Belief and Cult by Jacob L. Mackey;

Author:Jacob L. Mackey;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2022-03-28T00:00:00+00:00

And horizontal transmission is exemplified by, for example, Lucretius’s vates, whose terrifying utterances lead their contemporaries astray in their thinking about the gods.93 Both of these modes of transmission are at work in the diachronic and synchronic effects of cult, its capacity to produce horror.

6.9. Action Theory and Cult in Lucretius

These Lucretian theses about belief and cult raise questions. For instance, are false beliefs necessary or merely sufficient causes of cult activity? Is it of the essence of cult to communicate theological beliefs and other attitudes, and, if so, must these beliefs and attitudes invariably be harmful? We return to these issues in section 6.10. For now, let us see, in light of the Epicurean theory of action, what role the cultural beliefs, whose generation we have just described, play in contemporary cult practice.

Thus far, I have presented Lucretius’s general theory on the acquisition of theological beliefs and the role of those beliefs in the diachronic development of religious practices. Other passages in De rerum natura provide vivid synchronic illustrations of the Epicurean theory of religious action, a theory that is essentially an application of their general action theory to cult. The most famous such illustration emerges from the description in book 1, at lines 80–101, of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia. Lucretius chooses this mythical sacrifice for its exemplarity; it illustrates the sorts of toxic beliefs, at their most extreme, that typically motivate sacrifice.94

He opens the episode by stating that “religious belief has engendered criminal and impious deeds.”95 Assuming his readers know the outlines of the Aeschylean version of the myth, Lucretius details how Agamemnon sacrificed Iphigenia “so that a fortunate and auspicious departure might be granted to his fleet.”96 He closes by reiterating how “religious belief was such a powerful persuasion to evil deeds.”97

What is pertinent for us in these lines is not so much Lucretius’s criticism of religion or his engagement with myth and literature, but rather the fact that he analyzes Agamemnon’s deed in teleological terms, as a goal-directed action that was motivated by desire and religious beliefs relevant to the realization of that desire. The clause of purpose introduced by ut—that is, exitus ut classi felix faustusque daretur, “so that a fortunate and auspicious departure might be granted to his fleet”—indicates what Agamemnon wanted to achieve. He believed that cult interaction with the gods would help him get it. As in his archaeology of religion, Lucretius here implicitly posits causal connections between sacrifice and religious beliefs, beliefs about the gods’ existence, their agency, and their susceptibility to the blandishments of ritual.

A related example, also with a maritime theme, comes not from myth but from a situation that would have been a genuine source of fear in antiquity.98 Lucretius presents the captain of a fleet praying in vain for deliverance from a storm: “does he not apply for the gods’ peace [divom pacem] with vows and seek in prayer, / trembling, the pacification of the winds, and favoring breezes?”99 Lucretius’s point here is that in situations such

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