Paganism

(pa'găn-izm.) [From L. pagi, villages.] The religion of the heathen world, in which the deity is represented under various forms, and by all kinds of images or idols; it is therefore called idolatry or image-worship. The theology of the pagans was of three sorts-fabulous, natural, and political or civil. The fabulous treats of the genealogy, worship, and attributes of their deities, who were for the most part the offspring of the imagination of poets, painters, and statuaries. The natural theology of the pagans was studied and taught by the philosophers, who rejected the multiplicity of gods introduced by the poets, and brought their ideas to a more rational form. The political or civil theology of the pagans was instituted by legislators, statesmen, and politicians, to keep the people in subjection to the civil power. This chiefly related to their temples, altars, sacrifices, and rites of worship. The word pagan was originally applied to the inhabitants of the rural districts, who, on the first propagation of the Christian religion, adhered to the worship of false gods, or who refused to receive Christianity after it had been adopted by the inhabitants of the cities. In the Middle Ages, this name was given to all who were not Jews or Christians, they only being considered to belong to a true religion; but in more modern times, Mohammedans, who worship the one supreme God of the Jews and Christians, are not called [s. 676]