Superstition (5-9)

Nothing of this kind attaches to atheism, but its ignorance is distressing, and to see amiss or not to see at all in matters of such importance is a great misfortune for the soul; for it is as if the soul had suffered the extinction of the brightest and most dominant of its many eyes, the conception of God. But superstition is attended by emotion, as has already been said, [*] and by sore distress and disturbance and mental enslavement from the very beginning. Plato [*] says that music, the creator of

harmony and order, was given to mankind by the gods not for the sake of pampering them or tickling their ears, but so that whatever in a man’s body is disturbing and errant, affecting the cycles and concords of his soul, and in many instances, for lack of culture and refinement, waxing wanton because of licentiousness and error, music should, in its own way, disengage and bring round and restore to its proper place again.

Whatsoever things there be Which by Zeus are not held dear,

says Pindar,[*]

In affrighted panic flee When the Muses’ voice they hear.

In fact they become provoked and angry; and tigers, they say, surrounded by the sound of beaten drums go utterly mad, and get so excited that they end by tearing themselves to pieces.[*] There is less harm, therefore, for those who, as the result of deafness or impairment of hearing, have a feeling of indifference and insensibility toward music. Teiresias laboured under a misfortune in not being able to see his children or his intimate friends, but greater was the misfortune of Athamas [*] and Agave,[*] who saw them as lions and deer; and for Heracles[*] in his madness it would undoubtedly have been better neither to see his sons, nor to realize that they were present, than to treat his nearest and dearest as enemies.

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,[*] 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 [*] of the gods, but human experiences and actions are linked with chance circumstances which move now in one course and now in another.

Come now, observe the atheist in circumstances not desired by him, and take note of his attitude. If he be moderate in general, you will note that he takes

his present fortune without a word, and tries to procure for himself means of help and comfort; but if he be given to impatience or violent emotion, you will note that he directs all his complaints against Fortune and Chance, and exclaims that nothing comes about according to right or as the result of providence, but that the course of all human affairs is confusion and disorder, and that they are all being turned topsy-turvy. This, however, is not the way of the superstitious man; but if even the slightest ill befall him, he sits down and proceeds to construct, on the basis of his trouble, a fabric of harsh, momentous, and practically unavoidable experiences which he must undergo, and he also loads himself with fears and frights, suspicions and trepidations, and all this he bitterly assails with every sort of lamentation and moaning. For he puts the responsibility for his lot upon no man nor upon Fortune nor upon occasion nor upon himself, but lays the responsibility for everything upon God, and says that from that source a heaven-sent stream of mischief has come upon him with full force; and he imagines that it is not because he is unlucky, but because he is hateful to the gods, that he is being punished by the gods, and that the penalty he pays and all that he is undergoing are deserved because of his own conduct.

The atheist, when he is ill, takes into account and calls to mind the times when he has eaten too much or drunk too much wine, also irregularities in his daily life, or instances of over-fatigue or unaccustomed changes of air or locality; and again when he has given offence in administering office, and has encountered disrepute with the masses or calumny with

a ruler, he looks to find the reason in himself and his own surroundings:

Where did I err, and what have I done? What duty of mine was neglected? [*]

But in the estimation of the superstitious man, every indisposition of his body, loss of property, deaths of children, or mishaps and failures in public life are classed as afflictions of God or attacks of an evil spirit. [*] For this reason he has no heart to relieve the situation or undo its effects, or to find some remedy for it or to take a strong stand against it, lest he seem to fight against God and to rebel at his punishment; but when he is ill the physician is ejected from the house, and when he is in grief the door is shut on the philosopher who would advise and comfort him. Oh, sir, he says, leave me to pay my penalty, impious wretch that I am, accursed, and hateful to the gods and all the heavenly host. [*]

It is possible in the case of a man unconvinced of the existence of gods, when he is in grief and great distress in other ways, to wipe away a tear, cut his hair, and take off his cloak; but what words can you address to the superstitious man, or in what way shall you help him? He sits outside his house with sackcloth on and filthy rags about him; and oftentimes he rolls naked in the mire as he confesses divers sins and errors of his—eating this or drinking that, or walking in a path forbidden by his conscience. But if he is very fortunate, and but mildly yoked with

superstition, he sits in his house, subjecting himself to fumigation, and smearing himself with mud, and the old crones, as Bion says, bring whatever chance directs and hang and fasten it on him as on a peg.

Tiribazus, they say, when an attempt was made by the Persians to arrest him, drew his sword, being a man of great strength, and fought desperately. But when the men protested and cried out that they were arresting him by the King’s command, he instantly threw down his sword and held out his hands to be bound. [*] Is not what actually happens just like this? The rest of men fight desperately against misfortunes, and force their way through difficulties, contriving for themselves means to escape and avert things undesired; but the superstitious man, without a word from anybody, says all to himself, This you have to undergo, poor soul, by the dispensation of Providence and by God’s command, and casts away all hope, gives himself up, runs away, and repulses those who would help him.

Many ills of no great moment are made to result fatally by men’s superstition. Midas of old, dispirited and disturbed, as it appears, as the result of some dreams, reached such a state of mind that he committed suicide by drinking bull’s blood. [*] And Aristodemus, king of the Messenians in the war against the Spartans, when dogs howled like wolves, and quitch-grass began to grow around his ancestral

hearth, and the seers were alarmed by these signs, lost heart and hope by his forebodings, and slew himself by his own hand.[*] It would perhaps have been the best thing in the world for Nicias, general of the Athenians, to have got rid of his superstition in the same way as Midas and Aristodemus,rather than to be affrighted at the shadow on the moon in eclipse and sit inactive while the enemy’s wall was being built around him, and later to fall into their hands together with forty thousand men, who were either slain or captured alive, and himself meet an inglorious end.[*] For the obstruction of light caused by the earth’s coming between sun and moon is nothing frightful, nor is the meeting of a shadow with the moon at the proper time in its revolutions anything frightful, but frightful is the darkness of superstition falling upon man, and confounding and blinding his power to reason in circumstances that most loudly demand the power to reason.

Glaucus, see, the mighty ocean Even now with billows roars, Round about the Gyrian summits Sheer in air a dark cloud soars, Sign of storm . . .;[*]

when the pilot sees this, he prays that he may escape the storm, and calls upon the Saviours,[*] but while he is praying he throws the helm over, lowers the yard, and

Furling the big main sail, Hastens to make his escape Out from the murky sea.[*]

Hesiod advises [*] that the farmer before ploughing and sowing should Pray to Zeus of the world below and to holy Demeter with his hand on the plough-handle; and Homer says [*] that Ajax, as he was about to engage in single combat with Hector, bade the Greeks pray to the gods for him, and then, while they were praying, donned his armour; and when Agamemnon enjoined [*] on the fighting men,

See that each spear is well sharpened, and each man’s shield in good order,

at the same time he asked in prayer from Zeus,

Grant that I raze to the level of earth the palace of Priam;[*]

for God is brave hope, not cowardly excuse. But the Jews, [*] because it was the Sabbath day, sat in their places immovable, while the enemy were planting ladders against the walls and capturing the defences, and they did not get up, but remained there, fast bound in the toils of superstition as in one great net.

Such are the characteristics of superstition in undesired and critical (as they are called) circumstances and occasions, but it is not one bit better than atheism even under pleasurable conditions. The pleasantest things that men enjoy are festal

days and banquets at the temples, initiations and mystie rites, and prayer and adoration of the gods. Note that the atheist on these occasions gives way to insane and sardonic laughter at such ceremonies, and remarks aside to his cronies that people must cherish a vain and silly conceit to think that these rites are performed in honour of the gods; but with him no harm is done save this. On the other hand the superstitious man, much as he desires it, is not able to rejoice or be glad:

The city is with burning incense filled; Full too of joyous hymns and doleful groans [*]

is the soul of the superstitious man. When the garland is on his head he turns pale, he offers sacrifice and feels afraid, he prays with quavering voice, with trembling hands he sprinkles incense, and, in a word, proves how foolish are the words of Pythagoras, [*] who said that we reach our best when we draw near to the gods. For that is the time when the superstitious fare most miserably and wretchedly, for they approach the halls or temples of the gods as they would approach bears’ dens or snakes’ holes or the haunts of monsters of the deep.