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Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World
How new is atheism? Although adherents and opponents alike today present it as an invention of the European Enlightenment, when the forces of science and secularism broadly challenged those of faith, disbelief in the gods, in fact, originated in a far more remote past. In Battling the Gods, Tim Whitmarsh journeys into the ancient Mediterranean, a world almost unimaginably different from our own, to recover the stories and voices of those who first refused the divinities.
Homer’s epic poems of human striving, journeying, and passion were ancient Greece’s only “sacred texts,” but no ancient Greek thought twice about questioning or mocking his stories of the gods. Priests were functionaries rather than sources of moral or cosmological wisdom. The absence of centralized religious authority made for an extraordinary variety of perspectives on sacred matters, from the devotional to the atheos, or “godless.” Whitmarsh explores this kaleidoscopic range of ideas about the gods, focusing on the colorful individuals who challenged their existence. Among these were some of the greatest ancient poets and philosophers and writers, as well as the less well Diagoras of Melos, perhaps the first self-professed atheist; Democritus, the first materialist; Socrates, executed for rejecting the gods of the Athenian state; Epicurus and his followers, who thought gods could not intervene in human affairs; the brilliantly mischievous satirist Lucian of Samosata.
Before the revolutions of late antiquity, which saw the scriptural religions of Christianity and Islam enforced by imperial might, there were few constraints on belief. Everything changed, however, in the millennium between the appearance of the Homeric poems and Christianity’s establishment as Rome’s state religion in the fourth century AD. As successive Greco-Roman empires grew in size and complexity, and power was increasingly concentrated in central capitals, states sought to impose collective religious adherence, first to cults devoted to individual rulers, and ultimately to monotheism. In this new world, there was no room for outright the label “atheist” was used now to demonize anyone who merely disagreed with the orthodoxy—and so it would remain for centuries.
As the twenty-first century shapes up into a time of mass information, but also, paradoxically, of collective amnesia concerning the tangled histories of religions, Whitmarsh provides a bracing antidote to our assumptions about the roots of freethinking. By shining a light on atheism’s first thousand years, Battling the Gods offers a timely reminder that nonbelief has a wealth of tradition of its own, and, indeed, its own heroes.
Homer’s epic poems of human striving, journeying, and passion were ancient Greece’s only “sacred texts,” but no ancient Greek thought twice about questioning or mocking his stories of the gods. Priests were functionaries rather than sources of moral or cosmological wisdom. The absence of centralized religious authority made for an extraordinary variety of perspectives on sacred matters, from the devotional to the atheos, or “godless.” Whitmarsh explores this kaleidoscopic range of ideas about the gods, focusing on the colorful individuals who challenged their existence. Among these were some of the greatest ancient poets and philosophers and writers, as well as the less well Diagoras of Melos, perhaps the first self-professed atheist; Democritus, the first materialist; Socrates, executed for rejecting the gods of the Athenian state; Epicurus and his followers, who thought gods could not intervene in human affairs; the brilliantly mischievous satirist Lucian of Samosata.
Before the revolutions of late antiquity, which saw the scriptural religions of Christianity and Islam enforced by imperial might, there were few constraints on belief. Everything changed, however, in the millennium between the appearance of the Homeric poems and Christianity’s establishment as Rome’s state religion in the fourth century AD. As successive Greco-Roman empires grew in size and complexity, and power was increasingly concentrated in central capitals, states sought to impose collective religious adherence, first to cults devoted to individual rulers, and ultimately to monotheism. In this new world, there was no room for outright the label “atheist” was used now to demonize anyone who merely disagreed with the orthodoxy—and so it would remain for centuries.
As the twenty-first century shapes up into a time of mass information, but also, paradoxically, of collective amnesia concerning the tangled histories of religions, Whitmarsh provides a bracing antidote to our assumptions about the roots of freethinking. By shining a light on atheism’s first thousand years, Battling the Gods offers a timely reminder that nonbelief has a wealth of tradition of its own, and, indeed, its own heroes.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published November 10, 2015
127 people are currently reading
3149 people want to read
About the author
Tim Whitmarsh
33 books49 followersTim Whitemarsh is A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at Cambridge University. He works on all areas of Greek literature and culture, specialising particularly in the world of Greeks under the Roman Empire. He is the author of Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World (2015).
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May 9, 2025
Many decades ago I read a translation of The Iliad, which was the first ancient Greek book I had encountered by myself. I was struck at the time by how much influence was attributed to the gods. Throughout the text there were references to “The gods decided that…” and the human participants seemed relegated to helpless pawns being moved around on a chessboard. The title of Tim Whitmarsh’s book intrigued me as a challenge to the conventional view of how religion dominated the ancient world. The author looks only at ancient Greece and Rome, mainly the former.
Actually he doesn’t challenge the idea that religion was dominant, but argues that atheism was also an established philosophical position, albeit a minority one. Incidentally the book doesn’t try to argue that atheism is superior to religious belief, rather it attempts to set out the history of the concept. (However the author is clearly sympathetic to atheism, which I imagine will surprise no-one given he has chosen to write on the subject).
Ancient Greece and Rome abounded in myths but had no set sacred texts, and the role of priests was different from that within the monotheistic religions. Priests existed to carry out rituals and sacrifices designed to placate the gods, and they predicted the future by interpreting portents and oracles. Their role as moral enforcers was not as wide ranging as that of clerics during the medieval period. The author argues that this difference fostered the atmosphere of intellectual debate and enquiry for which the ancient Greeks became so famous. This included debate on the nature of the gods, which was quite acceptable, and also on whether they existed at all, which was less so. Most people in ancient Greece still thought that the continued prosperity of society was dependent on the favour of the gods. “Impiety” (asebeia) was a charge that was legally actionable. Socrates was famously forced to commit suicide by drinking hemlock, after being convicted on a charge of “not recognizing the gods of the state”. (I appreciate this was different from full-on atheism).
The above highlights a problem with the source material. If you might be sentenced to death, or even some lesser punishment, for “impiety”, then there is a strong incentive for the impious to keep their opinions to themselves. Even where such views were expressed in writing and survive today, there are always arguments about the precise translations of Greek and Latin words. Lastly, atheists don’t tend to leave an archaeological record – they don’t set up shrines or leave inscriptions as the religious do.
The author provides a convincing case that many of the ancient Greeks minimised the role of the gods. Homer’s emphasis on the gods may be contrasted with Thucydides – apparently the gods play no part in his history of the Peloponnesian War - and Greek philosophers sought scientific explanations for phenomena traditionally associated with the gods. It’s a bit harder to prove that fully atheistic beliefs existed, but he makes a reasonable case for that as well.
I didn’t find this the quickest read, if I am being honest, but it was worthwhile as it has given me an alternative picture of ancient Greece and Rome.
Actually he doesn’t challenge the idea that religion was dominant, but argues that atheism was also an established philosophical position, albeit a minority one. Incidentally the book doesn’t try to argue that atheism is superior to religious belief, rather it attempts to set out the history of the concept. (However the author is clearly sympathetic to atheism, which I imagine will surprise no-one given he has chosen to write on the subject).
Ancient Greece and Rome abounded in myths but had no set sacred texts, and the role of priests was different from that within the monotheistic religions. Priests existed to carry out rituals and sacrifices designed to placate the gods, and they predicted the future by interpreting portents and oracles. Their role as moral enforcers was not as wide ranging as that of clerics during the medieval period. The author argues that this difference fostered the atmosphere of intellectual debate and enquiry for which the ancient Greeks became so famous. This included debate on the nature of the gods, which was quite acceptable, and also on whether they existed at all, which was less so. Most people in ancient Greece still thought that the continued prosperity of society was dependent on the favour of the gods. “Impiety” (asebeia) was a charge that was legally actionable. Socrates was famously forced to commit suicide by drinking hemlock, after being convicted on a charge of “not recognizing the gods of the state”. (I appreciate this was different from full-on atheism).
The above highlights a problem with the source material. If you might be sentenced to death, or even some lesser punishment, for “impiety”, then there is a strong incentive for the impious to keep their opinions to themselves. Even where such views were expressed in writing and survive today, there are always arguments about the precise translations of Greek and Latin words. Lastly, atheists don’t tend to leave an archaeological record – they don’t set up shrines or leave inscriptions as the religious do.
The author provides a convincing case that many of the ancient Greeks minimised the role of the gods. Homer’s emphasis on the gods may be contrasted with Thucydides – apparently the gods play no part in his history of the Peloponnesian War - and Greek philosophers sought scientific explanations for phenomena traditionally associated with the gods. It’s a bit harder to prove that fully atheistic beliefs existed, but he makes a reasonable case for that as well.
I didn’t find this the quickest read, if I am being honest, but it was worthwhile as it has given me an alternative picture of ancient Greece and Rome.
February 4, 2016
Fascinating exploration of the role and relevance of atheism from the time of Homer to the Christianised Roman Empire. Whitmarsh provides a readable and convincing case that atheism was not only evident in, but important to, ways of thinking in the Ancient World. He works chronologically through the extant evidence, primarily textual works of tragedians, philosophers, historians and more, that deal with the form and meaning of the divine in Greece and Rome.
The Greeks had no sacred texts or deterministic rules to follow, works of literature were where contemporaries could debate the human/divine dichotomy. The pluralistic religiosity of Athenian society afforded the cornerstone for a shared culture, but one that could be questioned and tested within the bounds of contemporary discourse. It was this that allowed the pre-Socratic philosophers, such as Anaximander, Xenophanes, and Hippo, to move away from theological explanations for the world around them to more naturalistic and relativistic ones. Most especially, human ones. In Thucydides and Gorgias (Helen), the question of human responsibility and justification is manifest; Whitmarsh calls the History 'the earliest surviving atheist narrative of human history' (location 1287). Thucydides certainly rejected divine motivation or involvement; his History of the Peloponnesian War is a thing of human action and reaction based on power, not religion. My area of my personal interest, Greek tragedy and historiography (Herodotus/Thucydides/Sophocles/Euripides), provided a good deal of evidence for Whitmarsh's argument. I was aware of the ways in which these new forms of literature questioned the role of the gods in society; especially that of direct divine intervention in human affairs, as the punishers of transgressions or the deciders of fate. Yet Whitmarsh made some excellent points about the ways in which theatre could underpin the status quo whilst being a 'safe space in which dangerous religious ideas can be experimented with without causing offence' (location 1602). Therefore it is important that much of the staged action of tragedy, such as Sophocles' Oedipus Sophocles I: Antigone / Oedipus the King / Oedipus at Colonus, is of humans acting outside of divine influence, even if the downfall is, in the end, inevitable. Putting the question of the gods onstage opened it to the whole Athenian community, and demanded an evaluative response from its citizens.
I was surprised that atheism is considered by some to be a modern phenomenon, intrinsic to the post-Enlightenment West. It seems rather more sensible, to me, to understand that there has always been a broad spectrum of belief/disbelief. Perhaps this is a reflection of my own atheism. Or maybe because it is no longer necessarily the case that belief in God/gods is considered 'normal', or even valuable. In this vein, atheism is not now lesser or unnatural, hidden by being outside the normative accounts of society. Instead, the notion of disbelief has been associated in modernity with progress; time, science, and technological innovation being naturally opposed to religious belief. Whitmarsh notes that within the sphere of Greek religiosity, each god was individualised to local culture, meaning that people/environment determined the face of divinity according to their own circumstances/situation. It seems apt that the atheists he presents follow the same pattern, reflecting a diversity and plurality of opinion and explanation on the subject of the divine. The nature of theist discourse is expected to be multifaceted and Whitmarsh accords that same value and interest to atheism.
Many thanks to Tim Whitmarsh, Faber & Faber, and Netgalley for this copy in exchange for an honest review.
The Greeks had no sacred texts or deterministic rules to follow, works of literature were where contemporaries could debate the human/divine dichotomy. The pluralistic religiosity of Athenian society afforded the cornerstone for a shared culture, but one that could be questioned and tested within the bounds of contemporary discourse. It was this that allowed the pre-Socratic philosophers, such as Anaximander, Xenophanes, and Hippo, to move away from theological explanations for the world around them to more naturalistic and relativistic ones. Most especially, human ones. In Thucydides and Gorgias (Helen), the question of human responsibility and justification is manifest; Whitmarsh calls the History 'the earliest surviving atheist narrative of human history' (location 1287). Thucydides certainly rejected divine motivation or involvement; his History of the Peloponnesian War is a thing of human action and reaction based on power, not religion. My area of my personal interest, Greek tragedy and historiography (Herodotus/Thucydides/Sophocles/Euripides), provided a good deal of evidence for Whitmarsh's argument. I was aware of the ways in which these new forms of literature questioned the role of the gods in society; especially that of direct divine intervention in human affairs, as the punishers of transgressions or the deciders of fate. Yet Whitmarsh made some excellent points about the ways in which theatre could underpin the status quo whilst being a 'safe space in which dangerous religious ideas can be experimented with without causing offence' (location 1602). Therefore it is important that much of the staged action of tragedy, such as Sophocles' Oedipus Sophocles I: Antigone / Oedipus the King / Oedipus at Colonus, is of humans acting outside of divine influence, even if the downfall is, in the end, inevitable. Putting the question of the gods onstage opened it to the whole Athenian community, and demanded an evaluative response from its citizens.
I was surprised that atheism is considered by some to be a modern phenomenon, intrinsic to the post-Enlightenment West. It seems rather more sensible, to me, to understand that there has always been a broad spectrum of belief/disbelief. Perhaps this is a reflection of my own atheism. Or maybe because it is no longer necessarily the case that belief in God/gods is considered 'normal', or even valuable. In this vein, atheism is not now lesser or unnatural, hidden by being outside the normative accounts of society. Instead, the notion of disbelief has been associated in modernity with progress; time, science, and technological innovation being naturally opposed to religious belief. Whitmarsh notes that within the sphere of Greek religiosity, each god was individualised to local culture, meaning that people/environment determined the face of divinity according to their own circumstances/situation. It seems apt that the atheists he presents follow the same pattern, reflecting a diversity and plurality of opinion and explanation on the subject of the divine. The nature of theist discourse is expected to be multifaceted and Whitmarsh accords that same value and interest to atheism.
Many thanks to Tim Whitmarsh, Faber & Faber, and Netgalley for this copy in exchange for an honest review.
October 12, 2015
In Battling the Gods Tim Whitmarsh counters the idea that atheism is a new phenomenon, a result of the 18th century European Enlightenment, by using reason, history, and a careful examination of written works from the classical ages of Greece and Rome. Whitmarsh, a professor of Greek Culture at the University of Cambridge, states in the Preface that his book is a work of history and that his goal isn’t to prosthelytize for or against atheism as a philosophical position, and I found that to be true, though he does believe that dismissing atheism as a recent fad can make the persecution of atheists seem like a less serious problem than the persecution of religious minorities.
In the opening chapter Whitmarsh argues convincingly that adopting a skeptical attitude toward miracles or supernatural beings would not be a strange, unheard of position at any time in history, and that there would have always been a spectrum of belief and unbelief. After this initial chapter the book is divided into four sections--Archaic Greece, Classical Athens, The Hellenistic Era, and Rome--and it’s in these that the author delves deeply into the written works of ancient poets, philosophers, historians, and playwrights, looking for evidence of atheism from the time of the pre-Socratic philosophers in early Greece to the rise of Christianity during Constantine’s rule of the Roman Empire.
As a history I found the book fascinating, but because I’m less invested than the author in dissecting texts to discover which particular people from the ancient past may have held atheist views, my interest flagged at times. Obviously the author needed to do these close and considered readings to support his contention that atheism has been around since at least the dawn of history, and considering the scholarly slant and serious subject matter, it’s a highly readable book and far from dry. Like any well written history, more than a few parts are deeply moving--the chapters on the death sentence imposed on Socrates and the long ranging repercussions of that act, for instance.
I read an advanced review copy supplied to me at no cost by the publisher. Review opinions are mine.
In the opening chapter Whitmarsh argues convincingly that adopting a skeptical attitude toward miracles or supernatural beings would not be a strange, unheard of position at any time in history, and that there would have always been a spectrum of belief and unbelief. After this initial chapter the book is divided into four sections--Archaic Greece, Classical Athens, The Hellenistic Era, and Rome--and it’s in these that the author delves deeply into the written works of ancient poets, philosophers, historians, and playwrights, looking for evidence of atheism from the time of the pre-Socratic philosophers in early Greece to the rise of Christianity during Constantine’s rule of the Roman Empire.
As a history I found the book fascinating, but because I’m less invested than the author in dissecting texts to discover which particular people from the ancient past may have held atheist views, my interest flagged at times. Obviously the author needed to do these close and considered readings to support his contention that atheism has been around since at least the dawn of history, and considering the scholarly slant and serious subject matter, it’s a highly readable book and far from dry. Like any well written history, more than a few parts are deeply moving--the chapters on the death sentence imposed on Socrates and the long ranging repercussions of that act, for instance.
I read an advanced review copy supplied to me at no cost by the publisher. Review opinions are mine.
January 25, 2020
A lot duller than I thought it would be when I picked it up.
February 24, 2021
If you have already read some Plutarch, Pluto, Socrates and perhaps even "On the Nature of the Gods" itself then this is a beautiful book to tie thoughts and people/events together during that time period. If you have not then you might learn something about this time period and the nature and variety of thought in the classical era.
May 3, 2024
I was not fully aware of the fact that atheism is widely believed to be an exclusively modern phenomenon. I know that not many people read ancient sources, but come on, what about Petronius in Quo Vadis? Oh well, I guess the movie is now also considered ancient, and the book is hardly recommendable.
Tim Whitmarsh certainly did a great job to dispel those common misconceptions. This book is a great summary of atheistic thought in the times of ancient Greece and Rome. Perhaps at times his interpretations are just a wee bit skewed in favour of atheistic interpretations, especially in the earlier parts of the book, but he admits that the concept of a god is vague and flexible, thus allowing quite a big margin of freedom in interpreting what the ancients may or may not have thought on the subject.
I was particularly pleased with the honours given to the ancient fellow historians: Whitmarsh points out that they were the first to adopt a ‘forensic’ approach most visibly and influentially in their works, excluding any direct divine involvement in human affairs.
I enjoyed reading this book very much. It’s detailed enough but not overly encumbered, the historical background is informative but not overshadowing the main matter, and it’s just easy to read with big words used sparingly and only when necessary!
Tim Whitmarsh certainly did a great job to dispel those common misconceptions. This book is a great summary of atheistic thought in the times of ancient Greece and Rome. Perhaps at times his interpretations are just a wee bit skewed in favour of atheistic interpretations, especially in the earlier parts of the book, but he admits that the concept of a god is vague and flexible, thus allowing quite a big margin of freedom in interpreting what the ancients may or may not have thought on the subject.
I was particularly pleased with the honours given to the ancient fellow historians: Whitmarsh points out that they were the first to adopt a ‘forensic’ approach most visibly and influentially in their works, excluding any direct divine involvement in human affairs.
I enjoyed reading this book very much. It’s detailed enough but not overly encumbered, the historical background is informative but not overshadowing the main matter, and it’s just easy to read with big words used sparingly and only when necessary!
January 23, 2024
As a hardline atheist, I must say this book disappointed me. It rambled for far too long about historical analysis that really had little to do with atheism. Some bits were very insightful. The best example being the section about Epicurus, and about how the Epicureans were the movement that walked so atheism could run. I rather enjoyed that. But there are too many pages consisting of nothing more than rambling in here.
I can't give this a low rating, however. Not enough books like this are written. I wish to see it succeed so that a market can be built and people can educate themselves. Religion is making a very huge comeback these days. This is due to a profound lack of education among younger generations. They really do not know much about anything. And the less you know about Science and History, the more susceptible you are to fairy tales.
But my true rating is likely three stars. It told me too much of what I already knew. I was crossing my fingers for new information.
I can't give this a low rating, however. Not enough books like this are written. I wish to see it succeed so that a market can be built and people can educate themselves. Religion is making a very huge comeback these days. This is due to a profound lack of education among younger generations. They really do not know much about anything. And the less you know about Science and History, the more susceptible you are to fairy tales.
But my true rating is likely three stars. It told me too much of what I already knew. I was crossing my fingers for new information.
April 28, 2016
While this was a bit more of a polemic than I'd anticipated – Whitmarsh claims in his Preface that “it is not my aim to prove the truth (or indeed falsehood) of atheism as a philosophical position,” but he then practically ties himself in knots trying to work out ways in which the most unlikely of the ancients (Sophocles?) might be construed to be atheists – it is, nevertheless, interesting and entertaining. Whitmarsh writes nicely, only occasionally slipping into flippancy or inserting too many popular references (for purposes of illustration) into his history. His quest to “out” the atheists of ancient Greece and Rome, if often unconvincing (and he is honest enough to conclude his discussions, in most cases, with the recognition that the figures he discusses, while unconventional, would generally not qualify as atheists by most modern standards) offers an interesting angle from which to examine a variety of Greek and Roman philosophical and religious positions. 3 1/2 stars, rounded up to 4.
ETA : To clarify, what I mean by “polemic” is that Whitmarsh is working very hard to establish the ancient Greek (and Roman) world as one in which,
Of course, as Socrates, Aristotle, Theodorus of Cyrene, etc.….. discovered, even the ancient Greeks were not consistently open-minded about religious disbelief. Atheism seems to have been “integral” in the ancient world in the sense that questioning the nature and/or interest of the gods was sometimes done. And a few writers openly doubted. But … “integral”?
.
ETA : To clarify, what I mean by “polemic” is that Whitmarsh is working very hard to establish the ancient Greek (and Roman) world as one in which,
“atheism was not treated as a heretical position, the “other” of true belief; it was seen rather as one of the many possible stances one could take on the question of the gods (albeit an extreme one). It was only in Christian late antiquity that atheism began to be constructed in systematically antithetical terms, as the inverse of proper religion, a threat to the very foundations of human civilization. Until that moment – borrowing from Assman, we might speak of “the Christian distinction” – atheism was an integral part of the cultural life of Greece.”
Of course, as Socrates, Aristotle, Theodorus of Cyrene, etc.….. discovered, even the ancient Greeks were not consistently open-minded about religious disbelief. Atheism seems to have been “integral” in the ancient world in the sense that questioning the nature and/or interest of the gods was sometimes done. And a few writers openly doubted. But … “integral”?
.
December 7, 2015
Professor Whitmarsh has brought an erudite and thorough narrative to light in researching a subject that has been seemingly neglected by mainstream historians primarily focused on the story of antiquity. His recent tome, aptly entitled "Battling the Gods; Atheism In the Ancient World" draws on a variety of partial and secondary texts in philosophy, drama and political screeds to highlight the voices of theistic doubt that pervaded the Greek and Roman world environment of pantheism.
Of immediate insight is his deconstruction of the much familiar "Oedipus the King" as a "...world without divine determination" and "the will of the gods does not dictate our lives" angle that highlights the ongoing fate and free will discussion undermining a great deal of the epic stories credited to Homer. And who knew that Diagoras was the first self-described atheist in the Greek world?
In addition, his chapters regarding the famed fate of Socrates as presented to modern readers through his most famous student, Plato deserves commendation. And a thoughtful chapter on the rise of Christianity as Rome floundered reinforces the well known trope of monotheism as an exclusionary religion while pantheism remained inclusionary in nature.
In all, a very welcome and rather concise 242 page reflection on a little known area of ancient understanding. Highly recommended.
Of immediate insight is his deconstruction of the much familiar "Oedipus the King" as a "...world without divine determination" and "the will of the gods does not dictate our lives" angle that highlights the ongoing fate and free will discussion undermining a great deal of the epic stories credited to Homer. And who knew that Diagoras was the first self-described atheist in the Greek world?
In addition, his chapters regarding the famed fate of Socrates as presented to modern readers through his most famous student, Plato deserves commendation. And a thoughtful chapter on the rise of Christianity as Rome floundered reinforces the well known trope of monotheism as an exclusionary religion while pantheism remained inclusionary in nature.
In all, a very welcome and rather concise 242 page reflection on a little known area of ancient understanding. Highly recommended.
April 26, 2020
This is an excellent history of a neglected element in Classical thought and culture - atheism and scepticism about the gods in the Greek and Roman world. Whitmarsh not only manages to present an analysis of this subject from Archaic Greece to the Christian emperors of the fourth century, but he also does so in a way that is highly accessible to the general reader. Each period and movement he discusses is presented with enough historical, social and political background for readers to understand the context of the rest of his discussion and analysis and endnotes give excellent guides for further reading on all key points. Whitmarsh takes care to ensure these summaries don't become glib or overgeneralised. And even those who are very familiar with the periods in question benefit from the judicious way he links his story's chapters together. The transition over time from the the vigorous, varied, highly competitive and necessarily self-reliant poleis of Archaic Greece, with their variety of schools of thought, to the far more centralised, monarchical, monotheistic and ideologically restrictive world of the late Roman Empire is made very clear. And this helps the reader understand the changes in thought over this same period.
Given that this is one of the few histories of ancient unbelief and certainly the most accessible on the subject, the way it pulls together all the various atheist, semi-atheist and otherwise sceptical strands in ancient writings and shows how they interconnected is extremely useful. His primary objective - showing that atheism did not spring fully formed from the writers of the Enlightenment and actually has a deep, ancient pedigree - is definitely achieved. But where the book becomes somewhat frustrating and, at times, less than convincing is where Whitmarsh seems to be stretching the evidence to maximise the picture of ancient atheism's extent and impact. Sometimes this is limited to rather too much use of the words "perhaps" or "maybe". Other times it seems the most "atheist" interpretation of evidence is being emphasised over other readings. Whitmarsh is too careful a scholar to fall into pure speculation in the place of analysis, but in places he seems to veer extremely close to it. So the first time he suggested a thinker (e.g. Plato) was merely pretending to believe in the gods to avoid public disapproval I was happy to let that supposition by. After he had done this several times, however, this gambit began to grate. So Lucretius' claim that Epicurus himself was a god gets read as purely figurative and, on the basis of some very ambiguous evidence, Whitmarsh declares that it is "absolutely clear" that the Epicurians were only pretending to condemn atheism because they were secretly atheists themselves. This is unconvincing stuff.
In a similar vein, scepticism about the Olympian gods or even just some wry mockery of the myths related about them gets equated much too closely with full atheism. In several places the reader is assured that sceptics about "the gods" who expressed, despite this, a belief in "the divine" were "really" talking about nature and not anything actually godlike. An increasing tendency to be sceptical about the more conventional, unintellectual conception of the gods and a corresponding move to a conception of a single divine principle -"the One" in Neoplatonism - is arguably a fairly clear progression from the third century BC onward, but that gets downplayed in Whitmarsh's telling. That Roman Christianity both co-opted this tendency and, at the same time, grew out of it is also pretty clear, but this is barely touched on.
So in the final chapters we are told that on the eve of Constantine's conversion atheism had developed to the point that the Roman Empire stood open to the possibility of "a world that left religions behind", yet when the Constantinian emperors combined their new faith with imperial power, atheism did not even register as a threat to them. In all the laws about heresies, pagan sacrifice and belief folded into the Theodosian Code at the close of the fourth century AD, there is not a single one about atheism or anything like it. Whitmarsh says this is because the new order simply could not conceive of such unbelief, but ignores the more obvious alternative explanation - atheism had always been a fringe idea and so was simply not important enough to proscribe.
So this is a highly enjoyable, extremely interesting and very useful book. Even when its arguments seem strained, it remains reasonable if not always wholly convincing. All else aside, it is definitely a book I know I will be returning to many times to consult and re-read, which is always a sign of book that has made a valuable contribution.
Given that this is one of the few histories of ancient unbelief and certainly the most accessible on the subject, the way it pulls together all the various atheist, semi-atheist and otherwise sceptical strands in ancient writings and shows how they interconnected is extremely useful. His primary objective - showing that atheism did not spring fully formed from the writers of the Enlightenment and actually has a deep, ancient pedigree - is definitely achieved. But where the book becomes somewhat frustrating and, at times, less than convincing is where Whitmarsh seems to be stretching the evidence to maximise the picture of ancient atheism's extent and impact. Sometimes this is limited to rather too much use of the words "perhaps" or "maybe". Other times it seems the most "atheist" interpretation of evidence is being emphasised over other readings. Whitmarsh is too careful a scholar to fall into pure speculation in the place of analysis, but in places he seems to veer extremely close to it. So the first time he suggested a thinker (e.g. Plato) was merely pretending to believe in the gods to avoid public disapproval I was happy to let that supposition by. After he had done this several times, however, this gambit began to grate. So Lucretius' claim that Epicurus himself was a god gets read as purely figurative and, on the basis of some very ambiguous evidence, Whitmarsh declares that it is "absolutely clear" that the Epicurians were only pretending to condemn atheism because they were secretly atheists themselves. This is unconvincing stuff.
In a similar vein, scepticism about the Olympian gods or even just some wry mockery of the myths related about them gets equated much too closely with full atheism. In several places the reader is assured that sceptics about "the gods" who expressed, despite this, a belief in "the divine" were "really" talking about nature and not anything actually godlike. An increasing tendency to be sceptical about the more conventional, unintellectual conception of the gods and a corresponding move to a conception of a single divine principle -"the One" in Neoplatonism - is arguably a fairly clear progression from the third century BC onward, but that gets downplayed in Whitmarsh's telling. That Roman Christianity both co-opted this tendency and, at the same time, grew out of it is also pretty clear, but this is barely touched on.
So in the final chapters we are told that on the eve of Constantine's conversion atheism had developed to the point that the Roman Empire stood open to the possibility of "a world that left religions behind", yet when the Constantinian emperors combined their new faith with imperial power, atheism did not even register as a threat to them. In all the laws about heresies, pagan sacrifice and belief folded into the Theodosian Code at the close of the fourth century AD, there is not a single one about atheism or anything like it. Whitmarsh says this is because the new order simply could not conceive of such unbelief, but ignores the more obvious alternative explanation - atheism had always been a fringe idea and so was simply not important enough to proscribe.
So this is a highly enjoyable, extremely interesting and very useful book. Even when its arguments seem strained, it remains reasonable if not always wholly convincing. All else aside, it is definitely a book I know I will be returning to many times to consult and re-read, which is always a sign of book that has made a valuable contribution.
February 20, 2016
An excellent portrayal of atheism in antiquity covering more than a thousand years of free thinking and disbelief. The author wishes to prove that the rise of atheism as it evolved in the last two centuries is not a phenomenon of the modern era, and he does so by exploring writings of several ancient scholars, philosophers and scientists. The ancient Greeks had no sacred texts, no particular moral codes invested in religion, while priests and priestesses were there only for the occasional rituals and sacrifices. So the circumstances favored philosophical debate, doubt, even open challenge of the nature of divinity. Atheists were often frowned upon but were rarely prosecuted (see Anaxagoras or the trial of Socrates). Tragedy was one of the most successful vehicles in order to disapprove of the gods' right to intervene into human affairs, especially the plays by Sophocles and Euripides (I personally find Aeschylus more pious). A mass audience had the chance to familiarize with atheistic and agnostic beliefs through a popular spectacle such as the tragedy.
Extremely interesting subject, well-written/researched and the use of a smooth understandable language makes it even more appealing to the untrained reader.
Many thanks to Faber & Faber Ltd and Netgalley for providing a copy of this wonderful book in exchange for an honest review.
Recommended reading:
In English
Antigone / Oedipus the King / Electra
The Trojan Women
The Trial and Death of Socrates
The Epicurus Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia
Natural History: A Selection
In Greek
Σοφιστές 1: Πρωταγόρας, Ξενιάδης, Γοργίας, Λυκόφρων, Πρόδικος, Θρασύμαχος, Ιππίας
Επίκουρος: Κείμενα και πηγές της Επικούρειας φιλοσοφίας
Extremely interesting subject, well-written/researched and the use of a smooth understandable language makes it even more appealing to the untrained reader.
Many thanks to Faber & Faber Ltd and Netgalley for providing a copy of this wonderful book in exchange for an honest review.
Recommended reading:
In English
Antigone / Oedipus the King / Electra
The Trojan Women
The Trial and Death of Socrates
The Epicurus Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia
Natural History: A Selection
In Greek
Σοφιστές 1: Πρωταγόρας, Ξενιάδης, Γοργίας, Λυκόφρων, Πρόδικος, Θρασύμαχος, Ιππίας
Επίκουρος: Κείμενα και πηγές της Επικούρειας φιλοσοφίας
May 21, 2023
This was an excellent work on the history of atheism and religion in the ancient Greek world as a whole. Pulling from ancient sources such as scrolls, inscriptions, even ancient plays, Whitmarsh effectively shows that a healthy dose of skepticism in the gods and the supernatural is not a recent development, and has existed since ancient times. He uncovers that those who followed that path were actually called atheoi, from which our word atheism is derived.
He tracks the history of it's evolution from an alternative philosophical belief, to an offense punishable by law, to an offense punishable by death under Christianity. Along the way, he gives invaluable insight into how ancient Greeks viewed religion and incorporated it into their culture, and how it evolved over time as political entities became more or less powerful.
As an avid lover of ancient Greek history, this work was exceptional on so many levels. Tim Whitmarsh makes a compelling case and I think anyone looking to explore the role of religion, philosophy, and atheism in the ancient world would be spellbound by this book.
He tracks the history of it's evolution from an alternative philosophical belief, to an offense punishable by law, to an offense punishable by death under Christianity. Along the way, he gives invaluable insight into how ancient Greeks viewed religion and incorporated it into their culture, and how it evolved over time as political entities became more or less powerful.
As an avid lover of ancient Greek history, this work was exceptional on so many levels. Tim Whitmarsh makes a compelling case and I think anyone looking to explore the role of religion, philosophy, and atheism in the ancient world would be spellbound by this book.
May 3, 2020
Whatever Whitmarsh's actual credentials, it's extremely obvious he spent way too much time interacting with online atheists in like 2007. I'm loath to hold that in itself against him—I was, after all, one of those atheists, and so were most of my closest friends—but the sheer volume of shibboleths in this book, which came out in 2016 (!), does get painful at times. When he mentions Russell's teapot and starts calling people "theists" (which actually took much longer than I thought it would!) it's awkward; when he lists Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris as examples of famous contemporary atheist public intellectuals (why leave out Dennett? not racist enough?) it's embarrassing; and when it becomes apparent that, despite his repeated insistence that we separate the Greek conception of their gods from the Christian conception of theirs, he has real difficulty not thinking of any religion as fundamentally Protestant (which is usually a disingenuous theist meme) it becomes problematic.
In the most generous reading I'll grant that Whitmarsh successfully outlines a broad history of religious scepticism in Greek philosophical thought, and demonstrates that Ancient Greece was more tolerant of diversity of opinion on the matter than many later European societies. I don't think he manages to identify any actual atheists in the sense that he's using the word, and many of his conclusions depend on clear overreadings of source material. His credibility isn't helped any by some surprising apparent gaps in his knowledge (especially when it comes to Bronze and Dark Age Greece, which, to be fair, aren't really the subject of the book) and fundamental errors (like calling both Homeric and Attic Greek Ionic), but we'll blame that on philologists being neither historians nor linguists, but less than either.
Whitmarsh got some big names in British classicism to endorse his book, including Mary Beard, Peter Jones, and (heart-breakingly) Emily Wilson, but all that did is lower my opinion of those people (except for Peter Jones, who was already at zero).
In the most generous reading I'll grant that Whitmarsh successfully outlines a broad history of religious scepticism in Greek philosophical thought, and demonstrates that Ancient Greece was more tolerant of diversity of opinion on the matter than many later European societies. I don't think he manages to identify any actual atheists in the sense that he's using the word, and many of his conclusions depend on clear overreadings of source material. His credibility isn't helped any by some surprising apparent gaps in his knowledge (especially when it comes to Bronze and Dark Age Greece, which, to be fair, aren't really the subject of the book) and fundamental errors (like calling both Homeric and Attic Greek Ionic), but we'll blame that on philologists being neither historians nor linguists, but less than either.
Whitmarsh got some big names in British classicism to endorse his book, including Mary Beard, Peter Jones, and (heart-breakingly) Emily Wilson, but all that did is lower my opinion of those people (except for Peter Jones, who was already at zero).
May 3, 2017
This is an extremely well-written and easily accessible to the general reader book about atheism in the world of classical antiquity. The one suggestion I would make to the reader is that it may be handy to take notes or create an outline as one is reading the book, to keep philosophical schools' membership and general beliefs handy (although it's not that complicated to remember the main points, it could help in terms of referring back to the belief systems later).
Consider classical antiquity in general. The book deals of course with classical Greece and Rome - both had no scriptures, and polytheistic religion in the pre-Christian world was flexible, allowing new deities to be worshiped, local cults, and so forth. Greece of course consisted of hundreds of independent city-states and although all Greeks shared some things in common including of course the pantheon, cities might be identified with local deities (as Athens with Athena). There was a cycle of religious festivals, which provided an excuse for pageants, animal sacrifice at the temples, and feasting. The books considered closest to being sacred, were the Homeric poems. Hesiod too wrote about the gods. But, in general, there was no hard and fast piety requirement, and so with the rise of philosophical speculation with the pre-Socratics, it was possible to speculate about what constituted divinity, as much as it was possible to think about the nature of matter, the origin of the universe and so forth. Unfortunately, the period of speculation, which continued of course after the time of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus and later thinkers (Stoics, Cynics, and so forth) ended in 380 AD with the Theodosian edicts that imposed Catholic piety in the Roman Empire and explicitly stated that anyone who did not adhere to the Nicene Creed and the imperially endorsed Christian theology, must be banished from cities. Various other stringent regulations were implemented - perhaps unsurprisingly as various Christian "heresies" had arisen within the Roman empire and so, in addition to the difficulty of keeping a far-flung multi ethnic empire together, religion was no longer "standardized" although prior to the adoption of Christianity as the State religion, as noted above, there wasn't much "strictness" to polytheism, and at first, Christianity was seen as yet another Eastern religious cult. The difference with monotheistic Christianity was its explosive growth over the course of the 4th Century - perhaps in response to the turbulence and uncertainty within the Roman Empire. It's possible adherents were attracted to the doctrine that promised an afterlife and so forth, since life seemed so uncertain.
This is a brief review of a very fine volume of classics research and scholarship. It takes what may seem a daunting subject and turns it into a fun read, as the reader finds out about philological detection work, including the discovery of papyri, some preserved by the volcanic explosion at Pompeii and the decades it sometimes take to piece together papyrus fragments, and then further decades of scholarship, theories to fit the texts into a literary-historical context. So much was lost - perhaps unsurprisingly considering the strict crackdown by Christian Rome on all things "pagan" - but enough has remained that intellectual trends can be recreated. There was of course no way that thinkers or philosophers Empire-wide could easily communicate but there were some popular books (or whatever books were like in those days - most likely scrolls, I suppose) that referred to discussions and schools of thought - it can be reconstructed what was perhaps common knowledge or well-known among educated people in classical antiquity, from what was assumed the reader already knew. Much of the writings of the ancients has been lost, but there is still quite a bit extant - it is fascinating to read about the origin of classic arguments vs. the existence of the gods, or the god, and how various philosophical schools dealt with the question of the existence or non-existence of a divinity or divinities. Socrates wasn't the only philosopher persecuted for his thoughts - but it was quite rare for one of them to pay the ultimate price for his philosophical discussions. Still, there is an indelible impression that communities in Greece in pre-Christian as much as in Christian times, used religion/piety as a shared belief system to foster social cohesion, seen as vital to survival given the tendency of the various city-states to enter into armed conflict. Also, as very often tiny city-states they might be subject to conquest by larger political entities - if religion (whether or not it was actually "true") could help foster group identity and solidarity, it would be considered useful. Anyone who questioned the existence of the founding stories, or how the gods might intervene to help a city-state, and so forth, might be suspect. There were a number of brilliant philosophers who were definitely millennia ahead of their time in having hit upon for example atomic theory, others, whose ideas are only known to us from references in the works of later thinkers, thought materialism rather than supernatural explanations was the most reasonable explanation for meteorological phenomena like thunder or lightning. Thunder and lightning was not caused by Zeus, and they tried to offer rational explanations for what they saw around them in nature. The hallmark of many of these thinkers, was questioning received theory, using experimental/observational means to confirm theories (hypotheses) thus empirical thought (empirical relates to the work for experience or directly seeing the results of an experiment). It was technically impossible for them to know they had stumbled on many correct explanations since technologically advanced optical instruments had not yet been invented, nor were there the advancements in materials that would allow the production of precision tools that could be used to make observations of experimental findings. They did not seem to want to apply their theories to practical uses, and probably felt on some level, that the way things were, they would always be - in fact, things did essentially stay the same for many years in their corner of the world, so they were not too far wrong.
I think, although my review is rather awkward and disjointed, the general message of the book is that although most people in the Greco-Roman world were at least superficially religious or pious, there was no set or imposed piety, and there was quite a bit of flexibility in terms of worshiping various deities, joining mystery cults, adopting the worship of imported deities, and so forth. Religion was more like a smorgasbord of belief - and perhaps that created an acceptance of skepticism about the nature of divinity. Various works were produced that presented arguments that demolished the common perception of what the gods were, what existed before the god created the universe, do the gods really care about mankind, and why should the gods help man if he sacrifices to them - as if religion is a way of bribing a deity. It evidently wasn't too uncommon to not take religion too seriously. This changed with the adoption of Christianity as the State religion of the Roman Empire in the 4th Century - as not only were the polytheistic belief systems banished, but efforts made to standardize Christian belief across the Roman world. Unfortunately, the effort failed as Christianity fragmented into various sects in late antiquity - it is possible Rome or Byzantium was seen as "oppressive" by communities in the Mid-East, Egypt, and N. Africa, some of whom adopted Christian "heresies" that also possibly had nationalistic overtones such that they were unique to those specific areas; the resentment the Christians in these areas may have felt toward Byzantium because of centuries of religious conflict, might have led some to welcome the coming of Islam, thinking the new Arabic rulers might be more tolerant to their particular form of Christianity, perhaps more tolerant that the prior Roman rulers. The book actually ends with Theodosius edicts in the 4th Century - but the message is that all three monotheistic religions in general were not as tolerant of atheism or variations in piety, as ancient polytheism. I think this is a fair enough assessment - bolstered by the author pointing out that religion had not been a reason to go to war, prior to the advent of the monotheistic religions. Religious intolerance seems to be linked to the monotheistic faiths - as opposed to the much looser religious belief system under polytheism. Probably this has something to do with the fact that each monotheistic religion has a set holy scripture, whereas polytheism did not (other than texts like the revered Homeric poems - but they weren't actually religious in nature). Why was polytheism in Greece and Rome much looser than Christianity - was it because Imperial Rome or the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire) resorted to a completely controlling sort of religion, headed up by the Emperor, in order to ensure greater group cohesion, as a means of social control because of incessant external threats? The philosophical school, much intellectual life, effectively ended with the Theodosian rulings, but of course there were Christian theological thinkers and philosophers afterwards as well. The adoption of Christianity as the Roman Empire's official religion didn't end all intellectual inquiry; however, there was a tendency to accept the explanations of cosmology (for example) that appear in the Bible - such that it was, a thousand or more years later, truly a struggle for scientists to safely disagree with Biblical explanations of the origin of the universe, how life on Earth came to be, and so forth. Yet, it was based on the scientific reasoning and experimentation of these brave thinkers, that mankind was freed from the shackles of ignorance. Mankind's existence was helped infinitely by scientific advancement - but scientific advancement only became possible when scientists refused to accept the Biblical explanations for natural phenomena, creation theory, and so forth.
Consider classical antiquity in general. The book deals of course with classical Greece and Rome - both had no scriptures, and polytheistic religion in the pre-Christian world was flexible, allowing new deities to be worshiped, local cults, and so forth. Greece of course consisted of hundreds of independent city-states and although all Greeks shared some things in common including of course the pantheon, cities might be identified with local deities (as Athens with Athena). There was a cycle of religious festivals, which provided an excuse for pageants, animal sacrifice at the temples, and feasting. The books considered closest to being sacred, were the Homeric poems. Hesiod too wrote about the gods. But, in general, there was no hard and fast piety requirement, and so with the rise of philosophical speculation with the pre-Socratics, it was possible to speculate about what constituted divinity, as much as it was possible to think about the nature of matter, the origin of the universe and so forth. Unfortunately, the period of speculation, which continued of course after the time of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus and later thinkers (Stoics, Cynics, and so forth) ended in 380 AD with the Theodosian edicts that imposed Catholic piety in the Roman Empire and explicitly stated that anyone who did not adhere to the Nicene Creed and the imperially endorsed Christian theology, must be banished from cities. Various other stringent regulations were implemented - perhaps unsurprisingly as various Christian "heresies" had arisen within the Roman empire and so, in addition to the difficulty of keeping a far-flung multi ethnic empire together, religion was no longer "standardized" although prior to the adoption of Christianity as the State religion, as noted above, there wasn't much "strictness" to polytheism, and at first, Christianity was seen as yet another Eastern religious cult. The difference with monotheistic Christianity was its explosive growth over the course of the 4th Century - perhaps in response to the turbulence and uncertainty within the Roman Empire. It's possible adherents were attracted to the doctrine that promised an afterlife and so forth, since life seemed so uncertain.
This is a brief review of a very fine volume of classics research and scholarship. It takes what may seem a daunting subject and turns it into a fun read, as the reader finds out about philological detection work, including the discovery of papyri, some preserved by the volcanic explosion at Pompeii and the decades it sometimes take to piece together papyrus fragments, and then further decades of scholarship, theories to fit the texts into a literary-historical context. So much was lost - perhaps unsurprisingly considering the strict crackdown by Christian Rome on all things "pagan" - but enough has remained that intellectual trends can be recreated. There was of course no way that thinkers or philosophers Empire-wide could easily communicate but there were some popular books (or whatever books were like in those days - most likely scrolls, I suppose) that referred to discussions and schools of thought - it can be reconstructed what was perhaps common knowledge or well-known among educated people in classical antiquity, from what was assumed the reader already knew. Much of the writings of the ancients has been lost, but there is still quite a bit extant - it is fascinating to read about the origin of classic arguments vs. the existence of the gods, or the god, and how various philosophical schools dealt with the question of the existence or non-existence of a divinity or divinities. Socrates wasn't the only philosopher persecuted for his thoughts - but it was quite rare for one of them to pay the ultimate price for his philosophical discussions. Still, there is an indelible impression that communities in Greece in pre-Christian as much as in Christian times, used religion/piety as a shared belief system to foster social cohesion, seen as vital to survival given the tendency of the various city-states to enter into armed conflict. Also, as very often tiny city-states they might be subject to conquest by larger political entities - if religion (whether or not it was actually "true") could help foster group identity and solidarity, it would be considered useful. Anyone who questioned the existence of the founding stories, or how the gods might intervene to help a city-state, and so forth, might be suspect. There were a number of brilliant philosophers who were definitely millennia ahead of their time in having hit upon for example atomic theory, others, whose ideas are only known to us from references in the works of later thinkers, thought materialism rather than supernatural explanations was the most reasonable explanation for meteorological phenomena like thunder or lightning. Thunder and lightning was not caused by Zeus, and they tried to offer rational explanations for what they saw around them in nature. The hallmark of many of these thinkers, was questioning received theory, using experimental/observational means to confirm theories (hypotheses) thus empirical thought (empirical relates to the work for experience or directly seeing the results of an experiment). It was technically impossible for them to know they had stumbled on many correct explanations since technologically advanced optical instruments had not yet been invented, nor were there the advancements in materials that would allow the production of precision tools that could be used to make observations of experimental findings. They did not seem to want to apply their theories to practical uses, and probably felt on some level, that the way things were, they would always be - in fact, things did essentially stay the same for many years in their corner of the world, so they were not too far wrong.
I think, although my review is rather awkward and disjointed, the general message of the book is that although most people in the Greco-Roman world were at least superficially religious or pious, there was no set or imposed piety, and there was quite a bit of flexibility in terms of worshiping various deities, joining mystery cults, adopting the worship of imported deities, and so forth. Religion was more like a smorgasbord of belief - and perhaps that created an acceptance of skepticism about the nature of divinity. Various works were produced that presented arguments that demolished the common perception of what the gods were, what existed before the god created the universe, do the gods really care about mankind, and why should the gods help man if he sacrifices to them - as if religion is a way of bribing a deity. It evidently wasn't too uncommon to not take religion too seriously. This changed with the adoption of Christianity as the State religion of the Roman Empire in the 4th Century - as not only were the polytheistic belief systems banished, but efforts made to standardize Christian belief across the Roman world. Unfortunately, the effort failed as Christianity fragmented into various sects in late antiquity - it is possible Rome or Byzantium was seen as "oppressive" by communities in the Mid-East, Egypt, and N. Africa, some of whom adopted Christian "heresies" that also possibly had nationalistic overtones such that they were unique to those specific areas; the resentment the Christians in these areas may have felt toward Byzantium because of centuries of religious conflict, might have led some to welcome the coming of Islam, thinking the new Arabic rulers might be more tolerant to their particular form of Christianity, perhaps more tolerant that the prior Roman rulers. The book actually ends with Theodosius edicts in the 4th Century - but the message is that all three monotheistic religions in general were not as tolerant of atheism or variations in piety, as ancient polytheism. I think this is a fair enough assessment - bolstered by the author pointing out that religion had not been a reason to go to war, prior to the advent of the monotheistic religions. Religious intolerance seems to be linked to the monotheistic faiths - as opposed to the much looser religious belief system under polytheism. Probably this has something to do with the fact that each monotheistic religion has a set holy scripture, whereas polytheism did not (other than texts like the revered Homeric poems - but they weren't actually religious in nature). Why was polytheism in Greece and Rome much looser than Christianity - was it because Imperial Rome or the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire) resorted to a completely controlling sort of religion, headed up by the Emperor, in order to ensure greater group cohesion, as a means of social control because of incessant external threats? The philosophical school, much intellectual life, effectively ended with the Theodosian rulings, but of course there were Christian theological thinkers and philosophers afterwards as well. The adoption of Christianity as the Roman Empire's official religion didn't end all intellectual inquiry; however, there was a tendency to accept the explanations of cosmology (for example) that appear in the Bible - such that it was, a thousand or more years later, truly a struggle for scientists to safely disagree with Biblical explanations of the origin of the universe, how life on Earth came to be, and so forth. Yet, it was based on the scientific reasoning and experimentation of these brave thinkers, that mankind was freed from the shackles of ignorance. Mankind's existence was helped infinitely by scientific advancement - but scientific advancement only became possible when scientists refused to accept the Biblical explanations for natural phenomena, creation theory, and so forth.
January 19, 2021
أكره أن أقيم كتاب بثلاث نجمات، لكن هذا الكتاب لم استمتع به وأنا أقرأه فلا يستحق أربع وخمس نجمات، ولكن بالمقابل الكتاب ليس سيء لكي يحصل على تقييم سيء، لذلك هذ الكتاب ليس جيد وليس سيء عندي على الأقل!
عنوان الكتاب يختصر الموضوع الذي يناقشه المؤلف فالمؤلف يرى أن الإلحاد ليس وليد العصر الحديث مع الثورة العلمية، ولكن يوجد ملحدين كثر في العصر القديم. ثم المؤلف يناقش الأفكار الإلحادية التي كانت منتشرة بين الإغريق والرومان قبل المسيح عليه السلام ويناقش أشهر الملاحدة في ذلك الزمن. ما لم يعجبني بالكتاب هو التفاصيل الكثرة والبعيدة عن مزاجي والتي أثقلت علي قراءته.
الغريب أن هناك من يرى أن الإلحاد ظاهرة جديدة والمؤلف لم يناقش انتشار هذه الرؤيا فهو يأخذها على محمل الجد لدرجة أنه ألف كتاب لتفنيدها!
عنوان الكتاب يختصر الموضوع الذي يناقشه المؤلف فالمؤلف يرى أن الإلحاد ليس وليد العصر الحديث مع الثورة العلمية، ولكن يوجد ملحدين كثر في العصر القديم. ثم المؤلف يناقش الأفكار الإلحادية التي كانت منتشرة بين الإغريق والرومان قبل المسيح عليه السلام ويناقش أشهر الملاحدة في ذلك الزمن. ما لم يعجبني بالكتاب هو التفاصيل الكثرة والبعيدة عن مزاجي والتي أثقلت علي قراءته.
الغريب أن هناك من يرى أن الإلحاد ظاهرة جديدة والمؤلف لم يناقش انتشار هذه الرؤيا فهو يأخذها على محمل الجد لدرجة أنه ألف كتاب لتفنيدها!
April 7, 2016
Battling the Gods meets its design, which, according to the author "...is for a broad readership...it deals with a millennium of history in a small compass and cannot be comprehensive." I will be more critical: in 242 pages there is room enough only for a summary historical sketch, elaborating only when necessary to connect all the mentioned people and ideas into some topical thread. I get the feeling the author had written a larger book that was severely cut down for publication.
Tim Whitmarsh is a professor of Greek culture at the University of Cambridge and not surprisingly the chapters on Greek religion and atheism are well done, but not nearly detailed enough. Much of the material -- the mythological, theological, and philosophical ideas of all the usual Greek characters from Homer, through the "Anaxims," Xenophanes, Herodotus, Protagoras, etc., up to Socrates, Aristotle, and Epicurus -- has, of course, been covered elsewhere by innumerable authors for centuries, and has been taught to most college students. What Whitmarsh adds, however, is a particular focus on atheism, or, as he calls it, "battling the gods," which does make the material worth sifting through, at least, to locate the new matter. But because of the few pages he has to cover all this, it often appears simply as a elucidation of names and ideas, formatted into paragraphs, a form which is the shallowest kind of history.
After using 193 pages (78%) of the book on the Greeks, only 50 pages are given to the Romans! This was the major failure of the book. Whitmarsh's main thesis is that atheism in Greece existed in interconnected pockets, and was influential enough as such, but in Rome grew to something much larger, eventually enraging the Christians by being an example of any belief system which was not Christian. The Theodosian Code was promulgated in the Fifth Century AD directly as a result of this. It defined Catholic Christianity in opposition to every other belief. As Whitmarsh states correctly, "The arrival of Catholic Christianity--Christianity conjoined with imperial power--meant the end of ancient atheism in the West. Once it had been established that the paradigm of true versus false religion was the only one that mattered, there was nowhere to place atheism on the map." Yes, he rises to his subject in the Roman chapters, but they are much, much too short.
I picked up Battling the Gods as an accessory to Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire which I'm reading now. They dovetail, chronologically, quite well, but especially in the light of Gibbon's great work, Whitmarsh's was insufficient.
The last word goes to Whitmarsh:
"The apparent rise of atheism in the last two centuries [c. 1800-now], however, is not a historical anomaly; viewed from the longer perspective of ancient history, what is anomalous is the global dominance of monotheistic religions and the resultant inability to acknowledge the existence of disbelievers."
Tim Whitmarsh is a professor of Greek culture at the University of Cambridge and not surprisingly the chapters on Greek religion and atheism are well done, but not nearly detailed enough. Much of the material -- the mythological, theological, and philosophical ideas of all the usual Greek characters from Homer, through the "Anaxims," Xenophanes, Herodotus, Protagoras, etc., up to Socrates, Aristotle, and Epicurus -- has, of course, been covered elsewhere by innumerable authors for centuries, and has been taught to most college students. What Whitmarsh adds, however, is a particular focus on atheism, or, as he calls it, "battling the gods," which does make the material worth sifting through, at least, to locate the new matter. But because of the few pages he has to cover all this, it often appears simply as a elucidation of names and ideas, formatted into paragraphs, a form which is the shallowest kind of history.
After using 193 pages (78%) of the book on the Greeks, only 50 pages are given to the Romans! This was the major failure of the book. Whitmarsh's main thesis is that atheism in Greece existed in interconnected pockets, and was influential enough as such, but in Rome grew to something much larger, eventually enraging the Christians by being an example of any belief system which was not Christian. The Theodosian Code was promulgated in the Fifth Century AD directly as a result of this. It defined Catholic Christianity in opposition to every other belief. As Whitmarsh states correctly, "The arrival of Catholic Christianity--Christianity conjoined with imperial power--meant the end of ancient atheism in the West. Once it had been established that the paradigm of true versus false religion was the only one that mattered, there was nowhere to place atheism on the map." Yes, he rises to his subject in the Roman chapters, but they are much, much too short.
I picked up Battling the Gods as an accessory to Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire which I'm reading now. They dovetail, chronologically, quite well, but especially in the light of Gibbon's great work, Whitmarsh's was insufficient.
The last word goes to Whitmarsh:
"The apparent rise of atheism in the last two centuries [c. 1800-now], however, is not a historical anomaly; viewed from the longer perspective of ancient history, what is anomalous is the global dominance of monotheistic religions and the resultant inability to acknowledge the existence of disbelievers."
November 10, 2016
I enjoyed the reading of the book, and couldn't put it down. I gobbled it up surprisingly quickly, voraciously, because it is written in a very engaging style that immerses you in the ancient history of ideas. But you should know a few things about it before you judge whether you want to read it:
1) It is streamlined and clearly written for a lay audience. It rushes through hundreds of years of Greek and Roman (and a bit of Christian) history, and it is impossible to tell the whole story in only 200+ pages. Some chapters feel a bit too wikipedia-ish or college course-ish to my taste.
2) Despite the name, it doesn't stray out of the Western Classical context. In fact, it treats history as a linear path from Homer to today. As such, the title "Ancient World" is a bit of a misnomer, because there have been many ancient civilizations outside of Europe, which would have deserved a look. The worlds of ancient India and China, for example, would have provided wonderful comparative material, because the notion of divinity was differently construed in those societies, and many non-Western religions actively disbelieved in personal deities. But Whitmarsh only makes passing references to non-European contexts. This is fine as it is, but should be noted.
3) Rather than treating atheism as a topic of purely intellectual and philosophical nature, the act of disbelief is painted in the context of the positive beliefs, common practices and political environments of the times. This is a valid approach. But the end result is that a lot of the chapters deal more about cultural history, or religious schisms, than atheism and agnosticism per se. So, reading about the Church's imposition of the Nicene Creed - or about the complex political machinations of Roman Emperors - is interesting and fun, for sure, but only tangentially related to the topic of atheism, and often told in a way that doesn't shed any new light on well-known events.
The book is a valid attempt to trace the early history of atheism. But its interpretation of the various statements made by the ancient thinkers, and of the world views underlying them, is often superficial, or, when original, contentious. There is, then, still an unrequited calling for a massive compendium of ancient atheism, or something a bit more scholarly, to give us the full picture.
But, scholarly shortcomings aside, different standards apply for "edutainment" books like this, i.e. "mid-brow" non-fiction books. They are to be judged by how well they convey complex historical and philosophical questions to an intelligent lay audience; and in this mission Whitmarsh's book is an exceptionally engaging and polished work. It feels like a screenplay of a really exciting movie.
The most curious thing about this movie, where Socrates is killed, and where divinities populate the imagination of humanity, is that we are still actors in it, playing the same drama. Atheism, despite the best efforts of many intelligent people, has not become universal, nor religion nullified. Yet.
1) It is streamlined and clearly written for a lay audience. It rushes through hundreds of years of Greek and Roman (and a bit of Christian) history, and it is impossible to tell the whole story in only 200+ pages. Some chapters feel a bit too wikipedia-ish or college course-ish to my taste.
2) Despite the name, it doesn't stray out of the Western Classical context. In fact, it treats history as a linear path from Homer to today. As such, the title "Ancient World" is a bit of a misnomer, because there have been many ancient civilizations outside of Europe, which would have deserved a look. The worlds of ancient India and China, for example, would have provided wonderful comparative material, because the notion of divinity was differently construed in those societies, and many non-Western religions actively disbelieved in personal deities. But Whitmarsh only makes passing references to non-European contexts. This is fine as it is, but should be noted.
3) Rather than treating atheism as a topic of purely intellectual and philosophical nature, the act of disbelief is painted in the context of the positive beliefs, common practices and political environments of the times. This is a valid approach. But the end result is that a lot of the chapters deal more about cultural history, or religious schisms, than atheism and agnosticism per se. So, reading about the Church's imposition of the Nicene Creed - or about the complex political machinations of Roman Emperors - is interesting and fun, for sure, but only tangentially related to the topic of atheism, and often told in a way that doesn't shed any new light on well-known events.
The book is a valid attempt to trace the early history of atheism. But its interpretation of the various statements made by the ancient thinkers, and of the world views underlying them, is often superficial, or, when original, contentious. There is, then, still an unrequited calling for a massive compendium of ancient atheism, or something a bit more scholarly, to give us the full picture.
But, scholarly shortcomings aside, different standards apply for "edutainment" books like this, i.e. "mid-brow" non-fiction books. They are to be judged by how well they convey complex historical and philosophical questions to an intelligent lay audience; and in this mission Whitmarsh's book is an exceptionally engaging and polished work. It feels like a screenplay of a really exciting movie.
The most curious thing about this movie, where Socrates is killed, and where divinities populate the imagination of humanity, is that we are still actors in it, playing the same drama. Atheism, despite the best efforts of many intelligent people, has not become universal, nor religion nullified. Yet.
November 11, 2020
Tim Whitmarsh is the A. G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at the University of Cambridge. He has written extensively about ancient Greek literature, particularly about ancient Greek novels and the Second Sophistic. It's clear from reading Battling the Gods that Whitmarsh knows what he is talking about. The book is extremely well-written and he does an excellent job of bringing attention to sources that have often been overlooked pertaining to various forms of religious skepticism, including atheism, in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds.
Unfortunately, there are several serious problems with the book from a historical angle. The biggest problem is already apparent in the subtitle of the book. Quite simply, Whitmarsh seems to construe nearly every ancient writer who ever expressed any kind of skeptical opinion about any kind of religious notion as an "atheist" in the modern sense of the word, even though most of these people clearly believed in deities of some kind.
For instance, in chapter twelve, he talks about Epicurus, who explicitly denied being an atheist and, in his Letter to Menoikeus, explicitly instructs his followers to believe in the existence of deities. Whitmarsh acknowledges all this, but he immediately goes on to argue (without any substantial evidence) that maybe Epicurus really, secretly was an atheist and that he only publicly denied being an atheist because he was afraid of being persecuted. I don't find this attempt to weasel around Epicurus's own words very convincing.
Equally problematic is Whitmarsh's assertion (found on page 230 of my edition) that, immediately prior to Constantine I's conversion to Christianity, the Roman Empire was on the brink of abandoning religion altogether and becoming a fully secular society. This assessment is not supported by any of the evidence that Whitmarsh presents in the book.
Even at best, all Whitmarsh manages to show is that a small handful of elite intellectuals in the Roman Empire were atheists and a somewhat larger number of elite intellectuals were skeptical about certain religious ideas. This does not in any way translate to mean that the Roman Empire was on the brink of "leaving religion behind" (as Whitmarsh puts it). Indeed, anyone who has studied this period of late antiquity will be well aware of the fact that the vast majority of people in the Roman Empire still believed in the Greek and Roman deities in some form or another and most of those who did not believe in these deities believed in other deities, such as the Judeo-Christian God.
Overall, I'm glad I read the book, because it presents a lot of good evidence and it is intelligently argued for the most part. Nonetheless, Whitmarsh's frequent overstatements about the prevalence of atheism in ancient Greece and Rome are hard for me to get past.
Unfortunately, there are several serious problems with the book from a historical angle. The biggest problem is already apparent in the subtitle of the book. Quite simply, Whitmarsh seems to construe nearly every ancient writer who ever expressed any kind of skeptical opinion about any kind of religious notion as an "atheist" in the modern sense of the word, even though most of these people clearly believed in deities of some kind.
For instance, in chapter twelve, he talks about Epicurus, who explicitly denied being an atheist and, in his Letter to Menoikeus, explicitly instructs his followers to believe in the existence of deities. Whitmarsh acknowledges all this, but he immediately goes on to argue (without any substantial evidence) that maybe Epicurus really, secretly was an atheist and that he only publicly denied being an atheist because he was afraid of being persecuted. I don't find this attempt to weasel around Epicurus's own words very convincing.
Equally problematic is Whitmarsh's assertion (found on page 230 of my edition) that, immediately prior to Constantine I's conversion to Christianity, the Roman Empire was on the brink of abandoning religion altogether and becoming a fully secular society. This assessment is not supported by any of the evidence that Whitmarsh presents in the book.
Even at best, all Whitmarsh manages to show is that a small handful of elite intellectuals in the Roman Empire were atheists and a somewhat larger number of elite intellectuals were skeptical about certain religious ideas. This does not in any way translate to mean that the Roman Empire was on the brink of "leaving religion behind" (as Whitmarsh puts it). Indeed, anyone who has studied this period of late antiquity will be well aware of the fact that the vast majority of people in the Roman Empire still believed in the Greek and Roman deities in some form or another and most of those who did not believe in these deities believed in other deities, such as the Judeo-Christian God.
Overall, I'm glad I read the book, because it presents a lot of good evidence and it is intelligently argued for the most part. Nonetheless, Whitmarsh's frequent overstatements about the prevalence of atheism in ancient Greece and Rome are hard for me to get past.
January 30, 2016
This is an approachable book for non-academics which, while I enjoyed the style and readability of the text, do not think it quite lived up to its promise. It is clear that atheists clearly lived and sometimes thrived in the ancient world, "battling" seems far too active a word for the denial of theism and the gods. What was even clearer, was that as important as non-believers were in Greece and Rome, they were marginalised once Catholicism was adopted as the Roman state religion and for the first time, forced people to "believe" in one faith to the exclusion of all others. This, the author demonstrates, was truly revolutionary.
All in all, however, I enjoyed this book and can recommend it to all readers interested in atheism in ancient history.
All in all, however, I enjoyed this book and can recommend it to all readers interested in atheism in ancient history.
May 9, 2019
I think this book is just a collection of platitudes.
Anyone with low knowleged of greek and rome knows the belief in gods slowly decresead from the archaic period to the roman period... I mean, the belief in REAL GODS, not the belief in Spiritual Gods.
It is not a book about "Atheism in Ancient World", it is a book about "Greek and Rome falling out of love with GODS as REAL BEINGS"...
It is well written, but boring as hell, TO ME.
Anyone with low knowleged of greek and rome knows the belief in gods slowly decresead from the archaic period to the roman period... I mean, the belief in REAL GODS, not the belief in Spiritual Gods.
It is not a book about "Atheism in Ancient World", it is a book about "Greek and Rome falling out of love with GODS as REAL BEINGS"...
It is well written, but boring as hell, TO ME.
December 19, 2015
Very interesting book, graceful and entertaining, Battling the Gods relates the fascinating history of atheism in Greco-Roman antiquity, setting contemporary debates about religion and secularism in much needed context.. highly recommended !
January 14, 2023
Atheism is not a distinctively modern phenomenon. It is not, as some have maintained, the unique product of political secularization and the widespread valorization of the scientific method as the most—or even the only—valid process by which to discern the truth. As Tim Whitmarsh explains in Battling the Gods, atheism is an intellectual tradition that, at the very least, dates back to archaic Greek culture. That atheism is not a modern invention has important implications: for starters, it undermines the common assumption that theism is universally normative, perhaps even naturally constitutive of what it means to be human. When we view atheism as a modern aberration from a “normal” state of affairs in which theism predominates, we reinforce the false narrative that belief in supernatural deities is an essential aspect of human nature and human societies. Moreover, we obfuscate a worldview with roots in the earliest moments of the western philosophical tradition. Battling the Gods aims to correct this false yet widely accepted narrative. Whitmarsh expertly traces the evolution of atheism as a philosophical position from the archaic Greek period to late antiquity. Because atheism is not well-represented in extant sources from the ancient world, Whitmarsh must sometimes unearth the proverbial atheistic needle in a haystack of anti-atheistic sentiment. Over the course of the book and thanks to Whitmarsh’s clever detective work, a coherent intellectual history of atheism in the ancient Mediterranean comes to the fore.
Battling the Gods is a finely-crafted example of academic scholarship intended for a broad audience. In the introduction, Whitmarsh helpfully explains why his intellectual history of atheism matters: to tell the story of atheism in the ancient Mediterranean, one must narrate its suppression, especially in the early Christian era. Those who questioned the anthropomorphic deities of traditional Greek religion or who flatly denied their existence were sometimes socially ostracized, at other times put on trial and executed. Once Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire, atheism was inconceivable (literally—the Theodosian Code fails to even mention it) as a philosophical position, and any deviance from Nicene Christianity was not, in theory, permitted. Battling the Gods, then, is no futile exercise without relevance for our contemporary moment; in an era of nascent religious nationalism, especially in the United States, we would do well to reject the same intolerance that led to the suppression of atheism in the ancient world.
Battling the Gods does, however, have its problems. First, Aristotle is curiously absent from Whitmarsh’s otherwise comprehensive intellectual history. He appears here and there to supplement the discussion of other Greek philosophers, but at no point does Whitmarsh describe his position on the traditional Greek deities in relation to atheism. At one point, he even lumps Aristotle in with Plato: both offer “theistic philosophies” (157). In view of Aristotle’s clear rejection of anthropomorphism in traditional Greek religion (a point on which he departs from Plato, who seems more comfortable with anthropomorphic divinity, at least in the Timaeus), it is odd that Whitmarsh so casually associates these two philosophical titans in this context. No doubt, Aristotle believes in at least one god (the prime mover) and, perhaps, many gods (see the debate on whether, for Aristotle, there are many unmoved movers subordinate to the prime mover). Still, Whitmarsh canvasses the philosophies of several other Greek thinkers who ostensibly espouse theism yet also offer powerful criticisms of religion as traditionally conceived. Aristotle, it seems to me, deserves a place in an intellectual history of atheism, especially in view of how later Christian thinkers synthesized Aristotelian philosophy with Christian theology. Given Aristotle’s critique of, for example, divine providence, perhaps this synthesis is not so easily achieved.
Another issue with Battling the Gods is how Whitmarsh conceptualizes religion. Or rather, the problem is that he does not explicitly conceptualize it at all. At no point does Whitmarsh offer a definition of religion, which he typically conflates with theism. Theism, however, is not synonymous with religion, nor is it necessarily an essential aspect of religion. If, for example, religion has to do with access to, empowerment by, and orientation from what is believed or experienced to be ultimately real and ultimately important, as William Schweiker maintains, then belief in supernatural deities is not so obviously a constitutive and ineliminable feature of religion. Relatedly, Whitmarsh’s conception of theism is underdeveloped, particularly with respect to what constitutes or defines a “god.” At one point, Whitmarsh claims that to use “god” as a religious term is to denominate “an anthropoid being” or “an object of cult.” Based on this, he concludes that Anaximander, Anaximenes, Xenophanes, and others use “god” metaphorically to refer to the “hidden coherence” of the cosmos (81). Of course, if “god” as a religious concept is inescapably anthropomorphic, then any other, non-anthropomorphic referent for “god” cannot be literal. Yet why should we constrain our definition of “god” in this way? There are certainly many modern theists who would reject the notion that by “God” they mean to refer to an anthropomorphic entity or an object of cult. Could not the same be said for the pre-Socratic sophists? When Anaximander associates the divine with infinity, which he views as the ultimate principle of existence, why should we not take this association literally? The only reason we should not—or at least, the only reason Whitmarsh offers—is based on the assumption that “god” only literally refers to a supernatural, anthropomorphic being.
If we have reason to believe that Anaximander and others’ references to “god” are not just metaphorical—that is, if we have reason to think that godhood is a more capacious concept than Whitmarsh will allow—then this problematizes the intellectual history of atheism offered in Battling the Gods. At minimum, this shift in perspective renders the pre-Socratic sophists and others, like Epicurus, more religiously serious than Whitmarsh would have us believe. In his discussion of Xenophanes, Whitmarsh asks: “Would anything be lost in Xenophanes’s account of the world if we substituted ‘nature’ for ‘the one god?’” (61). It seems to me that much could be lost were we to accept this substitution: a sense of reverence, perhaps, or wonder at what transcends human knowledge, or even some amorphous sense of hope. At the end of the day, we will never know why, exactly, Xenophanes chose to use the word “god” rather than “nature” to describe the hidden force at the heart of the cosmos. The important point, however, is that he did use “god,” and not “nature,” to describe this force. Perhaps he did so under the pressure of social and cultural forces that were too powerful and too ubiquitous to resist. Or perhaps he did so because that word, rather than others, was more apt in view of what he had in mind.
Battling the Gods is a finely-crafted example of academic scholarship intended for a broad audience. In the introduction, Whitmarsh helpfully explains why his intellectual history of atheism matters: to tell the story of atheism in the ancient Mediterranean, one must narrate its suppression, especially in the early Christian era. Those who questioned the anthropomorphic deities of traditional Greek religion or who flatly denied their existence were sometimes socially ostracized, at other times put on trial and executed. Once Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire, atheism was inconceivable (literally—the Theodosian Code fails to even mention it) as a philosophical position, and any deviance from Nicene Christianity was not, in theory, permitted. Battling the Gods, then, is no futile exercise without relevance for our contemporary moment; in an era of nascent religious nationalism, especially in the United States, we would do well to reject the same intolerance that led to the suppression of atheism in the ancient world.
Battling the Gods does, however, have its problems. First, Aristotle is curiously absent from Whitmarsh’s otherwise comprehensive intellectual history. He appears here and there to supplement the discussion of other Greek philosophers, but at no point does Whitmarsh describe his position on the traditional Greek deities in relation to atheism. At one point, he even lumps Aristotle in with Plato: both offer “theistic philosophies” (157). In view of Aristotle’s clear rejection of anthropomorphism in traditional Greek religion (a point on which he departs from Plato, who seems more comfortable with anthropomorphic divinity, at least in the Timaeus), it is odd that Whitmarsh so casually associates these two philosophical titans in this context. No doubt, Aristotle believes in at least one god (the prime mover) and, perhaps, many gods (see the debate on whether, for Aristotle, there are many unmoved movers subordinate to the prime mover). Still, Whitmarsh canvasses the philosophies of several other Greek thinkers who ostensibly espouse theism yet also offer powerful criticisms of religion as traditionally conceived. Aristotle, it seems to me, deserves a place in an intellectual history of atheism, especially in view of how later Christian thinkers synthesized Aristotelian philosophy with Christian theology. Given Aristotle’s critique of, for example, divine providence, perhaps this synthesis is not so easily achieved.
Another issue with Battling the Gods is how Whitmarsh conceptualizes religion. Or rather, the problem is that he does not explicitly conceptualize it at all. At no point does Whitmarsh offer a definition of religion, which he typically conflates with theism. Theism, however, is not synonymous with religion, nor is it necessarily an essential aspect of religion. If, for example, religion has to do with access to, empowerment by, and orientation from what is believed or experienced to be ultimately real and ultimately important, as William Schweiker maintains, then belief in supernatural deities is not so obviously a constitutive and ineliminable feature of religion. Relatedly, Whitmarsh’s conception of theism is underdeveloped, particularly with respect to what constitutes or defines a “god.” At one point, Whitmarsh claims that to use “god” as a religious term is to denominate “an anthropoid being” or “an object of cult.” Based on this, he concludes that Anaximander, Anaximenes, Xenophanes, and others use “god” metaphorically to refer to the “hidden coherence” of the cosmos (81). Of course, if “god” as a religious concept is inescapably anthropomorphic, then any other, non-anthropomorphic referent for “god” cannot be literal. Yet why should we constrain our definition of “god” in this way? There are certainly many modern theists who would reject the notion that by “God” they mean to refer to an anthropomorphic entity or an object of cult. Could not the same be said for the pre-Socratic sophists? When Anaximander associates the divine with infinity, which he views as the ultimate principle of existence, why should we not take this association literally? The only reason we should not—or at least, the only reason Whitmarsh offers—is based on the assumption that “god” only literally refers to a supernatural, anthropomorphic being.
If we have reason to believe that Anaximander and others’ references to “god” are not just metaphorical—that is, if we have reason to think that godhood is a more capacious concept than Whitmarsh will allow—then this problematizes the intellectual history of atheism offered in Battling the Gods. At minimum, this shift in perspective renders the pre-Socratic sophists and others, like Epicurus, more religiously serious than Whitmarsh would have us believe. In his discussion of Xenophanes, Whitmarsh asks: “Would anything be lost in Xenophanes’s account of the world if we substituted ‘nature’ for ‘the one god?’” (61). It seems to me that much could be lost were we to accept this substitution: a sense of reverence, perhaps, or wonder at what transcends human knowledge, or even some amorphous sense of hope. At the end of the day, we will never know why, exactly, Xenophanes chose to use the word “god” rather than “nature” to describe the hidden force at the heart of the cosmos. The important point, however, is that he did use “god,” and not “nature,” to describe this force. Perhaps he did so under the pressure of social and cultural forces that were too powerful and too ubiquitous to resist. Or perhaps he did so because that word, rather than others, was more apt in view of what he had in mind.
December 29, 2018
I was expecting so much more from this book. I’m disappointed.
Cambridge professor Tim Whitmarsh traces the history of atheists in the Greek and Roman worlds and how the early philosophers criticized religion. And it’s a snoozefest.
I picked up this book from my local library because I ‘m doing background research for a presentation I’m scheduled to give next spring. And I’m unsure of whether I can use any of the information in here. Which is a bummer.
“Battling the Gods” reads like a series of transcribed lectures rather than a book of nonfiction. Whitmarsh doesn’t really do that good of a job setting up the scene, defining terms or explaining impact. He talks a lot about the ancient philosophers and ancient writers and what they had to say, but doesn’t talk about the legal aspects of questioning religion in ancient Greece and Rome. He doesn’t talk about anyone other than these ancient men. I realize that there might be a lack of sources here, but he barely acknowledges the existence of say, pretty much everyone else.
I will say that the notes section at the end is extensive and I give him major kudos for putting it in the book and being transparent.
There are a few times where Whitmarsh slips into a provocative argument (atheism’s ties to industrialization and capitalism, historians exaggerating the martyrdom of early Christians, how atheists tend to fair better under polytheistic religions rather than monotheistic ones) and then goes back to whatever less interesting point he had. As you can imagine, this is deeply frustrating.
Whitmarsh also has the nasty habit of using some ableist language. He refers to Athens as a “schizophrenic society” more than once. He also uses the old and outdated BC/AD system, when it’s been BCE/CE for the better part of two decades now. (You’re better than this, Whitmarsh! You know you are!)
All of this is a shame because the book as it stands now isn’t very long and could have easily been expanded. He could have easily, EASILY added more information and presented it better for a general audience. (Seriously, dude, who are you writing for? I could never figure it out.) I realize that if you’re coming fresh off a college class about classical Greece and Rome, you’ll probably be fine reading this, but for me, it was hard to follow. This could have been a spectacular book, but as it stands now, it’s falls incredibly short.
Cambridge professor Tim Whitmarsh traces the history of atheists in the Greek and Roman worlds and how the early philosophers criticized religion. And it’s a snoozefest.
I picked up this book from my local library because I ‘m doing background research for a presentation I’m scheduled to give next spring. And I’m unsure of whether I can use any of the information in here. Which is a bummer.
“Battling the Gods” reads like a series of transcribed lectures rather than a book of nonfiction. Whitmarsh doesn’t really do that good of a job setting up the scene, defining terms or explaining impact. He talks a lot about the ancient philosophers and ancient writers and what they had to say, but doesn’t talk about the legal aspects of questioning religion in ancient Greece and Rome. He doesn’t talk about anyone other than these ancient men. I realize that there might be a lack of sources here, but he barely acknowledges the existence of say, pretty much everyone else.
I will say that the notes section at the end is extensive and I give him major kudos for putting it in the book and being transparent.
There are a few times where Whitmarsh slips into a provocative argument (atheism’s ties to industrialization and capitalism, historians exaggerating the martyrdom of early Christians, how atheists tend to fair better under polytheistic religions rather than monotheistic ones) and then goes back to whatever less interesting point he had. As you can imagine, this is deeply frustrating.
Whitmarsh also has the nasty habit of using some ableist language. He refers to Athens as a “schizophrenic society” more than once. He also uses the old and outdated BC/AD system, when it’s been BCE/CE for the better part of two decades now. (You’re better than this, Whitmarsh! You know you are!)
All of this is a shame because the book as it stands now isn’t very long and could have easily been expanded. He could have easily, EASILY added more information and presented it better for a general audience. (Seriously, dude, who are you writing for? I could never figure it out.) I realize that if you’re coming fresh off a college class about classical Greece and Rome, you’ll probably be fine reading this, but for me, it was hard to follow. This could have been a spectacular book, but as it stands now, it’s falls incredibly short.
November 24, 2017
This book’s mission statement is to show that atheism is not a new thing , but was prevalent in the ancient world . Whilst I don’t think this is as new a thesis as all that ( meaning that it’s not as urgent as it’s reviewers suggest ) this is A fascinating survey of the classical world .
Issues such as fragmentary texts in the presocratic Period however mean that it’s not always clear whether ancient writers are challenging all belief in a god or higher force or just moving on from the old classical pantheons to monotheism or pantheism or providence as a divine agency . This means that the book struggles to be consistent about precisely what it means by atheism , and never really offers a clear definition , which undermines it slightly . Not helped , of course by the fact that the Greek root word atheos can mean being forsaken by the gods as well as unbelief , and was also used for disbelief in accepted gods , meaning for instance that Christians and Jews could both be called atheists at the time .
In the end of course the posterity of atheism doesn’t just benefit those with no faith : I find it very useful to be rid of the tedious myth that ancients only believed in gods due to lack of science . Clearly not all of them did .
Any survey of the classical world is fascinating and I enjoyed this despite the above issues .
Issues such as fragmentary texts in the presocratic Period however mean that it’s not always clear whether ancient writers are challenging all belief in a god or higher force or just moving on from the old classical pantheons to monotheism or pantheism or providence as a divine agency . This means that the book struggles to be consistent about precisely what it means by atheism , and never really offers a clear definition , which undermines it slightly . Not helped , of course by the fact that the Greek root word atheos can mean being forsaken by the gods as well as unbelief , and was also used for disbelief in accepted gods , meaning for instance that Christians and Jews could both be called atheists at the time .
In the end of course the posterity of atheism doesn’t just benefit those with no faith : I find it very useful to be rid of the tedious myth that ancients only believed in gods due to lack of science . Clearly not all of them did .
Any survey of the classical world is fascinating and I enjoyed this despite the above issues .
February 22, 2025
I’m glad this book exists. The best parts of the book are parts 2 & 3. The book is well written, well researched, and an easy read. Whitmarsh marshals considerable evidence, much of it obscure, to outline the varieties of atheistic thought in the ancient Mediterranean. Pp. 13-53 is all background—honestly worth skipping if you just want to get to the book’s main argument.
Why only 4 stars? I don’t think the end of the book squares with the introduction. I’m not sure Whitmarsh provides enough evidence for his claim that Abrahamic faiths bear all the credit for creating an anomalous civilization hostile to atheism. This sits uncomfortably with his opening claim that atheists have existed always and everywhere. Presumably he means Christians were hostile to communities of atheists in the last chapter, while the first chapter considers agnostic or atheistic individuals—but then the book never really established the existence of such communities beyond the “imagined” communities created by doxographers and the philosophical enemies of atheism. Whitmarsh cites Rives on the Decian sacrifice certificates but ignores the significance of the certificates for the formation of a society hostile to religious difference and a narrowly defined orthopraxy. Whitmarsh also doesn’t seem to account for the radical transformation of written culture in the late Roman world that saw Abrahamic clerics essentially assume control of the written record. I would have liked a fuller consideration of what atheism could look like in those anomalous Abrahamic centuries.
Why only 4 stars? I don’t think the end of the book squares with the introduction. I’m not sure Whitmarsh provides enough evidence for his claim that Abrahamic faiths bear all the credit for creating an anomalous civilization hostile to atheism. This sits uncomfortably with his opening claim that atheists have existed always and everywhere. Presumably he means Christians were hostile to communities of atheists in the last chapter, while the first chapter considers agnostic or atheistic individuals—but then the book never really established the existence of such communities beyond the “imagined” communities created by doxographers and the philosophical enemies of atheism. Whitmarsh cites Rives on the Decian sacrifice certificates but ignores the significance of the certificates for the formation of a society hostile to religious difference and a narrowly defined orthopraxy. Whitmarsh also doesn’t seem to account for the radical transformation of written culture in the late Roman world that saw Abrahamic clerics essentially assume control of the written record. I would have liked a fuller consideration of what atheism could look like in those anomalous Abrahamic centuries.
May 21, 2017
This rather superb, erudite and lucidly written text is pretty much a godsend (pardon the pun) not only for atheists but also for anyone at all interested in the history and development of critical thinking and intellectual curiosity regarding our dealings with the natural world we live in.
Whitmarsh’s scholarship is concentrated specifically on the Western tradition, and covers roughly the period from the 7th century BCE until the 5th century CE, when Rome and Christianity took over the Western world. Of the four sections comprising this work, the first three (Archaic Greece; Classical Athens; and The Hellenistic Era) are obviously Greek in theme; while only the final one (Rome) gradually moves away from the Greek influences. Thus the constraints or limitations of Whitmarsh’s research are clearly set out — but the richness of this seam of knowledge and its relevance to Western thought quickly becomes apparent.
A crucial element of atheism is scepticism. In this sense, it follows upon “established” beliefs (such as the polytheism of the Greeks). Once one began to question the validity of these beliefs, and the apparent historical irrelevance to actual reality, the suspicion was raised that these beliefs were more of a con than anything else. Unfortunately, however, these beliefs had by this time become a source of cultural identity, and it became politically correct that adherence to them was essential for political, social and cultural cohesion: disagree with that, and one could be accused of being traitorous, if not directly inimical to Greek society as a whole.
It did not stop thinkers from coming up with other ideas about the world; such as its constitution into the four elements of earth, air, fire and water (e.g. the pre-Socratics); or that the world consists of numbers (the Pythagoreans); or perhaps as the result of various combinations of primal indivisible (a-tom = “not cut”) particles into many material realities (e.g. Democritus)… None of these suggestions had any need for any contribution of “higher powers”. Unfortunately these proto-scientific approaches did not have the mechanisms or technologies to back up their claims (they would not be readily available until after the 16th-c CE). Despite ridicule and even persecutions, the doubters and sceptics persisted — and still do to this day…
The above are just a few of the interesting aspects covered in Whitmarsh’s book — and it is important to note that his dealing with them is not presented in any particularly judgemental way: his approach is more strictly a straight-forward historical telling of the history of multi-faceted atheism in these ancient times. There are also many philosophical as well as theological aspects as well. If anything, Hindmarsh is more concerned that his readers come away from his work with a better appreciation of how questioning and scepticism not only has a long and illustrious history, but also that these qualities are essential to maintaining a healthy and human balance in even the most modern of societies.
I will conclude by offering a kind of off-shoot related to this work: all religions, by their very definition, will argue for their specific approaches to how one should deal with the world, and that necessarily means they have an inbuilt intolerance for any other interpretation which differs from their own. One can only conclude that, as a result, every religion, at its very core, is in some way atheistic itself in regards to the beliefs of any other religion.
Whitmarsh’s scholarship is concentrated specifically on the Western tradition, and covers roughly the period from the 7th century BCE until the 5th century CE, when Rome and Christianity took over the Western world. Of the four sections comprising this work, the first three (Archaic Greece; Classical Athens; and The Hellenistic Era) are obviously Greek in theme; while only the final one (Rome) gradually moves away from the Greek influences. Thus the constraints or limitations of Whitmarsh’s research are clearly set out — but the richness of this seam of knowledge and its relevance to Western thought quickly becomes apparent.
A crucial element of atheism is scepticism. In this sense, it follows upon “established” beliefs (such as the polytheism of the Greeks). Once one began to question the validity of these beliefs, and the apparent historical irrelevance to actual reality, the suspicion was raised that these beliefs were more of a con than anything else. Unfortunately, however, these beliefs had by this time become a source of cultural identity, and it became politically correct that adherence to them was essential for political, social and cultural cohesion: disagree with that, and one could be accused of being traitorous, if not directly inimical to Greek society as a whole.
It did not stop thinkers from coming up with other ideas about the world; such as its constitution into the four elements of earth, air, fire and water (e.g. the pre-Socratics); or that the world consists of numbers (the Pythagoreans); or perhaps as the result of various combinations of primal indivisible (a-tom = “not cut”) particles into many material realities (e.g. Democritus)… None of these suggestions had any need for any contribution of “higher powers”. Unfortunately these proto-scientific approaches did not have the mechanisms or technologies to back up their claims (they would not be readily available until after the 16th-c CE). Despite ridicule and even persecutions, the doubters and sceptics persisted — and still do to this day…
The above are just a few of the interesting aspects covered in Whitmarsh’s book — and it is important to note that his dealing with them is not presented in any particularly judgemental way: his approach is more strictly a straight-forward historical telling of the history of multi-faceted atheism in these ancient times. There are also many philosophical as well as theological aspects as well. If anything, Hindmarsh is more concerned that his readers come away from his work with a better appreciation of how questioning and scepticism not only has a long and illustrious history, but also that these qualities are essential to maintaining a healthy and human balance in even the most modern of societies.
I will conclude by offering a kind of off-shoot related to this work: all religions, by their very definition, will argue for their specific approaches to how one should deal with the world, and that necessarily means they have an inbuilt intolerance for any other interpretation which differs from their own. One can only conclude that, as a result, every religion, at its very core, is in some way atheistic itself in regards to the beliefs of any other religion.
April 14, 2025
Some really interesting bits that provide lots of food for thought and discussion, but the writing wasn’t as engaging as it had the potential to be.
My biggest issue with the writing was the pacing and structure meant Whitmarsh didn’t always prioritise the most important/explicit pieces of evidence of atheist belief. For one, Whitmarsh spends a lot of time dragging out his analysis beliefs of non-atheist individuals to find atheism within their words, which while interesting, didn’t feel like the main point. Second, he would often hide somewhere in the middle of the chapter have something that was a super interesting or explicit insight/evidence. Either he should have led with the most interesting bits, or more explicitly signpost when these interesting pieces will come.
All in all, this was still in an incredibly well-researched book in which I learned a lot about not just ancient atheism, but Greco-Roman religious and philosophical development and thought.
My biggest issue with the writing was the pacing and structure meant Whitmarsh didn’t always prioritise the most important/explicit pieces of evidence of atheist belief. For one, Whitmarsh spends a lot of time dragging out his analysis beliefs of non-atheist individuals to find atheism within their words, which while interesting, didn’t feel like the main point. Second, he would often hide somewhere in the middle of the chapter have something that was a super interesting or explicit insight/evidence. Either he should have led with the most interesting bits, or more explicitly signpost when these interesting pieces will come.
All in all, this was still in an incredibly well-researched book in which I learned a lot about not just ancient atheism, but Greco-Roman religious and philosophical development and thought.
May 16, 2023
This was really more about Greek and Roman religion than atheism per se. This makes sense, because atheism is best understood as a reaction against gods than a movement in an of itself. After all, if no one believed in gods, there would be no atheists. What I found most interesting is that the anti-god arguments of these ancient atheists were for the most part rather different than modern day atheistic arguments, because they were arguing against the existence of polytheistic gods rather than a monotheistic God.
March 23, 2021
I had to read this book for my research paper so I'm counting it cause it took me like 3 days man. I actually really enjoyed it and found it really interesting if this is a topic ur interested in!
November 22, 2021
I could not put this down.
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