Paganism
Paganism (from
Latin paganus, meaning "a country dweller" or "civilian") is a blanket term which has come to connote a broad set of western
spiritual or
religious beliefs and practices of natural or polytheistic religions, as opposed to the
Abrahamic monotheistic religions. "Pagan" is the usual translation of the Islamic term
mushrik, which refers to 'one who worships something other than God'.
Ethnologists do not use the term for these beliefs, which are not necessarily compatible with each other: more useful categories are
shamanism,
polytheism or
animism. Often, the term has
pejorative connotations, comparable to heathen,
infidel and
kafir (كافر) in Islam.
 |
During the expansion of the Sokoto Caliphate in West Africa, Islamic Fulbe (Fula) labelled their non-Muslim neighbours, such as this Kapsiki diviner, Kirdi, or "pagans". |
Pagan
The term
pagan is from
Latin paganus, an adjective originally meaning "
rural", "rustic" or "of the country." As a noun,
paganus was used to mean "country dweller, villager." In colloquial use, it would mean much the same as calling someone a 'bumpkin' or a 'hillbilly'.
Paganus was almost exclusively a derogatory term. (It is from this derivation of "villager" which we have the word "villain", which the expanding Christians called the Pagans of Northern Europe/Scandinavia) From its earliest beginnings,
Christianity spread much more quickly in major urban areas (like
Antioch,
Alexandria,
Corinth,
Rome) than in the countryside (in fact, the early church was almost entirely urban), and soon the word for "country dweller" became synonymous with someone who was "not a
Christian," giving rise to the modern meaning of "pagan."
[The semantic development of post-classical Latin paganus in the sense "non-Christian, heathen" is unclear. The dating of this sense is controversial, but the 4th century seems most plausible. An earlier example has been suggested in Tertullian De Corona Militis xi, "Apud hunc [sc. Christum] tam miles est paganus fidelis quam paganus est miles infidelis," but here the word paganus may be interpreted in the sense "civilian" rather than "heathen".] In large part, this may have had to do with the conservative nature of rural people, who were more resistant to the new ideas of Christianity than those who lived in major urban centers.
"
Peasant" is a
cognate, via
Old French paisent. (
Harry Thurston Peck, Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquity, 1897; "pagus").
In their distant origins, these usages derived from
pagus, "province, countryside", cognate to Greek πάγος "rocky hill", and, even earlier, "something stuck in the ground", as a landmark: the
Proto-Indo-European root
pag- means "fixed" and is also the source of the words "page", "pale" (stake), and "pole", as well as "pact" and "peace".
Later, through metaphorical use,
paganus came to mean 'rural district, village' and 'country dweller' and, as the
Roman Empire declined into military autocracy and anarchy, in the 4th and 5th centuries it came to mean "civilian", in a sense parallel to the English usage "the locals". It was only after the Late Imperial introduction of serfdom, in which agricultural workers were legally bound to the land (see
Serf), that it began to have negative connotations, and imply the simple ancient religion of country people, which
Virgil had mentioned respectfully in
Georgics. Like its approximate synonym
heathen (see below), it was adopted by
Middle English-speaking Christians as a slur to refer to those too rustic to embrace
Christianity. Additionally, a lot of rural parts of Europe were the most resistant to forced Christian conversions, militarily resisted Christian Europe and stubbornly held to their natural religions reamplifying the medieval use of the term.
As mentioned previously,
pagan began as a derogatory term for the rural peoples holding to conservative beliefs and through evolved colloqialism to pre-Christian/ non-Christian beliefs specifically held in the face of the new and predominantly
urban Christianized Roman society. In a temporal twist of faith, the rural peoples of our western culture continue to hold the conservative
traditional values (as advocated by the
bible belt or
red state) but these rural conservatives now face off against the post-religious secularized urban areas of the United States. While the term
pagan is now firmly entrenched with the concept of pre-Christian
shamanism rather than as "a rural person holding to conservative traditional beliefs and values", the rural conservative Christians of the 21st century could be argued as mirroring the same cultural traits as the pagans of the first and second millenia.
Neoplatonists in the Early Christian church attempted to Christianize the values of sophisticated Pagans such as
Plato and
Virgil. This had some influence among the literate class, but did little to counter the more general
prejudice expressed in "pagan".
While
pagan is attested in English from the 14th century, there is no evidence that the term
paganism was in use in English before the 17th century. The
OED instances
Edward Gibbon's
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776): "The divisions of Christianity suspended the ruin of paganism." The term was not a neologism, however, as
paganismus was already used by
Augustine.
The urbanity of Christians is exemplified in Augustine's work,
The City of God, in which Augustine consoled distressed city-dwelling Christians over the fall of Rome. He pointed out that while the great 'city of man' had fallen, Christians were ultimately citizens of the 'city of God.'
Many
Slavic peoples, especially
Eastern Slavs, use the word "pagan" as an insult in their language; translating roughly as a "conniving brute." The
etymology of this meaning lies in the fact that after their forced conversion by western Christians, much of the Slavic lands took a dim view of the remaining non-
Christians in their midsts.
The first person to apply the term
pagan to a worshipper of a nature religion was
Discordian co-founder
Kerry Thornley (Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst), according to
The Prankster and the Conspiracy by Adam Gorightly.
Heathen
Heathen is from
Old English hæðen "not Christian or Jewish", (c.f.
Old Norse heiðinn). Historically, the term was probably influenced by
Gothic haiþi "dwelling on the
heath", appearing as
haiþno in
Ulfilas' bible as "gentile woman," (translating the
Greek in Mark 7:26). This translation probably influenced by Latin
paganus, "country dweller", or it was chosen because of its similarity to the Greek
ethne, "
gentile". It has even been suggested that Gothic
haiþi is not related to "heath" at all, but rather a loan from
Armenian hethanos, itself loaned from Greek
ethnos.
Common word usage
Both "pagan" and "heathen" have historically been used as a
pejorative by adherents of monotheistic religions (such as
Judaism,
Christianity and
Islam) to indicate a disbeliever in their religion. In Scotland and Ireland, "heathen" is still used today by Roman Catholics as a pejorative term for non-Catholics. "Paganism" is also sometimes used to mean the
lack of (an accepted monotheistic) religion, and therefore sometimes means essentially the same as
atheism. "Paganism" frequently refers to the religions of
classical antiquity, most notably
Greek mythology or
Roman religion, and can be used neutrally or admiringly by those who refer to those complexes of belief. However, until the rise of
Romanticism and the general acceptance of
freedom of religion in
Western civilization, "paganism" was almost always used disparagingly of
heterodox beliefs falling outside the established political framework of the Christian Church. It has more recently (from the 19th century) been used admiringly by those who believe monotheistic religions to be confining or colourless. Pagan also comes from the hebrew word paganini - which means "person who lives in the forest".
"Pagan" came to be equated with a popular, Christianized sense of "
epicurean" to signify a person who is sensual, materialistic, self-indulgent, unconcerned with the future and uninterested in sophisticated religion. The word was usually used in this worldly sense by those who were drawing attention to the limitations of paganism, as when
G. K. Chesterton wrote:
"The pagan set out, with admirable sense, to enjoy himself. By the end of his civilization he had discovered that a man cannot enjoy himself and continue to enjoy anything else."
Heathenry
"Heathen" (
Old English hæðen) is a translation of
paganus. The term is used for
Germanic paganism, or
Germanic Neopaganism, in particular. Originating with the
Jastorf culture, the
Germanic tribes were distributed over Eastern and Central Europe by the 5th century, and their
dialects ceased to be mutually intelligible from around that time.
Christianization of the Germanic peoples took place from the 4th (
Goths) to the 6th (
Anglo-Saxons,
Alamanni) or 8th (
Saxons) centuries on the continent, and from the 9th to 12th centuries in Iceland and Scandinavia.
Pagan classifications
Pagan subdivisions coined by
Isaac Bonewits [
1]
*Paleo-Paganism: A
retronym coined to contrast with "neopaganism", denoting a pagan culture that has not been disrupted by other cultures. The term applies to
Hinduism,
Shinto, pre-Migration period
Germanic paganism as described by
Tacitus,
Celtic Polytheism as described by
Julius Caesar, and the
Greek and
Roman religion.
*Meso-Paganism: A group, which is, or has been, significantly influenced by monotheistic, dualistic, or nontheistic worldviews, but has been able to maintain an independence of religious practices. This group includes Native Americans and Australian Aborigine Bushmen,
Viking Age Norse paganism. Influences include:
Freemasonry,
Rosicrucianism,
Theosophy,
Spiritualism, as well as
Sikhism, and the many Afro-Diasporatic faiths like
Haitian Vodou, and
Santería.
*
Neo-Paganism: An attempt by modern people to reconnect with nature, pre-Christian religions, or other nature-based spiritual paths. This definition may include reconstructive or semi-reconstructive as
Ásatrú and other groups, as well as
New Age and non-reconstructive groups such as
Neo-Druidism and
Wicca.
*
Ancient Greek religion*
Ancient Near East Paganism*
Ancient Paganism*
Celtic polytheism*
Discordianism*
Estonian paganism*
Finnish paganism*
Germanic paganism:*
Asatru:*
Norse paganism:*
Paganism in the Eastern Alps:*
HeathenryNeopaganism
In another sense, as used by modern practitioners, Paganism is a
polytheistic,
panentheistic or
pantheistic often nature-based religious practice, but again can be
atheism sometimes as well. This includes reconstructed religions such as revivalist
Hellenic polytheism and
Ásatrú, as well as more recently founded religions such as
Wicca c. 1940, and these are normally categorised as "
Neopaganism". Although many Neopagans often refer to themselves simply as "Pagan", for purposes of clarity this article will focus on the ancient religion, while Neopaganism is discussed in its own article.
This also includes religions such as
Forn Sed,
Celtic Neo-druidism, Longobardic odinism, Lithuanian
Romuva, and Slavic
Rodoverie that claim to revive an ancient religion rather than reconstruct it, though in general the difference is not absolutely fixed. Many of these revivals, Wicca, Asatru and Neo-druidism in particular, have their roots in 19th century
Romanticism and retain noticeable elements of
occultism or
theosophy that were current then, setting them apart from historical rural (
paganus) folk religion. The
Íslenska Ásatrúarfélagið is a notable exception in that it was derived more or less directly from remnants in rural folklore.
Still, some practitioners even of syncretized directions tend to object to the term "Neopaganism" for their religion as they consider what they are doing not to be a new thing. It must be said, also, that since the 1990s, the number of reconstructionist movements that reject romantic or occult influences has increased, even if those Neopagans who make a conscious effort to separate pre-Christian from romanticism influences are still a minority.
Modern nature religion
Many current Pagans in industrial societies base their beliefs and practices on a connection to Nature, and a divinity within all living things, but this may not hold true for all forms of Paganism, past or present. Some believe that there are many deities, while some believe that the combined subconscious spirit of all living things forms the universal deity. Paganism predates modern
monotheism, although its origins are lost in
prehistory. Ancient Paganism, which tended in many cases to be a deification of the local deity, as
Athena in
Athens, saw each local emanation as an aspect of an Olympian deity during the Classical period and then after
Alexander to syncretize the deity with the political process, with "state divinities" increasingly assigned to various localities, as
Roma personified Rome. Many ancient regimes would claim to be the representative on
earth of these
gods, and would depend on more or less elaborate bureaucracies of state-supported priests and scribes to lend public support to their claims. This is something Paganism shares with more 'mainstream'
revealed religions, as can be seen in the history of the Catholic church, the Church of England and the ancient and current trends in Islam.
In one well-established sense, Paganism is the belief in any non-
monotheistic religion, which would mean that the Pythagoreans of ancient
Greece would not be considered Pagan in that sense, since they were monotheist, but not in the Abrahamic tradition. In an extreme sense, and like the pejorative sense below, any belief, ritual or pastime not sanctioned by a religion accepted as
orthodox by those doing the describing, such as
Burning Man,
Halloween, or even
Christmas, can be described as Pagan by the person or people who object to them.
*There are three main explanations of the development:
**(i) The older sense of classical
Latin pāgānus is "of the country, rustic" (also as noun). It has been argued that the transferred use reflects the fact that the ancient
idolatry lingered on in the rural villages and hamlets after
Christianity had been generally accepted in the towns and cities of the
Roman Empire; cf. Orosius
Histories 1. Prol. "Ex locorum agrestium compitis et pagis pagani vocantur."**(ii) The more common meaning of classical Latin
pāgānus is "civilian, non-militant" (adjective and noun). Christians called themselves
mīlit"s, "enrolled soldiers" of
Christ, members of his
militant church, and applied to non-Christians the term applied by
soldiers to all who were "not enrolled in the army".
**(iii) The sense "heathen" arose from an interpretation of
paganus as denoting a person who was outside a particular group or
community, hence "not of the city" or "rural"; cf. Orosius
Histories 1. Prol. "ui alieni a civitate dei..pagani vocantur." See C. Mohrmann,
Vigiliae Christianae 6 (1952) 9ff.--
Oxford English Dictionary, (online) 2nd Edition (1989)*
Neopaganism**
Pagan activism**
List of Pagans*
Idolatry*
Shirk (idolatry)*
Destruction of Idol Temples*
Mother Goddess*
Uniterranism*
Pagan beliefs surrounding Christmas*
Unitarian Universalism*
Christian anarchism*
Shinto*James J. O'Donnell, "
The Demise of Paganism,"
Traditio 35(1979), 45-88
