The Last Symposium (Η Τελευταία Συμπόσιο)

-From The Meletic Tales.

The olive wind stirred the dry dust of the agora, where philosophers once debated beneath porticoes that now lay fractured and worn. In the upper chamber of a shuttered school on the Hill of the Muses, a quiet summons had drawn four figures to gather once more. Not as teachers. Not as citizens, but as intellectual dissenters. A Stoic, a Neo-Platonist, an Epicurean and a Meletic. Amongst them there was a Christian, who would challenge their philosophies using faith.

Eudoxos arrived last. He moved with the grace of a man burdened not by age but by thought. His scroll was rolled beneath one arm, a smooth cylinder of worn papyrus; its seal bore no emblem—only a single slash of charcoal. A mark not of ownership, but of silence. He was a believer in the philosophy of Meleticism.

‘You kept us waiting, I was listening to the wind blow gently’, said Diodotos the Stoic brushing olive ash from his shoulder.

Eudoxos bowed faintly out of reverence, introducing himself.

‘It carries no answers,’ muttered Eugenios from the corner, clad in the crimson sash of the Christian ordinarii. His voice was terse. Sharp.

Eubouleia the Epicurean smiled, ‘Only questions ever worth asking ride the wind. Welcome, Eudoxos. Come. Sit.’

The five took their places around a stone table once used for rhetoric instruction. Now, it bore scars of fire and knife. A single candle flickered at the centre, surrounded by parchment fragments and a bronze cup of myrrh.
Eudoxos remained standing.

‘I do not sit in circles without cause,’ he said softly.

‘Then let the cause be this one that has gathered us,’ said Diodotos, gesturing to the others.

‘People are saying that philosophy is dying, and doctrine grows. The mind retreats. The mouth opens to hymns but shuts to reason. We meet not to recite—but to resist with wisdom’, Lysander the Neo-Platonist replied.

Eugenios scoffed. ‘Resist with wisdom? You cannot resist eternity. The word was with God, and the word is God. Your debates are smoke that has no substance—God's truth is eternal flame’.

Eudoxos stepped forth to meet the challenge.

‘Then let your flame meet our breath, and we shall see which endures’.

The candle sputtered, casting flickers against the stone wall. Outside, bells tolled the hour—each one echoing through Athens like a hymn layered atop silence.

‘We are not gathered to blaspheme, but to speak plainly. Let us begin with the first claim: that the divine is triune—Father, Son and Spirit, yet one God', said Diodotos, his voice carefully expressed.

Eugenios leaned forth. ‘One essence, three persons. Mystery revealed. The truth does not owe coherence to the minds of men that do not comprehend'.

Eudoxos replied without haste.

‘And yet if truth is not coherent, it is not truth—it is concealment. The Law of Identity holds: a thing cannot both be and not be itself. If your god is one essence, and yet three distinct consciousnesses, we must ask—what defines his essence, and what defines his personhood?’

Eubouleia grinned. ‘Defining three persons in one god must be like defining different wines, yet with the same taste'.

Eugenios scowled. ‘Mockery does not make argument nor have meaning'.

‘Nor does mystery make clarity,’ Lysander replied. ‘We seek not to ridicule, but to understand. The doctrine claims unity in essence but division in relation. I ask: how can relation exist without separation? How can separation be if the essence is indivisible?’

Diodotos nodded slowly. ‘The Law of Contradiction stirs uncomfortably’.

Eugenios rose. ‘You speak as if man could grasp the divine fully. God is beyond human reason’.

Eudoxos turned to him, calm and inquisitive and said, ‘Verily, is he beyond your reason, or reason itself? For if he is beyond reason, then to speak of him as divine is irrational. If he speaks to man with the logos—then the logos must govern his message. That would mean that his rationality would not be human, making him not human, yet he was human'.

'I tell you that he was divine', said Eugenios as he stared into the eyes of Eudoxos.

Silence hovered. Diodotos poured water from a chipped jug into shallow clay cups. Outside, Athens simmered beneath a cloudless sky, but inside the stone chamber, frost clung to every syllable.

‘The claim is this, that Christ died and rose bodily. Not as symbol, not as myth, but in flesh—bearing wounds, walking amongst his disciples', he said, eyes on the flame.

Eugenios nodded solemnly. ‘And it is by that resurrection that death is conquered’.

Eubouleia sipped slowly. ‘This is what your faith is based on. Its greatest miracle. To conquer death, yet death cannot be conquered. If so, then we would never die in the first place'.

Eudoxos listened before he answered, ‘Let us distinguish symbol from substance. If resurrection is the restoration of physical form, we must first ask—what is “form”? Is the body defined by its matter, or by its arrangement?’

Eugenios frowned. ‘It is the body—flesh and bone as it once was’.

Eudoxos stepped into the candlelight.

‘Then how is identity preserved if matter is dispersed? The flesh decays, the bone crumbles. If the resurrection restores it, is it replication or return as you attempt to make us believe?'

'Jesus is the resurrection and life, so he cannot die, because he is God'.

'But then who died on the cross if not him?' Eubouleia asked.

'The body of Christ', Eugenios replied.

'You want us to accept that a god entered mortal flesh through Jesus, and yet, he never died', Diodotos said.

'He came into the world to die for our sins', said Eugenios.

'That would make him a human sacrifice. Your god who you profess as almighty, was nothing more than a human sacrifice? This would make him creator not creator'.

'He is creator not creation'.

'Yet, he became one with his creation', Eubouleia replied.

'Is that not the case with Meleticism?' Eugenios asked.

'No, the difference is that To Ena, or the One is not a creator. That which emanates from it is not creation, but existence', Eudoxos responded.

Diodotos stirred. ‘The ship of Theseus sails again’.

‘Precisely,’ said Eudoxos. ‘If each plank is replaced, is it the same ship? If your god restores Christ’s body with a new essence that you call the holy spirit, does it remain the same Christ—or is it another form of essence?'

Eugenios' voice grew tight. ‘You reduce divinity to essence. You mistake mystery for simplicity. Christ was not a simple man. He was god in the living flesh'.

Eudoxos lowered his tone.

‘Then if that was true, then why would a god reduce himself to a simple man in flesh and mortality, if he is supposed to be eternal? How can he be eternal and finite at the same time?'

'You see not with your faith, but your eyes. You do have faith', Eugenios responded.

'If I saw with only faith, then I would be blinded without reason. What I see with my eyes is the presence of life itself, and the influence of To Ena, through the Logos and the Nous'.

'Without faith, you are misguided', Eugenios stated.

'It is fate not faith that guides me. I don't need a god to show me the path of life and death. I have enlightenment'.

'Fools, you are all for disbelieving. You will meet the same fate as the others, Eugenios mocked the others.

'I elevate enquiry. For truth must survive questioning—or it is not truth, but illusion draped in reverence. If your Christ was elevated by the holy spirit, then we must know how a once mortal man became immortal', Diodotos asked.

'Because he is the son of God', Eugenios retorted.

'What are we to believe Eugenios. One moment, we are told that he is a god in flesh, then we are told that he was the son of a god?' Lysander said.

'If we are to understand, we must know which of the two is Christ?' Diodotos suggested.

Eugenios was unable to reply. He paused to ponder the question.

Eubouleia leaned forth.

‘Tell me, Eudoxos—what do you believe rose?’

The room hushed with anticipation.

Eudoxos looked to the candle. Its flame moved with motion.

‘I believe that the Nous awakens when clarity breaks through illusion. The resurrection of Christ, if it is to hold meaning, must have the truth behind its importance. And that truth must have reason. If not, then we are ignoring the mind and forsaking the soul to a blind devotion that is veiled in faith. When a thought pierces sleep, when a soul rises from fear, that is the reawakening of the soul, not resurrection'.

Eugenios' fists clenched. ‘That is a metaphor. We speak of the divine made man. Not mere philosophical insight’.

‘Then let us ask, if divinity can suffer as your Christ did? For to suffer is to change. If your god changes, he is not eternal, but if he does not—then who was hung upon the cross?’ Diodotos asked.

'Christ was cruficified', Eugenios said.

Eudoxos closed his eyes then said, ‘A mirror, perhaps. Not of a god—but of man seeking him. A man who cried out like any man would do in pain. If Christ was a god, then he would not have had to cry out or showed distress. He did, because he was a man'.

'Christ is eternal', said Eugenios.

'How can a god become eternal and finite at the same time?' Lysander posed the question.

'That I do not know', responded Eugenios.

'That a man died unjustly, that others grieved and later claimed to see him again—this I can understand as a story of human longing and memory, but that this death and return made him divine, infallible, and the only path to human salvation—that is where I must part ways and pronounce that the religious concept of divinity is a shadow of light, not the light. For light is a natural expression of the Logos. That is not divine', spoke Eudoxos.

The candle had burnt halfway. Its wax pooled in a copper ring, forming a hollow eye. Beyond the shutters, chants echoed through Athens—hymns rising over philosophy’s dying breath.

Eudoxos stood at the centre of the stone chamber. His robe, worn and grey, caught the light just enough to seem spectral.

‘You speak often of faith, as that which binds your soul to truth. What is faith if not the acceptance of unseen ideas?’ He spoke as his voice softened with the question.

Eugenios raised his chin. ‘It is trust in what God has revealed’.

‘Then is faith born of reason—or does it defy it?’

The question hung. Diodotos broke the silence. ‘Faith without reason becomes tyranny. Reason without faith becomes dust, yet who decides the ratio?’

Eubouleia said. ‘Apparently, the zealots do’.

'Jesus died on the cross for our sins', Eugenios professed.

'If that is the case, then why would a man of flesh be deemed the redeeemer of our sins, if he himself was a mortal man? Was he not a mortal when he died on the cross?' Eudoxos asked.

'Yes, but he was sent by God'.

'A creator god who we are told has no form, and is greater than any mortal man on the earth, but your Christ walked the earth as a man', Diodotos interjected.

'He was god', Eugenios uttered.

'That would imply that this god of yours was equal to his creation, because to have entered into human flesh as a man would mean that he is not greater than his creation', Diodotos replied.

'How could he be creator and creation at the same time?' Eubouleia asked.

It was a question that Eugenios could not truly answer.'

'If I embraced faith and live by it alone, then I would be living without reason. I would become a slave to my emotions, and a slave to a god', Lysandra interjected.

'Is it too much to ask that you bow and serve him? Are you too vain of a man?'

'No, for I fear not your god, but I question your reasoning. I ask you, is your god willing to be beneath man?'

'Never, for he is always above man'.

'Then, why did he allow himself to be crucified, making him equal to man?'

'To die for our sins', Eugenios professed.

'You ask me, if I am vain. Is it not your god that is vain that he needs worship? For what reason?'

'To be remembered'.

'If your god is all powerful as Christians say he is, then surely he can survive without our worship.' Diodotos declared.

'You say to be remembered. This would make him no different than the pagan gods of mythology', Lysander uttered.

'God is not a myth, nor was Jesus', Eugenios said to him.

'All gods have one thing in common and that is their worship. Jesus no doubt was an inspiring man, but he was a mortal in flesh, until he was elevated into a god', Diodotos said.

'He was God. If you had faith then you would understand', Eugenios rebutted.

'Understand a faith that demands worship. Why would Jesus need worship, if he spoke of the worship of the Father instead of him?' Eudoxos asked.

'Because it is destined'.

'Destined, like his death?' Lysander interrupted.

'Since you do not have faith, then you cannot understand miracles', said Eugenios.

'So, all those people that die who have no faith are destined to what?' Euboleia asked.

'If they are sinners who do not repent, to hell'.

'So all people that are not Christians are destined to hell?' Diodotos enquired.

'I am not God to say this', Eugenios replied.

'But you just said so', Euboleia said to Eugenios.

''If I have the power to do miracles, I am automatically a god, but yet if I cannot stop famine, death, drought, earthquakes amongst other natural phenomena, then I am powerless?' Diodotos responded.

'That is God's will', Eugenios implied.

'How convenient is that. A god whose will dictates what becomes of the world and people, yet is incapable of doing anything to prevent these things', Lysander said.

Eudoxos stepped to the candle, staring into the flame. ‘I shall not tell you to abandon belief, but I shall offer a story—a final parable. If you find truth in it, keep it. If not, leave it as mere smoke’, he said.

He reached into his scroll and unfolded a single sheet.

‘Once, in a forgotten grove outside Eleusis, stood a mirror made of polished obsidian. It showed no form—only feeling. Those people who looked into it saw not their faces, but their fears. One day, a seeker came, believing himself chosen by the gods. He stared into the mirror and saw nothing’.

‘He paused then continuef, 'He wept, thinking he was pure, but the keeper of the grove said this: “The absence of fear is not the presence of truth. You must not see yourself in the mirror—but see what the mirror sees when it looks into you.”

Eudoxos looked up. ‘Faith says: I am seen. Reason asks: by whom, and why?’

Eugenios' jaw clenched, but he did not reply, until a few minutes passed, 'Why do you all attack something that you do not understand?'

'We do not attack, we simply observe, question and think like philosophers. Do not forget that you were once a philosopher', Eudoxos said to him.

'If we forsook reason for faith, then we would cease to be philosophers', Diodotos explained wisely.

'I was, but I am more a Christian now'.

'Then you are free to share your faith with others, but we on the other hand must meet in secrecy. It was not that long ago that you Christians were in the same dilemma. It is power that has corrupted you'.

'But what power do I have?' Eugenios asked.

'The most powerful of all, Rome.

Outside, the bells rang again—long and low. Diodotos stood. Eubouleia followed.

‘It is done. They will scatter us. Close the schools. Burn the scrolls', said Lysander.

Eudoxos handed him the parchment. ‘Then keep the parable. Truth hidden in silence often echoes louder than speech.’

Eugenios lingered as the others left. He stared at the scroll, then at Eudoxos. ‘You may plant seeds, but it is the Church that tills the soil now', he said with a grin.

Eudoxos turned to him. ‘Indeed, but even the Church must drink the rain. And rain does not ask permission to fall'.

The hall grew dim as the candle waned. Outside, the chants drifted nearer—priests walking the Peripatos path, invoking their creed as the old city crouched beneath theology.

Eubouleia placed a hand on her chest. ‘When I was a girl, I studied under Pyrrhon, in a square that smelt of fish and ink. We questioned everything. The shape of virtue, the shadow of desire. Now they ask me not to think—but to sing’.

Diodotos offered her the last sip of myrrh. 'We are not condemned for silence, but for questioning the noise. First it was the pagans, and now it is us the last true philosophers of Athens', he murmured.

Eudoxos looked towards the door, then to his companions.

‘This symposium may be the final, but not all endings are death. Sometimes they are seeds. Let us speak—not of defiance, but of philosophical clarity’.

Eugenios leaned forth, ‘Clarity without obedience leads only to sudden exile’.

Eudoxos met his gaze. ‘Obedience without clarity leads to chains that will burden the soul'.

The words hung, stark against the crumbling walls. A pigeon cooed from the rafters.

‘What would you ask?’ Diodotos said to Eudoxos, voice hushed.

‘I would ask only this, that we illuminate what they fear most: the freedom to think and to enquire. To seek a truth not given, but discovered. Let us each speak a final idea. Not to persuade—but to preserve’, he said.

One by one, the philosophers shared their last teachings—reflections to linger beyond the stones of Athens. A Stoic, a Neo-Platonist, an Epicurean, a Meletic, along the side of a Christian.

Eubouleia, ‘I teach that virtue cannot be inherited. It must be chosen daily, in small ways. By how we speak. By how we listen, and by how we think when no one watches’.

Diodotos, ‘I teach that laws do not hold the soul. Only reason can guide it, and reason must remain unshackled from fear, lest it become a servant instead of a master’.

Eugenios, ‘I teach that truth is revealed, not shaped. That man is flawed, and only the word of God can redeem him. Philosophy is pride wearing a thinker’s cloak’.

Eudoxos rose, walked to the balcony overlooking the old agora, and closed his eyes. He spoke only once more that night.

Eudoxos, ‘I teach that truth cannot be given. It must be earned by those people who dare to question. That divinity is not a face in the clouds, nor a name in a book—it is an intimation for the harmony that moves through To Ena, operating through the Logos and touching the Nous'.

Lysander, ‘I teach that resurrection is not the rising of a corpse, but the awakening of the soul from illusion to clarity’.

Eugenios whispered, ‘You mock revelation’.

Lysander opened his eyes. ‘No. I honour it, but I do not chain it to a condition like you'.

At dawn, the symposium dissolved. Eubouleia would return to her garden, leaving copies of her verses hidden beneath planters of sage. Diodotos would vanish from the courts, his scrolls burnt with the ruling of silence. Lysander would return to his teachings at the last academy open. Eugenios would rise through Church ranks as a bishop, his sermons would be veiled with echoes of reason he could never claim.

And Eudoxos? He would walk to the Temple of Hephaestus, where the forge no longer burnt. There, he sat beneath the column of wisdom and wrote a final tale—a Meletic parable.

He would bury it beneath a statue’s base, its title etched with oil: ‘To Those People Who Walk Without Lanterns.’

In the fading chamber of thought, Diodotos handed Eudoxos a thin satchel tied with olive twine.

‘Scrolls for those persons who no longer walk Athens, Anaxarkhos, Aenesidemos, Hierokles. Gone, exiled, or silenced, but their thoughts still breathe’, he said.

Eudoxos untied the bundle. Inside were letters never sent. Fragments of dialogue from vanished minds.

Eubouleia watched. ‘Do ideas suffer when no lips speak them?’

Eudoxos replied, ‘They do not suffer, but they wait’.

He pulled one scroll from the bundle and read aloud: ‘We must not seek eternity by binding our thoughts to stone. Eternity lives not in permanence, but in recurrence. The cosmos is not a temple—it is a breath’.

Eugenios crossed his arms. ‘The breath of man is dust, but the word is immortal’.

Eudoxos looked at him gently. ‘Then let the word understand the whisper'.

As the dusk settled, the five philosophers emerged from the chamber and wandered to an abandoned garden near the Temple of Athena Polias. No flowers bloomed, but memory lingered in the scent of crushed thyme.

Eubouleia knelt by a cracked urn. ‘I taught beneath this column. Twenty years. Now the ivy teaches silence’.

Diodotos paced. ‘They will claim victory. Say we fled. Say our teachings were foolish'.

Eudoxos traced a finger along the stone. ‘Victory is loud, but the truth has its own tongue’.

He turned to Eugenios. ‘Tell me. You speak of Christ’s divinity as immutable, untouched by pain, yet the Gospels say he wept. Feared. Suffered. If he did these things, is he truly divine by your definition? Only a mortal man would succumb to his lack of faith as you call it'.

Eugenios paused then uttered. ‘He was divine and man’.

Eudoxos nodded. ‘Then he changed in time. Felt. Learnt. If divinity changes, it can no longer be eternal in its essence—to be eternal is to be beyond alteration’.

Eugenios gritted his teeth. ‘Your logic is insignificant. Faith lives not by syllogism’.

Eubouleia responded. ‘But it dies without it’.

Night arrived. The philosophers returned to the chamber. Not to speak—but to remember.

Diodotos retrieved a fragment of Platon’s Republic from beneath a broken shelf.

‘Do you recall the cave?’ He asked.

Eudoxos nodded. ‘The shadows. The fire. The illusion of truth mistaken for truth itself.’

‘What if the Church is another cave? But this time, it places the fire within the cave—and tells all who look outside that they will burn?’ Diodotos asked.

Eubouleia added, ‘Then the truth is the one who climbs out—and tells stories of sunlight that no one believes.’

Eugenios uttered, 'The truth was Christ, as it he says in our doctrine'.

Eudoxos approached the stone table. Took out one final scroll. No title. No seal.

He said: ‘This is not a doctrine. It is a mirror that conceals the truth. Whoever reads it must decide whether they recognise their own soul—or just its shadow’.

He placed it gently in the centre of the table.

‘I name it To Ena: Reflections on the Unnamed Source. Let it remain unread, until one dares to ask not who, but what, god must be.’

The chamber was nearly emptied. Diodotos had retired to the threshold, watching the stars emerge like ancient eyes. Eubouleia gently traced a spiral into the dust, whispering fragments of Epicurean verse. Lysander remembering the words of Platon.

Eudoxos remained. So did Eugenios. For the first time, their silence felt mutual—not defensive, but reverent.

Eugenios spoke. ‘When I first believed, I was drowning, and the Church handed me a rope. I climbed it not because I understood it—but because it pulled me from instant despair’, he said.

Eudoxos nodded. ‘All form of salvation begins with reaching. Whether towards a god, or reason, or a thought not yet named’.

Eugenios turned. ‘But you… you reach into silence. Into abstraction. I cannot follow’.

Eudoxos stepped closer to the dying candle. ‘You needn’t follow. Only listen to your own steps. The Meletic path does not convert—it reflects’.

‘But faith demands obedience. Demands surrender’, Eugenios said.

‘Yet surrender without understanding is not devotion. It is captivity.’

Eugenios lowered his gaze. ‘What if... your belief is wrong?’

Eudoxos smiled faintly. ‘Then it will fall like a leaf and be forgotten, but if it is right, it will root within minds, sprouting questions that the Church cannot answer or hide forever. The Church can silence my voice and others whose belief is philosophical not religious, but they will not succeed in silencing forever that voice. The Church can ban or burn my scrolls. However, what the Church cannot do is silence philosophy'.

A soft wind passed through the chamber—olive-scented, cool as thought.

Eudoxos walked to the threshold and joined Diodotos. ‘Philosophy may fade, but consciousness remembers. Even in fate, the seeds of logic lie dormant, awaiting warmth. One day, our philosophies will raise again and be taught and inspire the masses'.

By morning, the chamber had emptied. The candle had long ceased to flicker, leaving only a puddle of wax and scent of burnt myrrh. The scroll Eudoxos had placed at the centre remained untouched. Not out of disregard—but reverence.

Eubouleia walked the southern road to Eleusis, her verses folded in the hem of her robe. Diodotos vanished without word, leaving behind a single note: ‘Thoughts should not be buried—they should be planted. Let time be the soil’.

Lysander left to Rome. His contributions to philosophy would inspire the last Roman philosophers.

Eugenios remained. For a time. He sat alone, gazing at the scroll, hand hovering above it yet unwilling to open it.

Eudoxos, meanwhile, walked slowly through the agora. Stones once shaped by democracy now bore the scars of forgetting. He passed the Temple of Hephaestus, and laid one final parchment beneath a fractured statue—a tale unnamed, waiting only for a reader without fear.

Before departing Athens, he paused at the gate. A child passed, clutching a reed flute.

Eudoxos knelt. ‘Do you play?’ he asked.

The child nodded. ‘Only one melody,’ she said.

He smiled. ‘Then play it well. That’s all anyone ever needs to hear in life'.

As the years passed, the chamber on the Hill of the Muses collapsed beneath ivy and weather. The Church ascended. The symposium faded into myth and legend.

Somewhere in Alexandria, a scholar uncovered a scroll sealed with charcoal—bearing no title, only parables that spoke of mirrors, silence and breath.

She read them slowly, line by line, and wept. Not because they gave her answers, but because they dared to ask.

In Pergamon, a sculptor carved a figure seated cross-legged beneath a fig tree—not of Christ, nor Caesar, but of a nameless thinker with a scroll at his feet.

In Constantinople, a priest discovered a fragment tucked behind an altar—three lines written in ancient ink: ‘To Ena is not a god. Nor a name.
To Ena is the whisper behind thought. Listen—and you shall find your path in life'.

In a quiet grove near Eleusis, where thyme grows wild and no hymns echo, a child hums a certain melody from a reed flute, taught by a grandfather who remembered a man named Eudoxos.

He never spoke of doctrine. Only of reflection. Only of To Ena. Only of the wind. What he believed in was not divine nor embedded in a god. Instead, it was the beauty of the harmony between, the Logos and the Nous, emanated by To Ena, the One.

He taught the child that silence could be wiser than certainty, that stillness could speak with awareness where language failed, and that the melody of life was not something to master—only to hear. To walk gently. To question freely. To behold without grasping. To trust that meaning unfolds, not through control, but through presence—through the quiet art of being with what is, without forcing what could be. Soon, all pagan or philosophical temples would be either destroyed or closed, including the last temple that stood in Athens, which was Meletic. It was replaced by a church.

This was the obvious sign of the power of the Church, who saw these temples as a threat than as mere buildings.

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