hapter.

About the relations of the Megarians to the popular faith we know next to
nothing. One of them, Stilpo, was charged with impiety on account of a bad
joke about Athene, and convicted, although he tried to save himself by
another bad joke. As his point of view was that of a downright sceptic, he
was no doubt an atheist according to the notions of antiquity; in our day
he would be called an agnostic, but the information that we have about his
religious standpoint is too slight to repay dwelling on him.

As to the relation of the Cyrenaic school to the popular faith, the
general proposition has been handed down to us that the wise man could not
be "deisidaimon," _i.e._ superstitious or god-fearing; the Greek word can
have both senses. This does not speak for piety at any rate, but then the
relationship of the Cyrenaics to the gods of popular belief was different
from that of the other followers of Socrates. As they set up pleasure--the
momentary, isolated feeling of pleasure--as the supreme good, they had no
use for the popular conceptions of the gods in their ethics, nay, these
conceptions were even a hindrance to them in so far as the fear of the
gods might prove a restriction where it ought not to. In these
circumstances we cannot wonder at finding a member of the school in the
list of _atheoi_. This is Theodorus of Cyrene, who lived about the year
300. He really seems to have been a downright denier of the gods; he wrote
a work _On the Gods_ containing a searching criticism of theology, which
is said to have exposed him to unpleasantness during a stay at Athens, but
the then ruler of the city, Demetrius of Phalerum, protected him. There is
nothing strange in a manifestation of downright atheism at this time and
from this quarter. More remarkable is that interest in theology which we
must assume Theodorus to have had, since he wrote at length upon the
subject. Unfortunately it is not evident from the account whether his
criticism was directed mostly against popular religion or against the
theology of the philosophers. As it was asserted in antiquity that
Epicurus used his book largely, the latter is more probable.

Whereas in the case of the "imperfect Socratics" as well as of all the
earlier philosophers we must content ourselves with more or less casual
notes, and at the best with fragments, and for Socrates with second-hand
information, when we come to Plato we find ourselves for the first time in
the presen