Summary Of Plutarch Superstitio

rushing about and beating of drums, impure purifications and dirty sanctifications, barbarous and outlandish penances and mortifications at the shrines.” His essay’s main goal is to prove that too much religion is worse than none at all, or superstitio is a greater crime than atheism. He says, “It [would be] better there should be no gods at all than gods who accept with pleasure such forms of worship, and are so overbearing, so petty, and so easily offended.” Plutarch also uses his essay to describe the perceived stupidity and obstinance of those who practiced superstitio. He cites people that have died from participating in harmful practices, such as drinking bull’s blood or killed themselves due to ill omens, and describes the obstinance

Plutarch wrote,

“[Superstitio is] an emotional idea and an assumption productive of a fear which utterly humbles and crushes a man, for he thinks that there are gods, but that they are the cause of pain and injury… Of all kinds of fear the most impotent and helpless

When this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of food--but ordinary and innocent food… I discovered nothing else but depraved, excessive superstitio…”

He goes on, like Tacitus, to describe this superstition as a disease that must be contained. The reason that he is so wary of Christianity is illuminated when he asserts that, due to the spread of Christianity, less people were going to Roman temples and celebrating Roman religious festivals, and that there were less buyers for sacrificial animals. Though Pliny did not fear opposition or revolt from the Christians, he saw that, if left unchecked, it could swap the meanings of religio and superstitio in the minds of the people, seriously undermining state religion, and therefore, state