Plutarch, De Superstitione, Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator), 6

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[6] What then? Does it not seem to you that the feeling of the atheists compared with the superstitious presents just such a difference? The former do not see the gods at all, the latter think that they do exist and are evil. The former disregard them, the latter conceive their kindliness to be frightful, their fatherly solicitude to be despotic, their loving care to be injurious, their slowness to anger to be savage and brutal. Then again such persons give credence to workers in metal stone, or wax, who make their images of gods in the likeness of human beings,¹ and they have such images fashioned, and dress them up, and worship them. But they hold in contempt philosophers and statesmen, who try to prove that the majesty of God is associated with goodness, magnanimity, kindliness, and solicitude. So the atheists have more than enough of indifference and distrust of the Beings who can help them, whereas the superstitious experience equal agitation and fear towards the things that can help them. Or, in fine, atheism is an indifferent feeling towards the Deity, which has no notion of the good, and superstition is a multitude of differing feelings with an underlying notion that the good is evil. For the superstitious fear the gods, and flee to the gods for help; they flatter them and assail them with abuse, pray to them and blame them. It is the common lot of mankind not to enjoy continual good fortune in all things.

Age and illness not their lot, Toil and labour they know not, ’Scaped is Acheron’s loud strait,

says Pindar ² of the gods, but human experiences and actions are linked with chance circumstances which move now in one course and now in another.

De Superstitione. Plutarch. Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1928.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

Superstition (English) (Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. IΙ. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1928 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Περὶ δεισιδαιμονίας Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol I. Vernardakēs, Grēgorios N., editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1888.) — 6 focus

[6] τί οὖν; οὐ δοκεῖ σοι καὶ τὸ τῶν ἀθέων πρὸς τοὺς δεισιδαίμονας πάθος ἔχειν τοιαύτην διαφοράν; οἱ μὲν¹ οὐχ ὁρῶσι τοὺς θεοὺς τὸ παράπαν, οἱ δὲ 15 κακοὺς ὑπάρχειν νομίζουσιν· οἱ μὲν παρορῶσιν, οἱ δὲ δοξάζουσι φοβερὸν τὸ εὐμενὲς καὶ τυραννικὸν τὸ πατρικὸν καὶ βλαβερὸν τὸ κηδεμονικὸν καὶ τὸ ἄμικτον ἄγριον εἶναι καὶ θηριῶδες. εἶτα χαλκοτύποις μὲν πείθονται καὶ λιθοξόοις καὶ κηροπλάσταις 20 ἀνθρωπόμορφα τῶν θεῶν τὰ εἴδη ποιοῦσι, καὶ 167e τοιαῦτα πλάττουσι καὶ κατασκευάζουσι καὶ προσκυνοῦσι· φιλοσόφων δὲ καὶ πολιτικῶν ἀνδρῶν καταφρονοῦσιν, ἀποδεικνύντων τὴν τοῦ θεοῦ σεμνότητα μετὰ χρηστότητος καὶ μεγαλοφροσύνης καὶ εὐμενείας 25 καὶ κηδεμονίας. περίεστιν οὖν τοῖς μὲν ἀναισθησία καὶ ἀπιστία τῶν ὠφελούντων, τοῖς δὲ ταραχὴ καὶ φόβος πρὸς τὰ ὠφελοῦντα. καὶ ὅλως ἡ μὲν ἀθεότης ἀπάθεια πρὸς τὸ θεῖόν ἐστι μὴ νοοῦσα τὸ ἀγαθόν, ἡ δὲ δεισιδαιμονία πολυπάθεια κακὸν τὸ ἀγαθὸν ὑπονοοῦσα. φοβοῦνται τοὺς θεοὺς καὶ καταφεύγουσιν ἐπὶ τοὺς θεούς, κολακεύουσι καὶ λοιδοροῦσιν, εὔχονται καὶ καταμέμφονται. κοινὸν 5 ἀνθρώπων τὸ μὴ πάντα διευτυχεῖν· 167f

κεῖνοι γάρ τʼ² ἄνοσοι καὶ ἀγήραοι

πόνων τʼ ἄπειροι, βαρυβόαν

πορθμὸν πεφευγότες Ἀχέροντος,

ὁ Πίνδαρός³ φησι, τὰ δʼ ἀνθρώπινα πάθη καὶ πράγματα 10 μέμικται συντυχίαις ἄλλοτʼ ἄλλως ῥεούσαις.

Translations (1)

Of Superstition, or Indiscreet Devotion Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. II. Goodwin, William W., editor; Baxter, William translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company; Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1874.) — 6 focus

[6] Well then, is not this the very case of the atheist, compared with the superstitious? The former sees not the Gods at all, the latter believes that he really sees them; the former wholly overlooks them, but the latter mistakes their benignity for terror, their paternal affection for tyranny, their providence for cruelty, and their frank simplicity for savageness and brutality.

Again, the workman in copper, stone, and wax can persuade such that the Gods are in human shape; for so they make them, so they draw them, and so they worship them. But they will not hear either philosophers or statesmen that describe the majesty of the Divinity as accompanied by goodness, magnanimity, benignity, and beneficence. The one therefore hath neither a sense nor belief of that divine good he might participate of; and the other dreads and fears it. In a word, atheism is an absolute insensibility to God (or want of passion), which does not recognize goodness; while superstition is a blind heap of passions, which imagine the good to be evil. They are afraid of their Gods, and yet run to them; they fawn upon them, and reproach them; they invoke them, and accuse them. It is the common destiny of humanity not to enjoy uninterrupted felicity.

Nor pains, nor age, nor labor they e’er bore,

Nor visited rough Acheron’s hoarse shore,

saith Pindar of the Gods; but human passions and affairs are liable to a strange multiplicity of uncertain accidents and contingencies.

Notes on the current edition

Superstition

1. Or, as given in most MSS., that the bodies of the gods are like the bodies of men.

2. Frag. 143 (ed. Christ). Cited by Plutarch again in Moralia, 763 C and 1075 A.

Plutarch De Superstitione 6

Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator)

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