Cicero on superstition

The article deals with Cicero’s assessment of ‘superstitio’ (‘superstition’ in English). Cicero considers superstition to be an empty fear of gods. He opposes it to religion, id est a devout worship of gods. Superstition should be suppressed, while religion, combined with cognition of nature, should be supported. In the second book of the treatise “De divinatione” Cicero equates the Roman religious rituals to superstitions, and this can be seen as an attempt to look at the question of religion from the opposite angle, not as Cicero’s own point of view. In non-religious treatises superstition and religion are used by Cicero as synonyms, and this usage is supposed to be an exception, rather than a rule.