library_books Bookstacks

Section 15

SOCRATES. Yes, my friend, because I am greedy for your wisdom and apply my mind to it, so that nothing you say falls to the ground. But tell me, what is this service to the gods? You say it is asking for things and giving things to them?

EUTHYPHRO. I do.

SOCRATES. Is the right way to ask to ask for what we need from them?

EUTHYPHRO. What else?

SOCRATES. And the right way to give is to offer them what they happen to need from us? For it would be an unskilled sort of giving to offer someone things they do not need.

EUTHYPHRO. True, Socrates.

SOCRATES. So piety, Euthyphro, would be a kind of trading skill between gods and men.

EUTHYPHRO. Trading skill, yes, if you prefer to call it that.

SOCRATES. I don't prefer it unless it happens to be true. Tell me, what benefit do the gods receive from the gifts they get from us? What they give us is obvious to everyone, for we possess nothing good that they did not give us. But how are they benefited by what they receive from us? Or do we get so much the better of them in this trade that we receive all good things from them, while they receive nothing from us?

EUTHYPHRO. But Socrates, do you really think the gods receive any benefit from the things they get from us?

SOCRATES. Then what in the world are these gifts of ours to the gods, Euthyphro?

EUTHYPHRO. What else could they be but honor, reverence, and—as I said just now—gratification?

SOCRATES. So the pious is gratifying to the gods, Euthyphro, but not beneficial or dear to them?

EUTHYPHRO. I think it is the dearest of all things to them.

SOCRATES. So once again, it seems, the pious is what is dear to the gods.

EUTHYPHRO. Absolutely.

SOCRATES. Saying this, can you wonder if your arguments appear to walk around and not remain stationary? Will you accuse me of being the Daedalus who makes them walk, when you yourself are far more skilled than Daedalus and make them go in circles? Do you not see that our argument has gone in a circle and returned to the very same place? You surely remember that earlier we found that the pious and the god-loved were not the same, but different. Do you remember?

EUTHYPHRO. I remember.