Abstract
After some introductory remarks on the role of fear in religious discourse. Plutarch’s treatise On Superstition is analysed according to its rhetorical outline. Questions of authenticity are discussed and answered by locating the essay in Plutarch’s early career. Then we ask for the place of “fear of God” in biblical teaching and theology, compare it to Plutarch and show some limits in Plutarch’s youthful thinking, which doesn't yet pay due respect to the life values of myth. We conclude with two New Testament passages, Romans 8:15, masterfully interpreted by Martin Luther, and 1 John 4:17f excellently explained by 20th century’s Swiss theologian and psychologian Oskar Pfister, and we show that these texts are propagating “belief without fear”.
Highlights
A new German dictionary, the Handbuch religionswissenschaftlicher Grundbegriffe, tells us in the first of its several volumes under the entry Angst, fear: “In some religions, in Christianity for example, provoking fear and overcoming fear seem to be closely connected
There are some sweeping allegations about Christianity in this quotation which need further reflection, but there is a remarkable caution regarding some favourite ideas of religious critics old and new, from Lucretius, in his De rerum natura, to Sigmund Freud
One ancient author who has delivered a more nuanced and in some respects very modern analysis of the relation of religion to fear is Plutarch o f Chaironeia, in an essay traditionally entitled On Superstition
Summary
A new German dictionary, the Handbuch religionswissenschaftlicher Grundbegriffe, tells us in the first of its several volumes under the entry Angst, fear: “In some religions, in Christianity for example, provoking fear and overcoming fear seem to be closely connected. There are some sweeping allegations about Christianity in this quotation which need further reflection, but there is a remarkable caution regarding some favourite ideas of religious critics old and new, from Lucretius, in his De rerum natura, to Sigmund Freud. One ancient author who has delivered a more nuanced and in some respects very modern analysis of the relation of religion to fear is Plutarch o f Chaironeia (ca 45-125 A D), in an essay traditionally entitled On Superstition. To study his text and to confront it with early Christian literature is a challenging and rewarding task. After considering the essay’s somewhat dubious authenticity very quickly, w e’ll take up some clues which will lead us to the New Testament, to two passages
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