You and I Say He Is No God
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Diotima — ὁμολογοῖτο μέγας θεὸς εἶναι παρὰ τούτων, οἵ φασιν αὐτὸν οὐδὲ θεὸν εἶναι;
Socrates — τίνες οὗτοι; ἦν δʼ ἐγώ.
Diotima — εἷς μέν, ἔφη, σύ, μία δʼ ἐγώ.
Socrates — κἀγὼ εἶπον, πῶς τοῦτο, ἔφην, λέγεις;
Diotima — καὶ ἥ, ῥᾳδίως, ἔφη. λέγε γάρ μοι, οὐ πάντας θεοὺς φῂς εὐδαίμονας εἶναι καὶ καλούς; ἢ τολμήσαις ἄν τινα μὴ φάναι καλόν τε καὶ εὐδαίμονα θεῶν εἶναι;
Socrates — μὰ Δίʼ οὐκ ἔγωγʼ, ἔφην.
Diotima — εὐδαίμονας δὲ δὴ λέγεις οὐ τοὺς τἀγαθὰ καὶ τὰ καλὰ κεκτημένους;
Socrates — πάνυ γε.
could he be agreed to be a great god by those who say he is not even a god? Who are these? said I. One, she said, are you, and one am I. And I said: how, do you mean, this? And she: easily, she said. Tell me now, do you not say all gods are happy and beautiful? Or would you dare to deny of any that a god is beautiful and happy? By Zeus, not I, I said. And do you call happy not those who possess good and beautiful things? Quite so.
Diotima springs the trap. How could Eros be agreed a great god by people who say he is not even a god at all? Who are they, asks Socrates. One is you, she says, and one is I. She shows him: you say all gods are happy and beautiful, and that the happy are those who possess good and beautiful things. Socrates agrees to each step.
This is the elenchus reaching its own author. Socrates is shown holding, unnoticed, premises that jointly deny Eros' divinity — so he himself, on reflection, does not really count Eros a god. Diotima's method is exactly his: draw the admissions one by one, then let them collide. The Greek link of happiness to possession — eudaimonia as having the good — is the ordinary Greek picture Diotima will use to place Eros outside the company of gods. A god has the good and so does not desire it; Eros desires it and so lacks it. The conclusion, which lands in 202d, is that Eros is not a god at all, but a daimon, the great in-between — and that the crowd's worship rests on not having thought it through.
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