The Two Babylons root "*aus-", meaning "dawn," potentially by way of . "Ishtar" is a Semitic name of uncertain etymology, possibly taken from the same root as Assyria, or from a semitic word meaning "to irrigate." Hislop ultimately claimed to trace Catholic doctrines back to the worship of Nimrod, asserting that the Roman Catholic Church represented Whore of Babylon of the Book of Revelation and that "the Pope himself is truly and properly the lineal representative of Belshazzar". He claimed that the Christogram IHS, the first three Greek letters in the name of Jesus, represented Latin characters standing for Isis, Horus and Seb.
Definition of religion dissociated from universal beliefs and moved closer to dogma in both meaning and practice. However, there was not yet the idea of dogma as a personal choice, only of established churches. With the Enlightenment religion lost its attachment to nationality, says Fitzgerald, but rather than becoming a universal social attitude, it now became a personal feeling or emotion. Talal Asad later refined this notion by showing that many assumptions about religion derive specifically from post-Enlightenment Christianity. Asad argues that before the word religion came into common usage, Christianity was a "disciplina", a rule just like that of the Roman Empire.