Key Arguments

• Because ‘the nature both of the just and unjust is truly known to the gods,’ they necessarily befriend the just and oppose the unjust.
• Divine beneficence: the friend of the gods receives ‘all things at their best,’ with only residual evils due to prior transgressions remaining.
• Teleological likeness: striving ‘to be like God’ as far as possible by virtue ensures the gods’ care, so that even apparent misfortunes work together for good.

Source Quotes

The demand, he said, is just. In the first place, I said—and this is the first thing which you will have to give back—the nature both of the just and unjust is truly known to the gods. Granted.

Granted. And if they are both known to them, one must be the friend and the other the enemy of the gods, as we admitted from the beginning? True.

True. And the friend of the gods may be supposed to receive from them all things at their best, excepting only such evil as is the necessary consequence of former sins? Certainly.

Certainly. Then this must be our notion of the just man, that even when he is in poverty or sickness, or any other seeming misfortune, all things will in the end work together for good to him in life and death: for the gods have a care of any one whose desire is to become just and to be like God, as far as man can attain the divine likeness, by the pursuit of virtue? Yes, he said; if he is like God he will surely not be neglected by him.

Key Concepts

• the nature both of the just and unjust is truly known to the gods
• one must be the friend and the other the enemy of the gods
• the friend of the gods may be supposed to receive from them all things at their best, excepting only such evil as is the necessary consequence of former sins
• to become just and to be like God, as far as man can attain the divine likeness, by the pursuit of virtue

Context

Socrates restores justice’s standing before the gods, articulating a providential moral order grounded in divine knowledge and care (Part 10, lines 12580-12716).

Perspectives

Plato

Affirms providential moral realism: divine νοῦς apprehends moral natures and orients cosmic care toward likeness-to-god (homoiōsis theōi) via virtue.

Socrates

Connects piety and ethics: becoming just aligns the soul with the divine, ensuring that the gods’ friendship orders even misfortune toward good.