The Religious Experience of the Roman People | Page 8

to follow.
It will greatly assist me in this explanation if I begin by making clear
what I understand, for our present purposes, by the word religion.
There have been many definitions propounded--more in recent years
than ever before, owing to the recognition of the study of religion as a
department of anthropology. Controversies are going on which call for
new definitions, and it is only by slow degrees that we are arriving at
any common understanding as to the real essential thing or fact for
which we should reserve this famous word, and other words closely
connected with it, e.g. the supernatural. We are still disputing, for
example, as to the relation of religion to magic, and therefore as to the
exact meaning to be attributed to each of these terms.
Among the many definitions of religion which I have met with, there is
one which seems to me to be particularly helpful for our present

purposes; it is contributed by an American investigator. "Religion is the
effective desire to be in right relation to the Power manifesting itself in
the universe."[5] Dr. Frazer's definition is not different in essentials:
"By religion I understand a propitiation or conciliation of powers
superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of
nature and of human life;"[6] only that here the word is used of acts of
worship rather than of the feeling or desire that prompts them. The
definition of the late M. Jean Réville, in a chapter on "Religious
Experience," written near the end of his valuable life, is in my view
nearer the mark, and more comprehensive. "Religion," he says, "is
essentially a principle of life, the feeling of a living relation between
the human individual and the powers or power of which the universe is
the manifestation. What characterises each religion is its way of
looking upon this relation and its method of applying it."[7] And a little
further on he writes: "It is generally admitted that this feeling of
dependence upon the universe is the root of all religion." But this is not
so succinct as the definition which I quoted first, and it introduces at
least one term, the individual, which, for certain good reasons, I think it
will be better for us to avoid in studying the early Roman religious
ideas.
"Religion is the effective desire to be in right relations with the Power
manifesting itself in the universe." This has the advantage of treating
religion as primarily and essentially a feeling, an instinctive desire, and
the word "effective," skilfully introduced, suggests that this feeling
manifests itself in certain actions undertaken in order to secure a
desired end. Again, the phrase "right relations" seems to me well
chosen, and better than the "living relation" of M. Réville, which if
applied to the religions of antiquity can only be understood in a
sacramental sense, and is not obviously so intended. "Right relation"
will cover all religious feeling, from the most material to the most
spiritual. Think for a moment of the 119th Psalm, the high-water mark
of the religious feeling of the most religious people of antiquity; it is a
magnificent declaration of conformity to the will of God, i.e. of the
desire to be in right relation to Him, to His statutes, judgments, laws,
commands, testimonies, righteousness. This is religion in a high state
of development; but our definition is so skilfully worded as to adapt

itself readily to much earlier and simpler forms. The "Power
manifesting itself in the universe" may be taken as including all the
workings of nature, which even now we most imperfectly understand,
and which primitive man so little understood that he misinterpreted
them in a hundred different ways. The effective desire to be in right
relation with these mysterious powers, so that they might not interfere
with his material well-being--with his flocks and herds, with his crops,
too, if he were in the agricultural stage, with his dwelling and his land,
or with his city if he had got so far in social development--this is what
we may call the religious instinct, the origin of what the Romans called
religio.[8] The effective desire to have your own will brought into
conformity to the will of a heavenly Father is a later development of
the same feeling; to this the genuine Roman never attained, and the
Greek very imperfectly.
If we keep this definition steadily in mind, I think we shall find it a
valuable guide in following out what I call the religious experience of
the Roman people; and at the present moment it will help me to explain
my plan in drawing up these lectures. To begin with, in the prehistoric
age of Rome, so far as we can discern from survivals of a later age,