Anthropological aspects of the concept of religio in the works of Cicero

This article is devoted to the analysis of the anthropological aspects of the concept of religio used in the well-known legacy of Marcus Tullius Cicero. Cicero’s contribution to the development of philosophical understanding of various aspects of human society is generally recognized, but one of the most valuable “pearls”, which is highly valued by modern researchers, is his analysis of the Latin word religio, which is found in his works more than 600 times. In our opinion, an important aspect of Cicero’s reflections on religion is the consideration of his literary and philosophical heritage in the context of the crucial historical and political processes that took place in the Roman Republic in the first century BC, similar to the challenges facing the modern Russian and international community. The article attempts to comprehend the Latin lexemes superstitio and sacrum, which are close in meaning to the concept of religio, which allows us more accurately to explicate this concept from its related definitions. The results of the study. Cicero draws a clear line between the concepts of religio (internal and external sincere piety), sacrum (Roman state understanding of shrines) and superstitio (false beliefs). He identifies the following main functions in the concept of religio: Ideological (uniting people on the basis of pious beliefs in common gods), ideological (everything in the world happens with the permission of the gods as the foundations of the “higher order of nature”) and socio-managerial (universal values that govern the behavior of an individual in society).

religio, superstitio, sacrum, religio, superstitio, sacrum, Cicero, Lucretius, Lactantius, etymology, anthropology, religious studies