
Cicero On The Nature Of The Gods book 2 - Deification Of Beneficial Things - Sadler's Lectures
Sep 19, 2025
11:48
This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient philosopher and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero's work, On The Nature Of The Gods, which critically examines Epicurean, Stoic, and Skeptic perspectives on matters of theology and cosmology
Specifically it focuses upon the presentation of Stoic cosmology and theology by Quintus Lucilius Balbus in book 2, and in particular on his discussion of how beneficial things, forces or people come to be deified by human beings. He discusses three dynamics by which this takes place. Something useful to us derives from and is named after the god from which it comes. Some useful or beneficial force gets turned into a divine being. Or a human being who is particularly beneficial to other human beings comes to be regarded as divine, and in some cases arguably does become divine
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