Other Religions
Inspiration for the Christian use of the name "pontiff" for a bishop could be found in the use of the same word (in Latin, pontifex, not "pontifex maximus") for the Jewish High Priest in the Vulgate Latin translation of the Scriptures, where it appears 59 times. For example, in the Vulgate Mark 15:11, "pontifices" (plural) is the Latin term used for "The Chief Priests", and in the Letter to the Hebrews "pontifex" (singular) is repeatedly used with reference to the Jewish High Priest and analogously to Jesus as the High Priest of Christians.
The word has been employed in English also for caliphs (Islam) and swamis and jagadgurus (Hinduism).
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Famous quotes containing the word religions:
“Those who believe in their truth—the only ones whose imprint is retained by the memory of men—leave the earth behind them strewn with corpses. Religions number in their ledgers more murders than the bloodiest tyrannies account for, and those whom humanity has called divine far surpass the most conscientious murderers in their thirst for slaughter.”
—E.M. Cioran (b. 1911)
“All religions have honored the beggar. For he proves that in a matter at the same time as prosaic and holy, banal and regenerative as the giving of alms, intellect and morality, consistency and principles are miserably inadequate.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)