TIMONAX

Don’t you ever pray to God to make you rich and grand, like him? [ He points to Antagoras. ]

SERVANT

I am well off man inside God’s love, that is all I know.

TIMONAX

I don’t believe you. Aren’t you cross with God because he made you like this?

SERVANT upset

I am not good man, I have many sin, many fault, many, many. I need my God. I am all bad, he is all good, I have bad thoughts –

TIMONAX interrupting

So if you –

SOCRATES stopping the conversation with a gesture

Thank you, thank you, you spoke very well.

At a nod from Antagoras the servant goes. Socrates rises and stands a little apart.

ANTAGORAS

I suppose he’s what they call a natural mystic!

ACASTOS

So you do think religion is natural?

ANTAGORAS

Superstition is! He believes it all literally.

TIMONAX

Whatever happen I am happy man. Perhaps that’s religion.

ACASTOS

I liked that!

TIMONAX

No wonder it inhibits social progress!

ANTAGORAS

I was afraid he was going to confess he’d stolen something, most embarrassing!

TIMONAX

With God standing there looking at him accusingly!

ANTAGORAS

There you are, not a bad idea if it stops people from stealing!

TIMONAX

He’s rather adorable, would you sell him to me!

ANTAGORAS

What do you want him for?

Socrates returns to the group and stands in front of Plato, studying him. Plato is uneasy, rises, moves. The others watch.

SOCRATES

Well, what do you think, young Plato? We don’t seem to have heard from you.

PLATO after a moment, cool, almost impertinent

Do you really want to know what I think?

They stare at each other. Then – Socrates turns away and sits down, beckoning to Acastos. They are all seated except for Plato who is left out.

SOCRATES to Acastos

Well, my child, we are still without a definition of religion which separates it clearly from morality.

ACASTOS

I think that –

PLATO vehemently interrupting, very fast

Religion isn’t just a feeling, it isn’t just a hypothesis, it’s not like something we happen not to know, a God who might perhaps be there isn’t a God, it’s got to be necessary, it’s got to be certain, it’s got to be proved by the whole of life, it’s got to be the magnetic centre of everything –

SOCRATES

Wait a minute! So you want to talk?

PLATO

Yes. [ pause ] Please.

SOCRATES

All right. Sit down. And don’t be in such a hurry. You say ‘it’s got to be certain.’ There are different kinds of certainty.

TIMONAX

Intolerance, dogmatism, persecution.

SOCRATES

And what is one to be certain of? You used the word God.

PLATO still fast

That was just a figure of speech, of course there are no gods, they are just images, religion is above the gods, there can’t be gods, but that doesn’t mean it’s anything we happen to think, it doesn’t mean we’re the gods, that’s just the opposite, it’s beyond us, it’s more real than us, we have to come to it and let it change us, religion is spiritual change, absolute spiritual change.