Max Gould
Lucretius Essay
Of What Worth is Religion?
Lucretius lived in a world of strong religious influences. Though Lucretius may
have believed in the divine himself, he also believed that such influences were wholly
unnecessary and even destructive in people’s lives. In On the Nature of Things he
describes how religion misleads people, often bringing about horrible events. But while
he denounces religion, he continues to uphold his belief in the Roman gods. Though
Cicero suggests that Lucretius offers homage to the gods only to avoid offending
Romans, his systematic deconstruction of belief in the divine further on in his work
reveals his true intent. Confessing his own belief in the Roman gods at the beginning
makes his readers more amenable to what he has to say later on. Lucretius does not use
the gods to make his unorthodox ideas more palatable to the religious Roman audience;
he uses them as bait disguising the hook of his ideas. By subsequently separating beliefs
from religion, he is able to begin the deconstruction of the very gods he himself claims to
revere. Lucretius describes the natural causes of many phenomena commonly believed to
be the result of a divine influence, completely removing any connection between the gods
and the material world. He claims that even if the gods exist, they would have nothing to
do with our world, and so religion and faith are completely superfluous. By finally
illustrating how people sacrificed all their beliefs out of desperation during the plague,
Lucretius makes his point that religion and belief in the divine are nothing more than a
burden on our lives.
“I am teaching about great things and proceeding to free the mind from the
narrow bonds of religion… touching everything with the charm of the Muses” (Lucretius,
4.6). Lucretius describes what he is doing as being much like giving medicine to a child
and rimming the cup with honey so that he will drink it down. Except Lucretius believes
that all of Rome is sick, and the bitter medicine that must be gotten down is his antitheistic philosophy, touched “with the sweet honey of the Muses” (Lucretius, 4.22).
‘Muses’, of course, in this case refers not just to his poetic language, but also to his use of
the divine as bait with which to draw in the religious Roman audience. While Lucretius
does profess a belief in the divine that appeals to religious Romans, he doesn’t do this
just to get them to read his work. Lucretius goes about his argument in a very systematic
Max Gould
Lucretius Essay
fashion, first contesting one aspect of religion, and then another. By beginning with the
whole subject, he is then able to deconstruct it one bit at a time. Thus he accepts belief in
the divine at the beginning since that is not really what he is interested in contesting, and
instead tackles the mass of religious indoctrination surrounding those beliefs.
In book one of On the Nature of Things, Lucretius describes some of the faults of
religion, casting doubt on its beneficence. One of the key problems with religion is that it
is essentially divine will as interpreted by human beings. Indeed, Lucretius argues that
even those priests, whom we trust to provide us with the wisdom of the gods, are just as
prone to vice as the rest of us. He refers to one specific incident involving Agamemnon to
make his point. When Agamemnon’s ships were stuck at Aulis on his way to Troy, he
sought the council of a priest named Calchas who advised him that the gods would only
let him continue if he sacrificed his daughter, Iphigeneia. Lucretius argues that this does
not so much reflect the will of the gods, but rather that of the priest. “Religion has
produced criminal and unholy actions. Thus was the case at Aulis… with the blood of
Iphianassa” (Lucretius, 1.83). Though Lucretius cannot prove that Calchas was acting out
of vice, his point is simply to make the reader question the authority of priests. Using the
story of Iphigeneia, Lucretius illustrates how easily priests can deceive people because of
the trust people invest in them. “Such great evils could religion make seem advisable…
by the fearful words of seers” (Lucretius, 1.101).
Beyond questioning religious doctrine, Lucretius argues that the gods have
nothing to do with people’s lives. Studying the phenomena that people often attribute to
the actions of the gods, Lucretius attempts to persuade the reader that these occurrences
are in fact not so wonderful as they seem and come about simply due to the nature of
things. “I will explain by what force governing nature directs the courses of the sun and
movements of the moon on its path… so we don’t think that they move by any divine
plan” (Lucretius, 5.76). By showing how the gods play no role in these occurrences,
Lucretius demonstrates the obsolescence of religion and reverence for the divine in
general. He defends his assertions by suggesting that the gods wouldn’t have anything to
do with the material world anyway. “For those who have learned well that the gods live a
tranquil life, if still at times they wonder in what way things can take place…” (Lucretius,
5.82). Lucretius argues that, living the best possible lives, free of toil and strife, the gods
Max Gould
Lucretius Essay
would not go through the effort of making these things happen but would instead live in
complete tranquility. Not only does Lucretius separate divinity from occurrences in our
lives, but he also removes any motive for the gods to get involved in our lives in the first
place.
Lucretius recounts the plague of Athens in his last book to communicate to the
reader his primary objective. Here, at the end of his work, is where his intent becomes the
most apparent. Through all the death and despair, Lucretius portrays how eventually the
people forsook religious doctrine and any form of reverence for their gods. “Nor indeed
any longer was reverence of the gods or their divinity of much worth: the present grief
was completely overwhelming” (Lucretius, 6.1276). Lucretius recounts these events to
make the reader consider the worth of religion, for that is at the heart of what Lucretius is
trying to say. During the plague, faith and religious doctrine didn’t help anybody.
Lucretius describes the holy shrines being filled up with death (Lucretius, 6.1272); no
heed was paid to the gods because, according to Lucretius, they have no relevance to
people’s lives and the world around them. Because he has already proven that religion
has no practical value, he portrays religion in a situation in which it has the potential to
provide hope for people and dispel their fear; possessing meta-physical value. But when
religious doctrine is sacrificed in the desperation of the plague, Lucretius proves that
religion indeed doesn’t have any value to people’s lives of any kind.
Of what worth is religion? Lucretius goes through a lot of effort to convince the
reader that everything in the world occurs by its own nature, and not by divine will. He
emphasizes the fact that gods must live toil-free lives and therefore would not lift the sun
into the sky everyday, but rather that the sun must do so by its own nature. Since
understanding the divine is not needed to understand the material world, Lucretius makes
religion unnecessary. But Lucretius didn’t write On the Nature of Things just because he
thought religion was superfluous; he thought that it was actively harmful. He describes
how people’s blind faith leads them to commit horrible atrocities on the mere words of a
priest, such as in the case of Iphigeneia. Even in the worst of times religion doesn’t serve
to bring people hope or encourage them to act rightly, but instead becomes a burden to
them. Lucretius honors Roman gods in his work so that Romans will take him seriously.
Max Gould
Lucretius Essay
They are the honey on the rim of his medicine, designed to remove the blight that religion
has brought on humanity.