Piety

Eusebeia, 'piety,' was the Greek virtue of proper conduct toward the gods — and, by extension, toward parents and the dead: performing the rites, keeping oaths, and showing due reverence. It was largely a matter of right action and ritual correctness rather than inner belief. Plato's Euthyphro (early 4th century BCE) made it philosophically famous by having Socrates ask whether the gods love what is pious because it is pious, or whether it is pious because the gods love it — the 'Euthyphro dilemma' still central to the philosophy of religion. The concept matters as the Greek anchor of religious ethics and as the seed of enduring questions about how morality relates to the divine.