LACTANTIUS (260 - 340 CE)
Divinae Institutiones Book IV: True Wisdom and Religion, xxviii
(Divine Institutes, translated with an introduction
and notes by Anthony Bowen and Peter Garnsey
Translated Texts for Historians
Volume 40
Liverpool: Liverpool University
Press, 2003
Meaning
of Religion
28.1 Since things are as we have explained, it is plain
that man can have no hope of life unless he casts away his silliness and his
miserable mistakes and recognizes and serves God; he must renounce this
temporal life and teach himself the rudiments of justice in order to cultivate
true religion. 2 We are born on the following terms, that we present our just
and due obedience to God who creates us, and that we acknowledge and follow him
alone.
3 This is the chain of piety that ties and binds us
to God: hence the word religion, and not as Cicero takes it, from re-reading.
In book 2 de Natura Deorum he
says [71-72], 4 ÔIt is not only
philosophers who distinguished superstition from religion but also our own
ancestors. People who spent whole days in prayer and sacrifice to ensure their
own children would survive were called superstitious, 5 while people who reviewed and rethought everything
of relevance to the worship of gods were called religious, from relegere, just as the elegant are so called from eligere and the diligent from diligere and the intelligent from intellegere. In all these words there is the same vital
element of legere as there is
in religious. In the case of superstitious and religious, one is a word of
reproof and the other a word of praise. 6 the ineptitude of this interpretation can be learnt from the facts. If
both superstition and religion are being practiced in the worship of the same
gods, then there is little or no difference between them. 7 What good reason will there be, frankly, for
thinking that to pray once for the health of oneÕs children is the mark of a
religious man and to do so ten times is superstitious? If to do so once is very
good, all day is better, and if one victim serves to appease, more will appease
more, because acts of obedience multiplied gain favour rather than offend. 8 We donÕt think servants a nuisance who are ever
present to assist and obey; we prize them rather. So why should a man come in
for reproach, and get a bad name for loving his sons or honouring God too much,
while one who doesnÕt is to be praised?
9 This argument works the other way round too. If
praying and sacrificing all day every day is a matter for accusation, so it is
to do so once. If to pray regularly for surviving children is a vice, then the
man who does so only occasionally is superstitious too. Alternatively, why
should the label of vice be applied to a deed that is peerless for its honesty
and justice? 10 As for CiceroÕs
remark that Ôthose who carefully reviewed everything of relevance to the
worship of gods were called religious from relegereÕ, why should those who act so many times a day
lose the title of religious when as a result of their concentration they are
simply marking a much more careful review of the ways in which gods are
worshipped? 11 Well? Religion
is of course worship of what is true, and superstition is worship of what is
false. And what you worship is absolutely important, more so than how you
worship or what you should pray. But because worshippers of gods think they are
religious when in fact they are superstitious, so they cannot distinguish
religion from superstition or explain the meaning of the words. 12 We have observed that the word religion comes from
the bond of piety because God had bound man to him and tied him with piety: we
simply have to serve him as master and obey him as father. 13 Lucretius interpreted the word much better when he
said [1. 932] he was Ôuntying religious knotsÕ. People are called
superstitious, on the other hand, not for praying for surviving children
– we all pray for that – but either for cultivating a surviving
memory of the dead or for surviving their own parents and worshipping images of
them at home like household gods. 14 Superstitious was the word for people who used to develop novel
rituals to divert honors from gods to dead people who they thought had been
elevated above human rank to place in heaven; 15 religious was kept for those who worshipped the
long-established public gods. Hence VergilÕs line [A. 8.187]: ÔA superstition
vain, and ignorant of the ancient gods.Õ 16 But since we find that the ancient gods were also
consecrated after death in the same fashion, superstitious is the word for
those who worship quantities of false gods, and religious is for us who pray to
the one true God.