Chapter 2 - Socrates

Summary

Socrates is the only prophet in my book who is outside the tradition of biblical prophets. And yet Socrates also claimed to hear a divine voice and to be entrusted by his god with a mission to chasten the pride of his fellow Athenians by showing them that true wisdom is to know just how little you really know. At his trial, Socrates made it clear that he would not have accepted poverty, unpopularity, and eventually death unless he were certain that his philosophical mission was in service of his god. Like the Hebrew prophets, Socrates confronted both the political and religious leaders of his day. He vetoed the plans of the democrats and the oligarchs; he complained to a religious leader that public worship had become little more than “commerce with the gods.” Socrates was persecuted for impiety, as both a heretic and a traitor. Socrates shows how prophetic politics reaches beyond the biblical tradition.