DEISIDAIMONIA. – A Greek word meaning “respectful fear, reverence toward the gods” (Xenophon, Aristotle), but it is also used in a pejorative sense for “exaggerated fear of the gods and omens,” that is, for a scrupulous religion, uneasy about itself and also superstitious and sanctimonious.
The portrait that Theophrastus (Characters, XVI) draws of the man who exaggerates and multiplies religious practices and purifications, and lives in terror of omens and impurities, is noteworthy. The practices mentioned seem superstitious to us moderns; for the Greeks they were customary rites: in Theophrastus’ portrait they are excessive and exaggerated.
BBL.: H. Bolkestein, Theophrastos' Charakter der D. (Religionsgesch. Vers. und Vorarb., 21, 11), Giessen 1920; P. J. Koets, Διτυλισμωδία. A contribution to the knowledge of the religious terminology in Greek, Utrecht 1920. Luisa Banti