SUPERSTITION (DE SUPERSTITIONE)
INTRODUCTION
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Plutarch’s essay on Superstition is, in the main, an attempt to prove that superstition is worse than atheism. Its somewhat impassioned tone savours more of the emotional sermon than of the carefully reasoned discourse, and suggests that it was originally prepared for public presentation.
intro
Wyttenbach was disturbed because in the catalogue of Lamprias, in which this essay is No. 155, the title is given as Περὶ δεισιδαιμονίας πρὸς Ἐπίκουρον, and he thought that this title might refer to some other treatise of Plutarch. The explanation is so simple that the only surprising thing is that it should have escaped a man of Wyttenbach’s acumen. On the first page of the essay are the words, the universe . . . atoms and void . . . assumption is false. Then, as now, librarians and reviewers looked at the first page, and reached their conclusions; so it was only natural that the compiler of the catalogue should conclude that the rest of the book was equally hostile to Epicurus. On the other hand, this affords interesting evidence that the compiler of the catalogue of Lamprias probably had a copy of Plutarch’s works before him when he drew up his list.
intro
The ms. tradition of this essay is better than of many others, and one ms. (D) has preserved many excellent readings.a Only one passage, a quotation (170 b), presents serious difficulty, and of this Professor Goodwin remarked: As to the original Greek, hardly a word can be made out with certainty.
