{
  "id": "a_bkys2pws",
  "oid": 165096,
  "revision": 1,
  "revision_oid": 165097,
  "work": "orthodoxy",
  "edition": "pg16769-r1",
  "title": "Loving God and reversing the Delphic command",
  "anchors": [
    {
      "unit": "CH04.P013",
      "oid": 78,
      "role": null,
      "edition": "pg16769-r1",
      "paragraph": "CH04.P013",
      "exact": "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God; but thou shalt not know thyself.",
      "start": 1703,
      "end": 1769,
      "prefix": " is more distant than any star. ",
      "suffix": " We are all under the same menta",
      "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH04.P013#char=1703,1769"
    }
  ],
  "body_markdown": "The first clause quotes the opening of the commandment Jesus gives in Matthew 22:37, also found in Luke 10:27; Mark 12:30 and its scriptural source, Deuteronomy 6:5, have an introductory 'And'. In the King James Version the command continues by requiring love with heart, soul and mind. The wording does not identify one Gospel uniquely. The second clause is Chesterton's paradoxical addition, reversing the Delphic injunction to know oneself; it is not another biblical commandment. [King James Bible, Matthew 22:37–40; Deuteronomy 6:5; Luke 10:27](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10).\n\nA particularly illuminating comparison is Plato's *Phaedrus* 229e–230a. Socrates declines to spend his time rationalizing mythical monsters while he remains ignorant of himself. In Benjamin Jowett's translation he invokes the Delphic inscription and asks whether he himself is monstrous or gentler and more divine. Both passages unsettle the assumption that familiar humanity is already understood while fabulous creatures need explaining. But their directions differ: Socrates makes acknowledged ignorance a reason to pursue self-knowledge; Chesterton makes our unmastered identity a continuing source of astonishment. The paragraph's closing claim that art makes us remember our ignorance shows that his 'shalt not' functions as a deliberately startling statement of limitation, rather than an instruction to stop thinking. [Plato, *Phaedrus*, 229e–230a, Jowett translation](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1636/1636-h/1636-h.htm).\n\nThe Bible witness inspected is Project Gutenberg's King James text (the translation first appeared in 1611); the Plato witness is Gutenberg's Jowett translation, not a Greek critical text. *Phaedrus* is an ancient fourth-century-BCE work, not a modern publication with an ascertainable first-edition date. This comparison establishes an intelligible philosophical contrast, not that Chesterton was specifically borrowing this dialogue.",
  "sources": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10",
      "title": "The King James Version of the Bible",
      "locator": "Matthew 22:37–40; Mark 12:29–30; Luke 10:27; Deuteronomy 6:4–5; Gutenberg eBook 10",
      "exact": null
    },
    {
      "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1636/1636-h/1636-h.htm",
      "title": "Plato, Phaedrus, translated by Benjamin Jowett",
      "locator": "229e–230a; dialogue beginning 'Now I quite acknowledge that these allegories are very nice'; Gutenberg eBook 1636",
      "exact": null
    }
  ],
  "citations": [],
  "external_references": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10",
      "title": "King James Bible, Matthew 22:37–40; Deuteronomy 6:5; Luke 10:27"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1636/1636-h/1636-h.htm",
      "title": "Plato, *Phaedrus*, 229e–230a, Jowett translation"
    }
  ],
  "limits": [
    "The biblical wording cannot securely identify a single Gospel or Chesterton's particular Bible edition.",
    "No evidence of direct dependence on the Phaedrus was established; the Delphic maxim had an independent cultural circulation.",
    "Gutenberg's Jowett witness does not identify its underlying print edition in the inspected header."
  ],
  "metadata": {
    "run": "chapter-04-restart-2026-11-07",
    "paragraph_investigator": "P013",
    "task": [
      {
        "approach": "Biblical references",
        "question": "What is biblical quotation and what is Chesterton's invention in the command to love God but not know oneself?"
      },
      {
        "approach": "Philosophical contextualization: then and since",
        "question": "How does the reversal of 'know thyself' compare with Socrates' confessed ignorance in the Phaedrus?"
      }
    ],
    "model": "gpt-6.1-sol"
  },
  "content_sha256": "sha256:930751a392d6907b289cd0e65a2eb077b41583bcc1f8b1e5bb360ecf3684f850",
  "created_at": "2026-11-07T16:59:22Z",
  "is_current": true,
  "url": "/a/a_bkys2pws",
  "revision_path": "/a/a_bkys2pws/r/1",
  "cited_by": []
}