XPost: alt.usage.english, alt.language.latin   
   From: hayesstw@telkomsa.net   
      
   On Mon, 7 Oct 2024 08:56:52 +0100, Ed Cryer    
   wrote:   
      
   >bertietaylor wrote:   
   >> What's the difference between "pagan" and "heathen"?   
   >   
   >I've always thought Shakespeare gave a good, running description for   
   >"heathen".   
   >   
   >   
   >FIRST WITCH   
   >When shall we three meet again?   
   >In thunder, lightning, or in rain?   
   >SECOND WITCH   
   >When the hurly-burly’s done,   
   >When the battle’s lost and won.   
   >THIRD WITCH   
   >That will be ere the set of sun.   
   >FIRST WITCH   
   >Where the place?   
   >SECOND WITCH   
   >Upon the heath.           *****************   
   >THIRD WITCH   
   >There to meet with Macbeth.   
      
   Possibly.   
      
   As I understand it, "pagani" was Roman military slang for "civilians",   
   rather like the BrE usage "punters" (which in SAfE means "people who   
   bet, mostly on horse races").   
      
   As Fox describes it, it was adopted by Christians in the Roman empire   
   for non-Christians, those who had not enlisted to fight in the   
   spiritual battle that shaped the Christians' worldview.   
      
   Pagani, for the most part, were unbelievers *within* the Roman empire   
   and therefore "civilised" (one could have an interesting discussion   
   about the difference between "civilisation" and "urbanisation").   
      
   But in the north of Europe Christianity began to spread beyond the   
   pale, beyond the boundary of the shrinking Roman empire, initially   
   mostly among people who spoke Germanic languages, and the Germanic   
   term "heathen" came to be used by Christians for unbelievers who were   
   regarded by those living within the civilised Roman empire as   
   "barbarians".   
      
   As time passed, for English-speaking Christians the two terms became   
   synonymous. I'm not sure what happened to them among speakers of other   
   Germanic languages, but here we are concerned primarily with English   
   usage.   
      
   With the advent of modernity in Western Europe, shaped by the   
   Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment, the concept of   
   "religion" and "religions" developed --- the book to read is:   
      
   Harrison, Peter. 1990. "Religion" and the religions in the   
                  English Enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge   
                  University Press.   
                  ISBN: 0-521-38530-X   
                  Dewey: 291.0942   
                      The origin of the modern idea of religion can   
                      be traced to the Enlightenment. This study   
                      shows how the concepts "religion" and "the   
                      religions" arose out of controversies in 17th   
                      & 18th-century England. The birth of "the   
                      religions", conceived to be sets of beliefs   
                      and practices, enabled the establishment of a   
                      new science of religion in which the various   
                      "religions" were studied and impartially   
                      compared. Dr Harrison thus offers a detailed   
                      historical picture of the emergence of   
                      comparative religion as an academic   
                      discipline.   
      
   And some scholars of religion developed the term "monotheism" and   
   began to use the term "pagan" to refer to those who did not belong to   
   religions they regarded as "monotheistic" -- mainly Judaism,   
   Christianity and Islam.   
      
   In the 19th and early 20th centuries the term "pagan" beganto be used   
   by and of the cultured despisers of Christianity -- secular humanists   
   etc. And the term "heathen" began to be used by some Christians for   
   the UNcultured despisers of Christianity, the hoi polloi in Great   
   Britain who didn't go to church because they didn't see the point.   
      
   The second half of the second half of the 20th century saw the rise of   
   neopaganism as a kind of post-Christian phenomenon, those who revived   
   or adapted some of the pre-Christian religions, or invented new ones.   
   For them, "pagan" became a positive term, whereas hitherto it had been   
   a negative term, catergorising people by the religion they *didn't*   
   practise, and for neopagans it came to mean a religion they *did*   
   practise. So "paganism" became a thing, and not the mere absence of a   
   thing.   
      
   This is why the meaning of words like "pagan" and "heathen" depends on   
   when and where they were uttered, by whom, and referring to whom or   
   what.   
      
      
      
      
      
      
   --   
   Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa   
   Web:  http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm   
   Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com   
   E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)