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Updated: May 13, 2025
A philosopher like Carneades, for instance, might, in view of his sceptical standpoint, just as well have been convicted of asebeia as Protagoras, who was convicted because he had declared that he did not know whether the gods existed or not; and as to such a process against Carneades, tradition would not have remained silent.
This extension of the conception of asebeia to include theoretical denial of the gods no doubt had no foundation in law; this is amongst other things evident from the fact that it was necessary, in order to convict Anaxagoras, to pass a special public resolution in virtue of which his free-thinking theories became indictable.
It is only as far as Athens and Imperial Rome are concerned that we have any definite knowledge of the law and the judicial procedure on this point; a somewhat detailed account of the state of things in Athens and Rome cannot be dispensed with here. In the criminal law of Athens we meet with the term asebeia—literally: impiety or disrespect towards the gods.
The word itself conveys the idea that the law particularly had offences against public worship in view; and this is confirmed by the fact that a number of such offences—from the felling of sacred trees to the profanation of the Eleusinian Mysteries—were treated as asebeia.
As an established formula of accusation of asebeia existed, legislation must have dealt with the subject; but how it was defined we do not know.
When, in the next place, towards the close of the fifth century B.C., free-thinking began to assume forms which seemed dangerous to the religion of the State, theoretical denial of the gods was also included under asebeia.
The indictment seems in most cases—the trial of Socrates is the only one of which we know details—to have been on the charge of asebeia, and the procedure proper thereto seems to have been employed, though there was no proof or assertion of the accused having offended against public worship; as to Socrates, we know the opposite to have been the case; he worshipped the gods like any other good citizen.
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