SALLUSTIUS. - Neoplatonic philosopher of the school of Pergamon, who lived in the 4th century A.D. He dissuaded the emperor Julian, whose friend he was, from putting the Christians to death (Theodoret, Hist., III, 2), but he was, like him, a strenuous defender of paganism.
His work On the Gods and the World, inspired by the doctrines of Plotinus (v.), of Porphyry (v.) and of Proclus (v.), is one of the last apologies for the fundamental motifs of thought and of religious tradition, written for the people in a simple and unadorned form. It cannot be said that his intent is openly polemical: and yet, in the defense of the ideal reasons of polytheism alongside the metaphysical value of monotheism, as well as of the propaedeutic function of fables and myths, in the insistence with which he highlights the moral precepts of tradition and defends the divinity and eternity of the universe, one cannot fail to perceive the presence of a problematic, aroused no longer by a taste for academic exercises, but by the urgings of a living conflict.
Bibliography7 worksΠερὶ θεῶν χῶς: «ἐσπεύει», ed. by G. Naudé, with Latin trans. by L. Allatius, Rome 1638; modern critical ed. by A. Darby Noek (with English t
BIBL.: Περὶ θεῶν χῶς: «ἐσπεύει», ed. by G. Naudé, with Latin trans. by L. Allatius, Rome 1638; modern critical ed. by A. Darby Noek (with English trans.), Cambridge 1926; French trans. by A.-J. Festugière, in Trois devots païens, Paris 1944; E. Passamonti, La dottrina dei miti di S. filosofo neopl., in Rend. dell'Accad. dei Lincei, cl. sc. mor. stor. e filol., 5th series (1892), pp. 643-664; F. Cumont, S. le philosophe, in Rev. de philol., 1892, pp. 49-56; E. Boonsiuti, Il necroforo del paganesimo, in Ric. relig., 4 (1928), p. 339 sq.; cf. Überweg, I, p. 193 sq.
Faggin, Giuseppe. “Sallustio.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. X, coll. 1679–1680. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1953. https://azioneromana.com/article/sallustio.
MLA
Faggin, Giuseppe. “Sallustio.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. X, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1953, coll. 1679–1680. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/sallustio.
BibTeX
@incollection{ec10_sallustio,
author = {Faggin, Giuseppe},
title = {Sallustio},
booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
volume = {X},
pages = {1679--1680},
note = {Cited by column},
publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
address = {Città del Vaticano},
year = {1953},
url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/sallustio}
}
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