--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alex" <alxmoeller@...> wrote:
> did the word "religion" appeared just after the Christian faith
became the
> official religion of Roman Empire or is this word mentioned some
time
> before?
> I think at "re-ligion" as "re-bind" , thus to rebind to a new
unity with the
> divinity this is why I asked myself if the word as such spreaded
from the
> time the emperor (CG) decided the new religion is the religion of
the Roman
> Empire.
>
> Alex
*********
You may think of re-ligion as something to do with binding,
and if so, you are in distinguished company, back at least to St.
Augustine. There is an alternative etymology however, going back
still
further to Cicero, deriving it from relego rather than religo, I
take in a sense more or less of "checking things twice".
From Lewis and Short:
"religio (in poetry also relligio , to lengthen the first
syllable), ônis, f. [Concerning the etymology of this word,
various opinions were prevalent among the ancients. Cicero (N. D. 2,
28, 72) derives it from relegere, an etymology favored by the
verse cited ap. Gell. 4, 9, 1, religentem esse oportet, religiosum
nefas; whereas Servius (ad Verg. A. 8, 349), Lactantius (4, 28),
Augustine (Retract. 1, 13), al., assume religare as the primitive,
and for this derivation Lactantius cites the expression of Lucretius
(1, 931; 4, 7): religionum nodis animos exsolvere. Modern
etymologists mostly agree with this latter view, assuming as root
lig, to bind, whence also lic-tor, lex, and ligare; hence, religio
sometimes means the same as obligatio; v. Corss. Aussprache, 1, 444
sq.; cf. Munro ad Lucr. 1, 109.]"
I'm not sure the "Modern etymologists mostly agree" is correct;
I've seen both etymologies supported.
Dan