THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE NOTION OF RELIGION IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE
This article traces the construction and use of the notion of "religion" in early modem Europe. The argument is that the concept of "religion" evolved from the medieval ideas of universitas fidelium and conscientia. A look at the writings of Machiavelli and Bodin, as well as the ideas of the English Latitudinarians, reveals that they used the word without reference to theological content and with indifference to theological differences, but, instead, to convey ideas of a common morality for the building of a civil society and a functional statehood. The word "religion" is not a modem invention; we inherited it from the Romans. However, it was rarely used before the Age of Reforma tion, when it emerged as a foster child of the religious wars. It was during this formative age of Europe (but which age is not formative?) when many of our basic notions, such as "politics", were constructed. The aim of this article is neither to define "religion" nor to analyze its several meanings and definitions; instead, the article focuses on the construction of the notion of "religion" in early modem Europe. It seems that "religion" took on the meanings of older Christian con cepts of conscientia and universitas fidelium. One of the basic ideas in Christian thought had been that the sinful person needs some restric tions: control from within and from without. The former was called forum internum, i.e., conscientia, and the later meant forum externum, fur nished by worldly magistrates. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and following from Luther and Milton, as conscientia came to be understood in highly individualized and emotional terms, and rebellious people referred to conscientia, the slowly-emerging political thought and political theology needed to replace this term with an other word, one that meant a control that came from within but was at the same time intersubjectively shared, common among the peo ple. The replacement term became "religion" and the meanings— control from within, which is shared, common, and independent from the worldly power of any person—of "religion" were taken from the notions of conscientia and universitas fidelium.