The Word 'Religion' in History

To find a precise meaning for the word 'religion' is not only a difficulty for its present usage in language, but it is also difficult to find the meaning in the past. Trough the history, this word has been used in a lot of different senses.¹⁷ And there is no word exactly same as the English 'religion' in

11 Lactantius: Divinarum Institutionum; Book IV, Chapter 28.

12 Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis (354 – 430). Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian, Bishop of Hippo Regius.

13 Augustinus: Retractationes; I, 8.

14 Augustinus: De Civitate Dei contra Paganos; X, 3

15 Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274) was a scholastic philosopher, the greatest theologian of the Catholic Church.

16 Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologica; II-II Question 81, Article 1 17 Smith (1982) p.19

other languages, neither among the Indo-European languages, nor in Greek or Latin¹⁸.

If we examine the historical records of the ancient religious writings we will find no traces of this concept. Probably, apart from a few exceptions¹⁹, the notion of religion as a particular system of belief was unknown prior to the modern period. We can check the classical texts of Hinduism or Buddhism, Sanskrit or Pali, we will not find this kind of concepts of religion. Nor in the ancient Egyptian, nor classical Chinese, nor Hebrew of the Jewish scriptures, nor Greek of the New Testament.²⁰ All of these writings has no one single word that could be translated to our modern concept of religion or religions. It seems that the people of the old times did not described themselves and others in a religious-secular distinction. Would this mean that the people of that time did not realize such an important part of life? Or simply there was nothing to realize, because this kind of distinction did not make any sense. If this is the case, then what has changed with the modern time?

There were different words that we can connect with this modern concept, but we will not find any real analogy. Of course, they talked about different qualities, living matters that can be characterized as religious life. Qualities and concepts such as faith, obedience and disobedience, piety, worship, the truth in the ancient writings are somewhat close in meaning with the modern sense of religion. But even these words did not suggest a secular-religious distinction, and did not necessarily separated a specific life area from politics or economics. That kind of distinction which would make a clear separation, and would show the religion as a communally embodied system of belief was not present. Important to note, that two opposing groups with different ideas about the truth, God, or what is the proper piety or behavior, does not mean they have the concept of 'religion' in their mind. This only suggests that these people does not have the same attitude toward different parts of life. They could think about the other that they do something wrong, or have an incorrect understanding, but not in the sense that one group possesses a 'religious' quality and the other does not. The difference of the modern idea is that it tries to characterize a separated group of phenomena, called 'religion', which can be distinguished from the other aspects of culture and from a 'secular' world.

A definition of religion tries to explain the meaning of the word 'religion' or, we could say, it

18 Needham (1981) p. 73

19 The Islam is an exception, its whole structure is totally different. A word similar to 'religion' also can be found in the Koran.

20 Smith (1982) pp. 55-57

tries to find the meaning behind it. In most of the cases the research treats this word as it has a well known, unquestionable meaning that can be exposed. The job of the scholar seems to find this inherent meaning and express it. But the meaning of this word as we are using it today and the idea behind it is quite new, even though in the European tradition there is the word 'religion' in the older times. The meaning of 'religio' in the early Europe is different from the modern word 'religion'. Most of the times it was connected with meanings like piety or Christian truth. The different meanings of the word can make great confusion and misunderstanding if we try to understand an old text with the word 'religion' in the modern sense. When reading ancient texts we can 'read' a wrong meaning into the context. For example, take the 'religio' and understand it as something similar to the modern word 'piety', which is probably a good choice in many Christian writings²¹. One of the works of the Christian philosopher St. Augustine²² called: 'De Vera Religione'. Most of the time it is translated as 'On the True Religion'. It is translated in a way, that is influenced by the modern commonly accepted point of view. But the meaning is probably different and it could be translated as: 'On True Religiousness' or 'On True Piety'. With the use of the word 'religion' and its modern meaning it has a totally different meaning. It can make a misunderstanding from the very beginning, forcing a modern concept on an ancient writing. Keep using the modern concept of the word can make the whole text interpreted in a modern way. This text does not suggests a world-view with religious-secular distinction, only shows what is the right way to be religious, by avoiding wrong religiousness.

Take an other example from a thousand years later. Huldrych Zwingli²³ wrote the 'De Vera et Falsa Religione', usually translated as "The True and False Religion". It suggests that this book talks about different religions, showing which is true or false. But the subject was not Christianity as the true religion in contrast to false religions, but rather the true or false 'piety' of Christians.

If we see John Calvin's²⁴ work the 'Institutio Christianae Religionis', which in English known as 'The Institutes of the Christian Religion'. This title, again, misleading as it can suggest that it realizes

21 Detailed explanation about the different meanings of 'religion' in Smith, W.C. (1991) pp. 19-50. Here we are going to follow his explanations.

22 Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis (354 – 430), Bishop of Hippo Regius, was a Latin speaking philosopher. One of the most important figures in the development of Western Christianity.

23 (1484 – 1531) He was a leader of the Reformation in Switzerland.

24 John Calvin (1509 – 1564) was a French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530. He fled from France to Basel, Switzerland, where in 1536 he published the first edition of his seminal work Institutio Christianae Religionis.

Christianity as a religion. A literal, word for word translation of the title would read as 'An Instruction of Christian Piety' or 'The Foundations' or perhaps 'Structures of Christian Piety'. The Latin word 'institutio' can mean arrangement, custom, introduction, or education. The English word institute can mean elementary principle or a brief, intensive course of instruction devoted to technical fields. Perhaps a better rendering for this part of the title would be introduction or catechism. Calvin himself says in his prefatory address to King Francis: "My intention was only to furnish a kind of rudiments, by which those who feel some interest in religion might be trained to true godliness."²⁵ Here, again, the 'religion' is referring to something different then it would mean in the modern time. Both of the former mentioned writers are writing against the practices of the Catholic church, and presenting the right way of Christian religiousness as piety, the way of living, or even the right social order.

During the early times of the Christian world 'religion' meant the Christian truth. But this truth was not in opposition with other 'religious truths' but with falsity or error. To understand this concept we have to see every aspects of the society, regarding religiousness, as a coherent whole.

There were no that kind of non-religious part of the life as we would describe today, and in fact there were no religion in the modern sense. It was only life that people lived according to the order of things. Everything that worked accordingly to the truth, the country, the king, politics, economics were all religious. Until the 19^th century all the institutions were part of it. Non-religious was equal with the uncivilized, barbarous or pagan. The people of that time did not consider themselves as religious, even the word 'religion' rarely appeared in the texts. If they used it 'the religious' meant the monastics and the monastic order. And the secular was the name for the priests living outside of the monasteries, they were the secular priests.²⁶ There were no separation of church and state, the king was a kind of priest too, God's lieutenant on earth. He could even bless people, or command them to heal.

In order to understand better the point of view of that time, we can check ourselves, how do we relate to ideas as, for example, law or rights. The people of the modern time accept lots of laws as

25 Calvin [Online] http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php

%3Ftitle=535&Itemid=27

26 Secular Clergy (Latin clerus sæcularis) In the language of religious, the world (sæculum) is opposed to the cloister;

religious who follow a rule, especially those who have been ordained, form the regular clergy, while those who live in the world are called the secular clergy. - In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

Retrieved June 11, 2012 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13675a.htm

not only man made regulations but as universal truths. For example, the concepts that killing or stealing is not right, and it is right to punish who commits them. The ideas of equality, freedom, that people have free will or they are free to chose how they live. Or the formation of a family, the concept of monogamy. These ideas are all very natural for people and most of them would consider them as parts of life, parts of reality, not something that they just believe in or accept by faith.

Actually there is no any rational basis to believe in these ideas instead of any other. Now if we consider these as merely one kind of narratives about how to live, we can understand that the people of the past have the same attitude toward their narratives. Adding a 'religious' element to their lives makes no sense, if we do not add the same quality to our lives. In this sense the phrase 'being religious' in the earlier times has the same meaning as 'being law-abiding' at the present.

That kind of abstract category which is similar to the modern concept, but still not the same, appeared during the time of enlightenment, used by the deists.