more from Plutarch

Single Idea 5955

[catalogued under 29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 1. Religious Commitment / a. Religious Belief]

Full Idea

A city without holy places and gods, without any observance of prayers, oaths, oracles, sacrifices for blessings received or rites to avert evils, no traveller has ever seen or will ever see.

Gist of Idea

No one will ever find a city that lacks religious practices

Source

Plutarch (74: Reply to Colotes [c.85], §1125)

Book Reference

Plutarch: 'Moralia - vol 14', ed/tr. Einarson,B. /De Lacy P.H. [Harvard Loeb 1967], p.301


A Reaction

The nearest you might get would be Soviet Moscow, but in 1973 I saw a man there jeering at a woman who was kneeling in the street outside a closed church. Plutarch would be stunned at the decline in religious practices in modern Europe.