Religio

{{Short description|Latin origin of the modern lexeme religion}} {{italics title}} {{Distinguish|religion}} {{wiktionary|religio#Latin}} [[File:CILVII,45=RIB152Bath.jpg|thumb|Dedication from Roman Britain announcing that a local official has restored a ''locus religiosus''<ref>''CIL'' VII.45 = ''ILS'' 4920.</ref>]] The Latin term '''''religiō''''', the origin of the modern lexeme ''religion'' (via Old French/Middle Latin<ref>The medieval usage alternates with ''order'' in designating bonded communities like those of monastic orders: "we hear of the 'religion' of the Golden Fleece, of a knight 'of the religion of Avys'".Johan Huizinga, ''The Waning of the Middle Ages'' (1919) 1924:75.</ref>), is of ultimately obscure etymology. It is recorded beginning in the 1st century BC, i.e. in Classical Latin at the end of the Roman Republic, notably by Cicero, in the sense of "scrupulous or strict observance of the traditional ''cultus''". In classic antiquity, it meant conscientiousness, sense of right, moral obligation, or duty towards anything<ref>{{cite web |title=Religio |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0060%3Aentry%3Dreligio |website=Latin Word Study Tool |publisher=Tufts University}}</ref> and was used mostly in secular or mundane contexts.<ref name="50 great" /><ref name="religio roman" /> In religious contexts, it also meant the feelings of "awe and anxiety" caused by gods and spirits that would help Romans "live successfully".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Grant |first=Michael |date=2023-04-03 |title=Roman religion |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Roman-religion |access-date=2023-05-12 |publisher=Encyclopedia Britannica |language=en}}</ref>

==Etymology== The classical etymology of the word, traced to Cicero in ''De Natura Deorum'', II, 28, 72, derives it from ''relegere'': re (again) + lego (read), meaning ''to go through'' or ''over again in reading, speech or thought''.<ref name="Hoyt">{{cite journal|doi=10.2307/3087765|first1=Sarah|last1=Hoyt|date=1912|title=The Etymology of Religion|journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society|volume=32|issue=2|pages=126-129}}</ref> Modern scholars such as Tom Harpur and Joseph Campbell have argued that ''religio'' is derived from ''religare'': re (again) + ''ligare'' (bind or connect), which was made prominent by Augustine of Hippo, following the interpretation of Lactantius in ''Divinae institutiones'', IV, 28.<ref name="The Pagan Christ 2004">In ''The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light.'' Toronto. Thomas Allen, 2004. {{ISBN|0-88762-145-7}}</ref><ref>In ''The Power of Myth,'' with Bill Moyers, ed. Betty Sue Flowers, New York, Anchor Books, 1991. {{ISBN|0-385-41886-8}}</ref>

Newer research shows that in the ancient and medieval world, the etymological Latin root ''religio'' was understood as an individual virtue of worship in mundane contexts and never as doctrine, practice, or actual source of knowledge.<ref name="Harrison Territories">{{cite book |last1=Harrison |first1=Peter |title=The Territories of Science and Religion |date=2015 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-18448-7}}</ref><ref name="Roberts Jon">{{cite book|last1=Roberts|first1=Jon|editor1-last=Shank|editor1-first=Michael|editor2-last=Numbers|editor2-first=Ronald|editor3-last=Harrison|editor3-first=Peter|title=Wrestling with Nature: From Omens to Science|date=2011|publisher=University of Chicago Press|location=Chicago|isbn=978-0-226-31783-0|page=254|chapter=10. Science and Religion}}</ref> In general, ''religio'' referred to broad social obligations towards anything including family, neighbors, rulers, and even towards God.<ref name="50 great">{{cite book|last1=Morreall|first1=John|last2=Sonn|first2=Tamara|title=50 Great Myths about Religions|date=2013|publisher=Wiley-Blackwell|isbn=978-0-470-67350-8|pages=12–17|chapter=Myth 1: All Societies Have Religions}}</ref> ''Religio'' was most often used by the ancient Romans not in the context of a relation towards gods, but as a range of general emotions such as hesitation, caution, anxiety, fear; feelings of being bound, restricted, inhibited; which arose from heightened attention in any mundane context.<ref name="religio roman">{{cite book |last1=Barton |first1=Carlin |last2=Boyarin |first2=Daniel |title=Imagine No Religion : How Modern Abstractions Hide Ancient Realities |date=2016 |publisher=Fordham University Press |isbn=978-0-8232-7120-7 |chapter=1. 'Religio' without “Religion” |pages=15–38}}</ref> The term was also closely related to other terms like ''scrupulus'' which meant "very precisely" and some Roman authors related the term ''superstitio'', which meant too much fear or anxiety or shame, to ''religio'' at times.<ref name="religio roman" /> When ''religio'' came into English around the 1200s as ''religion'', it took the meaning of "life bound by monastic vows" or monastic orders.<ref name="50 great" /><ref name="Huizinga Middle" />

==Examples of usage==

Cicero explained ''religio'' as a connection of ''re'' (again) with ''lego'' (read) in the sense of choose, go over again or consider carefully (applied to the proper performance of rites in veneration of the gods).{{quote|"The best and also the purest, holiest and most pious way of worshipping the gods is ever to venerate them with purity, sincerity and innocence both of thought and of speech. For religion has been distinguished from superstition not only by philosophers but by our ancestors. Persons who spent whole days in prayer and sacrifice to ensure that their children should outlive them were termed ‘superstitious’ (from ''superstes'', a survivor), and the word later acquired a wider application. Those on the other hand who carefully reviewed and so to speak retraced all the lore of ritual were called ‘religious’ from ''relegere'' (to retrace or re-read), like ‘elegant’ from ''eligere'' (to select), ‘diligent’ from ''diligere'' (to care for), ‘intelligent’ from ''intellegere'' (to understand); for all these words contain the same sense of ‘picking out’ (''legere'') that is present in ‘religious.’ Hence ‘superstitious’ and ‘religious’ came to be terms of censure and approval respectively."<ref>Cicero, ''De natura deorum'', II, 28, 72. [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/marcus_tullius_cicero-de_natura_deorum/1933/pb_LCL268.193.xml English translation], [https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/cicero/nd2.shtml#72 Latin original].</ref>}}

Julius Caesar used ''religio'' to mean "obligation of an oath" when discussing captured soldiers making an oath to their captors{{quote|"Thus the terror raised by the generals, the cruelty and punishments, the new obligation of an oath, removed all hopes of surrender for the present, changed the soldiers' minds, and reduced matters to the former state of war."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Caesar |first1=Julius |translator-last1=McDevitte |translator-first1=W.A. |translator-first2=W.S. |translator-last2=Bohn |title=The Works of Julius Caesar: Parallel English and Latin |date=2007 |publisher=Forgotten Books |isbn=978-1-60506-355-3 |pages=377–378 |chapter=Civil Wars – Book 1}}</ref>}}

The Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder used the term ''religio'' to describe elephants' supposed veneration of the sun and the moon. {{quote| "The elephant is the largest of them all, and in intelligence approaches the nearest to man. It understands the language of its country, it obeys commands, and it remembers all the duties which it has been taught. It is sensible alike of the pleasures of love and glory, and, to a degree that is rare among men even, possesses notions of honesty, prudence, and equity; it has a religious respect also for the stars, and a veneration for the sun and the moon."<ref>{{cite book |author1=Pliny the Elder |chapter=Elephants; Their Capacity |title=The Natural History, Book VIII |chapter-url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0137%3Abook%3D8%3Achapter%3D1 |publisher=Tufts University |language=en}}</ref>}}

St. Augustine, following the interpretation given by Lactantius in ''Divinae institutiones'', IV, 28 derived ''religio'' from ''re'' (again) and ''{{lang|la|ligare}}'' bind, connect, probably from a prefix.<ref name="The Pagan Christ 2004"/><ref>In ''The Power of Myth,'' with Bill Moyers, ed. Betty Sue Flowers, New York, Anchor Books, 1991. {{ISBN|0-385-41886-8}}</ref>

The medieval usage alternates with ''order'' in designating bonded communities like those of monastic orders: "we hear of the 'religion' of the Golden Fleece, of a knight 'of the religion of Avys'".<ref name="Huizinga Middle">{{cite book |last1=Huizinga |first1=Johan |title=The Waning of the Middle Ages |date=1924 |publisher=Penguin Books |page=86|title-link=The Autumn of the Middle Ages }}</ref>

==Significance in Roman religion== Within the system of what is now called Roman religion (in the modern sense of the word), the term ''religio'' originally meant an obligation to the gods, something expected by them from human beings or a matter of particular care or concern as related to the gods,<ref>Jerzy Linderski, "The Augural Law", ''Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt'' II.16 (1986), p. 2180, and in the same volume, G.J. Szemler, "Priesthoods and Priestly Careers in Ancient Rome," p. 2322.</ref> "reverence for God or the gods, careful pondering of divine things, piety".<ref>Max Müller, ''Natural Religion'', p.33, 1889. [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aentry%3D%2340976 Lewis & Short, ''A Latin Dictionary'']; Max Müller. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=aM0FAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA28 Introduction to the science of religion]''. p. 28.</ref>

In this sense, ''religio'' might be translated better as "religious scruple" than with the English word "religion".<ref>Clifford Ando, ''The Matter of the Gods: Religion and the Roman Empire'' (University of California Press, 2008), p. 126.</ref> One definition of ''religio'' offered by Cicero is ''cultus deorum'', "the proper performance of rites in veneration of the gods."<ref>Cicero, ''De natura deorum'' 2.8.</ref>

''Religio'' among the Romans was not based on "faith", but on knowledge, including and especially correct practice.<ref>Ando, ''The Matter of the Gods'', p. 13.</ref> ''Religio'' (plural ''religiones'') was the pious practice of Rome's traditional cults, and was a cornerstone of the ''mos maiorum'',<ref>Nicole Belayche, in Rüpke, Jörg (Editor), ''A Companion to Roman Religion'', Wiley-Blackwell, 2007, p. 279: "Care for the gods, the very meaning of religio, had [therefore] to go through life, and one might thus understand why Cicero wrote that religion was "necessary". Religious behavior – ''pietas'' in Latin, ''eusebeia'' in Greek – belonged to action and not to contemplation. Consequently religious acts took place wherever the faithful were: in houses, boroughs, associations, cities, military camps, cemeteries, in the country, on boats."</ref> the traditional social norms that regulated public, private, and military life. To the Romans, their success was self-evidently due to their practice of proper, respectful ''religio'', which gave the gods what was owed them and which was rewarded with social harmony, peace and prosperity.

Religious law maintained the proprieties of divine honours, sacrifice, and ritual. Impure sacrifice and incorrect ritual were ''vitia'' (faults, hence "vice," the English derivative); excessive devotion, fearful grovelling to deities, and the improper use or seeking of divine knowledge were ''superstitio''; neglecting the ''religiones'' owed to the traditional gods was atheism, a charge leveled during the Empire at Jews,<ref>Jack N. Lightstone, "Roman Diaspora Judaism," in ''A Companion to Roman Religion'' (Blackwell, 2007), pp. 360, 368.</ref> Christians, and Epicureans.<ref>Adelaide D. Simpson, "Epicureans, Christians, Atheists in the Second Century," ''Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association'' 72 (1941) 372–381.</ref> Any of these moral deviations could cause divine anger (''ira deorum'') and, therefore, harm the State.<ref>Mary Beard ''et al''., ''Literacy in the Roman world'', Ann Arbor, Mich.: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 1991, Vol. 1, 217.</ref> See Religion in ancient Rome.

''Religiosus'' was something pertaining to the gods or marked out by them as theirs, as distinct from ''sacer'', which was something or someone given to them by humans. Hence, a graveyard was not primarily defined as ''sacer'' but a ''locus religiosus'', because those who lay within its boundaries were considered belonging to the di Manes.<ref>F. De Visscher "Locus religiosus" ''Atti del Congresso internazionale di Diritto Romano'', 3, 1951</ref> Places struck by lightning were taboo<ref>Warde Fowler considers a possible origin for ''sacer'' in taboos applied to holy or accursed things or places, without direct reference to deities and their property. W. Warde Fowler "The Original Meaning of the Word Sacer" ''Journal of Roman Studies'', I, 1911, p.57-63</ref> because they had been marked as ''religiosus'' by Jupiter himself.<ref><!-- the Varro's presumably a fragment - no idea which one, so this needs checking -->Varro. LL V, 150. See also Festus, 253 L: "A place was once considered to become ''religiosus'' which looked to have been dedicated to himself by a god": "''locus statim fieri putabatur religiosus, quod eum deus dicasse videbatur"''.</ref>

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== * {{Sep entry|concept-religion|The Concept of Religion|Kevin Schilbrack}} * [https://www.bibliographia.co/definition-religion-particular.htm Definition of religion. Annotated bibliography. Studies in English on Judaism, Christianity, Roman and Greek religion]

Category:Ancient Roman religion Category:Etymologies