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6 - The Roman Empire

from Part II - Atheisms in History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 September 2021

Michael Ruse
By
Nicole Hartmann
Edited by
Stephen Bullivant
Michael Ruse
Affiliation:
Florida State University
Stephen Bullivant
Affiliation:
St Mary's University, Twickenham, London
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Summary

In his list of synonyms for a godless man, átheos, Iulius Pollux enumerates as diverse characterizations someone who is impious, asebés, or accursed, enagés, someone who hates the gods, misótheos, or is hated by the gods, theomisés, someone who is impure or uninitiated, bébelos, or lawless, athémitos. For godlessness, atheótes, he has unholyness, anosiótes, or indifference towards the divine, oligoría peri to theion. Pollux (around AD 135–93) held the chair of rhetoric in Athens and was part of the so-called Second Sophistic, an intellectual movement in the second century AD that sought to create a kind of renaissance of the classic, especially Athenian, culture from the fifth and fourth centuries BC.

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Chapter
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The Cambridge History of Atheism , pp. 100 - 117
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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