A new way of understanding the relationship between men and the gods: Socrates, gods and wealth

Abstract

A careful methodology can enable us to be confident in the idea, largely neglected by historiography, that Socrates understood the relationships between men, the gods and wealth, in a very different manner to that of the large majority of his contemporaries. While the latter thought that the rites could lead the gods to bring them prosperity, that wealth was a blessing, Socrates was convinced of the opposite: wealth was not, in his view, a blessing, and had nothing to do with the gods. This was able to draw a few Athenians to think that philosophy could threaten the practice of religious rituals.