you know how superstitious Mahler was . . .
Our
Collins English Dictionary has the word "superstition" deriving from Latin
superstitio, "dread of the supernatural," and coming in turn it says from
superstare, "to stand still by something (as in amazement)."
The
Oxford English Dictionary tells us "The etymological meaning of the Latin
superstitio is perhaps 'standing over a thing in amazement or awe.' But other interpretations of the literal meaning (to stand upon or over) have been proposed, e.g. '
excess in devotion, over-scrupulousness or over-ceremoniousness in religion' and 'the
survival of old religious habits in the midst of a new order of things'; but such ideas are
foreign to ancient Roman thought."
Cicero, in
The Nature of the Gods (II, 72), suggests that the word originated from
superstes, "a survivor," because "people prayed and sacrificed all day long so that their children might live to survive them." Others thought that it was at first only used of the superstition of
those who survived in respect of the
manes of the
departed; there that is to say the
subjects of the superstition were indicated, but the important aspect (the superstition itself) was not expressed. It would be better still were it to be said that every false religion was simply a
superstes quid - that which remains of
something no longer understood.
