quam Dei notio." Even here it is not so far removed from its old
meaning; but in a Christian writer it can mean conformity to the will of
God, based on a real knowledge of Him, in a sense which shows us by a
sudden illuminating flash the deep gulf set between the old religion and
the new.

Another word, bequeathed in this case rather by the Latin language than
the Roman religion, in which it held no strictly technical meaning, is
_sanctus_, which has played so large a part in the terminology of the
Catholic Church, and passed thence into the language of Puritanism for
the living Christian, as in Baxter's famous book, _The Saints' Rest_.
The exact meaning of _sanctus_ is extremely difficult to fix, and this
may be why it was found to be a convenient word for a type of character
negative rather than positive. The lawyers defined it as meaning what is
_sancitum_ by the State,[979] without tracing it back to a time when the
State was a religious as well as a civil entity. But there was beyond
doubt a religious flavour in it from the beginning, as in other old
Italian words connected with it; and thus it seems to be able to express
a certain conjunction of religious and moral purity which finally
brought it into the hands of the Christian writers. A single verse of
Virgil will serve to explain what I mean. Turnus, before he rushes forth
to meet his death at Aeneas' hand, and knowing that he is to meet it,
asks the Manes to be good to him, "quoniam superis aversa voluntas,"
for--

_sancta_ ad vos _anima_ atque istius nescia culpae
descendam magnorum haud unquam indignus avorum.[980]

He goes to the shades with a conscience clear of guilt or of _impietas_;
as the ancient scholiast interprets the word, it is equivalent to
_incorrupta_.[981] In this sense it became one of the favourite
superlatives to describe in sepulchral inscriptions, pagan or Christian,
the purity of departed women and children.[982]

Lastly, we have the great word _sacer_, with its compounds _sacrificium_
and _sacramentum_. The adjective itself has no new or special
significance, I think, in the language of the early Christians, and in
our Teutonic languages the Roman sense of it, "that which is made over
to God," is expressed by the word _holy_, _sacred_ being retained in a
general sense for that which is not "common." But _sacrificium_, the act
of making a thing, animate or inanimate, or yourself, as in _devotio_,
over to the gods, is indeed a gre