Testimonies and witnesses of the t(T)ruth - From the Ancient Greek World to the Christian Era

A testimony is in an interdependent relationship with the truth, through the mediation of faith-trust and persuasion. However, the notion of truth has changed: it had a functional role in Ancient Greece but it transformed into a person in the Christian society. The following works are examined as ‘truthful’ witnesses: Antigone by Sophocles, the Apology of Socrates by Plato, and the Gospel of John in the New Testament. The aim of this paper is to investigate the ‘path’ the witness takes from the classical era to the early Christian centuries, in order to reveal the different approaches and individual representations of testimony. The method selected is an analysis of the source texts themselves, the study of textual references, and a review of the related literature. The perceptions and beliefs of people of that time – as seen in the texts - regarding the testimony of truth create an image of their world.