Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World (33 page)

1.
On archaism and Atticism in later Greek culture see especially E. Bowie, “Greeks and Their Past in the Second Sophistic,”
Past and Present
46 (1970): 3–41, reprinted in M. I. Finley (ed.),
Studies in Ancient Society
(London: Routledge, 1974), 166–209; S. Swain,
Hellenism and Empire: Language, Classicism, and Power in the Greek World, AD 50–250
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996); T. Whitmarsh,
Greek Literature and the Roman Empire: The Politics of Imitation
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), and
The Second Sophistic
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). The pomegranate example is from Phrynichus,
Selection
223 (Whitmarsh,
The Second Sophistic,
45). On oratory and impersonation see especially M. Gleason,
Making Men: Sophists and Self-Presentation in Ancient Rome
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995). Marathon speeches: Polemo,
Declamations
1–2.

2.
Doxography: for revisionist accounts see especially the three volumes of J. Mansfeld and D. Runia,
Aëtiana: The Method and Intellectual Context of a Doxographer,
vol. 1,
The Sources
(Leiden: Brill, 1997); vol. 2,
The Compendium
(Leiden: Brill, 2009); and especially vol. 3,
Studies in the Doxographical Traditions of Greek Philosophy
(Leiden: Brill, 2010).

3.
Plato,
Laws
886a.

4.
Philodemus,
On Piety
19.519–33, with D. Obbink,
Philodemus on Piety
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 142–43. On the Epicurean library in the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, see M. Gigante,
Philodemus in Italy: The Books from Herculaneum,
trans. D. Obbink (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995), 1–13. For more on the reconstruction of
On Piety
see chapter 7.

5.
See further above, p. 174.

6.
I translate from column 16 of M. F. Smith,
Diogenes of Oenoanda: The Epicurean Inscription,
edited with introduction, translation, and notes (Naples: Bibliopolis, 1993). C. W. Chilton,
Diogenes of Oenoanda: The Fragments
(London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1971); many more fragments have since been published. On the inscription and what it tells us about philosophical and cultural life at the time see D. Clay, “A Lost Epicurean Community,”
Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies
30 (1989): 313–35, reprinted in
Paradosis and Survival: Three Chapters in the History of Epicurean Philosophy
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998), 232–56; P. Gordon,
Epicurus in Lycia: The Second-Century World of Diogenes of Oenoanda
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996).

7.
Agnosticism is atheism: see, for example, J. Bagnini,
Atheism: A Very Short Introduction
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 22–25.

8.
Cicero,
On the Nature of the Gods
1.117–19; on its derivation from Clitomachus via Philo see M. Winiarczyk, “Der erste Atheistenkatalog des Kleitomachos,”
Philologus
120 (1976): 35–36; A. Dyck,
Cicero, De Natura Deorum Book I
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 9, argues more neutrally for “academic material.”

9.
B. Anderson,
Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism
(London: Verso, 1991).

10.
Aëtius,
Tenets
(
Placita
) 1.7.1–10; Sextus Empiricus,
Against the Mathematicians
book 9; see also Theophilus,
Against Autolycus
3.7. On Aëtius see especially D. Runia, “Atheists in Aëtius: Text, Translation and Comments on
De Placitis
1.7.1–10,” in Mansfield and Runia,
Aëtiana Volume III,
343–74.

11.
Sextus Empiricus,
Against the Mathematicians
9.54; for other references to atheists as groups see 9.14, 9.51.

1.
Age of ambition: P. Brown,
The Making of Late Antiquity
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978). Tacitus:
Agricola
30.

2.
Plutarch,
Political Advice
813e.

3.
Integration: see for example C. Ando,
Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). Regional dynamics: T. Whitmarsh (ed.),
Local Knowledge and Micro–Identities in the Imperial Greek World
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), with pp. 1–10 on “glocalization.” Quotation: Minucius Felix,
Octavius
6.1. Generally on the varieties of religion in the Roman Empire see M. Beard, J. North, and S. Price,
Religions of Rome,
2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); J. B. Rives,
Religion in the Roman Empire
(Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007); J. Rüpke,
From Jupiter to Christ: On the History of Religion in the Roman Imperial Period
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), especially 185–209. Networks: A. Collar,
Religious Networks in the Roman Empire
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).

4.
Apuleius,
Apology
56. Generally on Apuleius see S. Harrison,
Apuleius: A Latin Sophist
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

5.
Mezentius: Vergil,
Aeneid
10.786–907. On Roman theomachies see P. Chaudhari,
The War with God: Theomachy in Roman Imperial Poetry
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2014).

6.
Doxographic network: Aëtius,
Tenets
1.7.1. Stereotypical accusations in Roman courts: C. Edwards,
The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

7.
Aemilianus as Christian: J. Walsh, “On Christian Atheism,”
Vigiliae Christianae
45 (1991): 260; V. Hunink, “Apuleius, Pudentilla and Early Christianity,”
Vigiliae Christianae
54 (2000): 88–91.

8.
Pliny,
Natural History
2.5.

9.
Lucian,
Demonax
11, 32, 37, 27; see 5 for the “man of Sinope” (i.e., Diogenes the Cynic). For other sayings attributed to him see D. M. Searby, “Non–Lucian Sources for Demonax. With a New Collection of ‘Fragments,’ ”
Symbolae Osloenses
83 (2008): 120–47.

10.
Lucian the atheist:
Suda,
under
Loukianos.
Lucian’s European reception has been well studied: see, for example, C. Robinson,
Lucian and His Influence
in Europe
(London: Duckworth, 1979); C. Lauvergnat-Gagnière,
Lucien de Samosate et le lucianisme en France au XVIe siècle: Athéisme et polémique
(Geneva: Droz, 1988); M. Baumbach,
Lukian in Deutschland: Eine forschungs- und rezeptionsgeschichtliche Analyse vom Humanismus bis zur Gegenwart
(Munich: Fink, 2002). More generally on Lucian: C. P. Jones,
Culture and Society in Lucian
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986); R. B. Branham,
Unruly Eloquence: Lucian and the Comedy of Traditions
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989).

11.
Christians and the “impaled sophist”: Lucian,
Peregrinus
11–13.

12.
Lucian’s views on religion have been the subject of a number of discussions, none of them wholly satisfactory. The tendency has been to try to reconstruct a coherent religious attitude for the real Lucian behind the mask (a hopeless quest), rather than to explore his satirical strategies on their own terms. See M. Caster,
Lucien et la pensée religieuse de son temps
(Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1937); O. Karavas, “
ΝΗΦΕ
ΚΑΙ
ΜΕΜΝΗΣΟ
ΑΠΙΣΤΕΙΝ
(
Hermot
. 47): La religiosité de Lucien,” in A. Bartley,
A Lucian for Our Times
(Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009), 137–44; M. Dickie, “Lucian’s Gods: Lucian’s Understanding of the Divine,” in J. N. Bremmer and A. Erskine (eds.),
The Gods of Ancient Greece: Identities and Transformations
(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010), 348–61; F. Berdozzo,
Götter, Mythen, Philosophen: Lukian und die paganen Göttervorstellungen seiner Zeit
(Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011).

13.
Lucian,
On Sacrifices
1, 2.

14.
Teapot: B. Russell, “Is there a god?,” in J. G. Slater and P. Köllner (eds.),
The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell. Volume 11: Last Philosophical Testament, 1943–68
(London: Routledge, 1997), 547–48.

15.
Diogenes: Cicero,
Tusculan Disputations
1.43. Charon: Lucian,
Charon
11. On the
Dialogues of the Dead
see J. Relihan, “Vainglorious Menippus in Lucian’s
Dialogues of the Dead
,”
Illinois Classical Studies
12 (1987): 185–206. On the Cynics and their views of religion see chapter 11, pp. 159–161.

16.
Lucian,
On Sacrifices
15.

17.
Lucian,
Timon
1–4, 7.

18.
Lucian,
Zeus Refuted
(quotation from 19): for the philosophical context of these arguments see P. Großlein,
Untersuchungen zum Juppiter confutatus Lukians
(Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1998).

19.
Lucian,
Zeus the Tragedian
35–53. Oenomaus of Gadara: J. Hammerstaedt,
Die Orakelkritik des Kynikers Oenomaus
(Frankfurt am Main: Athenäum, 1988); for the comment of Rabbi Abba ben Kahana see
Genesis Rabbah
65:20, with C. Hezser, “Interfaces Between Rabbinic Literature and Graeco-Roman Philosophy,” in P. Schäfer and C. Hezser (eds.),
The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-Roman Culture
(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 180. Another second-century critic of prophecy was Diogenianus the Epicurean (whose views are preserved by Eusebius,
Preparation for the Gospel
4.3, 6.8): see J. Hammerstaedt, “Das Kriterium der Prolepsis beim Epikureer Diogenian,”
Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum
36 (1993): 24–32.

20.
Lucian,
Zeus the Tragedian
18.

21.
For orientation on Plutarch see D. Russell,
Plutarch
(London: Duckworth, 1971).

22.
Theophrastus,
Characters
16. Quotation: Plutarch,
On Superstition
168d. Jews keeping to the Sabbath while the city was captured: 169c; old women: 165f–166a (where there may well be a further reference to Judaism: modern texts of Plutarch read “baptisms” [
baptismous
], but this is an emendation by the eighteenth-century English editor Richard Bentley from the transmitted “keeping to the Sabbath” [
sabbatismous
]). There is a thoughtful discussion of
On Superstition
and its relation to Plutarch’s thought at P. Van Nuffelen,
Rethinking the Gods: Philosophical Readings of Religion in the Post-Hellenistic Period
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 65–71; see also H. Bowden, “Before Superstition and After: Theophrastus and Plutarch on
Deisidaimonia,
”
Past and Present
199 (2008): 56–71.

23.
Atheism: Plutarch,
On Superstition
170f.

24.
Niobe: Plutarch,
On Superstition
170b–c. Plutarch explicitly discusses the Epicureans alongside the
deisidaimones
at
It Is Not Possible to Live Pleasurably According to Epicurus
1186b–c.

1.
For a sparkling account of the emergence of Christianity see D. MacCulloch,
A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years
(London: Allen Lane, 2009). Conflicting accounts of Constantine’s vision: Lactantius,
On the Deaths of the Persecuted
44.5 and Eusebius,
Life of Constantine
1.28–30. For a readable and authoritative account of Constantine’s life and career see T. Barnes and R. Boxhall,
Constantine: Dynasty, Religion and Power in the Later Roman Empire
(Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014); see also N. Lenski,
The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), with Lenski’s own chapter (“The Reign of Constantine,” 59–90) on Constantine’s reign. The Edict of Milan broadened an Edict of Tolerance that had already been issued by the eastern Augustus Galerius.

2.
Third race: Clement,
Stromateis
6.5.41 (Clement is quoting an earlier text). In general on the question of the existence of anti-Christian law see T. Barnes, “Legislation Against the Christians,”
Journal of Roman Studies
58 (1968): 32–50, concluding that such persecution as did occur was rooted in prejudice and not legislation. The so-called Decian persecution in 250 was in fact not targeted specifically at Christians: Decius’s concern rather was to ensure that all citizens sacrificed for the health of the empire (J. B. Rives, “The Decree of Decius and the Religion of Empire,”
The Journal of Roman Studies
89 [1999]: 135–54). On the late-antique manufacture of martyr myth see L. Grig,
Making Martyrs in Late Antiquity
(London: Duckworth, 2004); and C. Moss,
Ancient Christian Martyrdom: Diverse Practices, Theologies, and Traditions
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012) and
The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom
(New York: HarperOne, 2013).

3.
Indistinguishability of Christians and non-Christians (at least in North Africa): E. Rebillard,
Christians and Their Many Identities in Late Antiquity
(Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 2012), 67–68. That many attending Christian services also practiced other forms of worship is evident from the anxious instruction even of post-Constantinian church leaders like John Chrysostom and Augustine: see Rebillard,
Christians and Their Many Identities,
74–75; and B. Sandwell,
Religious Identity in Late Antiquity: Greeks, Jews and Christians in Antioch
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 82–90. Quotation: Edwards, “The Beginnings of Christianisation,” 142. Generally on the persistence of polytheist culture into the sixth century: G. Bowersock,
Hellenism in Late Antiquity
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990); and A. Cameron,
The Last Pagans of Rome
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). R. Lane Fox,
Pagans and Christians in the Mediterranean World from the Second Century AD to the Conversion of Constantine
(Harmondsworth, UK: Viking, 1986) offers a rich storehouse of information on the relationship between Christian and polytheist cults; see also C. P. Jones,
Between Pagans and Christians
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014).

4.
Numbers of Christians: K. Hopkins, “Christian Number and Its Implications,”
Journal of Early Christian Studies
6.2 (1998): 185–226. Hopkins’s figures for AD 200 have been thought by some too low: see, for example, Edwards, “The Beginnings of Christianisation,” 138.

5.
Emperor as chief priest: R. Gordon, “The Veil of Power: Emperors, Sacrificers and Benefactors,” in M. Beard and J. North (eds.),
Pagan Priests: Religion and Power in the Ancient World
(London: Duckworth, 1990), 201–31.

6.
Codex Theodosianus
16.1.2, 16.5.6; D. Hunt, “Christianising the Roman Empire: The Evidence of the Code,” in J. Harries and I. Wood (eds.),
The Theodosian Code,
2nd ed. (London: Duckworth, 2010), 147.

7.
Heretics: 16.5 (Manichaeans are also mentioned here). Any crime: 16.5.40.1; Memory: 16.5.38. Apostates: 16.7. Jews: 16.8. “Pagans”: 16.10. Public debate: 16.4.2. On the reuse of anti-polytheist discourse against “heretics” see R. Flower,
Emperors and Bishops in Late Roman Invective
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). Skepticism as regards implementation: A. Cameron,
The Last Pagans of Rome
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 59–74.

8.
Revised meaning of
atheos:
see G. W. H. Lampe (ed.),
A Patristic Greek Lexicon
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961), 44. Lampe does cite a few instances of the “classical” meaning, but the vast majority are of the new kind. The earliest Christian instance comes in a widely cited phrase at Ephesians 2:12 (attacking “atheists in the cosmos”). “Polytheist atheists”: for example “Sentences of Sextus” 599 (“A polytheist man is an atheist”), Eusebius,
Preparation for the Gospel
7.19.8. Philo,
On the Special Laws
1.345;
On the Decalogue
91. War:
Questions on Exodus
30 (the phrasing is taken from Demosthenes,
On the Crown
262). Christian war on atheists: Eusebius,
In Praise of Constantine
6.21; ps.-Chrysostom,
On John the Theologian
614 (Migne). See also for example
Eusebius Life of Constantine
3.3.1,
On the Praise of Constantine
6.21, 7.6, 9.8. B. Shaw,
Sacred Violence: African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in the Age of Augustine
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); on the rhetoric of sacred violence in late-antique Christianity and early Islam, see also T. Sizgorich,
Violence and Belief in Late Antiquity: Militant Devotion in Christianity and Islam
(Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press, 2009).

9.
Accusations of atheism against Christians: J. Walsh, “On Christian Atheism,”
Vigiliae Christianae,
45 (1991): 255–77; P. F. Beatrice, “L’accusation d’athéisme contre les chrétiens,” in M. Narcy and É. Rebillard (eds.),
Hellénisme et christianisme
(Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires de Septentron, 2004), 133–52. Eusebius on Licinius:
Life of Constantine
2.5.1, 2.5.4. “Away with the atheists”:
Martyrdom of Polycarp
9–10. Date of Polycarp’s martyrdom: P. Hartog,
Polycarp and the New Testament
(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), 24–31. Many scholars date the text too to the second century, for no good reason that I know of. At Luke 23:18, the crowd cries out to Pilate to release Barabbas but
aire
Jesus (compare Acts 21:36, used by the crowd of Paul); in John, when Pilate tells the Jews that Jesus is their king, they reply
aron, aron
(19:15). Intertextuality in the
Martyrdom of Polycarp:
C. Moss, “Nailing Down and Tying Up: Lessons in Intertextual Impossibility from the
Martyrdom of Polycarp,
”
Vigiliae Christianae
67 (2013): 117–36 (emphasizing that the text encourages parallels with Socrates as well as Jesus). One explicit second-century association of Christians with atheism is Lucian,
Alexander or the False Prophet
25, but there, crucially, the Christians are being lumped in with Epicureans, who were certainly thought of as (philosophical) atheists. For a third-century accusation against Christians as
atheoi
who “secede from ancestral customs” see Porphyry,
Against the Christians
fragment 1; the phrasing may however be paraphrased rather than verbatim.

10.
Justin Martyr,
First Apology
5–6. On such early imperial Christian appropriations (and condemnations) of Socrates see C. Taylor, “Socrates Under the Severans,” in S. Swain, S. Harrison, and J. Elsner (eds.),
Severan Culture
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 500–11. See also
First Apology
4, where reference is made to the philosophers who “taught atheism” (
atheot
ē
s
).

11.
Christian reuse of philosophical atheism: D. Palmer “Atheism, Apologetic and Negative Theology in the Greek Apologists of the Second Century,”
Vigiliae Christianae
37 (1983): 234–59. Christian opposition to classical atheism: Theophilus,
Against Autolycus
3.7. Clement:
Exhortation to the Greeks
2.20–21. On the Christian reception of Euhemerism see R. P. C. Hanson, “Christian Attitudes to Pagan Religion,”
Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt
2.23.2 (1980): 934–38; M. Winiarczyk,
The Sacred History of Euhemerus of Messene
(Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013), 148–52.