atheism Quick reference
The Oxford Dictionary of the Classical World
... The Greek for atheism is ‘not to recognize the gods’ or ‘deny that the gods exist’ or, later, ‘to remove the gods’. The Greek word atheos can be applied to atheism (e.g. in Plato's Apology ), but in the earliest instances it means ‘impious, vicious’ or ‘hated, abandoned by the gods’, and these senses persist along with the other. Christians and pagans were to swap charges of atheism, by which they meant ‘impious views about the divine’. The gods of popular polytheism were rejected or drastically reinterpreted by all philosophers from the 6th cent. ...
atheism Reference library
Robert Christopher Towneley Parker
The Oxford Classical Dictionary (4 ed.)
... , The Greek for atheism is ‘not to recognize (νομίζειν) the gods’ or ‘deny that the gods exist’ or, later, ‘to remove (ἀναιρεῖν) the gods’. (The old doctrine that θεοὺς νομίζειν never means to ‘believe in’ but always to ‘pay cult to’ the gods is wrong; but it is true that borderline cases exist.) The Greek word ἄθεος can be applied to atheism (Pl. Ap. 26c), but in the earliest instances it means ‘impious, vicious’ or ‘hated, abandoned by the gods’, and these senses persist along with the other; so too with ἀθεότης. Thus Christians and pagans were to...
atheism Reference library
The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature (3 ed.)
...gods. Out-and-out atheism as a serious belief, as opposed to the expression of thoughts of an atheistic nature, never attracted a following. Ideas akin to atheism emerged in the Greek world in the sixth century bc among the Milesian philosophers ( see Miletus ), whose work marked the emergence of Greek rationalism. They rejected mythological explanations for the origin of everything, seeing the universe as operating naturalistically according to laws comprehensible to human reason. However they each believed in a first principle (Thales in water,...
Diagoras
Hippon
Prodicus
intolerance, intellectual and religious
Euhemerus
Apologists
Carneades
atomism
Thomas Harriot
Charles Bradlaugh
deism
William Paley
humanism
Friedrich Engels
Diagoras (5th cent. bc) Reference library
Jan N. Bremmer
The Oxford Classical Dictionary (4 ed.)
...last decades of the 5th cent. bc ( Hermippus fr. 43 K–A; Ar. Av. 1071 ff., Nub. 828 ff.). Renowned for his ‘ atheism ’ ( Cic. Nat. D. 1. 2, 63), he mocked the mysteries of Eleusis—perhaps in reaction to the capture of Melos by the Athenians. He was condemned to death, and fled (Diod. Sic. 13. 6, 7). Fragments of his poem survive, but they contain no trace of ‘atheism’. In the Arabic tradition Diagoras was notorious for his atheism. F. Jacoby , Diagoras ho atheos (1959); M. Winiarczyk , Diagorae Melii et Theodori Cyrenaei reliquiae (1981); L....
Flavia (RE 227) Domitilla Reference library
John Brian Campbell
The Oxford Classical Dictionary (4 ed.)
...( RE 227) Domitilla , Domitian 's niece, was exiled and her husband, the consul Flavius Clemens , executed in ad 95 on a charge of atheism, or disrespect for the Roman gods. Domitilla perhaps espoused Judaism, though Eusebius ( Hist. Eccl. 3. 18) believed that she favoured Christianity (his reference to her as niece of Clemens is probably a simple error). The Christian ‘Coemeterium Domitillae’ on the via Ardeatina may be connected with her. E. M. Smallwood , CPhil. 1956, 8; M. Sordi , Atti Congr. Inter. Std. Vespasiani (1981), 150. John Brian...
Athenagoras Reference library
David S. Potter
The Oxford Classical Dictionary (4 ed.)
.... The latter is a defence of Christianity composed in the form of a letter to the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Commodus . This work is an extremely important, early assertion of Christian propriety against commonplace charges that Christians were atheists and cannibals ( see atheism ; cannibalism ). One of its most interesting features is the extensive use of classical literature to justify or explain Christian practice. Ed. W. R. Schoedel , Athenagoras (1972); Apologia , ed. M. Marcovich (1990). David S....
