ABSTRACT

Let us begin with the etymological uncertainties: the term “religion” comes from the Latin “religio” with two possible meanings. One is “religare”, to “chain” or “tie again”, and the other is “re-legere”, to “collect” or “read again”. Whichever is more correct, the Roman use of the term implied meticulous observation of the traditions for exchanges with the gods. e correct, prescribed behaviour towards the superhuman was to be carefully observed: something the Romans were well known for. Very little could be done without rituals, consulting oracles, sacri cing or praying. e Roman calendar was divided into days for profane events and for sacred events. is only indicates the careful and fastidious nature of traditional religion. e peoples of antiquity, like other peoples all over the world, had systems of conduct and networks of belief where the participation of the gods in all a airs was commonplace. For instance, any town in classical Greece had its added population of superhuman beings who were taking care of all kinds of a airs for their human community. Over the years the Latin term “religio” changed from the early Christian meaning “idolatry” to the now more common global usage, and in such diverse cases as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the popular media. As we saw above, the “subject matter” of the idea of religion is

dependent on theory and so the development of discourse on religion is important. e interest in religion as an object of study did not appear out of nowhere. e history of this interest is closely linked to the emergence of modernity in the Western world (see e.g. Preus 1987; Kippenberg 2002). Now, there are several signi cant issues to consider in a history of the idea of “religion”. I shall not present these in a strict chronological order as that would be inextricably muddled, since there is no clear and linear progression from one set of approaches to the next. Rather, there is a set of topics that have become woven together over time.