Sorry, Socrates. Or, The “Apology” of Socrates.

Socrates was always getting into trouble, just for seeking the truth, and trying to help people get out of the box. Well, that’s not exactly true. Socrates probably would have been contented if people simply admitted that they were in the box.

If you’re wondering what the “box” is, then you’ve got to read on….

Yes, Socrates was condemned, among other things, for corrupting the youth with his teachings. Indeed, the greater society also charged this great man with claims that made Socrates scratch his head: you know, the charge of atheism combined with the charge of teaching about new gods. One of the charges was that Socrates did not accept the gods recognized by society—never a good thing.

Socrates was tried at law, and finally convicted.

Sentenced to drink hemlock, sharing the fate of Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln and so many more. That is, Death…one way or the other. It seems that the good die not only young, but also at all ages and all in sorts of ways.

There’s something tireless that always wants to kill the truth, and when the man is the message, well, you know…

For the purpose of this forum, following is an edited and abridged version of Socrates’ defense of himself, also known as (ironically by today’s common definition) the “Apology,” as told by his student, Plato. Socrates, like Jesus, wrote nothing himself; what we learn, we’ve learned from the writings of his disciples.

To set the stage: The Oracle of Delphi said Socrates was the wisest of all. Socrates was determined to prove the Oracle wrong, since he professed himself not to have any true wisdom. So, Socrates went to those persons who professed themselves to be wise and tested them to see if they were wiser than he was—which they weren’t—leaving trail of fools, angry fools.

And there’s nothing worse than a group of angry fools.

A beautiful work, required reading for all philosophers, and, no less, professors of law and religion.

(Watch for many great Socrates lines, “Neither he nor I know anything good, but at least I know that I don’t know,” “The unexamined life is not worth living,” “You are angry with me, when you should be angry with yourself,” “I am a gadfly sent by god to wake you up from your slumber” and others. Look for the parallels with other great spiritual men, such as, “These words are not my own,” and the “others less esteemed were really wiser and better.

The Apology is where a lot of great philosophy happens, and thousands of years of subsistence proves that it’s worth your time.)


The Apology (Self-Defense) of Socrates

I dare say, Athenians, some among you say, “Socrates, what is the origin of these accusations brought against you. Where there is smoke, there is fire. What were you doing? All these rumors would never have arisen if you were like others. Tell us, please, as we should be sorry to judge you hastily.

Now I regard this as a fair challenge, and I will endeavor to explain why I am called wise and have such an evil fame. Some of you may think that I am joking, but I declare that I will tell you the entire truth.

This reputation of mine has come of a certain sort of wisdom which I possess. If you ask me what kind of wisdom, I reply, that to any extent that I am wise, it is wisdom such as may perhaps be attained by man.

But these others have a wisdom of god which I cannot describe, because I do not have it myself.

I beg you not to interrupt me, even if I seem to say something extravagant. For the words which I will speak are not my own.

I will refer you to a witness who is worthy of credit: that witness shall be the God of Delphi. He will tell you about my wisdom, if I have any, and of what sort it is.

Chaerephon, as you know, was very impetuous in all his doings, and he went to Delphi and boldly asked the oracle to tell him whether anyone was wiser than I was. The Pythian prophetess answered that there was no man wiser.

Why do I mention this? Because I am going to explain to you why I have such an evil name.

When I heard the answer, I said to myself, “What can the god mean? What is the interpretation of his riddle? I know that I have no wisdom, small or great. What then can he mean when he says that I am the wisest of men? And yet he is a god, and cannot lie; that would be against his nature.

After long consideration, I thought of a method of trying the question. I reflected that if I could only find a man wiser than myself, then I might go to the god with a refutation in my hand. I should say to him, “Here is a man who is wiser than I am; but you said that I was the wisest.

Accordingly, I went to one who had the reputation of wisdom, and observed him. His name I need not mention; he was a politician whom I selected for examination. When I began to talk with him, I could not help thinking that he was not really wise, although he was thought wise by many, and still wiser by himself.

Thereupon I tried to explain to him that he thought himself wise, but was not really wise; and the consequence was that he hated me, and his enmity was shared by several who were present and heard me.

So I left him, saying to myself, as I went away: “Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is. For he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; I neither know nor think that I know. In this latter particular, then, I seem to have slightly the advantage of him.

Then I went to another who had still higher pretensions to wisdom, and my conclusion was exactly the same. Whereupon I made another enemy of him, and of many others besides him. Then I went to one man after another, being not unconscious of the enmity which I provoked, and I lamented and feared this: but necessity was laid upon me: the word of God, I thought, ought to be considered first.

And I said to myself, “Go I must to all who appear to know, and find out the meaning of the oracle.

Athenians, I tell you the truth. The result of my mission was just this: I found that the men most in repute were all but the most foolish; and that others less esteemed were really wiser and better.

I will tell you the tale of my wanderings and of the “Herculean” labors, as I may call them, which I endured only to find at last the oracle irrefutable.

After the politicians, I went to the poets; tragic, dithyrambic, and all sorts. The poets appeared to me to be much in the same case; and I further observed that upon the strength of their poetry they believed themselves to be the wisest of men in other things in which they were not wise.

So I departed, conceiving myself to be superior to them for the same reason that I was superior to the politicians. At last I went to the artisans. But I observed that even the good artisans fell into the same error as the poets, because they were good workmen they thought that they also knew all sorts of high matters. And, in this defect in them overshadowed their wisdom.

I am called wise, for my hearers always imagine that I myself possess the wisdom which I find wanting in others. But the truth is, O people of Athens, that only God is wise; and by his answer he intends to show that the wisdom of men is worth little or nothing.

God is not speaking of Socrates, he is only using my name by way of illustration, as if he said, “He is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing.

And so I go about the world, obedient to the god, and search and make inquiry into the wisdom of any one, whether citizen or stranger, who appears to be wise; and if he is not wise, then in vindication of the oracle I show him that he is not wise. My occupation quite absorbs me, and I have no time to give either to any public matter of interest or to any concern of my own, but I am in utter poverty by reason of my devotion to the god.

And then those who are examined, instead of being angry with themselves, are angry with me!

This confounded Socrates,” they say; “this villainous misleader of youth!” And, then if somebody asks them, “Why, what evil does he practice or teach?” They do not know, and cannot tell.

But, in order that they may not appear to be stupid, they repeat the ready-made charges which are used against all philosophers about teaching things up in the clouds and under the earth, and having no gods, and making the worse appear the better cause.

They do not like to confess that their sham of knowledge has been detected, which is the truth. Because they are numerous and ambitious and energetic, they prepare for battle with persuasive tongues, and they fill your ears with their loud and inveterate calumnies. And this is the reason why my accusers have set upon me.

And this, O men of Athens, is the truth and the whole truth; I have concealed nothing, I have dissembled nothing. And yet, I know that my plainness of speech makes them hate me, and what is their hatred but a proof that I am speaking the truth. Hence has arisen the prejudice against me, and this is the reason of it, as you will find out now or later.

I turn to Meletus, a good man and true lover of his country, as he calls himself. Come hither, Meletus, and let me ask a question of you.

[Socrates to Meletus] By the gods, Meletus, I do not as yet understand whether you assert that I teach other men to acknowledge some gods, and therefore that I do believe in gods, and am not an entire atheist, but only you say that they are not the same gods which the city recognizes—the charge is that they are different gods. Or, do you mean that I am an atheist simply, and a teacher of atheism?

[Meletus] I mean the latter—that you are a complete atheist.

[Socrates] What an extraordinary statement! Why do you think so, Meletus? Do you mean that I do not believe in the godhead of the sun or moon, like other men?

[Meletus] I assure you, judges, that he does not: for he says that the sun is stone, and the moon earth.

[Socrates] And so, Meletus, you really think that I do not believe in any god?

[Meletus] I swear by Zeus that you believe absolutely in none at all.

[Socrates] Nobody will believe you, Meletus, and I am pretty sure that you do not believe yourself.

I have said enough in answer to the charge of Meletus: any elaborate defense is unnecessary, but I know only too well how many are the enmities which I have incurred, and this is what will be my destruction if I am destroyed—not Meletus—but the envy and detraction of the world, which has been the death of many good men, and will probably be the death of many more; there is no danger of my being the last of them.

Someone will say: “And are you not ashamed, Socrates, of a course of life which is likely to bring you to an untimely end?” To him I may fairly answer: There you are mistaken: a man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong—acting the part of a good man or of a bad.

For wherever a man’s place is, whether the place which he has chosen or that in which he has been placed by a commander, there he ought to remain in the hour of danger.

Men of Athens, I honor and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy, exhorting any one whom I meet and saying to him after my manner: “You, my friend, are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all?

And if the person with whom I am arguing, says: “Yes, but I do care,” then I do not leave him or let him go at once; but I proceed to interrogate and examine and cross-examine him, and if I think that he has no virtue in him, but only says that he has, I reproach him with undervaluing the greater, and overvaluing the less.

And I shall repeat the same words to every one whom I meet, young and old, citizen and alien, but especially to the citizens, inasmuch as they are my brethren.

For know that this is the command of God; and I believe that no greater good has ever happened in the state than my service to the God. For I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul.

I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man, public as well as private.

This is my teaching, and if this is the doctrine which corrupts the youth, I am a mischievous person. But if any one says that this is not my teaching, he is speaking an untruth. Wherefore, O men of Athens, I say to you, either acquit me or not; but whichever you do, understand that I shall never alter my ways, not even if I have to die many times.

Men of Athens, do not interrupt, but hear me; there was an understanding between us that you should hear me to the end: I have something more to say, at which you may be inclined to cry out; but I believe that to hear me will be good for you, and therefore I beg that you will not cry out.

I would have you know, that if you kill such as one as I am, you will injure yourselves more than you will injure me. Nothing will injure me, not Meletus nor yet Anytus—they cannot, for a bad man is not permitted to injure a better than himself.

And now, Athenians, I am not going to argue for my own sake, as you may think, but for yours, that you may not sin against the God by condemning me, who am his gift to you.

For if you kill me you will not easily find a successor to me, who, if I may use such a ludicrous figure of speech, am a sort of gadfly, given to the state by God; and the state is a great and noble steed who is tardy in his motions owing to his very size, and requires to be stirred into life. I am that gadfly which God has attached to the state, and all day long and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you.

You will not easily find another like me, and therefore I would advise you to spare me. I dare say that you may feel out of temper (like a person who is suddenly awakened from sleep), and you think that you might easily strike me dead as you are advised by Meletus, and then you would sleep on for the remainder of your lives, unless God in his care of you sent you another gadfly.

I have been always the same in all my actions, public as well as private. And if any one says that he has ever learned or heard anything from me in private which all the world has not heard, let me tell you that he is lying.

To do as you say would be a disobedience to the God. I cannot hold my tongue. The unexamined life is not worth living.

And now, O men who have condemned me, I would fain prophesy to you; for I am about to die, and in the hour of death men are gifted with prophetic power.

You have killed me because you wanted to escape the accuser, and not to give an account of your lives. But that will not be as you suppose: far otherwise.

If you think that by killing men you can prevent someone from censuring your evil lives, you are mistaken; that is not a way of escape which is either possible or honorable. The easiest and the noblest way is not to be disabling others, but to be improving yourselves.


[Socrates here concludes his defense, and, the votes being taken, he is declared guilty by a very close vote of a majority of voices. He thereupon resumes his address.]

O judges, be of good cheer about death, and know of a certainty: that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. He and his are not neglected by the gods; nor has my own approaching end happened by mere chance.

For which reason, also, I am not angry with my condemners, or with my accusers; they have done me no harm. Although they did not intend to do me any good, and for this I may gently blame them.

Still I have a favor to ask of them. When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, O my friends, trouble them, as I have troubled you.

If they seem to care about riches, or anything, more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing,—then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring about that for which they ought to care, and thinking that they are something when they are really nothing. And if you do this, both I and my sons will have received justice at your hands.

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways—I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.


Click here to read Socrates’ Entire Apology

Abridgment by Gregg Zegarelli, 2017. References: Plato. Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates (p. 18). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition; Plato (2010-07-08). The Collected Works of Plato (Unexpurgated Edition) (Halcyon Classics) (Kindle Locations 1239-1245). Halcyon Press Ltd. Kindle Edition.

My accusers have done me no harm. Although they did not intend to do me any good, and for this I may gently blame them.


I dare say, Athenians, some among you say, “Socrates, …All these rumors would never have arisen if you were like others….

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© 2017 Gregg Zegarelli, Esq. Gregg can be contacted through LinkedIn.

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