In traditional usage, the
cult of a
religion, quite apart from its sacred writings ("
scriptures"), its
theology or
myths, or the personal faith of its believers, is the totality of
external religious practice and observance, the neglect of which is the definition of
impiety. Cult in this primary sense is literally the "care" (Latin
cultus) owed to the god and the shrine. In the specific context of
Greek hero cult, Carla Antonaccio has written, "The term
cult identifies a pattern of ritual behavior in connection with specific objects, within a framework of spatial and temporal coordinates.
Ritual behavior would include (but not necessarily be limited to) prayer, sacrifice, votive offerings, competitions, processions and construction of monuments. Some degree of recurrence in place and repetition over time of ritual action is necessary for cult to be enacted, to be practiced"
Cult is embodied in
ritual and
ceremony. Its present or former presence is made concrete in
temples,
shrines and
churches, and
cult images (denigrated by Christians as "
idols") and
votive deposits at
votive sites.
By extension, "cult" has come to connote the total
cultural aspects of a religion, as they are distinguished from others through change and individualization.
The comparative study of cult practice is part of the disciplines of the
anthropology of religion and the
sociology of religion, two aspects of
comparative religion. In the context of many religious organisations themselves, the study of cultic or
liturgical practises is called
liturgiology.
Etymology
The term "cult" first appeared in
English in 1617, derived from the French
culte, meaning "
worship" or "a particular form of worship" which in turn originated from the
Latin word
cultus meaning "care, cultivation, worship," originally "tended, cultivated," as in the past participle of
colere "to till the soil". In French, for example, sections in newspapers giving the schedule of worship at
Catholic churches are headed
Culte Catholique; the section giving the schedule of Protestant churches is headed
culte réformé.
The meaning "devotion to a person or thing" is from 1829. Starting about 1920,
"cult" acquired an additional six or more connotatively positive and negative definitions that are separately discussed in the article
Cult.
Roman Catholic cultus
In
Roman Catholicism,
cultus or
cult is the technical term for the following
Catholic devotions or veneration extended to a particular
saint.
Some Christians make distinctions between
worship and
veneration, both of which can be outwardly expressed in a similar manner.
Catholicism and
Eastern Orthodoxy distinguish between
worship (Latin
adoratio, Greek
latreia [λατρεια]) which is only acceptable to be offered to God alone, and
veneration (Latin
veneratio, Greek
doulia [δουλεια]), which may be offered to the
saints. These distinctions between deity and mediators are exhaustively treated at the entries for
latria and
dulia.
Cult practice
Among the observances in the cult are
rituals,
ceremonies,
liturgy or audits, which may involve spoken or sung words, and often involve personal
sacrifice. Other manifestations of the cult of a deity are the preservation of
relics or the creation of images, such as
icons (usually connoting a flat painted image) or three-dimensional
cultic images, denigrated as "
idols", and the specification of sacred places, hilltops and mountains, fissures and caves, springs, pools and groves, or even individual trees or stones, which may be the seat of an
oracle or the venerated site of a
vision,
apparition,
miracle or other occurrence commemorated or recreated in cult practices.
Sacred places may be identified and elaborated by construction of
shrines and
temples, on which are centered public attention at
religious festivals and which may become the center for
pilgrimages.
Cult centers
Many cities in the
Ancient Near East were home to the cult centers of certain deities, such as
Marduk in
Babylon or
Ptah in
Memphis.
Meteorite falls may also be the source of
cultish worship. The cult in the
Temple of Artemis (Diana) at Ephesus, one of the
Seven Wonders of the Ancient World possibly originated with the observation and recovery of a meteorite, which was understood by contemporaries to have fallen to the earth from Zeus, the principal Greek deity.
See also
