Faith & RitualGreek → English
Pantheism
/ˈpænθiˌɪzəm/noun
The belief that God and the universe are the same thing.
The Greek roots
πᾶν
pân
all, everything
θεός
theós
god
Literally: “all-god belief”
The story of the word
Joseph Raphson printed the Latin pantheismus in 1697, and John Toland called himself a pantheist in 1705; the English noun pantheism follows in 1732. The parts are ordinary Greek, but no Greek ever used them this way, and the doctrine the word attacks was Spinoza's. Pantheon kept the older, simpler sense: a building for all the gods at once.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Modern Latin → English
- First recorded
- 1732
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
pantheontheologyatheismpanorama
In a sentence
Her pantheism was practical rather than theological: she thought the mountain was owed the same courtesy as a church.