DEISIDAIMONIA. — A Greek term meaning “reverent fear, piety toward the gods” (Xenophon, Aristotle), but it is also used in an unfavorable sense for “exaggerated fear of the gods and of omens,” i.e., for a scrupulous, self-tormented, and even superstitious and bigoted religion.
Noteworthy is the portrait that Theophrastus (Characters, XVI) draws of the man who multiplies religious practices and purifications and lives in terror of omens and impurities. The practices recalled seem to us moderns superstitious, but to the Greeks they were customary rites; in Theophrastus’ portrait they are excessive and exaggerated.
BIBL.: H. Bolkestein, Theophrastos' Charakter der D. (Religionsgesch. Vers. und Vorarb., 21, 11), Giessen 1929; P. J. Koets, Ästzäuswolga. A contribution to the knowledge of the religious terminology in Greek, Utrecht 1929.