Paganism

The cults of all non-Christian deities (such as Dionysus (pictured above) were demonized and persecuted by Christians under the rubric of paganism.

Paganism (from Latin paganus, meaning "a country dweller or rustic") is a term that, from a Western perspective, has come to denote religious folk traditions (and, more broadly, polytheistic faiths in general). Unlike its relatively broad and inoffensive definition, the term's connotations are both stark and polarizing, as it has been used to criticize and demonize the adherents of non-Christian faiths since the first century C.E.

As implied above, the term "paganism" can be defined broadly to encompass all faith traditions outside the monotheistic triad of Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). This group, which is tellingly defined by negation, is capacious enough to include Shinto, the complex of Indian religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism), Chinese religious practices (such as Daoism, ancestor veneration, and Chinese folk religion), and the ancient Greek, Roman, Norse and Egyptian religions, as well as the body of indigenous and folk traditions in general. Since the term was typically used as a blanket statement to circumscribe all non-Christian (or, more broadly, non-monotheistic) faiths, it served the same pejorative purpose as the Jewish term gentile, the Islamic notions of infidel, mushrik and kafir (كافر), and the multipurpose term heathen. Due to these historically problematic connotations and usages, ethnologists and anthropologists avoid the term "paganism" when referring to traditional or historic faiths, preferring to utilize more precise categories (such as polytheism, shamanism, pantheism, or animism).

Since the later 20th century, however, the words "pagan," "heathen" and "paganism" have been somewhat rehabilitated, as they are now widely used as self-designations by adherents of polytheistic reconstructionism and neo-paganism—traditions that explicitly define themselves as contrary to the fundamentally divisive, dualistic ethos that spawned these terms in the first place. In this new understanding, pagan traditions are defined by the absence of proselytism and the presence of a living mythology that explains and informs religious practice.

Etymology

Pagan

Terracotta figurine of a comic actor masked as a rustic, 2nd century B.C.E., found at Canino

The term pagan is from Latin paganus, an adjective originally meaning "rural," "rustic" or "of the country." In its nominal form, paganus could be used to describe a "country dweller or villager" or (more colloquially) a "country bumpkin" or "hillbilly." The original meaning is reflected in the Old French cognate paisent, from whence the English word "peasant" is derived.

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."

The Oxford English Dictionary, seen by many as the definitive source of lexical knowledge, proposes three explanations for the evolution of the term:

(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." 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." This may, in part, have had to do with the conservative nature of rural people, who may have been more resistant to the new ideas of Christianity than those who lived in major urban centers. However, it may have also resulted from early Christian missionaries focusing their efforts within major population centers (e.g., St. Paul), rather than throughout an expansive, yet sparsely populated, countryside (hence, the Latin term suggesting "uneducated country folk").

(ii) The more common meaning of classical Latin pāgānus is "civilian, non-militant" (adjective and noun). Christians called themselves mīlitēs, "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.

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.

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. Specifically, the Oxford English Dictionary cites Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776) as its first recorded usage: "The divisions of Christianity suspended the ruin of paganism." The term was not a neologism, however, as paganismus was already used by Augustine.

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's Gothic Bible as "gentile woman," (translating the "Hellene" in Mark 7:26).

It may have been chosen on the model of the Latin paganus or for resemblance to the Greek ethne, or may in fact be a borrowing of that word, perhaps via Armenian hethanos. Like other words for exclusively Christian ideas (e.g. "church") it would have come first into Gothic, then spread to other Germanic languages.

"Paganism" and Repression

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. "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. "Pagan" came to be equated with a 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 and stereotypical sense, particularly among those who were drawing attention to what they perceived as being the limitations of paganism, for example, 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." In sharp contrast Swinburne the poet would comment on this same theme: "Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath; We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death."

Christianity itself has been perceived at times as a form of paganism by followers of the other Abrahamic religionsbecause of, for example, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, the celebration of pagan feast days, and other practices – through a process described as "baptising" or "christianization". Even between Christians there have been similar charges of paganism levelled, especially by Protestants,, towards the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches for their veneration of the saints and images.

Pagan revivals and new religious movements

Neo-paganism

A ceremony at the annual Prometheia festival of the Greek polytheistic group Supreme Council of Ethnikoi Hellenes, June 2006.

Neopaganism includes reconstructed religions such as Hellenic, Celtic or Germanic reconstructionism as well as modern eclectic traditions such as Discordianism, and Wicca and its many offshoots.

Many of the "revivals", wicca 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.

Neopaganism in the United States accounts for roughly a third of all neopagans worldwide, and for some 0.2% of US population, figuring as the sixth largest non-Christian denomination in the US, after Judaism (1.4%), Islam (0.6%), Buddhism (0.5%), Hinduism (0.3%) and Unitarian Universalism (0.3%).

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.^{[citation needed]} Ancient Greek 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.

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 and the individuals who choose to claim this title.

Demographics

Paganism has been previously defined broadly, to encompass many or most of the faith traditions outside the Abrahamic monotheistic group of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. If the Indian religions are included, then 50 percent of the worlds religions would be considered pagan..

The term has also been used more narrowly, however, to refer only to religions outside the very large group of so-called Axial Age faiths that encompass both the Abrahamic religions and the chief Indian religions. Under this narrower definition, which differs from that historically used by many (though by no means all) Christians and other Westerners, contemporary paganism is a relatively smaller and more marginal numerical phenomenon.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Michael York, Pagan Theology: Paganism as a World Religion NYU Press (2003), ISBN 0814797083.

External links

• Surviving in church as a pagan article supporting the claim that paganism influenced Christianity
• Religious Tolerance: Parallels between Christianity and ancient pagan religions - article pointing out the similarities
• BBC - Religion & Ethics - Paganism overview with many articles and links
• BBC - The Revival of Paganism short report on modern Paganism
• James J. O'Donnell, "The Demise of Paganism," Traditio), 45-88
• House of Netjer Living the Religion of Ancient Egypt
• The Pagan Federation International
• The Pagan Federation UK
• The Pagan Pride Project
• Pagan Network
• Pagan Association UK
• Religious Tolerance (with particular reference to paganism)
• Chakana: NGO & knowledge centre about Indians of the highlands (with investigation about animist/pagan beliefs)
• Speaking4Earth: action site about indigenous issues (fighting for their pagan rights)
• Dutch Centre for Indigenous Peoples
• UK pagan resources
• What is Paganism
• PanFest Pagan Festival in Alberta, Canada

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