Durkheim’s approach was itself shaped by William Robertson Smith’s Lectures
on the Religion of the Semites 6 (1889) which argues that the sacrificial meal
between god and men produces a sacral community and which Durkheim read
in 1912, and Fustel Coulanges’, The Ancient City 7 (1901) in which Coulanges
argued that the religion of Ancient Rome reflects the social structure of Roman
society.
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