Atheism In Pagan Antiquity
By
A. B. Drachmann
Professor of Classical Philology in the University of Copenhagen
Gyldendal
11 Hanover Square, London, W.1
Copenhagen
Christiania
1922
CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Notes
Index
Footnotes
PREFACE
The present treatise originally appeared in Danish as a University
publication (_Kjœbenhavns Universitets Festskrift_, November 1919). In
submitting it to the English public, I wish to acknowledge my profound
indebtedness to Mr. G. F. Hill of the British Museum, who not only
suggested the English edition, but also with untiring kindness has
subjected the translation, as originally made by Miss Ingeborg Andersen,
M.A. of Copenhagen, to a painstaking and most valuable revision.
For an account of the previous treatments of the subject, as well as of
the method employed in my investigation, the reader is referred to the
introductory remarks which precede the Notes.
A. B. DRACHMANN.
CHARLOTTENLUND,
_July 1922_.
INTRODUCTION
The present inquiry is the outcome of a request to write an article on
“Atheism” for a projected dictionary of the religious history of classical
antiquity. On going through the sources I found that the subject might
well deserve a more comprehensive treatment than the scope of a dictionary
would allow. It is such a treatment that I have attempted in the following
pages.
A difficulty that occurred at the very beginning of the inquiry was how to
define the notion of atheism. Nowadays the term is taken to designate the
attitude which denies every idea of God. Even antiquity sometimes referred
to atheism in this sense; but an inquiry dealing with the history of
religion could not start from a definition of that kind. It would have to
keep in view, not the philosophical notion of God, but the conceptions of
the gods as they appear in the religion of antiquity. Hence I came to
define atheism in Pagan antiquity as the point of view which _denies the
existence of the ancient gods_. It is in this sense that the word will be
used in the following inquiry.
Even though we disregard philosophical atheism, the definition is somewhat
narrow; for in antiquity mere denial of the existence of the gods of
popular belief was not the only attitude which was designated as atheism.
But it has the advantage of starting from the conception of the ancient
gods that may be said to have finally prevailed. In the sense in which the
word is used here we are nowadays all of us atheists. We do not believe
that the gods whom the Greeks and the Romans worshipped and believed in
exist or have ever existed; we hold them to be productions of the human
imagination to which nothing real corresponds. This view has nowadays
become so ingrained in us and appears so self-evident, that we find it
difficult to imagine that it has not been prevalent through long ages;
nay, it is perhaps a widely diffused assumption that even in antiquity
educated and unbiased persons held the same view of the religion of their
people as we do. In reality both assumptions are erroneous: our “atheism”
in regard to ancient paganism is of recent date, and in antiquity itself
downright denial of the existence of the gods was a comparatively rare
phenomenon. The demonstration of this fact, rather than a consideration of
the various intermediate positions taken up by the thinkers of antiquity
in their desire to avoid a complete rupture with the traditional ideas of
the gods, has been one of the chief purposes of this inquiry.
Though the definition of atheism set down here might seem to be clear and
unequivocal, and though I have tried to adhere strictly to it, cases have
unavoidably occurred that were difficult to classify. The most
embarrassing are those which involve a reinterpretation of the conception
of the gods, _i.e._ which, while acknowledging that there is some reality
corresponding to the conception, yet define this reality as essentially
different from it. Moreover, the acknowledgment of a certain group of gods
(the celestial bodies, for instance) combined with the rejection of
others, may create difficulties in defining the notion of atheism; in
practice, however, this doctrine generally coincides with the former, by
which the gods are explained away. On the whole it would hardly be just,
in a field of inquiry like the present, to expect or require absolutely
clearly defined boundary-lines; transition forms will always occur.
The persons of whom it is related that they denied the existence of the
ancient gods are in themselves few, and they all belong to the highest
level of culture; by far the greater part of them are simply professional
philosophers. Hence the inquiry will almost exclusively have to deal with
philosophers and philosophical schools and their doctrines; of religion as
exhibited in the masses, as a social factor, it will only treat by
exception. But in its purpose it is concerned with the history of
religion, not with philosophy; therefore—in accordance with the definition
of its object—it will deal as little as possible with the purely
philosophical notions of God that have nothing to do with popular
religion. What it aims at illustrating is a certain—if you like, the
negative—aspect of ancient religion. But its result, if it can be
sufficiently established, will not be without importance for the
understanding of the positive religious sense of antiquity. If you want to
obtain some idea of the hold a certain religion had on its adherents, it
is not amiss to know something about the extent to which it dominated even
the strata of society most exposed to influences that went against it.
It might seem more natural, in dealing with atheism in antiquity, to adopt
the definition current among the ancients themselves. That this method
would prove futile the following investigation will, I hope, make
sufficiently evident; antiquity succeeded as little as we moderns in
connecting any clear and unequivocal idea with the words that signify
“denial of God.” On the other hand, it is, of course, impossible to begin
at all except from the traditions of antiquity about denial and deniers.
Hence the course of the inquiry will be, first to make clear what
antiquity understood by denial of the gods and what persons it designated
as deniers, and then to examine in how far these persons were atheists in
our sense of the word.
CHAPTER I
Atheism and atheist are words formed from Greek roots and with Greek
derivative endings. Nevertheless they are not Greek; their formation is
not consonant with Greek usage. In Greek they said _atheos_ and
_atheotes_; to these the English words ungodly and ungodliness correspond
rather closely. In exactly the same way as ungodly, _atheos_ was used as
an expression of severe censure and moral condemnation; this use is an old
one, and the oldest that can be traced. Not till later do we find it
employed to denote a certain philosophical creed; we even meet with
philosophers bearing _atheos_ as a regular surname. We know very little of
the men in question; but it can hardly be doubted that _atheos_, as
applied to them, implied not only a denial of the gods of popular belief,
but a denial of gods in the widest sense of the word, or Atheism as it is
nowadays understood.
In this case the word is more particularly a philosophical term. But it
was used in a similar sense also in popular language, and corresponds then
closely to the English “denier of God,” denoting a person who denies the
gods of his people and State. From the popular point of view the interest,
of course, centred in those only, not in the exponents of philosophical
theology. Thus we find the word employed both of theoretical denial of the
gods (atheism in our sense) and of practical denial of the gods, as in the
case of the adherents of monotheism, Jews and Christians.
Atheism, in the theoretical as well as the practical sense of the word,
was, according to the ancient conception of law, always a crime; but in
practice it was treated in different ways, which varied both according to
the period in question and according to the more or less dangerous nature
of the threat it offered to established religion. It is only as far as
Athens and Imperial Rome are concerned that we have any definite knowledge
of the law and the judicial procedure on this point; a somewhat detailed
account of the state of things in Athens and Rome cannot be dispensed with
here.
In the criminal law of Athens we meet with the term _asebeia_—literally:
impiety or disrespect towards the gods. As an established formula of
accusation of _asebeia_ existed, legislation must have dealt with the
subject; but how it was defined we do not know. The word itself conveys
the idea that the law particularly had offences against public worship in
view; and this is confirmed by the fact that a number of such
offences—from the felling of sacred trees to the profanation of the
Eleusinian Mysteries—were treated as _asebeia_. When, in the next place,
towards the close of the fifth century B.C., free-thinking began to assume
forms which seemed dangerous to the religion of the State, theoretical
denial of the gods was also included under _asebeia_. From about the
beginning of the Peloponnesian War to the close of the fourth century
B.C., there are on record a number of prosecutions of philosophers who
were tried and condemned for denial of the gods. The indictment seems in
most cases—the trial of Socrates is the only one of which we know
details—to have been on the charge of _asebeia_, and the procedure proper
thereto seems to have been employed, though there was no proof or
assertion of the accused having offended against public worship; as to
Socrates, we know the opposite to have been the case; he worshipped the
gods like any other good citizen. This extension of the conception of
_asebeia_ to include theoretical denial of the gods no doubt had no
foundation in law; this is amongst other things evident from the fact that
it was necessary, in order to convict Anaxagoras, to pass a special public
resolution in virtue of which his free-thinking theories became
indictable. The law presumably dated from a time when theoretical denial
of the gods lay beyond the horizon of legislation. Nevertheless, in the
trial of Socrates it is simply taken for granted that denial of the gods
is a capital crime, and that not only on the side of the prosecution, but
also on the side of the defence: the trial only turns on a question of
fact, the legal basis is taken for granted. So inveterate, then, at this
time was the conception of the unlawful nature of the denial of the gods
among the people of Athens.
In the course of the fourth century B.C. several philosophers were accused
of denial of the gods or blasphemy; but after the close of the century we
hear no more of such trials. To be sure, our knowledge of the succeeding
centuries, when Athens was but a provincial town, is far less copious than
of the days of its greatness; nevertheless, it is beyond doubt that the
practice in regard to theoretical denial of the gods was changed. A
philosopher like Carneades, for instance, might, in view of his sceptical
standpoint, just as well have been convicted of _asebeia_ as Protagoras,
who was convicted because he had declared that he did not know whether the
gods existed or not; and as to such a process against Carneades, tradition
would not have remained silent. Instead, we learn that he was employed as
the trusted representative of the State on most important diplomatic
missions. It is evident that Athens had arrived at the point of view that
the theoretical denial of the gods might be tolerated, whereas the law, of
course, continued to protect public worship.
In Rome they did not possess, as in Athens, a general statute against
religious offences; there were only special provisions, and they were,
moreover, few and insufficient. This defect, however, was remedied by the
vigorous police authority with which the Roman magistrates were invested.
In Rome severe measures were often taken against movements which
threatened the Roman official worship, but it was done at the discretion
of the administration and not according to hard-and-fast rules; hence the
practice was somewhat varying, and a certain arbitrariness inevitable.
No example is known from Rome of action taken against theoretical denial
of the gods corresponding to the trials of the philosophers in Athens. The
main cause of this was, no doubt, that free-thinking in the fifth century
B.C. invaded Hellas, and specially Athens, like a flood which threatened
to overthrow everything; in Rome, on the other hand, Greek philosophy made
its way in slowly and gradually, and this took place at a time when in the
country of its origin it had long ago found a _modus vivendi_ with popular
religion and was acknowledged as harmless to the established worship. The
more practical outlook of the Romans may perhaps also have had something
to say in the matter: they were rather indifferent to theoretical
speculations, whereas they were not to be trifled with when their national
institutions were concerned.
In consequence of this point of view the Roman government first came to
deal with denial of the gods as a breach of law when confronted with the
two monotheistic religions which invaded the Empire from the East. That
which distinguished Jews and Christians from Pagans was not that they
denied the existence of the Pagan gods—the Christians, at any rate, did
not do this as a rule—but that they denied that they were gods, and
therefore refused to worship them. They were practical, not theoretical
deniers. The tolerance which the Roman government showed towards all
foreign creeds and the result of which in imperial times was, practically
speaking, freedom of religion over the whole Empire, could not be extended
to the Jews and the Christians; for it was in the last resort based on
reciprocity, on the fact that worship of the Egyptian or Persian gods did
not exclude worship of the Roman ones. Every convert, on the other hand,
won over to Judaism or Christianity was _eo ipso_ an apostate from the
Roman religion, an _atheos_ according to the ancient conception. Hence, as
soon as such religions began to spread, they constituted a serious danger
to the established religion, and the Roman government intervened. Judaism
and Christianity were not treated quite alike; in this connexion details
are of no interest, but certain principal features must be dwelt on as
significant of the attitude of antiquity towards denial of the gods. To
simplify matters I confine myself to Christianity, where things are less
complicated.
The Christians were generally designated as _atheoi_, as deniers of the
gods, and the objection against them was precisely their denial of the
Pagan gods, not their religion as such. When the Christian, summoned
before the Roman magistrates, agreed to sacrifice to the Pagan gods (among
them, the Emperor) he was acquitted; he was not punished for previously
having attended Christian services, and it seems that he was not even
required to undertake not to do so in future. Only if he refused to
sacrifice, was he punished. We cannot ask for a clearer proof that it is
apostasy as such, denial of the gods, against which action is taken. It is
in keeping with this that, at any rate under the earlier Empire, no
attempt was made to seek out the Christians at their assemblies, to hinder
their services or the like; it was considered sufficient to take steps
when information was laid.
The punishments meted out were different, in that they were left solely to
the discretion of the magistrates. But they were generally severe: forced
labour in mines and capital punishment were quite common. No
discrimination was made between Roman citizens and others belonging to the
Empire, but all were treated alike; that the Roman citizen could not
undergo capital punishment without appeal to the Emperor does not affect
the principle. This procedure has really no expressly formulated basis in
law; the Roman penal code did not, as mentioned above, take cognizance of
denial of the gods. Nevertheless, the sentences on the Christians were
considered by the Pagans of the earlier time as a matter of course, the
justice of which was not contested, and the procedure of the government
was in principle the same under humane and conscientious rulers like
Trajan and Marcus Aurelius as under tyrants like Nero and Domitian. Here
again it is evident how firmly rooted in the mind of antiquity was the
conviction that denial of the gods was a capital offence.
To resume what has here been set forth concerning the attitude of ancient
society to atheism: it is, in the first place, evident that the frequently
mentioned tolerance of polytheism was not extended to those who denied its
gods; in fact, it was applied only to those who acknowledged them even if
they worshipped others besides. But the assertion of this principle of
intolerance varied greatly in practice according to whether it was a
question of theoretical denial of the gods—atheism in our sense—or
practical refusal to worship the Pagan gods. Against atheism the community
took action only during a comparatively short period, and, as far as we
know, only in a single place. The latter limitation is probably explained
not only by the defectiveness of tradition, but also by the fact that in
Athens free-thinking made its appearance about the year 400 as a general
phenomenon and therefore attracted the attention of the community. Apart
from this case, the philosophical denier of God was left in peace all
through antiquity, in the same way as the individual citizen was not
interfered with, as a rule, when he, for one reason or another, refrained
from taking part in the worship of the deities. On the other hand, as soon
as practical refusal to believe in the gods, apostasy from the established
religion, assumed dangerous proportions, ruthless severity was exercised
against it.
The discrimination, however, made in the treatment of the theoretical and
practical denial of the gods is certainly not due merely to consideration
of the more or less isolated occurrence of the phenomenon; it is rooted at
the same time in the very nature of ancient religion. The essence of
ancient polytheism is the worship of the gods, that is, cultus; of a
doctrine of divinity properly speaking, of theology, there were only
slight rudiments, and there was no idea of any elaborate dogmatic system.
Quite different attitudes were accordingly assumed towards the
philosopher, who held his own opinions of the gods, but took part in the
public worship like anybody else; and towards the monotheist, to whom the
whole of the Pagan worship was an abomination, which one should abstain
from at any cost, and which one should prevail on others to give up for
the sake of their own good in this life or the next.
In the literature of antiquity we meet with sporadic statements to the
effect that certain philosophers bore the epithet _atheos_ as a sort of
surname; and in a few of the later authors of antiquity we even find lists
of men—almost all of them philosophers—who denied the existence of the
gods. Furthermore, we possess information about certain persons—these
also, if Jews and Christians are excluded, are nearly all of them
philosophers—having been accused of, and eventually convicted of, denial
of the gods; some of these are not in our lists. Information of this kind
will, as remarked above, be taken as the point of departure for an
investigation of atheism in antiquity. For practical reasons, however, it
is reasonable to include some philosophers whom antiquity did not
designate as atheists, and who did not come into conflict with official
religion, but of whom it has been maintained in later times that they did
not believe in the existence of the gods of popular belief. Thus we arrive
at the following list, in which those who were denoted as _atheoi_ are
italicised and those who were accused of impiety are marked with an
asterisk:
Xenophanes.
*Anaxagoras.
_ Diogenes of Apollonia._
_ Hippo of Rhegium._
*_Protagoras._
_ Prodicus._
_ Critias._
*_Diagoras of Melos._
*Socrates.
Antisthenes.
Plato.
*Aristotle.
Theophrastus.
*Stilpo.
*_Theodorus._
*_Bion._
_ Epicurus._
_ Euhemerus._
The persons are put down in chronological order. This order will in some
measure be preserved in the following survey; but regard for the
continuity of the tradition of the doctrine will entail certain
deviations. It will, that is to say, be natural to divide the material
into four groups: the pre-Socratic philosophy; the Sophists; Socrates and
the Socratics; Hellenistic philosophy. Each of these groups has a
philosophical character of its own, and it will be seen that this
character also makes itself felt in the relation to the gods of the
popular belief, even though we here meet with phenomena of more isolated
occurrence. The four groups must be supplemented by a fifth, a survey of
the conditions in Imperial Rome. Atheists of this period are not found in
our lists; but a good deal of old Pagan free-thinking survives in the
first centuries of our era, and also the epithet _atheoi_ was bestowed
generally on the Christians and sometimes on the Jews, and if only for
this reason they cannot be altogether passed by in this survey.