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Sociology of Religj~m 1996, 57:4 397-407
Pericles and the Plague: Civil Religion,
Anomie, and Injustice in Thucydides*
Donald A. Nielsen
This paper examines the problems of "civil felicita, ""anomie," and h~justice in Athenian s,~iety
as presented in Thucydides's narrative of the Peloponnesian war. Thucydides juxtaposes Pericles's
funeral oration, as an embodiment of Athenian civil religion, with his description of Athenian
demoralization and anomie during the subsequent plague. These c~nu:epts ate linked to the problem of
injustice in the Melian Dialogue, which describes Athenian imperial behavior toward this small island
people. The paper shows how Thucydides links these ideas to the notion of Fortune in the ultimate
collapse of the Athenian war effort. Thucydides is a pioneer in the systematic use of these sociolo~cal
concepts and he is compared briefly to more recent sociolo~sts, such as Durkheim, Merton, and
BeUah.
The concepts of "civil religion" and "anomie" are closely associated with the
work of Emite Durkheim, although both have been subsequently developed in
new directions by a host of writers, including Merton, Warner, Bellah, and
others. Froma systematic standpoint, the two concepts have a symmetrical
quality. While "civil religion" points to the highest level of religio-political ritual
and symbolism unifying a people, "anomie" reveals the fragility of social integration and asks us to examine the sources and manifestations of social dislocation
and the collapse of the moral order. Indeed, the two concepts seem to work well
when paired with one another.
This paper examines these two concepts, along with several related ideas, as
they appear in Thucydides's history of the Peloponnesian war. This text contains
one of the most famous historical illustrations of "civil religion," Pericles's
funeral oration. In his discussion of the effects of the wartime plague on
Athenian society, Thucydides also provides a vivid historical account of
"anomie" as well as one of the first instances of this term's (i.e., anomia's) systematic use in the human sciences. Moreover, in the so-called "Melian Dialogue," Thucydides presents the problem of justice and injustice in the individual as well as in the relations among Greek states, in a manner which echoes
many of the themes of the funeral oration and the plague narratŸ
* Researchfor this paperwas begun duringa Narional Endounnentfor the Humanities Summer Insrituteon "Platoand
the Polis," Department of Classics, Dulce Universiry, 13 June.22 July, I994, directedby ProfessorsDiskin C/ay ana[
Michael Gillespie. Ah earlier version was presented at the Annual Meeting, Southern Sociolo~cal Sociery, Atlanta,
Georg/a, 9 Apr/l 1995.
397
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State University of New York CoUege,Oneonta
398
SOCIOLOGYOF RELIGION
I will examine each of these facets of his work in turn: (1) his concept of
"civil religion" in the context of Pericles's funeral oration; (2) the notion of
"anomie" in the setting of the Athenian plague and Athenian society; (3) the
relationship of these two narratives to the moral drama related in the "Melian
Dialogue;" (4) the relevance of these concepts and narratives to the moral design
of Thucydides's text. Finally, I will conclude with some briefer observations on
Thucydides's place in the history of social theory.
Robert Bellah defines "civil religion" asa "collection of beliefs, symbols, and
ritual with respect to sacred things and institutions in a collectivity" (Bellah
1967: 8). They serve to strengthen the community's religio-political identity and
solidify their sense of transcendent religious realities (Bellah 1967: 12). The beliefs and practices of the "civil religion" are also differentiated from those of
other particular religious practices which might exist alongside ir within the
national setting (Bellah 1967: 1).
Pericles's speech, in occcasion as well as content, is a premier instance of
Bellah's usage, despite the latter's American focus (e.g., on Lincoln's Gettysburg
Address; for comparisons between the two speeches, see Finley 1963: 144, 183).
Thucydides places it in the Winter of 431/430 BCE after the first battles of the
war. It was part of an "annual custom," an Athenian public burial rite meant to
honor those who have died in wartime (Thucydides 1972: 143-144). A s a rite in
Athenian "civil religion," it is to be distinguished from the many other religious
cults distributed throughout the Athenian calendar (see Burkert 1985).
Thucydides provides a concise description of the ceremonies. They included a
public funeral procession, burial of individuals in collective coffins by tribe (the
units of the polis since ancient times), and final interment in the public burial
grounds "in the most beautiful quarter, outside the city wall" (Thucydides 1972:
143). A speech by a notable public figure was a standard part of the ritual.
Pericles's speech was also clearly meant to serve as a rallying point for the unification of the Athenian populace who were then being called upon to suffer
hardship in the defense of their country and culture. Pericles therefore is made to
present the highest level symbols and values associated with Athenian life.
Early in his speech, Pericles states that "What I want to do is, in the first
place, to discuss the spirit in which we faced our trials and also our constitution
and the way of life that has made us great" (Thucydides 1972: 145). This way of
life includes: political and cultural autonomy, coupled with an openness to the
outside world; a harmonious blend of labors and recreation in contests and sacrifices; a balanced love of beauty, without extravagance; a desire for private gain
through work and wealth, yet a willingness to sacrifice them for country; a
committment to mind, debate, and rationality, without thereby becoming soft;
freedom and tolerance in private affairs, yet a common democratic public life
under the law; a willingness to face the dangers of war courageously, without
continuous preparation and discipline in advance; in sum, a living involvement
in private life, balanced with an overriding patriotic devotion to the public good
on which all depend (Thucydides 1972: 145-150). In Pericles's own words, " . . .
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I. CIVIL RELIGION A N D PERICLES'S F U N E R A L O R A T I O N
PERICLESANDTHE PLAGUE 399
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we do not say that a m a n who takes no interest in politics is a m a n who minds
his own business; we say that he has no business here at all" (Thucydides 1972:
147). His speech not only evokes the collective memory of glorious deeds performed by ancestors and holds out the promise of "praises that never grow old,"
but encourages those present to "fix their eyes every day on the greatness of
Athens as she really is" and enhorts them to do nothing less than "fall in love
with her" (Thucydides 1972: 149). Perictes is made to link eros to country in a
manner familiar to more recent civil religious rhetoric. Those who have recently
died, in the first battles with Sparta, "chose to check the enemy's pride" and accepted the risks involved in that choice. As for success or failure,".., they left
that in the doubtful hands of Hope (elpis), and when the reality of battle was
before their faces, they put their trust in their own selves" (Thucydides 1972:
149). We wiU return later to a discussion of some of these themes (including the
ambiguities of "hope") in Thucydides.
Pericles's speech undoubtedly gives an idealized portrait of Athenian culture
and virtue. This is not surprising. It is the essense of "civil religion" to idealize
the past in the interest of present and future social unity. However, we need to
recall that it is Thucydides himself who has reconstructed Pericles's words and
made him say what was "called for" by the situation (Thucydides 1972: 47). He
has also inserted the speech into the historical narrative at this particular point.
It might be thought that the author places the speech before the plague narrative
because events did, indeed, follow that sequence. However, Thucydides makes
significant chronological digressions elsewhere, is hardly insistent on precise
sequences at every point, and moves quite freely back and forth in time in his
history when it suits his needs (see the remarks by Finley in Thucydides 1972:
16-18). It would be a mistake to explain his construction solely by reference to
the alleged historical "facts" or to standards of linear chronological narrative.
Thucydides needs to follow Pericles's idealized picture of Athenian virtues with
his plague narrative in order to achieve the desired moral and pedagogical effect.
In sociological terms, "civil religion" and "anomie" need to be joined, yet
opposed to one another. This view gains strength from the fact that such
juxtapositions often playa key role elsewhere in the construction of his text
(Rawlings 1981: 50; Gomme 1956, II: 161).
A particularly central issue is the prominence given to the notions of balance and harmony of opposites in Pericles's speech. While he specifies a number
of defining features of Athenian civil religion, they are generally enumerated in
pairs and bound together by the balance which exists between the members of
each pair. This is perhaps not surprising given the Athenian, and, in general, the
Greek emphasis on the moral maxim, "Nothing in excess," as well as its companion notion of "demonic" forces which drive the individual to over-reaching
(Kaufmann 1975: 65).
Thucydides is not unique among the Greeks in his emphasis on measure,
balance, and the weighing of opposing forces in the proper constitution of a
culture. This image is found in varying forros in a large number of Greek writers.
It is especially, although not exclusively, associated with the notions of justice,
equality, and the health of the soul as well as the polis. It appears in writers
otherwise as different as Herodotus, Euripides, Xenophon, Plato, and others (see
400 SOCIOLOGYOF RELIGION
II. ANOMIE AND THE PLAGUE IN ATHENS
The concept of "anomie" has become a sociological staple, used in a variety
of ways (see Orru 1987). I want to focus on Durkheim's usage. He associated
"anon~ie" with a condition of unregulated passions and strivings, one which
threatens to become a disease of infinite desires which cannot, in principle, be
satisfied. In the absense of culturally defined limits, people are thrown into an
anomic condition in which the immediate and full realization of desires becomes
the norm of conduct (Durkheim 1951: 248, 252-253,258). Durkheim demonstrated especially that a condition of "anomie" resulted from particular social
causes (e.g., the dislocations resulting from the rapid expansion of trade and
industry).
Thucydides's portrayal of the plague vividly captures the breakdown of custom and morality. He writes: " . . . the catastrophe was so overwhelming that
men, not knowing what would happen next to them, became indifferent to every
rule of religion or of law . . . . Al1 the funeral ceremonies which used to be observed were now disorganized..." and the populace "adopted the most shameless methods" of burial, not excluding the extreme of finding another funeral
pyre already burning, throwing their own dead upon it, and then leaving
(Thucydides 1972: 155). In a passage of particular importance, Thucydides
writes: " . . . Athens owed to the plague the beginnings of a state of unprecedented lawlessness (anomias)" (Thucydides 1972: 155). Abrupt changes of fortune took place, in which the rich died and the penniless inherited their wealth.
Since everything, including money, seems ephemeral, self-indulgence and
pleasure became the order of the day. Honor was cast aside, no one would abide
by the laws, and only the pleasure of the moment was valued. Open display of
egoism replaced the previous practice of concealing vice behind a mask of virtue,
and, thus, even hypocrisy fell victim to the plague. "No fear of God or law of
man hada restraining influence" (Thucydides 1972: 155). Both the good, who
worshipped the Gods, and the bad, who did not, died indiscriminately. No
Greeks expected to live long enough to face legal punishment for their misdeeds.
The plague narrative sounds many of the same themes found in Durkheim's
account of anomie, a fact which has not gone entirely unnoticed (see Connor
1984: 64; Orru 1987: 20-21). However, Thucydides not only uses the word
anomia descriptively in connection with the plague's effects, but is also eager to
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Rawlinson 1942: 24-25; Grene 1992, IV: 479; Benjamin 1965: 5; Pangle 1988:
143-44). It is featured especially in the Hippocratic medical writings (see Lloyd
1978: 26, 30, 33). I cannot now trace the complex history of this theme in
Greek culture (but see Lloyd 1966). I would only emphasize that Pericles's
funeral oration not only expresses the content of Athenian civic virtue, but does
so in a forro which gives priority to the ideal of balance or harmony in the
articulation of opposite qualities. Indeed, the particular forro assumed by the
Periclean version of "civil religion" constitutes part of its distinctive character as
an Athenian cultural creation. More important, it lays the foundation for the
subsequent notion of "anomie." This concept involves precisely those madnesses,
excesses, and imbalances which possess societies under given circumstances.
PERICLESAND THE PLAGUE 401
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set his description of Athenian response to the plague in the context of
Athenian social structure, cultural values, and norms of conduct, precisely as
they are described in Pericles's speech. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a more
vivid contrast than the one between Pericles's praise of Athenian character and
the actual conduct of the Athenians during the plague, which first struck
Athens in the su,nmer of 430 BCE, after only one year of the war. Despite
Pericles's glowing recommendation of "the spirit in which we faced our trials,"
Athens became rapidly and completely demoralized during this new crisis.
Thucydides traces the "anomie" into which the Athenians were plunged to various objective causes. He describes the plague's symptoms, the course of the
disease, and its spread through the crowded wartime city, where large rural populations had been quartered, with the eye of a modern public health official
(Thucydides 1972: 151-155). He also captures the the underlying sentiment of
egoistic self-interest and attachment to material goods which had taken
increasing hold of Imperial Athens with the growth of trade and the seaport of
the Piraeus. tndeed, his implied emphasis on the deeper moral dislocation accompanying the economic and political expansion of the Athenian empire
foreshadows Durkheim's analysis of economically induced anomie as well as his
sense of polit ically induced demoralization.
In the above passage, Thuycidides implies that this marked the beginning of
a period of chronic "lawlessness" in Athenian life (see Orru 1987: 21; but see
Gomme 1956, II: 159). The plague, like Pericles speech itself, marked a turning
point. The depths of Greek demoralization was reflected in their open violation
of the most basic tenets of public reputability of the Greek "shame culture"
(Dodds 1968). Thucydides creates a very effective mirror image in his juxtaposition of the orderly funeral customs followed on the occasion of Pericles's
speech and the "shameless" practices of burial under the plague. The libertine
pursuit of pleasures and self-interest, the unpredictable dispensations of fortune,
regardless of merit, and the ineffectiveness of all human rule, are all featured
prominently in Thucydides's rendition of "anomie" and are very much in
keeping with the modern concept.
I want to emphasize that Thucydides not only uses the word anomia, but also
develops the concept itself in relationship to Athenian society and culture (for
the distinction between word and concept, see Merton 1968). While variants of
the word were used in more isolated fashion by other Greek writers (see Orru
1987:12-40, esp. 15), this is the first systematic sociological use of the term.
The plague not only created new and reinforced existing anomie, it engendered a particular type of anomic response. In terms of Pericles's speech, this
response involved a loss of the balance and harmony among the constituent elements of the Greek value system. The extremes of conduct became accentuated
and all sense of measure was lost. It is not surprising that the term anomia should
be used to describe part of this condition. The term was translated as
"lawlessness" by Warner and "lawless extravagance" by Crawley, before hito (see
Thucydides 1972: 155; Crawley 1910: 133; see also Gomme et al. 1956-81: II).
Hobbes had rendered it as "great licentiousness" (Hobbes 1959, I: 118). While
the former term is used more frequently, the latter has the merit of capturing the
sense of immorality and excess which the Greeks must also have attached to t h e
402
S O C I O L O G Y OF RELIGION
1 A brief comparison is helpful between Thucydides and Sophocles's Oedipus. This play was first
performed around 425 BCE shortly after the plague appeared in Athens (Berg and Clay 1978: 19). In it,
Corinth reels under a disease precipitated by Oedipus's conduct. Despite Corinth's misery, Sophocles does not
depict that city as utterly demoralized of led to "shameless," sacreligious conduct. On the contrary, everyone is
"kneeling, offering theŸ branches, praying before the two great temples of Athena" and "the whole city
smoiders with incense" (Berg and Ciar 1978: 23). The difference between the two portraits is striking. It leads
us to further suspect that both moral effect as well as theoretical vision were guiding motives in Thucvdides's
depiction and placement of the plague narrative.
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"shameless" violation of customs so deeply rooted in the common conscience.
But the word alone is not decisive. It is Thucydides's wider contrast between
Pericles's enunciation of the ideals of Greek culture and the Greek realities,
including responses to the plague, that reveals his comprehension of "anomie."
The Greeks viewed diseases like the plague as the result of miasma, or moral
pollution (see Dodds 1968). It might seem surprising that Thucydides took such
a "scientific" view of the disease, traced its development with such objectivity,
and seems to have rejected the oracles popularly associated with its appearance
(see Thucydides 1972: 156). However, I would point out that his focus on
lawlessness, sacrilege, and the demoralization of Athenian society during the
plague reflects not only his objectivity in recounting the events as they occurred,
but also conveys his sense of Athenian moral decay. This decay may not, in his
eyes, have been a miasma which produced the plague, but it certainly prevented
Athens from meeting it in the spirit described by Pericles. 1
When the plague struck, it is not surprising that the Athenians were unable
to face it in the spirit whŸ guided their earlier responses to crisis, always
exemplified best in their exploits against the Persians. Pericles portrays a value
system which is no longer fully alive. The crisis brings to the sufface the standard
now actually governing conduct among the Athenians. This standard is egoistic
self-interest and, during the plague, it degenerates entirely into the impulses of
the moment. It reflects states of the soul which are thoroughly unbalanced,
Iacking in measure, and expressing a world of experience alien to that described
so eloquently by Pericles. "Nothing in excess" has become "Everything only in
excess." This is the condition that Plato was soon to diagnose as injustice in the
soul as well as the polis (Bloom 1968; on Thucydides and Plato see also Strauss
1964).
In juxtaposing these events, Thucydides seems to tell us that Pericles badly
misjudged contemporary Athenian character by equating it with an idealized
image of the past. Would the Athenians as described by Pericles have been as
demoralized by similar events? Had fortune not dealt them equally powefful
blows during the Persian war, without their moral collapse? Was the Athenian
breakdown under the plague not proof that Athenian character and moral order
were already in a precarious state at the very outset of the war?
This contrast not only helps him achieve an immediate contrast of past and
present, but also serves asa harbinger of the future. The subsequent Athenian
defeat at Syracuse is prefigured in this contrast betweeen Pericles and the plague.
At the war's very outset, the excesses of Athenian imperial ambition are brought
to heel by Fortune (Tyche) in the form of the plague (see also Cornford 1971).
Indeed, at one point, the plague is actually given an apocalyptic quality by
PERICLESAND THE PLAGUE 403
Thucydides and is assimilated to the category of an event sent by the Gods to
punish the Athenians' over-reaching pride (see Connor 1984:31). Here we need
to examine a wider set of problems connected with Thucydides's account of the
relationships among the Athenian empire, justice, and moral order. This is best
achieved through a consideration of the "Melian Dialogue" (the only dialogue in
a book filled with speeches; see Rawlings 1981: 243-249; Finley 1963:208-212;
Connor 1984: 147-157).
Although the small island of Melos was of Hellenic, more specifically Dorian
population, and originally associated with Sparta, the Melians adopted a position
of neutrality in the Peloponnesian war. Melos was not part of the Athenian
empire and had not previously paid tribute to Athens (Zimmern 1961: 440).
However, Athens now (416 BCE) wanted to absorb them into its system, despite
their ~trategic insignificance, both to satisfy its insanable desire for expansion
and to create an object lesson for other states that might resist. The Athenian
representatives counseled the Melians to act in their own self-interest and to
avoid excessive reliance on Hope (elpis), in the absence of practical actions to
avoid destruction. The Melians spoke in terms of justice and insisted on Hope in
the possible turn of fortune to their advantage during the uncertainties of war.
The Melians are also made, by Thucydides, to foresee the collapse of the
Athenian empire as proper vengeance against their injustice and the Athenians
even entertain the possibility of this collapse. The outcome of the dialogue is
well-known: Melian refusal to pay tribute, ensuing hostilities and, after a
blockade and some indeterminate battles, the subsequent capture of Melos by
the Athenians, who killed all the male citizens, sold the women and children
into slavery, and colonized Melos with their own people (see Thucydides 1972:
400-408).
The role of Hope and Fortune in the dialogue is striking. The Melians
remark: " . . . in war fortune sometimes makes the odds more level than could be
expected from the difference in numbers of the two sides. And if we surrender,
then all our hope is lost at once, whereas, so long as we remain in action, there is
still a hope that we may yet stand upright" (Thucydides 1972: 404). The
Athenians counter by saying that hope is only a "comforter in danger" and an
"expensive commodity." Practical measures to avoid destruction are better than
"prophecies and oracles and such things which by encouraging hope lead men to
ruin" (Thucydides 1972: 404). Moreover, self-interested action is safer, while reliance on the honorable retention of old ties (with Sparta) and on justice lead
one into danger (Thucydides 1972: 405).
It is interesting that Pericles had added hope in the successful outcome of
earlier Athenian endeavors as a possible, if "doubtful," appendix to the uncertainties of war and viewed it as an acceptable emotion when it was added to (but
did not replace) self-reliance (Thucydides 1972: 149). The Athenian representatives were unwilling to allow hope a similar place in the Melian response and
insisted only on self-interested capitulation. What Pericles granted the
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III. DISHARMONY, SELF.INTEREST, AND INJUSTICE
IN T H E MELIAN D I A L O G U E
404 SOCIOLOGYOF RELIGION
CONCLUSIONS
The above discussion has led to several conclusions. Thucydides emerges as
the first writer to create the sociological concepts of "civil religion" and
"anomie." I can think of no author before him who develops these ideas so
systematically. The concepts also emerge in conjunction with one another, as
opposing terms, so to speak. His treatment of both ideas emphasizes the Greek
notion of balance and harmony among opposites as attributes of health and justice in the soul and society. Thucydides's eye for typical situations contributes to
his talents asa sociological innovator. His combination of historical detail with
typical conceptualizations gives his work a very modern quality. Thucydides and
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Athenians, the Athenians were unwilling to grant Melos. This stark emphasis
on self-interest and the calculations of power politics by the Athenians does not
go unnoted by the Melians.
Most important for present purposes is the fact that Athenian policy reflects
the same state of imbalance and lack of measure which characterized their
response to the plague. The Melian request for justice takes the forro of an appeal to the Athenian sense of balance and proportion in dealing with with different states. But the Athenians reject this appeal in terms which reflect the
deformation of their ethical sensibility. For them, the extremes have become the
measure of normalcy in their imperial policy. The absorption of Melos into the
empire becomes more important ,han the batt[e against bigger and more equally
matched roes (Thucydides 1972: 402). The Melian appeal to honor, justice, and
fair dealing fails. The Athenians have left honor behind, in the past, despite
Pericles's talk of Athenian liberality to its friends (Thucydides 1972: 147). Their
unbalanced souls have become incapable of justice in the present. Therefore, ir
comes as no surprise when Plutarch later writes that one of the greatest
Athenian exemplars of "exalted ambition" and "extreme inconsistency,"
Alcibiades, "bore a heavy share of the responsibility for the execution of all the
grown men on the island [Melos], since he had given his support in the
Assembly to the motion which decreed this" (Scott-Kilvert 1960: 258-260).
According to Thucydides's account, Alcibiades was not only among those who
wanted to put ah end to the temporary peace with Sparta (after 422 BCE), but
was also "the most arden, supporter of the expedition" against Sicily, launched
only six months after the Melian incident (Thucydides 1972: 375,418).
The Athenian refusal of peace terms with Sparta and the vengeance of
Fortune (Tyche) for their overweening conduct in the disasterous invasion of
Syracuse fulfills the disputed oracle cited at the end of the plague sequence
(Thucydides 1972: 156). Ir is true that Thucydides, in Sophist fashion, fought
against the belief in such prophecies and viewed them as human creations open
to varied interpreta, ion, depending on interest and perspective. Despite this, we
have seen that a key part of his history involves juxtapositions of ethically
charged, typical events, ones which contrastan idealized past anda deranged
present and reveal the imbalanced and unj ust state of the contemporary
Athenian soul. As such, it invites cautious comparison, if not with a mythic
view of history (Cornford 1970), thenat least with a systematic sociological one.
PERICLESANDTHE PLAGUE 405
REFERENCES
Bell, D. 1965. The disjunction of culture and social structure. In Science and Culture, edited by G.
Holton, 236-258.Boston: BeaconPress.
Bellah, R. N. 1967. Civil religionin America. Do.da/us 96:1-21.
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Durkheim have much in common. They both link the notions of "civil religion"
and "anomie" to their root sense of balance and harmony as facets of a healthy
soul and good society. Durkheim's treatment of anomie, indeed, his entire systematic theory in his work on suicide, makes little sense without reference to
this notion of harmony and balance of opposing social forces (e.g., see Durkheim
1951: 321; 1912). On this score, Durkheim can be counted as one of the most
"classical" of modern sociologists (on Durkheim, anomie, and ancient society,
see Fustel de Coulanges 1864; Nandan 1977; Glotz 1904; Harrison 1912;
Cornford 1912; Nielsen 1986: 27, 40-41).
Thucydides's movement from "civil religion" to "anomie" also seems a
logical progression and has more recent echoes. For example, Robert Bellah
moved from his analytical treatment of "civil religion" to a study of its "anomic"
crisis in America, and, more recently, has taken up the related problems of individualism, civic committment, and social justice (see Bellah 1975; Bellah et al.
1986). Thucydides also foreshadows central elements in Merton's promising, but
highly incomplete treatment of social structure, anomie, justice, and fate.
Merton's view of anomie as an "imba[ance" or "disjunction" between cultural
values and operative norms of conduct not only reproduces a part of
Thucydides's own emphasis (see Merton 1938; see also Bell 1965). In addition,
in his other early writings, Merton had wanted to tie the problem of anomie to
the ideas of j ustice and fate and to the moral question of merit and reward in
human conduct. He noted that the idea of rule by a fate or fortune, indifferent to
human effort or merit, is more common in situations where prized values cannot
be regularly secured by following legitimate norms of conduct. The incongruity
between cultural values and norms in an anomic social structure gestates not
only a variety of "deviant adaptations," a Mertonian thesis widely noted by
sociologists, but more importantly for present purposes a religious sensibility emphasizing the arbitrary determination of human outcomes by fate and fortune.
Merton himself tells us that he planned a study of this latter complex of ideas,
but he regrettably never completed it (Merton 1936). As we have seen,
Thucydides already sees this complex of problems in the Athenian situation. He
lived and wrote in a world where the notion of fate was still alive and had customary religious sanction (Greene 1963; Edmunds 1975). But his skepticism also
allowed him to see how civil religion, anomie, and fate were linked to one
another in the experience of his Greek contemporaries. We seem to be witnessing a similar conjunction of ideas and events today, and need to recapture it
in our sociology. For this task, Thucydides has once again become required
reading.
406
SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION
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