Did Plato Really Meet the Prophet Jeremiah?

Plato was one of the greatest Greek philosophers. According to an ancient source (Augustine), Plato met the Prophet Jeremiah sitting and mourning the ruins of Jerusalem. He spoke with him and saw how wise he was. Plato asked him, "A wise man like you, why do you cry over stones? They're just stones..." Jeremiah responded, "You called me wise? From these stones comes my wisdom, as the divine spirit rests in the Temple."

This story has been told by many of our sages, from the Rema to various Kabbalists. The aim was to show that the Greeks could appreciate and honor the divine wisdom that rested upon the sages of Israel. Indeed, several sources from Aristotle’s time describe how he praised the Jews, calling them "a nation of philosophers."

But did the meeting actually occur? Some have doubted it, as Plato would have been quite young at the time of the Temple's destruction. While it’s technically possible that it happened some years later and Jeremiah lived a long life, coincidentally Plato arrived just when Jeremiah was lamenting the Temple, the timing seems unlikely.

However, Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky proposed an intriguing idea: there is documentation of Plato traveling to Egypt to learn wisdom from Egyptian priests. The journey from Greece to Egypt typically passed through the land of Israel. The timing corresponds more closely to the era of Ezra the Scribe. At that time, Israel was beginning to rebuild, and Ezra the Scribe was in the land and leading the people. So it is quite possible that on his way past Jerusalem, Plato met the priests of Israel, and Ezra was a priest and a skilled scribe of Hashem’s law. The source of the story may not have been familiar with the sages of Israel and confused Jeremiah with Ezra, perhaps due to the theme of lamenting destruction since, as is known, Jeremiah wrote the Book of Lamentations.