O thou handmaid of God! It is recorded in eastern histories
that Socrates journeyed to Palestine and Syria and there, from men learned in
the things of God, acquired certain spiritual truths; that when he returned to
Greece, he promulgated two beliefs: one, the unity of God, and the other, the
immortality of the soul after its separation from the body; that these
concepts, so foreign to their thought, raised a great commotion among the
Greeks, until in the end they gave him poison and killed him.
And this is authentic; for the Greeks believed in many gods,
and Socrates established the fact that God is one, which obviously was in
conflict with Greek beliefs.
The Founder of monotheism was Abraham; it is to Him that
this concept can be traced, and the belief was current among the Children of
Israel, even in the days of Socrates.
The above, however, cannot be found in the Jewish histories;
there are many facts which are not included in Jewish history. Not all the
events of the life of Christ are set forth in the history of Josephus, a Jew,
although it was he who wrote the history of the times of Christ. One may not,
therefore, refuse to believe in events of Christ’s day on the grounds that they
are not to be found in the history of Josephus.
Eastern histories also state that Hippocrates sojourned for
a long time in the town of Tyre, and this is a city in Syria.
(‘Abdu’l-Baha,
‘Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Baha’)
