FIfth, Sixth, and Seventh Principle of Piety

From Philodemus’ Scroll On Piety

Worship affects reality because it affects character

Piety is a sort of art of divine attunement with the philosophical virtues that produces wholesome, blessed, blissful, therapeutic states of mind

Epicurean doctrines are considered the true cause of our tranquility

Piety According to the Epicurean Sources

In On Holiness, he (Epicurus) calls a life of perfection the most pleasant and most blessed, and instructs us to guide against all defilement, with our intellect comprehensively viewing the best psychosomatic dispositions for the sake of fitting all that happens to us to blessedness … – Philodemus of Gadara

… for every wise man holds pure and holy beliefs about the Divine. – Epicurus

Piety and justice appear to be almost the same thing … because to break one’s oath is to be unjust and also to lie, and both are disturbing. – Philodemus of Gadara

… poets and theologians are praised by our attackers … The false views of poets don’t lead to virtuous or happy lives …Impious is not so much the man who denies the Gods of the many as the man who attributes the beliefs of the many to them. – Philodemus of Gadara