Socrates And St. Paul's Analysis

Throughout His creation, God leaves imprints of truth through natural revelation for those who possess the will to find it. In their quest for absolute truth, PreSocratic philosophers caught glimpses of God’s signs leading to the truth of eternal life. This search culminates in Socrates, who through his lifelong search for truth gains an image of the soul and eternal life similar to the Catholic concept of eternal life. In the Phaedrus, Socrates says that when all divine souls “go to feast at the banquet”(Phaedrus, 247b), they ascend to a place beyond heaven to gaze upon a supreme divine being. Similarly, in his letter to the Hebrews, St. Paul speaks about The Mass as a copy of the heavenly sanctuary; the presence of God which is the Beatific …show more content…
Socrates uses the image of a winged chariot to symbolize the soul. The wings “more than anything that pertains to the body … are akin to the divine, which has beauty, wisdom, goodness, and everything of that sort. These nourish the souls wings … but foulness and ugliness make the wings shrink and disappear” (Phaedrus, 246e). When Socrates speaks about the winged chariots going towards the rim of heaven, he describes them on a slope where “the gods’ chariots move easily… but the other chariots barely make it (Phaedrus, 247b). The struggle to reach the banquet and eternal life represents sin oppressing the soul in its journey. The purpose of the soul lies in the glory of this Beatific Vision, basking in the glory of “a being that really is what it is, the subject of all true knowledge, visible only to intelligence” (Phaedrus, 247c). This being is Socrates’ attempt at describing God and his purity and grace. This purity nourishes the soul and unites the soul to its …show more content…
The charioteers are the mortals training their horses either for good or evil; they are the individuals cultivating their souls on earth. The soul, freed by virtue, can reach the rim of heaven, but the souls which sin weighs down can barely reach the rim; they can only view the banquet but cannot partake in the nourishment. The immortal souls, according to Socrates, are the souls which reach the rim of heaven. In Christian tradition, this is what happens to all souls after death. Socrates’ immortal souls who partake in the banquet are the souls who reach Christian Heaven, the Beatific Vision, and through it experience eternal bliss. The immortal souls which can barely reach the rim heaven and cannot participate in the banquet are the souls signify the eternally damned; able to see Heaven but never able to experience the unity with