The Fear of the Lord in Plato

            “The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”[1] This is Proverbs 9:10, and it is one of the most well-known verses in the collection of Solomon’s wisdom. Its meaning may not be immediately obvious to the reader, and may strike them as odd – as Max Leyf points out in his article, “The Wisdom of Solomon & the Wisdom of Plato”, “’Fear’ might seem at first to be a vice, in our minds at once calling up a contrast to a virtue like ‘courage’ or ‘bravery.’”[2] If the Bible commands us to love a good God, it may seem counterintuitive that we would fear Him. Many readers and scholars understand “fear of the Lord” to be a feeling not so much of horror, but of awe and reverence; and yet, the first clause of Proverbs 9:10 is translated identically in every major Bible translation. 

            As we will later investigate, this verse is certainly not all Solomon had to say on the subject of wisdom; after all, 1 Kings calls Solomon the wisest man on earth.[3] However, an examination of wisdom in the ancient world would not be thorough without mentioning Plato. In the Platonic dialogues, Socrates speaks constantly about wisdom, and aims to pursue it in his every endeavor. Unfortunately, being Hellenistic and possibly polytheistic,[4] Socrates, no matter how wise he may have been, did not come to the same conclusions as Solomon regarding wisdom. As Christians, we may be tempted to read Socrates’ teachings on wisdom and dismiss them as false, as they appear to conflict with the Old Testament—if Socrates did not state fear of the Lord was the beginning of wisdom, then surely his ideas must be unbiblical. This, however, is too hasty an approach; if examined closely enough, many Christian ideas can be found in Plato, and, as this essay will attempt to show, Socrates’ conception of wisdom, and how to obtain it, are at least partially reconcilable with those of Solomon’s Proverbs.

            First, some clarifications should be made. This paper will be careful to give a very thorough and fair interpretation of Scripture to avoid being eisegetical. We will examine Proverbs right away, and look at Plato after, to committing misinterpretation of a holy text. Additionally, this essay will examine Socrates’ teachings only, and not make claims about Plato’s personal doctrines or beliefs.

            We will first look at Scripture, and try to determine exactly what wisdom is, and why it begins with fearing God. As we approach this book, it should be noted that Solomon did not have a modern Christian understanding of the afterlife, and just based on Proverbs, it is not immediately clear what he believed. Certainly he understood retribution, as passages like Proverbs 14:12 indicate: “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.”[5] Reminiscent of many New Testament teachings, Proverbs 10:16 states, “The wages of the righteous is life, but the earnings of the wicked are sin and death.”[6] Thus, while saying Solomon believed in an afterlife in the same way modern Christians do would be speculation, one can safely say that he, and other followers of God in that time, believed that they would, in some way, face justice after death, and be rewarded or punished depending on their time on earth.

            The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon is the standard text for Old Testament study, and it notes four verses in Proverbs with similar terms.[7] Proverbs 1:7 reads, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”[8] Though Proverbs 9:10, as noted, says that “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”, we should be hesitant to immediately equate wisdom and knowledge; for now, we will keep in mind that they are closely linked. Proverbs 15:33 states, “Wisdom’s instruction is to fear the Lord, and humility comes before honor.”[9] Finally, with these passages, let us read the verses surrounding 9:10: 

8Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you;
    rebuke the wise and they will love you.
9 Instruct the wise and they will be wiser still;
    teach the righteous and they will add to their learning.

10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
    and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
11 For through wisdom your days will be many,
    and years will be added to your life.
12 If you are wise, your wisdom will reward you;
    if you are a mocker, you alone will suffer.[10]

            These verses, while telling us effects of wisdom and how to receive it, do not really tell us what wisdom itself is. However, we may deduce a statement such as this: wisdom in Proverbs is a precious[11] thing that is both obtainable (versus something inherent to some people, and not others) and guides your life towards good, or righteousness. We still do not know exactly what wisdom itself is, but this will suffice for now.

            As mentioned earlier, for the ‘fear of the Lord’, it may be tempting to interpret the verse without the horror or terror aspect, but rather with a sense of awe and reverence; however, we will not shy away from it, because fear is a natural part of love. We, as humans, are not all powerful, so when presented with greatness, though we want it more than anything, we are often afraid—afraid of losing that thing, afraid of its power, and afraid of not being good enough for it. In the case of God, it is crucial that we recognize our infinite unworthiness, and the immense stakes of our situation; we are lesser beings who do evil, and are thus infinitely less great than God, and do not deserve to be with Him. To love God and not fear Him is to think too highly of yourself, or not highly enough of God. He is the greatest being, and so we love Him; but that makes us inferior, and so we fear Him. 

            Thus, with all this, we may attempt an interpretation of the first part of Proverbs 9:10 as follows: Fear of the Lord, a true sense of dread which comes naturally from loving Him and recognizing our place with respect to Him, is the beginning of wisdom, because we cannot hope to live a life oriented towards God, through wisdom, until we understand our place as inferior beings.

            With this established, we now come to Plato. Wisdom and philosophy are certainly the most prevalent topics throughout the dialogues, but in particular, the Republic and the Apology will prove to be our most valuable texts. Max Leyf notes, 

The Hellenic maxim, whose derivation, again, assumes Plato as its source, can be synthetically discerned from crucial moments in the Apology, the Republic, the Euthyphro, and the Meno dialogues, among others. It might take something like the following formulation: “knowledge of ignorance is the beginning of wisdom.”[12]

            Moreover, in the Apology, Socrates recalls his pursuit of wisdom earlier in life. He tells the jury, “[Chaerophon] went to Delphi at one time and ventured to ask the oracle…if any man was wiser than I, and the Pythian replied that no one was wiser.”[13] He then explains,

I asked myself: “Whatever does the god mean? What is his riddle? I am very conscious that I am not wise at all; what then does he mean by saying that I am the wisest? For surely he does not lie; it is not legitimate for him to do so.” For a long time I was at a loss at to his meaning; then I very reluctantly turned to some such investigation as this; I went to one of those reputed wise, thinking that there, if anywhere, I could refute the oracle and say to it: “This man is wiser than I, but you said I was.”[14]

               Socrates explains that the man he met did not know as much as he claimed, and says,

I withdrew and thought to myself: “I am wiser than this man; it is likely that neither of us knows anything worthwhile, but he thinks he knows something when he does not, whereas when I do not know, neither do I think I know; so I am likely to be wiser than he to this small extent, that I do not think I know what I do not know.”[15]

            Socrates is explaining that there may be more to wisdom than simply knowing what you do not know, however, even if he knows nothing worthwhile, a man who is not mistaken about his knowledge is wiser than the man who is mistaken, even if only slightly wiser. Socrates then explains how he went to many other men reputed for their wisdom, and found similar results. Yet this also is more an effect of wisdom rather than a solid definition. The Republic, thankfully, will help us find out what wisdom is. From various passages, we know several things about wisdom: first, that it is one of the four virtues of the good soul, along with courage, moderation, and justice.[16] Moreover, he seems to imply that it is the virtue that produces good judgment, and he says, “I think that the city we described is really wise. And that’s because it has good judgment, isn’t it?”[17] Those familiar with the Republic will know that Socrates equates the city and the soul; thus, if a city having good judgment is an indication of wisdom, the same can be said of a man. Furthermore, he notes that it is a virtue of the mind, that governs the whole soul. He says,

We’ll call [an individual] wise because of that small part of himself that rules in him [the rational part of the soul, or the mind] and makes those declarations and has within it the knowledge of what is advantageous for each part and for the whole soul, which is the community of all three parts.[18]

            However, the virtue of wisdom is not simply this entity that you suddenly receive, or learn, but something closer to having a healthy soul. Socrates concludes, “Virtue seems, then, to be a kind of health, fine condition, and well-being of the soul, while vice is disease, shameful condition, and weakness.”[19] Proclus Lycius, an ancient Greek philosopher known for his commentaries on Plato, notes in Commentary on Plato’s Republic, “He declares that wisdom is a perfective disposition that benefits that part in the soul that is uniquely suited to rule over the others.”[20]

            But why be wise, and why love wisdom? For a pagan polytheist, what is the advantage to having good judgment? After all, it cannot be merely to serve yourself and be profitable, because Socrates’s whole mission in the beginning of the Republic is to show that justice is not simply to do whatever you want. The answer to this question becomes increasingly clear towards the end of the Republic: just as with Christianity, there are stakes for the Greeks. At the very end of the last book, Socrates tells Glaucon, his most enduring interlocutor, the famous Myth of Er, which narrates what supposedly happens to a soul after death. Socrates tells Glaucon that the just men will go on to a period of bliss before being reincarnated, while the unjust will go to Tartarus, where they will stay for as long as is necessary to purge them of their sins committed on earth. Some souls, the tyrants, will never leave Tartarus. When Socrates speaks of the tyrannical man, he does not simply mean a man who has actually ruled a city as a tyrant; rather, he means that since the city mirrors the soul, just as there are tyrannical cities, there are tyrannical souls, which are disordered and evil. Socrates spends an entire chapter talking about the tyrant, and how he comes to be, calling him the “worst type of man”, one without friends, governed by his immoderate desires, and living for pleasure and power.[21] This type of man may seem far-fetched, but it is clear that Socrates worries that his own company could tread this path if he does not save them. At the beginning, both Glaucon and Thrasymachus, a sophist also present, hold the belief that it is better for every man to be unjust and self-serving, because he will be happier and live a more pleasurable life. Socrates, recognizing this belief as evil and wrong, does not want his friends to suffer the fate of Tartarus when they die, and wishes they would join him in a genuine love and pursuit of wisdom: true philosophy. This is why he spends a remarkably long time in conversation with them, and ends his argument with a story. Before telling the Myth of Er, Socrates can only try to convince his company of the truth through logic and reasoning—the Myth of Er has neither of these things, but is rather a picture he paints to show why the truth matters. The philosophical life, that of pursuing wisdom, and an overall healthy soul, is to be pointed towards the divine, and is the only hope of attaining bliss after death. Glaucon does not respond again after Socrates tells the myth, but given that he has endured to the end, hearing a man he sincerely admires explain that his beliefs are tyrannical, and that the tyrant is headed for doom, should make him afraid. If fear is not struck into Glaucon’s heart, there may be no hope for him.

            Now we see that reconciling this Platonic idea with that of Proverbs may not be so difficult after all. Without wisdom, which Glaucon and Thrasymachus do not have, they come to beliefs that are false and dangerous. If there is any hope for Glaucon, it’s in the fear that Socrates may have inspired in him, which made him aware of his position, and turned him towards the honest pursuit of wisdom; that is, true philosophy. We might say that the fear of justice after death is the beginning of Glaucon’s pursuit of wisdom; or, at least, Socrates prays it is. God is, of course, not simply justice, but rather a personal being who loves, cares, and speaks—justice, for Socrates, simply is. It does not interact, or feel, or think, or have any of the personal attributes we may attribute to God. And yet, in the context of what we fear awaits us after death, justice serves a similar role. A man will, after death, no longer be able to say that that which is right is simply right because it is pleasant or beneficial, but instead, unchanging, objective justice will judge him according to the life he lived, and this cannot be resisted. While the details of what constitutes salvation are probably different for Socrates, this notion alone is the same: a man’s life should be oriented towards the Good, and not on earthly, changing things; to be pointed towards the Divine is the best chance at being saved from our ignorance and tyrannical desires. But we will not want to love it or pursue it until we fearfully recognize our place in relation to it, and its immense power over our unjust souls.

            In the Phaedo, as Socrates is dying, he tells his friends and family around him the following: 

It is right to think then, gentlemen, that if the soul is immortal, it requires our care not only for the time we call our life, but for the sake of all time, and that one is in terrible danger if one does not give it that care. If death were escape from everything, it would be a great boon to the wicked to get rid of the body and of their wickedness together with their soul. But now that the soul appears to be immortal, there is no escape from evil or salvation for it except by becoming as good and wise as possible, for the soul goes to the underworld possessing nothing but its education and upbringing, which are said to bring the greatest benefit or harm to the dead right at the beginning of the journey yonder.[22]

No sensible man would insist that these things are as I have described them, but I think it is fitting for a man to risk the belief—for the risk is a noble one—that this, or something like this, is true about our souls and their dwelling places, since the soul is evidently immortal, and a man should repeat this to himself as if it were an incantation, which is why I have been prolonging my tale.”[23]

            Socrates dies peacefully, and perhaps without fear. He knows his situation, but also believes he has done everything he can to live a just life. He is not certain that he will go on to bliss, but he looks forward to meeting the thing he loves most face to face.

            [1] New International Version, Proverbs 9:10.

    [2] Max Leyf, “The Wisdom of Solomon and the Wisdom of Plato” (ClassicalU, June 5, 2023), accessed December 2, 2025, https://classicalu.com/the-wisdom-of-solomon-and-the-wisdom-of-plato/.

            [3] 1 Kings 4:31.

            [4] Whether Socrates is truly polytheistic is uncertain. In many dialogues, he offers prayer to different gods, but in others, he seems to indicate a belief in some supreme power above all, and he is accused of monotheism in the Apology.

            [5] Proverbs 14:12.

            [6] Proverbs 10:16.

           [7] Francis Brown, Samuel Rolles Driver, and Charles Augustus Briggs, in Enhanced Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), 315, 432.

            [8] Proverbs 1:7.

            [9] Proverbs 15:33.

            [10] Proverbs 9:8-12.

            [11] Proverbs 8:11 states, “for wisdom is more precious than rubies, and nothing you desire can compare with her.”

            [12] “The Wisdom of Solomon and the Wisdom of Plato”.

            [13] Plato: Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1997), Apology, 21a.

            [14] Apology, 21b-c.

            [15] Apology, 21d.

            [16] Republic, 427e.

            [17] Republic, 428b. 

            [18] Republic, 442c.

            [19] Republic, 444e.

            [20] Dirk Baltzly, John F. Finamore, and Graeme Miles, Proclus: Commentary on Plato’s “Republic” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022), 60.

            [21] Republic, 576b.

            [22] Apology, 107c.

            [23] Apology, 114d.