Such are the heights of wickedness to which men are driven by

“Such are the heights of wickedness to which men are driven by religion.” – Lucretius

These words, spoken over two thousand years ago by Lucretius, the Roman poet and philosopher of the Epicurean school, burn like a torch through the corridors of time. In them, he does not condemn the divine, nor the yearning of the human soul for meaning; rather, he warns of what happens when that yearning is twisted by fear and superstition. His lament is not against faith itself, but against the perversion of faith — when men, in the name of gods, commit acts no god of wisdom would ever bless. Lucretius saw in his own age the terrible paradox that religion, meant to bring peace and virtue, could instead become a furnace of cruelty, driving humanity to its darkest extremes.

The origin of this quote lies in the opening of his great poem De Rerum Natura — On the Nature of Things — a vast hymn to reason, nature, and the freedom of the human mind. In it, he tells of the Greek hero Agamemnon, who, before sailing to Troy, sacrifices his own daughter, Iphigenia, to appease the goddess Artemis. Lucretius evokes the horror of that moment — a father’s trembling hand, the weeping of the innocent girl, the crowd of priests chanting praises as her life is taken — and he declares, “Such are the heights of wickedness to which men are driven by religion.” In that ancient story, he sees the essence of his warning: when fear of the divine overtakes love of the good, man becomes a stranger to his own heart.

Lucretius lived in a world where people feared the gods as cruel masters who demanded endless offerings and sacrifices. To him, this fear was the true enemy of peace — not the gods themselves, but the terror men felt in their names. He followed the teachings of Epicurus, who taught that the gods, if they exist, live in perfect peace and care nothing for human quarrels. The wise man, Epicurus said, does not fear divine punishment nor seek divine reward; he lives according to nature, in calm and reason. In this spirit, Lucretius sought to liberate humanity from superstition, to teach that lightning is not the wrath of Zeus, nor death a divine curse, but part of the natural order. His words, though ancient, still echo in every age where belief is used as a weapon instead of a bridge.

History offers many mirrors to his lament. The Crusades, fought in the name of God, left rivers of blood across continents. The Inquisition burned those whose faith took a different shape. The witch hunts of later centuries saw the innocent tortured, the poor condemned, the wise silenced — all under the banner of piety. Each of these, like Agamemnon’s sacrifice, shows how men, blinded by religious zeal, can mistake cruelty for devotion. The sacred becomes desecrated when it ceases to honor compassion. And so, time and again, Lucretius’s words prove true: wickedness reaches its greatest height when clothed in the garments of holiness.

Yet, his teaching is not a call to abandon faith, but to purify it. For faith, when joined with reason and mercy, can uplift the soul rather than enslave it. The true enemy is not religion, but fanaticism — that fever of certainty which silences the heart and glorifies obedience over understanding. The wise must seek balance, remembering that the divine, if it is to mean anything, must always be a source of love, not terror. Reason and compassion, said Lucretius, are the twin lights that lead humanity out of the darkness of fear.

To understand him rightly, one must not hear only accusation, but also yearning — the yearning for a faith that heals rather than harms, that enlightens rather than enslaves. Lucretius was not an enemy of the sacred, but a defender of human dignity. He sought to free man from kneeling before shadows of his own making, to lift his eyes toward the vastness of the cosmos, where every life, every heartbeat, is part of a divine order too grand for wrath and too wise for cruelty.

The lesson is this: do not let fear masquerade as holiness. Do not worship gods who demand hatred or division. Let your faith — whatever its form — be measured not by its words, but by its fruits: compassion, wisdom, and peace. When belief leads to violence, it is no longer faith but idolatry; when it leads to kindness, it becomes the truest form of worship. Seek always the spirit of love that lies beyond dogma, and remember the warning of Lucretius: that even the holiest names can be corrupted by human pride, but the divine truth — the call to goodness and reason — endures untouched.

So let these ancient words guide the hearts of those who would listen: “Such are the heights of wickedness to which men are driven by religion.” Let them not drive you to despair of faith, but to its renewal — a faith without cruelty, a reverence without fear, a devotion not to punishment, but to peace. For the gods, if they exist, do not demand blood — they ask only that we learn to live as though we ourselves are sacred.