CHAPTER I

Atheism and atheist are words formed from Greek roots and with Greek
derivative endings. Nevertheless they are not Greek; their formation is
not consonant with Greek usage. In Greek they said _atheos_ and
_atheotes_; to these the English words ungodly and ungodliness correspond
rather closely. In exactly the same way as ungodly, _atheos_ was used as
an expression of severe censure and moral condemnation; this use is an old
one, and the oldest that can be traced. Not till later do we find it
employed to denote a certain philosophical creed; we even meet with
philosophers bearing _atheos_ as a regular surname. We know very little of
the men in question; but it can hardly be doubted that _atheos_, as
applied to them, implied not only a denial of the gods of popular belief,
but a denial of gods in the widest sense of the word, or Atheism as it is
nowadays understood.

In this case the word is more particularly a philosophical term. But it
was used in a similar sense also in popular language, and corresponds then
closely to the English "denier of God," denoting a person who denies the
gods of his people and State. From the popular point of view the interest,
of course, centred in those only, not in the exponents of philosophical
theology. Thus we find the word employed both of theoretical denial of the
gods (atheism in our sense) and of practical denial of the gods, as in the
case of the adherents of monotheism, Jews and Christians.

Atheism, in the theoretical as well as the practical sense of the word,
was, according to the ancient conception of law, always a crime; but in
practice it was treated in different ways, which varied both according to
the period in question and according to the more or less dangerous nature
of the threat it offered to established religion. 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. 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. The word itself conveys
the idea that the law particularly had offences against public worship in
view; and this is confirmed by the fact th