The Truth of Myths and the Belly-Myth

For since, asking about the proportional difference of each, Adeimantus suggested that 'in the greater cases' it was decided that 'even the lesser ones are recognized by myths,' though he did not declare knowledge of these either, he then replied again, having brought it back: 'whom both Hesiod and Homer, I said, were elegists to us; for these indeed once composed and tell myths to men, having joined them with falsehoods.'

If then Homer's epics and Hesiod's myths are judged false, which indeed especially for the sake of education cheer the hearers, and not only that but also stir up the mind toward commanded eloquence with beautiful diction, how much more should those words spoken by the possessed hag, which someone considers to be not of the kind of myth-making, be judged false, as they so sharply and even by the very name of the belly-myth direct the mind?

For if the children of the Greeks, who are precise in the naming of each matter, in Greece call myths 'false fabrications' by voice, they follow from the name the suspicion of the matter as it is primarily arranged. But Aesop's myth-makings are equal to such fabrications of myths, just as the little girls, often being mocked in childhood, play and jest with headbands (it is when they do these things, being frequently drenched in wine in the throat, and attending to the cup and the drink, they chatter without measure).

But those who consider themselves ambassadors for the ethics of philosophy cast about the kinds of poems such as these as being false myths, as is fitting.

If, therefore, the name itself is correctly assigned according to the reality of the thing, the belly-mythos seems to weave myths in the stomach; for the demon does not speak wisely from nature, but defiling the lowest parts, he infects the mind and harms the intellect, pouring out mythic fabrications composed from the stomach, and transforming into various forms, he leads the soul away with diverse disguises.

Since he is many-faced, constantly changing in shapes, he even pretends to ascend and call out from the earth, no less than before; then, rewarding the services on both sides with forms, he seems to present one person ascending to the caller, while he himself runs around here and there changing ideas, so that he may prove by deeds and words that he is a liar.

Indeed, the very faces of the dead are represented as being raised up, as it is possible to suppose from such a drama, bringing in bright faces and dark phantoms as if they were fashioned, and presenting heavy things and the scent of death as if they had been summoned from Hades, and as if they had been raised from chains for a little while, and then again passing from here to there. For he strikes the soul with terrors through these sights, fashioning pale forms, or an eye bulging or sunken, as if they were promising to breathe in the dead and then breathe out again; for the forger is accustomed to pretend by conforming to these terrible things.

But there are times when he himself changes into many forms, and there are times when he has made use of fellow demons of his own kind; he neither transfers souls from Hades, nor the spirits of the righteous, nor the angelic natures, but on the contrary, it happened to be for the purpose of playing tricks before the angels, and it was given to the best of men so that they might be struck down, being prone to fall, bursting into the earth. But this one, being driven down by a violent current from the highest, has retreated to lower things; for to God the Pantokrator alone and to the most Divine Child belongs the power to raise souls from Hades and to have them present as choirs of angels in order, which is a special distinction belonging to the Divine nature.