Abstract
Did the Greeks believe in their gods ? The question may seem curious, but it raises the issue of " belief " in a polytheistic context. The lecture opens with a brief historiographical survey, calling on Émile Durkheim, Rodney Needham and Jean Pouillon to define the limits of applying the register of " belief " to non-Christian cultures. Next, we reflect on the meaning of the phrase νομίζειν τοὺς θεούς / nomizein tous theous, which has sometimes been translated as " believe in the gods ". This " belief " of the Greeks has been questioned by various works, such as Paul Veyne's on myths or Manuela Giordano's on gods, an article answered by Henk Versnel in his monumental Coping with the Gods. Starting with the various texts of Herodotus that use the verb nomizein in a religious context, and adding passages from Pausanias where the latter competes with his great predecessor, it appears that nomizein tous theous means both recognizing the gods (i.e. identifying them, naming them, representing them in various forms) and paying them the homage due to them. The two registers are inseparable, but this does not make the Greeks " believers " in the sense that we moderns give to this term.
