A palavra dita na cultura religiosa romana: o papel da tradição oral na perspetiva específica de uma história comparada das religiões

In a culture where there is no such thing as a holy book, spoken word and orality play a special role in the transmission of religious culture, when compared with other traditions, such as the Christian, Muslim, or even Hindu. In this text we study the role of the spoken word in the so-called “Roman Religion”. We characterise the concept of “orality” in Roman religious context and we try to draw a parallel with other religious cultures in which the spoken or “inherited” word is a main feature. We take a particular look at the Japanese traditional religion, Shinto and set up a short scheme of the many contact points between the two religious traditions. We propose a reflection on the role orality may have played in the “personal” religion of the common Roman. We also study, from the specific perspective of a comparative history of religions, to what extent the spoken word characterizes the relationship man establishes with the divine, particularly in what Ninian Smart calls the “experiential dimension” of religion.