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Given their singular significance to the development of Western culture, it is strangely appropriate that Jesus and Socrates led similar lives. Both lived simply. Both were esteemed as excellent teachers, though neither wrote an extant word. Both were regarded as traitors by the political and religious communities of their times. Both were executed for their beliefs. For some Enlightenment thinkers, these parallels suggested that Truth was not the sole property of the Christian religion, nor was it necessarily the result of a divine dispensation. The philosophy of Socrates was as liberating - perhaps as salvific - as the religion of Jesus. Not all scholars agreed. Some, like Joseph Priestley, argued that Socrates' thought was elaborate and beautiful, but Jesus' ideas and life were the very embodiment of God on this earth. Christian intellectuals, drawing on this idea, have often noted that they were students of Socrates and disciples of Jesus. They were not political or religious leaders. They both were sublime teachers. Both advanced ideas of