"Their notion of religio once meant something like scruples or exactingness, and then came to refer, among other things, to a scrupulous observance of rules or prohibitions, extending to worship practices. It was about doing the right thing in the right way. The Romans had other terms as well for customs, rites, obligations, reverence and social protocols, including cultus, ritus and superstitio."
"We tend to think of religion as an age-old feature of human existence. So it can be startling to learn that the very concept dates to the early modern era. Yes, you find gods, temples, sacrifices and rituals in the ancient Mediterranean, classical China, pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. What you don't find is a term that quite maps onto 'religion'. What about the Romans, to whom we owe the word?"
The word and concept of 'religion' in its modern sense is a relatively recent invention, dating to the early modern era. Ancient societies displayed gods, temples, sacrifices and rituals without a single term that mapped onto the modern category of religion. Roman religio signified scrupulous observance, correct practice and exactingness rather than a separate institutional sphere. Romans used multiple terms—cultus, ritus, superstitio—and did not separate cultic practice from civic and familial life. Even after Christianization, distinctions tended to mark right versus wrong worship rather than bounded, comparable 'religions'.
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