Pagan, according to early Christians, was a person who had not learned about or was not a follower of Christianity. Initially, individuals who worshiped the ancient Roman gods or the gods of such other ancient cultures as those of Greece and Egypt were considered pagans. Over time, the term pagan came to describe a follower of almost any religion but Christianity.
The English word pagan comes from the Latin word paganus, meaning someone who lives in a pagus. A pagus was a district or province in the countryside of the Roman Empire. Such country people were not much involved in government or other important affairs that took place in Roman cities. Therefore, paganus came to suggest a person with outdated, unsophisticated ideas.
By the A.D. 300’s, Christian authors, such as Saint Augustine, were using the term paganus to describe someone who was ignorant of or did not believe in Christianity. Thus, the word came to mean somebody who was “backward” because he or she still worshiped the ancient gods.
Over time, Christians began to think of all religions that included more than one god as pagan religions. They also tended to consider all non-Christians as one large group. Because “pagans” did not accept Christianity, Christians thought they worshiped demons or the devil. Christians usually did not consider Jews to be pagans. Because the Jews believed in one god rather than many gods, they were considered to be more like Christians than like pagans.
By the 1400’s, the English language had developed the word paganism, meaning religion of the pagans. Other European languages developed similar words.
