The category of paganism, highly influential in religious history, emerged from a discourse of definition in anthropology and theology. The Latin paganus may reflect the socioreligious conditions of late Greco-Roman antiquity, distinguishing “city-dwellers” (urbani) who converted to Christianity at an early date from “country-dwellers” (pagani) who held to the old religion.
“Heathen,” synonymous with “pagan” but deriving f…