A short Plutarch essay arguing that superstition (fearing the gods as hostile) is a worse defect than atheism (disbelieving in them).
De Superstitione ("On Superstition") is a short moral essay by Plutarch that sets atheism and superstition side by side as twin errors about the divine, and argues that superstition is the worse of the two. Atheism, he says, is simply a mistaken judgment that nothing divine exists; superstition adds to ignorance a corrosive emotion, the belief that the gods are real but hostile, vindictive, and dangerous. Because it is rooted in fear rather than mere disbelief, superstition follows a person everywhere: into sleep, where it fills dreams with avenging phantoms; into misfortune, where it blames every illness or loss on divine punishment rather than natural cause; and even into festivals and rites meant to bring joy, which the superstitious person endures pale and trembling instead of celebrating.
Plutarch illustrates the argument with a run of examples: Midas and Aristodemus destroyed by despondent terror over omens, the Athenian general Nicias undone at Syracuse by fear of a lunar eclipse, and a pointed aside about Jews who "sat there unmoved" on the Sabbath while an enemy scaled the walls, bound by their own religious scruple. He surveys popular beliefs about vindictive gods (Artemis, Hera, the Syrian goddess) and human sacrifice among the Gauls, Scythians, and Carthaginians, arguing that such superstitions are what actually drive thoughtful people toward atheism in disgust, not the observed order of the heavens.
The essay's real target is not disbelief but bad belief: Plutarch closes by locating true piety as a narrow path between two ditches, atheism on one side and superstition on the other, and warns that people fleeing one error often panic and tumble into the opposite one. It is a compact, quotable specimen of Plutarch's ethical writing, mixing anecdote, poetry (Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, Sophocles), and psychological observation to make a case about the emotional cost of imagining the gods as enemies rather than as benevolent powers.
“Superstition, however — as its very name indicates — is an emotional opinion, one productive of dread, a supposition that abases and crushes a person, since he thinks there are gods, but that they are painful and harmful.”
— De Superstitione · read this chapter →
“The man who does not sail does not fear the sea, nor does the man who is not a soldier fear war, nor the man who stays at home fear robbers”
— De Superstitione · read this chapter →
“But the Jews, since it was the Sabbath, sat there unmoved in their unwashed garments while the enemy set their ladders against the walls”
— De Superstitione · read this chapter →
“terrible is only the darkness of superstition, which, once it has fallen upon a man, confounds and blinds his reasoning in matters that most need reasoning”
— De Superstitione · read this chapter →
“some, in fleeing superstition, tumble into a harsh and unyielding atheism, having leapt clean over piety, which lies between the two”
— De Superstitione · read this chapter →
It is a short essay arguing that superstition, defined as fearing the gods as hostile and vindictive, is a worse moral and psychological defect than atheism, which is mere disbelief without dread. Plutarch shows superstition poisoning sleep, festivals, and responses to misfortune.
No. He explicitly rejects both extremes and places true piety as the correct middle path between atheism and superstition, warning that people who flee one error often overcorrect into the other.
He cites them as an example of superstition causing self-harm, saying that on the Sabbath they "sat there unmoved in their unwashed garments" and let an enemy take their fortifications rather than break their religious observance to defend themselves.
He names Midas, who killed himself over disturbing dreams; Aristodemus, king of the Messenians, who cut his own throat after fearing bad omens; and the Athenian general Nicias, who let fear of a lunar eclipse trap his army at Syracuse, resulting in the deaths or capture of forty thousand men.
He compares it to an unhealed wound or ulcer, saying it deprives a person of rest even in sleep, fills festivals with dread instead of joy, and makes every misfortune, illness, or death feel like a targeted divine punishment.
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