# pagan



## No_C_Nada

_
What is the origin of the word pagan?  I have heard that it was originally from Greek.

Thanks, in advace, for your help.

_


----------



## fdb

Latin paganus literally means “country folk”, from pagus “countryside”. In the meaning "non-Christian" it is a calque on Greek ethnikos. The English word “heathen” conveys the same idea (compare “heath”).


----------



## ancalimon

fdb said:


> Latin paganus literally means “country folk”, from pagus “countryside”. In the meaning "non-Christian" it is a calque on Greek ethnikos. The English word “heathen” conveys the same idea (compare “heath”).



What's the etymology of the word?


----------



## ThomasK

This is what you find  at etymonline.com: 


> heath (n.) Old English *hæð "untilled land, tract of wasteland,"* earlier "heather," influenced by Old Norse heiðr "field," from Proto-Germanic *haithiz (cognates: Old Saxon hetha, Old High German heida "heather," Dutch heide "heath," Gothic haiþi "field"), from *PIE *kaito "forest, uncultivated land"* (cognates: Old Irish ciad, Welsh coed, Breton coet "wood, forest").


----------



## berndf

_Pagus_ is from the verb _pango, to fix, to drive/plant into the ground_. It was an adminstrative distinct in Roman Gaul. The Gaulic provinces were subdivided into _civitates _and the _civitates _into _pagi_. As an administrative unit, the _pagus_ was continued in Romance speaking parts of the Carolingian empire (_gawi_, modern German _Gau,_ in the Germanic speaking parts). The words _pays _(French), _paese _(Italian) and _pais _(Spanish) are derived from _pagus_.

Already in Roman times, the _pagi _as a collective term became a synonym for rural areas and _paganus_, a person from the _pagi_, became a synonym for_ countryman, farmer_. This is continued in the French word _paysan _and the English word _peasant_.


----------



## ThomasK

Aha, I suppose that is why we used to refer to 'gouw' in Dutch for 'region', as in 'Henegouwen' (Hainaut, a Belgian province). However, now it is 'streek' or even 'regio'...


----------



## sotos

berndf said:


> _Pagus_ is from the verb _pango, to fix, to drive/plant into the ground_. It was an adminstrative distinct in Roman Gaul. The Gaulic provinces were subdivided into _civitates _and the _civitates _into _pagi_. As an administrative unit, the _pagus_ was continued in Romance speaking parts of the Carolingian empire (_gawi_, modern German _Gau,_ in the Germanic speaking parts). The words _pays _(French), _paese _(Italian) and _pais _(Spanish) are derived from _pagus_.
> 
> Already in Roman times, the _pagi _as a collective term became a synonym for rural areas and _paganus_, a person from the _pagi_, became a synonym for_ countryman, farmer_. This is continued in the French word _paysan _and the English word _peasant_.



Interesting. I wonder if _pagan_ is related to _pagus_ via the meaning of "nature deity".  _Pagus_ in  Gr. (πάγος) means "rock" and indeed some rocks had a prominnent place in pagan mythology.


----------



## berndf

sotos said:


> Interesting. I wonder if _pagan_ is related to _pagus_ via the meaning of "nature deity". _Pagus_ in Gr. (πάγος) means "rock" and indeed some rocks had a prominnent place in pagan mythology.


Hardly, _-an-_ a is frequent Latin derivational suffix meaning _pertaining to _(adopted in English in derivations like _Rome - Rom*an*_). The derivation _pagus_ - _pagan-us/-a_ (_a man/woman from the pagus_) is completely regular and not in need for any additional explanation.

As fdb explained, the religious meaning evolved later, after the Christianization of the Roman Empire. The "peasants" usually clung to their old faiths longest.


----------



## ancalimon

Is it possible that these different people called themselves as "pagan" or some similar word and they were associated with the later meaning afterwards?


----------



## berndf

ancalimon said:


> Is it possible that these different people called themselves as "pagan" or some similar word and they were associated with the later meaning afterwards?


In which sense of the word_ paganus_? _Peasant_ or _non-Christian_?


----------



## ancalimon

berndf said:


> In which sense of the word_ paganus_? _Peasant_ or _non-Christian_?



I guess it wouldn't matter since those two meanings are not really related semantically.


----------



## berndf

ancalimon said:


> I guess it wouldn't matter since those two meanings are not really related semantically.


It does. Taking the meaning _non-Christian_, what would Gaulish, Germanic, Persian, Greek, Italian and Egyptians cults have in common that they would collectively themselves _pagans_?


----------



## ancalimon

berndf said:


> It does. Taking the meaning _non-Christian_, what would Gaulish, Germanic, Persian, Greek, Italian and Egyptians cults have in common that they would collectively themselves _pagans_?



I mean being a non-Christian is not really related with being a peasant.  What I had in mind was that the original form of pagan could have had a totally different meaning and not related with religion at all seeing that even to known meaning of the word itself is not related with religion.


----------



## berndf

ancalimon said:


> I mean being a non-Christian is not really related with being a peasant.


So, you see, my question in #10 does matter.


If you assume a Latin etymology, my answer is the same as in to sotos in #8.
If you assumed a non-Latin etymology, you would have to explain how in all these areas of the Roman empire people with very different linguistic backgrounds should use words for _peasant _that all happen to sound like _paganus_.


----------



## ancalimon

berndf said:


> The "peasants" usually clung to their old faiths longest.



I happen to think the opposite is true. I think the more established people would cling to their old "faiths" strongest since they would be more educated, sophisticated, cultured and more advanced. Let's take the recent example of Ottoman Empire. The people that converted first were the "peasants" from rural areas while the more sophisticated people from cities like Constantinople or Smyrna clung to their old religions.


----------



## fdb

The OED has this to say on the subject:

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 cent. 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 generally  accepted in the towns and cities of the Roman Empire; compare Orosius  _Histories_ 1. Prol. ‘Ex locorum agrestium compitis et pagis pagani vocantur.’ 

(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’; compare Orosius  _Histories_ 1. Prol. ‘qui alieni a civitate dei..pagani vocantur.’ See C. Mohrmann  _Vigiliae Christianae_ *6* (1952) 9ff.

(May I add that I still think that the first of these is the most likely.)


----------



## ancalimon

berndf said:


> If you assumed a non-Latin etymology, you would have to explain how in  all these areas of the Roman empire people with very different  linguistic backgrounds should use words for _peasant _that all happen to sound like _paganus_.



I guess the pagans could have had a lingua franca. A trade language maybe.  That was common among the people belonging to the federal structure of the nomadic and semi-nomadic people


----------



## berndf

ancalimon said:


> I guess the pagans could have had a lingua franca. A trade language maybe. That was common among the people belonging to the federal structure of the nomadic and semi-nomadic people


Peasants?  In regions where nomadic lifestyle has ceased to exist for many millennia? 

_Peasant _is the epitome of immobility in Europe. For the common people to move around became a necessity for a very short time during the migration period but that was an absolute exception and a relatively short period of time.


----------



## berndf

ancalimon said:


> I happen to think the opposite is true. I think the more established people would cling to their old "faiths" strongest since they would be more educated, sophisticated, cultured and more advanced. Let's take the recent example of Ottoman Empire. The people that converted first were the "peasants" from rural areas while the more sophisticated people from cities like Constantinople or Smyrna clung to their old religions.


Smyrna came under Islamic rule already under the Seljuks not under the Ottomans.

The situation in the Roman empire was different. It wasn't a new culture imposed by an invading people but a change of state religion within a still fairly stable culture. The cities were the culturally most strongly Romanized parts of the empire.


----------



## rayloom

Any relation to Hebrew _goyim_ in referal to the gentiles?


----------



## fdb

gōyīm is translated into Greek as ethnē (plural of ethnos) in the Septuagint, and as gentes (not pagani) in the Latin Bible. But in later Christian literature pagani is commonly used to designate those who are neither Christians nor Jews.


----------



## Cossue

fdb said:


> The OED has this to say on the subject:
> 
> 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 cent. 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 generally accepted in the towns and cities of the Roman Empire; compare Orosius_Histories_ 1. Prol. ‘Ex locorum agrestium compitis et pagis pagani vocantur.’
> 
> (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’; compare Orosius _Histories_ 1. Prol. ‘qui alieni a civitate dei..pagani vocantur.’ See C. Mohrmann _Vigiliae Christianae_ *6* (1952) 9ff.
> 
> (May I add that I still think that the first of these is the most likely.)



Totally agree. Here is almost_ in extenso_ the paragraph by Orosius, who wrote it c. 417 CE, I've been told:"Praeceperas mihi, uti aduersus uaniloquam prauitatem eorum, *qui alieni a ciuitate Dei ex locorum agrestium conpitis et pagis pagani uocantur siue gentiles* quia terrena sapiunt, qui cum futura non quaerant, praeterita autem aut obliuiscantur aut nesciant, praesentia tamen tempora ueluti malis extra solitum infestatissima ob hoc solum quod creditur Christus et colitur Deus, idola autem minus coluntur, infamant (...)"​
I can add a work by the Pannonian churchman Martin of Braga, who settled in Galicia (then kingdom of the Suebi) c. 550 and wrote a brief treaty/letter to a colleague on the correction of the peasants (_De correctione rusticorum_):"Epistolam tuae sanctae caritatis accepi, in qua scribis ad me ut *pro castigatione rusticorum, qui adhuc pristina paganorum superstitione detenti *cultum venerationis plus daemoniis quam deo persolvunt, aliqua de origine idolorum et sceleribus ipsorum vel pauca de multis ad te scripta dirigerem. Sed quia oportet ab initio mundi vel modicam illis rationis notitiam quasi pro gustu porrigere, necesse me fuit ingentem praeteritorum temporum gestorumque silvam breviato tenuis compendii sermone contingere et cibum rusticis rustico sermone condire. Ita ergo, opitulante tibi deo, erit tuae praedicationis exordium:"​
And a fragment of a minor work by Valery of Bierzo (a churchman writting from the mountains of the NW of the Iberian peninsula in the last years of the 7th century) were he narrates the destruction of a pagan altar in a mountain:"Cumque in exelsi montis cacumine stulta populi sacrilega caecitatis dementia profana daemonum delubra impie atque insipienter *paganorum ritu* excoleret, fidelium Christianorum ope tadem probosa obscenitas destruitur (...)"​
"Paganorum superstition" = 'superstition of the peasants', but 'paganarum ritu' = 'uses of the peasants' or 'pagan rituals'?


----------



## mataripis

If pagus is related to farmer, then the ghs or gh of Greek "earth" described pagans as earth dwellers or tillers!


----------



## berndf

mataripis said:


> If pagus is related to farmer, then the ghs or gh of Greek "earth" described pagans as earth dwellers or tillers!


_Pagus _is Latin not Greek. The connection of _pagianus _and _farmer _is a semantic one on word level and not on sound level. Sounds play no role.


----------



## mataripis

Ok. I viewed the meaning of pagan and it said : those people who do not belong to Jew or Christians.now I want to know what is the relationship of this term Pagan to the word proPAGANda?


----------



## berndf

_Paropagandum_ is the gerundive of _propagare _(_to spread, to extend_) meaning _that what has be be spread, extended_. _Paropaganda _is the feminine singular form originating from the expression _de paropaganda fide = of/about the fath that has to be spread, extended._


----------



## fdb

Strange though it might seem, paganus and pro-pago both come from the same root, as in pango (see bernd’s comment, no. 5)


----------



## mataripis

berndf said:


> _Paropagandum_ is the gerundive of _propagare _(_to spread, to extend_) meaning _that what has be be spread, extended_. _Paropaganda _is the feminine singular form originating from the expression _de paropaganda fide = of/about the fath that has to be spread, extended._


Do propagare of latin and pagar of spanish share the same root?sounds payment is involved in exchange of labor?I saw the word peasant in post#5.


----------



## berndf

Spanish _pagar,_ Italian _pagare_, French _payer_ and from the latter English paymend are derived from Latin _pacare_, itself being a derivation from _pax_ (_peace_).


----------



## apmoy70

fdb said:


> The OED has this to say on the subject:
> 
> 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 cent. 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 generally  accepted in the towns and cities of the Roman Empire; compare Orosius  _Histories_ 1. Prol. ‘Ex locorum agrestium compitis et pagis pagani vocantur.’
> 
> (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’; compare Orosius  _Histories_ 1. Prol. ‘qui alieni a civitate dei..pagani vocantur.’ See C. Mohrmann  _Vigiliae Christianae_ *6* (1952) 9ff.
> 
> (May I add that I still think that the first of these is the most likely.)


And in Byzantine/Modern Greek folklore, *«παγανό»* [paɣaˈno] (neut.) < Lat. paganus = _ghost, elf, kallikantzaros_


----------



## john welch

Apart from "piety" and "worship" how did Greeks and Romans name their faiths? Why would not Roman Christians refer to *" Jupiterites" or "Minervians"? Was there a * "Mithrian"? Was propaganda about pagans a pejorative avoidance of naming the prior, hallowed gods?


----------



## berndf

john welch said:


> Apart from "piety" and "worship" how did Greeks and Romans name their faiths? Why would not Roman Christians refer to *" Jupiterites" or "Minervians"? Was there a * "Mithrian"? Was propaganda about pagans a pejorative avoidance of naming the prior, hallowed gods?


Pejorative names like _pagan _or _heathen _obviously expresses complete disregard for other religions. It only matters that their religious beliefs were too primitive and not sufficiently advanced to believe in the God of Abraham. What else they believed in was completely irrelevant.


----------



## john welch

.' What else they believed in was completely irrelevant.'
Italian pagans would mostly have the same gods that Roman Christians' ancestors were devoted to. That had formed the family morality underpinning the early Empire. "Pagan" is as strange as using "Tyrant" instead of " Kaiser Emperor" or "Roi" for feudal monarchs as if the titles had disappeared. It's almost Soviet  or Maoist word-bending for the party line.


----------

