First part can be read here: In Defense of Associative Specificity by Gustavo Rodríguez EN/ES
From anarquia.info, translated by Act for Freedom Now!
According to the Diccionario de uso del español1 María Moliner,2 it is defined as:
Sect: Doctrine taught by a teacher and followed by his adepts. Particularly, the doctrine and the group of its adepts. desp. Doctrine considered erroneous, or that departs from the traditional or official, and, especially, that which is considered pernicious for its followers: “Destructive sect”. A group of the followers of a sect.
Sectarian: -a (adv. sectarian) 1 adj. and n. (of) Follower of a certain sect. 2 Applied to one who fanatically follows a doctrine, and its attitude, opinions, etc. → *Intransigent, * partisan.
Sectarianism: m. Quality or attitude of sectarian.
If we consult the Indo-European Etymological Dictionary of the Spanish Language, it reveals that the noun “sect” (sectam) is the feminine of an obsolete participle of the Latin sequor (“to follow”) that comes from the Indo-European root *sekʷ-.3 The Oxford Latin Dictionary also agrees with this meaning.4 And, in the same vein, the Encyclopedic Theological Dictionary is also in agreement with this meaning; therefore, it is inferred that “the sect has as its first point of reference, not a particular doctrine, but […] membership to a group with a identity which is well-defined and distinct from the broader social environment […] The opposition is then manifested at the level of doctrine, morals, ritual and discipline and structuring of the group”5.
However, around this elucidation there are strong discrepancies, since the Indo-European root sek actually has three meanings that give rise to three Latin verbs: 1. secare (to blind/cut), 2. sequor (to follow), 3. siccare (to dry). The latter comes from the Latin word siccus (“dry”) which has a very different Indo-European root (*seik). However, secare or sectum (“to cut”), from which the Latin word sectio (sector/section/segment) derives, does seem to be related to the Latin and Spanish voice “secta”, as well as the verbs sequor, sequi, sequire (“to follow”, “to continue”, “sequence”). In this sense, the Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue Latine. Histoire des mots by Alfred Ernout and Antoine Meillet, offers us a certain “solution” by combining the verbs sequor (to follow) and siccus (“dry”), concluding that secta could rather derive from the verbal frequentative sector.6 In this regard, it is curious – without falling into wordplay – that the feminine noun “sedition”, which comes from the Latin seditio, seditionis (“estrangement”, “disunion”, “going far away”, “departure from an established power or a common march”), from which also comes “revolt”), although derived from a completely different Indo-European root (*ei, meaning “to go”), is closely related conceptually to the notion of “sect” understood as the “doctrine that departs from orthodoxy” or “sections itself from the established”.
In the religious context, these nominatives (“sect”, “sectarian” and “sectarianism”) are widely documented in the Jewish religion. Specifically, upon their return from exile (in the 6th century B.C.E.), the idea of a single God became popular among the Israelites and, hand in hand with this monotheistic conception, any group that departed from the religious hegemony began to be adjectivized as a “sect” or “faction”, considering it a “disloyal practice”. In this sense, the Bible mentions the Sadducees, Pharisees, Nazarenes and Christians as factions of Judaism. When they departed from the orthodox ideas and practices of Judaism, they were called “sectarians”. Continue reading “Consulting the dictionary: concepts and definitions of “sectarianism” Part ii by Gustavo Rodríguez”
