Note 12 — Chapter XXXVII

Religious life (religion): Religion, as used by Aduarte, means solely the rule of life followed by a religious order, the order itself, or the ideal of the order; and derivative words have corresponding significations. For instance: “at the expense of the order (la religion),” book ii, p. 77; “to the no small credit of our religious community (nuestra religion), with the members of which (cuyos religiosos) they generally have most to do,” book ii, p. 83; “the act which he was performing because of his duty as a religious (acto religioso),” book ii, p. 104; “sufficient to give glory to an entire religious order (una religion entera);” “all the religious orders (las religiones) in the Indias.” As an adjective, a “very religious” friar (religiosissimo padre, book ii, p. 376) means one who remarkably approaches the ideal of the order. In this sense religioso has generally been rendered by “devoted” in this translation. The noun “religious,” in the sense of “a member of an order,” and the adjective in such phrases as “a religious house,” “the religious life,” are still not rare in English.—Henry B. Lathrop.