wrote dialogues, but wrote treatises instead! And in all three sets of works, Confucius, Socrates, and Jesus are by far the most prominent characters! SO DON’T DOUBT THAT THE GOSPELS ARE ACCURATE PORTRAITS OF JESUS!]
Socrates intentionally stayed out of politics due to his spiritual guidance, but did become an advisor and teacher to some who did engage in political leadership. Similarly Confucius although he tried to become politically effective, served mainly as an advisor and educator of politicians. [Truly are these men unique, for a very small percentage of the world’s men advise and educate politicians!]
Both of these men spent their lives learning and seeking wisdom and the good life...It would be hard to find anyone who loved to learn more than Confucius and Socrates. They turned every situation in which they found themselves into an exploration of some topic. [Jesus too loves the truth, for he loves God the Father and Himself and all truth displays their glory!]
Although they both were cheerful and friendly, they were remarkably unemotional. Neither one of them allowed himself to become a victim of fear or anger or jealousy or resentment. Somehow, perhaps due to their philosophic minds, they were able to handle criticism, threats, mockery, and abuse with such understanding that they were not perturbed by it at all. Their attitudes remained remarkably positive. Even though they were often judged to be failures by the world, neither one of them ever was known to become depressed or unhappy. There always seemed to be a joy and enthusiasm with Confucius and an even-temperedness with Socrates. [Nor did Jesus have fear: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.” (Matt. 10:28) He too certainly was ever-joyful, for his two greatest commandments are to “love God with your whole heart, with all your soul, and with all your heart,” and to “love your neighbor as yourself,” (Matt. 22:34-40) and love involves taking pleasure in the object of love! (I discuss the meaning of love in the conclusion of this book) Nor did Jesus resent people who treated him cruelly: truly did he say about those who were torturing him on the day of His crucifixion: “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do”!]
The specific virtues they discussed are again amazingly similar. [And they are amazingly similar also to the virtues of Jesus and Paul who received revelations from Jesus according to the Book of Acts. Many of the same Greek words called virtues by Paul, such as dikaiosune (justice), enkrateia (self-control or “inner strength”), and sofia (wisdom), are called virtues by Socrates too in Plato’s Dialogues! Truly do Paul and Jesus depict what an excellent human being is like!]
While Confucius died at age 72, Socrates died at age 70 or 71. This is no coincidence: in ancient Greece and Rome the average life expectancy was only about 28 years! www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/340119/life-expectancy God determines the time and manner in which people die: as I discuss below, Alexander the Great died at age 33 to show that he was made to corroborate the events of the life of Jesus who also died at age 33, and Julius Caesar died the way he did to show that Jesus died the way he did.
-SOCRATES, AS HE APPEARS IN PLATO’S DIALOGUES
This conclusion will appear less absurd if you realize that Part Two testifies very strongly that God directed the circumstances of the lives of the historical persons of the Old Testament such as Isaac, Joseph, and Solomon to show that Jesus was depicted truly in the Four Gospels. These persons lived just as Socrates did, so it is not necessary to limit the symbols of Christ to the people described in the Bible. Now, consider the following similarities between Socrates and Jesus:
-“He [Chaerephon] actually went to Delphi [the site of APOLLO, the SUN god, a symbol of Christ] and asked this question of the god…whether there was ANYONE WISER THAN MYSELF. The priestess replied that there was NO ONE.” (Apology 21a) Truly, “In Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” (Colossians 2:3)
-Socrates: “To let no day pass without discussing human excellence and all the other subjects about which you hear me talking and examining both myself and others is really the very best thing that a man can do, and life without this sort of examination is not worth living.” (Apol. 38a) Jesus indeed talked about nothing but God and how God wants humans to live, in order to make the people to whom he talked to be excellent human beings. There are very few people who make it their life’s work to spend all day talking to people about human excellence, although we are commanded to “store up” the “sayings of wise men” inside of us and have them “constantly on our lips” (Proverbs 22:18)! In fact, I seem to myself to be the only person of hundreds of people I have met who follows this command, other than Socrates and Jesus! (I say this not to brag, but merely to emphasize how unique Socrates and Jesus are, as well as to provoke change in you)
-Socrates: “God appointed me, as I supposed and believed, to the duty of leading the philosophical life, examining myself and others.” (Apology 28e)
“It is literally true, even if it sounds rather comical, that God has specially appointed me to this city, as though it were a large thoroughbred horse which because of its great size is inclined to be lazy and needs the stimulation of some stinging fly.” (Apol. 30e)
“This duty I have accepted...in obedience to God’s commands given in oracles and dreams and in every other way that any other divine dispensation has ever impressed a duty upon a man.” (Apol. 33c) [Socrates claims to receive commands from God also in Phaedrus 242c to glorify love, as Jesus does]
“...[God] the Father who sent me...” (John 8:18)
“Jesus sent these twelve men out with the following instructions: ‘Do not go into the territory of the Gentiles, and enter not into a city of the Samaritans; but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Go and proclaim, saying, ‘The Kingdom of the heavens has drawn near!’ “ (Matthew 10:5-6) As Socrates confined his service to the territory of Athens throughout his life, so did Christ confine his service to the territory of Israel when He walked on Earth. God must have “specially appointed” Socrates to one city so that he could resemble Jesus in this respect!!!! AND NOT MANY PEOPLE CLAIM TO BE DIRECTLY COMMANDED BY GOD TO DO CERTAIN THINGS!
-Throughout the Phaedrus (239b, 241e, 249d, 263d, 279b [one of the last paragraphs]), Plato reports Socrates saying several times that his words are “divinely inspired.” E.g. After Socrates condemns the “love” that solely aims at sexual pleasure, as God often does through Paul whenever Paul condemns “fornication,” Socrates says: “Well, Phaedrus my friend, do you think, as I do, that I am DIVINELY INSPIRED?...Truly there seems to be a DIVINE presence in this spot, so that you must not be surprised if, as my speech proceeds, I become as one POSSESSED.” (238c-d) Later, he says, “the philosopher...drawing nigh to the DIVINE...is POSSESSED by a DEITY.” (250c-d) Similarly, Socrates agrees with Theodorus in the Sophist 216b-c that there is “something DIVINE about...any philosopher,” and agrees with Diotima in the passage quoted below from the ladder of love speech in the Symposium that a person like Socrates can have virtue only if God, the Beautiful itself, fills him with it. There is so much beauty and wisdom in the things Plato has Socrates say, and they are for the most part so extremely consistent with the Bible, that there is good reason to believe that at least some or even most of his sayings are “divinely inspired.” And many of the things said by Socrates in the Dialogues of Plato, who has an excellent memory and who was taught by Socrates, were likely said by Socrates himself. Thus, Jesus spoke truly when He said that the words He speaks come not from Himself but from God the Father! (John 14:10) NOT MANY PEOPLE CLAIM TO SPEAK FROM DIVINE INSPIRATION!!!
-When Socrates is in jail awaiting his soon to come death…
Crito: What was the dream about?
Socrates: I thought I saw a gloriously beautiful woman dressed in white robes, who came up to me and addressed me in these words: Socrates, ‘To the pleasant land of Phthia on the third day you shall come.’ (Crito 44b) Socrates here quotes Achilles, another type of the Antichrist. JESUS ROSE AGAIN ON THE THIRD DAY AFTER HE DIED, AND YOUR BODY WILL BE RESURRECTED AS WELL! I believe that God must have had it enter into Plato’s mind to write that sentence, without his knowing that he was thereby substantiating the Gospel, as He perhaps had him write some of the other sentences I quote in this section, such as the ones in the next paragraph. After all, He directed the writing of the Bible’s human authors!
-Socrates: “So one ought not to return a wrong or an injury to any person, whatever the provocation.” (Crito 49b) “And you may let anyone despise you as a fool and do you outrage, if he wishes, yes, and you may cheerfully let him strike you with that humiliating blow.” (Gorgias 527c) Jesus truly did say, as recorded in Matthew 5:39,44: “But I say to you not to resist evil; but whosoever strikes you on your right cheek, to him also the other...Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Most people do not react this way! And Socrates practiced what he preached: look at how kindly he speaks to the rude Thrasymachus of Book One of Plato’s Republic, to the rude Callicles of the Gorgias, and to the rude Anytus of the Meno.
-Just as Socrates desired, Jesus’ principal desire was to contemplate and glorify God the Father. Socrates and Jesus acted more on this desire than most people who have ever lived. In order to show this similarity, I will now quote the conclusion of Diotima’s speech, given to and narrated by Socrates, on the “ladder of Love,” about how one comes to love God (Symposium 210a-212b)!!! God is described in this speech as “the Beautiful Itself.” That this is God is hinted throughout this and many of more than twenty dialogues of Plato which I have studied with the utmost care. In this dialogue, it is hinted by the fact that the name of the woman who gives this speech, “Dio-tima,” who has seen the beautiful itself, means one who “honors God”; by the fact that the name used to describe her origin, mantinikh (Symposium 201d), is remarkably similar to the Greek word mantikh, which is used to describe a female who is a prophet or a person through whom God speaks (and Plato has a symbolic meaning behind many details of his dialogues; in fact, I see no objection to saying that this speech is indeed inspired by God, for it is completely consistent with the Bible); and by the italicized words below:
“And here, she said, you must follow me as closely as you can.
“Whoever has been initiated so far in the mysteries of Love and has viewed all these aspects of the beautiful in due succession, is at last drawing near the final revelation. And now, Socrates, there bursts upon him that wondrous vision which is the very soul of the beauty he has toiled so long for. It is an everlasting loveliness which neither comes nor goes, which neither flowers nor fades, for such beauty is the same on every hand, the same then as now, here as there, this way as that way, the same to every worshiper as it is to every other. Nor will his vision of the beautiful take the form of a face, or of hands, or of anything that is of the flesh. It will be neither words, nor knowledge, nor a something that exists in something else, such as a living creature, or the earth, or the heavens, or anything that is--but subsisting of itself and by itself in an eternal oneness, while every lovely thing partakes of it in such sort that, however much the parts may wax and wane, it will be neither more nor less, but still the same inviolable whole...
“And if, my dear Socrates, Diotima went on, man's life is ever worth the living, it is when he has attained this vision of the beautiful itself. [ONLY GOD CAN BRING YOU HAPPINESS, BROTHER] And once you have seen it, you will never be seduced again by the charm of gold, of dress, of comely boys, or lads just ripening to manhood; you will care nothing for the beauties that used to take your breath away and kindle such a longing in you, and many others like you, Socrates, to be always at the side of the beloved and feasting your eyes upon him, so that you would be content, if it were possible, to deny yourself the grosser necessities of meat and drink, so long as you were with him.
“But if it were given to man to gaze on beauty's very self--unsullied, unalloyed, and freed from the mortal taint that haunts the frailer loveliness of flesh and blood--if, I say, it were given to man to see the heavenly beauty face to face, would you call his, she asked me, an unenviable life, whose eyes had been opened to the vision, and who had gazed upon it in true contemplation until it had become his own forever?
“And remember, she said, that it is when he looks upon beauty's visible presentment, and only then, that a man will be quickened with the true, and not the seeming, virtue--for it is virtue's self that quickens him, not virtue's semblance. And when he has brought forth and reared this perfect virtue, he shall be called the friend of God, and if ever it is given to man to put on immortality, it shall be given to him.
“This Phaedrus- this gentleman- was the doctrine of Diotima. I [Socrates] was convinced, and in that conviction I try to bring others to the same creed, and to convince them that, if we are to make this gift our own, Love will help our mortal nature more than all the world. And this is why I say that every man of us should honor [the God of] Love, and this is why I practice and worship all the things of Love myself, and bid others do the same. And all my life I shall pay the power and the manliness of Love such homage as I can.” So does Jesus have the same zeal to know and exalt the God of Love, and so should we!!! “Whatsoever you do, do it for the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31)
-Alcibiades speaking about Socrates: “Know you that beauty and wealth and honor, which many people care about, are of no value to him, and are utterly despised by him... When I opened him, and looked within at his serious purpose, I saw in him divine and golden images of such fascinating beauty that I was ready to do in a moment whatever Socrates commanded: they may have escaped the observation of others, but I saw them.” (Symposium 216d) Jesus too had God dwelling in Him!
-Although many people resemble Jesus, because He is God, He is still very exalted over all human beings. Some sin is attributed in the Bible to almost every symbol of Christ in the Old Testament, including David’s lust for Bathsheba, and Solomon’s lust for tons of women. Notice how Socrates is similarly described in the following two passages:
“The most amazing thing about him is the fact that he is ABSOLUTELY UNIQUE; THERE’S NO ONE LIKE HIM, AND I DON’T BELIEVE THERE EVER WAS... unless of course you take a leaf out of my book and COMPARE HIM NOT WITH HUMAN BEINGS, but with sileni and satyrs- and the same with his ideas...Anyone listening to Socrates for the first time would find his arguments simply laughable...but if you open up his arguments, and really get into the skin of them, you’ll find that they’re the ONLY arguments in the world that have any sense at all, and that NOBODY ELSE’S are so GODLIKE, so rich in images of virtue, or so peculiarly, so entirely pertinent to those inquiries that help the seeker on his way to the goal of being noble and good.” (Symposium 221c-222a)
The last line of the Phaedo: “Such was the end of our comrade, who was…of all those whom we knew in our time, the bravest and the wisest and most upright [or “just”] man.”
God controls many more painters than Raphael! He also made Jacques-Louis David paint The Death of Socrates, the most famous painting of Socrates, in the manner he did! For in the painting, Socrates sits in the middle, with six disciples on his left and six on his right, a total of TWELVE! One of the disciples pass the cup of hemlock to him, as if it is the cup of wine that Jesus drank with His twelve disciples at the Last Supper! And God has David make Socrates point up to Heaven, as if to show that that is where the Son of God went a few days after the Last Supper and that he currently dwells in Heaven!
And don’t forget that both Socrates and Jesus were unjustly killed by the authorities of Athens and Jerusalem, respectively. Only a small percentage of the world’s people have been put to death by their city’s government, let alone unjustly.
All of the above evidence leads me to conclude with confidence that God ordered Socrates to live the way he did (as Socrates himself claims in the Apology), filled Socrates with His virtue, directed Plato to say certain things, filled Plato and Aristotle similar virtue, and even had the government of Athens put Socrates to death to show that God did indeed dwell in Jesus’ body and lived and spoke just as he is said to have lived and spoken in the Four Gospels!
PLATO Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, who are often grouped together and lived within one century in Athens, are three of the wisest persons who ever lived, just as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are the three wisest persons in the universe and all dwell in the heavenly city. I who have carefully studied many of the great works of Western Philosophy including over twenty of Plato's dialogues affirm that Alfred North Whitehead’s famous statement that “the history of Western Philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato” is no exaggeration. But Socrates, who is the principal character of almost everything Plato has written, and Aristotle possess a similar degree of Plato’s wisdom, just as all the persons of the Trinity share the same wisdom. For, Plato was Socrates’s greatest student, and Aristotle was Plato’s greatest student.
Diogenes Laertius reports that according to a book by Speusippus, a pupil of Plato who lived centuries before Christ's incarnation, a report circulated in Athens that the bridegroom of Plato's mother saw a vision of God which forbid him to have sex with Plato's mother until Plato was born. If this was true, then Plato, the second person of the "Trinity" Socrates-Plato-Aristotle, was born of a virgin! This does not seem to be a lie, for so are tons of people resembling Jesus in very unique and very numerous ways said to be born of a virgin, including historical persons such as Alexander the Great & Caesar Augustus the first Roman Emperor! This info is mentioned in the book The Virgin Birth of Christ on pg. 325 on the following website: http://books.google.com/books?id=qG7f9wT1uqIC&pg=RA2-PA325&lpg=RA2-PA325&dq=plato+virgin+birth&source=web&ots=KvhfqBvLCA&sig=tva6Y6FKSuO1vy8zg8MxhAwHzaY&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PRA2-PA325,M1
ARISTOTLE
-God had Aristotle discourse on all subjects to show that God will speak to us about all subjects in Paradise! He talked of ethics, politics, physics, metaphysics, poetry, psychology, biology, astronomy, logic, rhetoric, and the list goes on!!! Aristotle is said to have written 400 books, though not all of them survive. We, who should imitate God and me who am His symbol, should beg God to enlighten us so that we too can “have wise sayings constantly on our lips” (Proverbs 22:18) when we speak to the lost sheep around us!!!
-God indeed is the Prime Mover of the Universe and constantly talks and thinks about Himself, as Aristotle talks about in Book VIII of the Physics and Book XII of the Metaphysics, for He “moved” all the great authors of Western Civilization to talk only about Him, even without their realizing it! We too should “continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God with our lips”!!!! (Hebrews 13:15)
-The whole Nicomachean Ethics is about the virtues of God and the virtues of the Christian, who is His image!!! God teaches us in that book that we are to only do good to all people, for the virtues he mentions are generosity, magnificence (generosity on a large scale), friendliness, and wit (as Paul tells us to season our talk with salt!). The virtues listed in the Bible, the Ethics, Plato’s works, Aquinas’ works, Dante’s works, etc. are all the same to show that God is the author of all those books!!! Like Plato’s Republic, the other most famous book of Ancient Greece about ethics, it has TEN books because God truly did issue ten commandments about ethics!!!
Raphael's "School of Athens" is a symbol of the great learning that will go on in the New Jerusalem (symbolized by Ancient Athens) under God the Father and God the Son (symbolized by Plato and Aristotle, at the center of the painting). For "this is eternal life, to know God and His Son Jesus Christ." (John 17:3) I even showed towards the end of my discussion of Solomon (a type of Christ) in Part Two that in the New Jerusalem, God will perhaps answer every question we ask, just as Solomon answered everything asked of him by the Queen of Sheba in 1 Kings 10. God perhaps moved Raphael to paint Plato in the likeness of Leonardo da Vinci to point to the fact that Leonardo too is part of an image of the Holy Trinity: Leonardo-Michelangelo-Raphael!
