ABSTRACT
The concept of a religion is more complex than that of a duke, and its source is harder to discern, but philology warns against taking religion as a natural kind. There is no one thing necessary and sufficient for religion, but there are several institutions or ingredients in Judaism and Christianity. The Jews do not distinguish between being a Jew by race and being a Jew in religion, between belonging to a particular nation and worshipping a particular God. The eighteenth century was well read in classical literature, and did not doubt that the ancient Greeks and Romans had religion. As field work in remote places became safer, travelling anthropologists easily assured themselves of religion in the darkest rain forests and the most delightful Pacific islands. Emile Durkheim declared that there is religion where and only where the contents of the whole universe are divided into two classes, sacred and profane.
