On Prayer and the Contemplative Life

S. İsidore says, “A religious man is as cicero remarks, so called from religion, for he is occupied with and, as it hee, reads through again and again (relegit) the things that concern Divine worship”. Thus religion seems to be so called from reading again (religiendo) things concerning Divine worship; for such things are to be repeatedly revolved in the mind, according to those words of Proverbs. At the same time religion might be said so called because “we ought to choose again (re-eligere) those things which through our negligence we have lost,” as S.Augustine has noted. Or perhaps it is better derived from “binding again” religando; the ST.Augustine says “Let religion bind us once more to the One Almighty God”.

The word “sanctity” seems to imply two things. First, it seems to imply cleannes; and this is in accordance with the Greek word for it, for in Greek it is hagios, as though meaning “without earth".Secondly, it implies stability, and thus among the ancients those things were termed santa which were so hedged about this laws that they were safe from valiotion; similarly a thing is said to be sanction because established by the law. And even according to the Latins the word sanctus may mean “cleanness” as derived from sangeine tinctus, for of old those who were to be purified were sprinkled with the blood of a victim, as says S.Isidor in his Etymologies.