1911: feast, festival, and theology Mar 9, 2020

Feasts are an old concept, and as is often true of old ideas, there will be a large word-family around it. 'Feast'—originally denoting religious celebration and not just food—is also related to the Latin 'festum' or Modern English 'festival' [1], which makes sense since the two overlap, but the roots goes much deeper. It ultimately is traced back to the Proto-Indo-European *dʰéh₁s which is the same root as the Greek θεός (theós) meaning 'god', and hence the Modern English 'theology'. Indeed, the meaning has always been closely tied to religion, again sharing the root with the Latin 'feriae' (holiday) and 'fanum' (temple).

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