Piety toward the gods
idea · 3 works · 3 mentions · 6 anchored passages
piety · impiety · reverence for gods · reverence toward the gods · seeking divine favor · worship of the gods
in the texts
On the Nature of the Gods
The proper attitude and practice of reverence toward the gods, discussed both as an Epicurean ideal and as a civic/religious concern for Cotta the pontiff.
Freed from these terrors by Epicurus and claimed into liberty, we neither fear those whom we understand to make no trouble for themselves nor to seek any for another, and we worship piously and reverently a nature surpassing and excellent.
And so I myself, a pontiff, who hold that the public ceremonies and rites of religion must be most scrupulously maintained, should like to be convinced of this first point — that the gods exist — not by opinion only but according to the very truth.
First of all, who was ever so blind in contemplating things as not to see that those human forms have been transferred to the gods either by some design of wise men, that they might the more easily turn the minds of the ignorant from depravity of life to the worship of the gods, or by superstition, so that there might be images which worshippers believed they approached the very gods themselves?
Republic
Proper reverence toward the gods, violated by tales depicting gods or their offspring committing evil deeds.
For we proved, I take it, that for evil to arise from gods is an impossibility.
We have declared the right way of speaking about gods and daemons and heroes and that other world.
Memorabilia
The recurring assumption that worship of and approval-seeking from the gods precede and sanction human undertakings, voiced in Virtue's speech to Heracles and in Socrates's advice on choosing a friend.
If you want the favour of the gods, you must worship the gods:
Supposing that we have chosen and the gods approve him, can you say how is he to be hunted?
First we should seek guidance from the gods, whether they counsel us to make a friend of him.