Paganism (from
Latin paganus, meaning "country dweller", "rustic") is a blanket term used to refer to various
polytheistic religions. The group so defined includes most of the
Eastern religions,
Native American religions and mythologies, as well as non-
Abrahamic folk religions in general. More narrow definitions will not include any of the
world religions and restrict the term to local or rural currents not organized as
civil religions. Characteristic of pagan traditions is the absence of
proselytism and the presence of a living
mythology which
explains religious practice.
The term "pagan" is a Christian adaptation of the "
gentile" of Judaism, and as such has an inherent Abrahamic bias, and
pejorative connotations among Western
monotheists, comparable to heathen, and
infidel also known as
kafir (كافر) and
mushrik in Islam. For this reason,
ethnologists avoid the term "paganism," with its uncertain and varied meanings, in referring to traditional or historic faiths, preferring more precise categories such as
polytheism,
shamanism,
pantheism, or
animism.
Since the later 20th century, "Pagan" or "Paganism" has become widely used as a self-designation by adherents of
Neopaganism. As such, various modern scholars have begun to apply the term to three separate groups of faiths:
Historical Polytheism (such as
Celtic polytheism and
Norse paganism),
Folk/
ethnic/Indigenous religions (such as
Chinese folk religion and
African traditional religion), and
Neo-paganism (such as
Wicca and
Germanic Neopaganism).
Etymology
Pagan
The term
pagan is from the Latin
paganus, an adjective originally meaning "
rural", "rustic" or "of the country." As a noun,
paganus was used to mean "country dweller, villager."
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". 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 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 closeness to nature of rural people, who may have been more resistant to the new ideas of Christianity than those who lived in major urban centers and were cut off from the cycles of nature and the forms of spirituality associated with them. 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") until a bit later on.
- (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.
--
The post-classical Latin
paganismus gave rise to both
paganism and to its synonym
paynimry. Paynimry may be used of paganism, its practises, and pagans, as well as for the domain or realm of pagans.
"
Peasant" is a
cognate, via
Old French paisent.
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. 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.
Less than twenty years after the last vestiges of paganism were crushed with great severity by the emperor Theodosius I Rome was seized by
Alaric in 410. This led to murmuring that the gods of paganism had taken greater care of the city than that of the Christian God, inspiring
St Augustine to write
The City of God, alternative title "
De Civitate Dei contra Paganos: The City of God against the Pagans", in which he claimed that whilst the great 'city of Man' had fallen, Christians were ultimately citizens of the 'city of God.'
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
"Hellene" 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.
Terminology
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, although in modern times it is not always used as a pejorative. "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 "
epicurian" 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 religions because 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.
Classifications
Pagan subdivisions coined by
Isaac Bonewits[ ]
(Version 2.5.1) 1979, 2007 c.e., Isaac Bonewits- Mesopaganism: 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 aboriginal Americans as well as Australian aboriginals, Viking Age Norse paganism. Influences include: Freemasonry,Rosicrucianism, Theosophy, Spiritualism, and the many Afro-Diasporic faiths like Haitian Vodou, Santería and Espiritu religion. Isaac Bonewits includes British Traditional Wicca in this subdivision.
- Neopaganism: A movement by modern people to revive nature-worshipping, pre-Christian religions, or other nature-based spiritual paths. This definition may include anything on a sliding scale from Reconstructionism at one end to non-reconstructionist groups such as Neo-druidism and Wicca at the other.
Historical polytheism
Bronze Age to Early Iron Age
Classical Antiquity
Late Antiquity to High Middle Ages
(as opposed to Abrahamic religion)
Pagan survivals in folklore
thumb|[[Perchten procession in
Klagenfurt, Austria, which is a remnant of a practice performed by the historical pagans of the area. Many elements of modern European culture and folklore originate among pagan beliefs and practises.]]
In addition,
folklore that is not any longer perceived as holding any religious significance can in some instances be traced to pre-Christian or pre-Islamic origins. In Europe, this is particularly the case with the various customs of
Carnival or
Fasnacht and the
Yule traditions surrounding
Santa Claus/
Sinterklaas. By contrast, the
Christmas tree in spite of frequent association with
Thor's Oak cannot be shown to be an innovation predating the Early Modern period.
Early Modern period
Interest in pagan traditions was revived in the
Renaissance, at first in
Renaissance magic as a revival of
Greco-Roman magic. In the 17th century, description of paganism turned from the theological aspect to the
ethnological, and a religion began to be understood as part of the
ethnic identity of a people, and the study of the religions of "primitive" peoples triggered questions as to the ultimate historical
origin of religion. Thus,
Nicolas Fabri de Peiresc saw the pagan
religions of Africa of his day as relicts that were in principle capable of shedding light on the historical paganism of Classical Antiquity.
Romanticism
Paganism re-surfaces as a topic of fascination in 18th to 19th century
Romanticism, in particular in the context of the literary
Celtic and
Viking revivals, which portrayed historical
Celtic and
Germanic polytheists as
noble savages.
The 19th century also saw much scholarly interest in the reconstruction of pagan mythology from folklore or fairy tales. This was notably attempted by the
Brothers Grimm, especially
Jacob Grimm in his
Teutonic Mythology, and
Elias Lönnrot with the compilation of the
Kalevala. The work of the Brothers Grimm influenced other collectors, both inspiring them to collect tales and leading them to similarly believe that the fairy tales of a country were particularly representative of it, to the neglect of cross-cultural influence. Among those influenced were the Russian
Alexander Afanasyev, the Norwegians
Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and
Jørgen Moe, and the Englishman
Joseph Jacobs.
Romanticist interest in non-classical antiquity coincided with the rise of
Romantic nationalism and the rise of the
nation state in the context of the
1848 revolutions, leading to the creation of
national epics and
national myths for the various newly-formed states.
Pagan or folkloristic topics were also common in the
Musical nationalism of the period.
Neopaganism
thumb|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 polytheism,
Celtic or
Germanic reconstructionism as well as modern eclectic traditions such as
Discordianism, or
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.
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%).
In
Iceland, the members of
Ásatrúarfélagið account for 0.4% of the total population, which is just over a thousand people.
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.
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 smaller and more marginal numerical phenomenon. According to
Encyclopedia Britannica estimates (as of 2005), adherents of
Chinese folk religion account for some 6.3% of world population, and adherents of
tribal religions ("ethnoreligionists") for another 4.0%. The number of adherents of neopaganism is insignificant in comparison, amounting to 0.02% of world population at the most, or some 0.4% of the "ethnoreligious" population.
See also
