DREAMS, VISIONS AND EPICUREAN GODS

Abstract

The Epicureans, far from being atheists, did believe in gods, and were atheistic only in the sense that they did not believe in the gods that society at large readily accepted.

The only evidence that the Epicureans assert for the existence of gods is tied up in the term πρόληψις, a preconception, which Cicero employs, but description of which can be found in the works of Lucretius and Epicurus. The notion is that all humans are born with a preconception of the gods. This is not something learnt, but something that everyone acquires naturally and independently at birth. Although peoples might grow up distinctly and apart, all acquire this same preconception.

This paper will investigate πρόληψις, associated as it is with the Epicurean theories on vision, soul and physics. These preconceptions are quite distinct from the mythology, the supernatural stories, the monsters and ghosts and indeed the gods and personifications that ‘religio’, or superstition, has invented. And indeed, though the Epicureans thought that the mind could be deceived, they believed that the senses were to be trusted, and so truth was to be found in these preconceptions, not in ‘religio’.

I am, then, most interested in the importance that the Epicureans connected with these preconceptions, as being an empirical truth, and as being ethically and morally valuable. Indeed, these preconceptions had a direct effect upon the lives of Epicureans. Although the Epicurean gods were not benevolent, receive beneficence, listen to or heed humans and were not interested in or need humans, however, indirectly, these very gods could induce pleasure and pain in humans, and it was through πρόληψις and πρόληψις alone that this was possible and occurred. It is this effect then, upon the piety of the Epicureans and upon their daily lives, which this paper seeks to demonstrate.