Abstract
The article offers an in-depth analysis in the form of a close reading of the very beginning of Book X of Plato's Laws. It focuses on a passage where Plato defines three types of impiety which he claims to be the source of a wrong conception of the divine, the world, and human actions.
To better understand Plato's seemingly conservative but actually uncommon and problematic definition of impiety, it is contrasted with partly similar reasoning of Xenophon's Socrates. By situating this key passage of the Laws within the context of the entire dialogue and within the relevant contemporary discussions, we arrive at a better understanding of the nature of Platonic revolution in a philosophical approach to traditional Greek religion.