SYNCRETISM [FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS]. Syncretism belongs with several other terms in the study of religions, such as myth, magic, or religion, that derive from Greek or Latin words but have a complex semantic history in which the meaning of the ancient Greek or Latin word is relatively unimportant when compared to the adoption and resemantization of the term in modern scholarly discourse. In the case of syncretism, Erasmus's adaptation and Latinization of Greek synkrētismós (Plutarch, the Suda lexicon) into syncretismus paved the way for later usages. Erasmus adopted the term in its ancient meaning of "banding together of Cretans" as a proverbial term to designate an alliance of unlike partners based on usefulness, not on mutual attraction, and he applied it to the changing coalitions in the religious fights of his own time (Adagia 1.1.11) or to the necessity of humanist scholars to close...