Abstract

I begin with a paraphrase of Plato Laws X 887de, which has suggested the arguments to be developed in this brief article. ‘The Athenian’ speaks to the following effect: ‘How can one admonish in all patience those who deny the existence of gods ? For no sufficient reason they disbelieve the myths which, in infancy, they heard from nurses and mothers in sportive or in serious vein. They disbelieve also those myths which, at sacrifices, from boyhood onwards, they heard recounted in prayers and saw represented in spectacles. They reject the testimony of their own parents, nay, of all Greeks and barbarians, who by continual prayer and worship show clearly their unanimous belief in the existence of gods. Despising all these things, they lay on us the burden of refuting by reasoned argument their perverse opinions.’