Against Celsus 7.58

After this let us see also his next statement, which runs thus: “They have also this precept, not to retaliate against one who insults them: ‘And if he strikes you,’ he says, ‘on one cheek, offer him the other also.’ This too is old, said very well long before, and they have recorded it in a more rustic way. For Plato too has Socrates say this in dialogue with Crito: ‘We must never, then, do wrong.’ ‘Certainly not.’ ‘Nor, when wronged, must one do wrong in return, as the many think, since one must never do wrong at all.’ ‘It appears not.’ ‘What then? Must one do harm, Crito, or not?’ ‘Surely not, Socrates.’ ‘What then? Is it just, when one suffers harm, to do harm in return, as the many say, or not just?’ ‘Not at all.’ ‘For doing harm to men is no different from doing wrong.’ ‘You are right.’ ‘So one must neither do wrong in return nor harm any man, whatever one suffers from them.’ So says Plato, and again this: ‘Consider very carefully, then, whether you share this view and agree with it, and let us begin our deliberation from here, that it is never right to do wrong, nor to do wrong in return, nor, when suffering harm, to defend oneself by doing harm in return; or do you withdraw and not share this starting point? For so it has seemed to me long ago and still seems now.’ This, then, was Plato's view, and it had been held still earlier by divine men. But about these things and the others that they corrupt, let what has been said suffice; and whoever wishes to seek further into them will come to know.”