De Natura Deorum
De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods) is a philosophical dialogue by Roman Academic Skeptic philosopher Cicero written in 45 BC. It is laid out in three books that discuss the theological views of the Hellenistic philosophies of Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Academic Skepticism.
Writing[edit]
De Natura Deorum belongs to the group of philosophical works which Cicero wrote in the two years preceding his death in 43 BC.[1] He states near the beginning of De Natura Deorum that he wrote them both as a relief from the political inactivity to which he was reduced by the supremacy of Julius Caesar, and as a distraction from the grief caused by the death of his daughter Tullia.[1]
The dialogue is supposed to take place in Rome at the house of Gaius Aurelius Cotta.[2] In the dialogue he appears as pontiff, but not as consul.[2] He was made pontiff soon after 82 BC, and consul in 75 BC, and as Cicero, who is present at the dialogue as a listener, did not return from Athens till 77 BC, its fictional date can be set between the years 77 and 75 BC, when Cicero was about thirty years of age, and Cotta about forty-eight.[2]
The book contains various obscurities and inconsistencies which demonstrate that it was probably never revised by Cicero, nor published until after his death.[3] For the content, Cicero borrowed largely from earlier Greek sources.[3] However, the hasty arrangement by Cicero of authorities who themselves wrote independently of one another means that the work lacks cohesion,[4] and points raised by one speaker are sometimes not countered by subsequent speakers.[5]
Influence[edit]
The Christian writers Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Lactantius, and Augustine were acquainted with De Natura Deorum.[16]
This work, alongside De Officiis and De Divinatione, was highly influential on the philosophes of the 18th century. David Hume was familiar with the work and used it to style his own Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.[17] Voltaire described De Natura Deorum and the Tusculan Disputations as "the two most beautiful books ever produced by the wisdom of humanity".[18]
In 1811 a fourth book was 'discovered' and published by one 'P. Seraphinus' in Bologna.[19] In this forgery Cicero asserts many points compatible with Christian and Catholic dogma, and even argues in favour of an authority equivalent to the Papacy.[19]
Scholarship[edit]
This text is an important source of Epicurean, Stoic, and Academic Skeptic views on religion and theology because it supplements the scant primary texts that remain on these topics.
In particular, heated scholarly debate has focused on this text's discussion at 1.43–44 of how the Epicurean gods may be said to "exist"; David Sedley, for example, holds that Epicureans, as represented in this text and elsewhere, think that "gods are our own graphic idealization of the life to which we aspire",[20] whereas David Konstan maintains that "the Epicurean gods are real, in the sense that they exist as atomic compounds and possess the properties that pertain to the concept, or prolēpsis, that people have of them."[21]
