[V. Is Religion One of the Theological Virtues?]
[VI. Is Religion To Be Preferred To the Other Moral Virtues?]
[VII. Has Religion, Or Latria, Any External Acts?]
S. Augustine, of Care for the Dead, V.
[VIII. Is Religion the Same As Sanctity?]
Cardinal Cajetan, on the Distinction Between Sanctity and Religion
I
Does the Virtue of Religion direct a Man to God Alone?
Cicero says[33]: "Religion offers internal and external reverence to that Superior Nature which we term the Divine."
S. Isidore says[34]: "A religious man is, as Cicero remarks, so called from religion, for he is occupied with and, as it were, reads through again and again (relegit) the things that concern Divine worship." Thus religion seems to be so called from reading again (religendo) things concerning Divine worship; for such things are to be repeatedly revolved in the mind, according to those words of Proverbs iii. 6: In all thy ways think on Him. At the same time religion might be said to be so called because "we ought to choose again (re-eligere) those things which through our negligence we have lost," as S. Augustine has noted.[35] Or perhaps it is better derived from "binding again" (religando); thus S. Augustine says[36]: "Let religion bind us once more to the One Almighty God."
But whether religion be so called from frequent reading, or from fresh election of Him Whom we have negligently lost, or from rebinding, it properly implies a certain relation to God. For it is He to Whom we ought to be especially bound as our indefectible principle; to Him must we assiduously direct our choice as our ultimate end; He it is Whom we negligently lose by sin and Whom we must regain by believing in Him and by professing our faith in Him.
But some deny that religion directs a man to God alone, thus: