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'''Holiness''', or '''sanctity''', is the state of being '''holy''' or '''sacred''', that is, set apart for the [[worship]] or service of [[God]] or [[deity|gods]].  It is often ascribed to people, objects, times, or places. In non-specialist contexts, the term "holy" is used in a more general way, to refer to someone or something that is associated with a [[Divine grace|divine power]], such as water used for [[Baptism]].  Sometimes the word "Holy" is used as a synonym for "sacred," which descends from the [[Latin]] ''sacrum'', referring to the gods or anything in their power, and to ''sacer'', priest; ''sanctum'', set apart. It was generally conceived spatially, as referring to the area around a [[temple]].  
 
'''Holiness''', or '''sanctity''', is the state of being '''holy''' or '''sacred''', that is, set apart for the [[worship]] or service of [[God]] or [[deity|gods]].  It is often ascribed to people, objects, times, or places. In non-specialist contexts, the term "holy" is used in a more general way, to refer to someone or something that is associated with a [[Divine grace|divine power]], such as water used for [[Baptism]].  Sometimes the word "Holy" is used as a synonym for "sacred," which descends from the [[Latin]] ''sacrum'', referring to the gods or anything in their power, and to ''sacer'', priest; ''sanctum'', set apart. It was generally conceived spatially, as referring to the area around a [[temple]].  

Revision as of 16:53, 10 December 2007


Holiness, or sanctity, is the state of being holy or sacred, that is, set apart for the worship or service of God or gods. It is often ascribed to people, objects, times, or places. In non-specialist contexts, the term "holy" is used in a more general way, to refer to someone or something that is associated with a divine power, such as water used for Baptism. Sometimes the word "Holy" is used as a synonym for "sacred," which descends from the Latin sacrum, referring to the gods or anything in their power, and to sacer, priest; sanctum, set apart. It was generally conceived spatially, as referring to the area around a temple.

Etymology

The origin of the word "holy" comes from the 11th Century Old High German hulis and Old English holegn meaning Holly as in Holly Tree, considered a sacred plant to both pre-Christian Celtic and Roman worship. The word hulis originates from an even older proto-Germanic word khuli a shortened derivation of the ancient Gaelic cuilieann both meaning Holly. The distinction of the word holy appeared around the 13th Century with the Old English word hālig derived from hāl meaning health, happiness and wholeness. As “wholeness,” holiness may be taken to indicate a state of religious completeness or perfection.

The Gothic for "holy" is either hailags or weihaba, weihs. "To hold as holy" or "to become holy" is weihnan, "to make holy, to sanctify" is weihan. Holiness or sanctification is weihia. Old English like Gothic had a second term of similar meaning, weoh "holy", with a substantive wih or wig , in Old High German wih or wihi (Middle High German wîhe, Modern German Weihe). The Nordendorf fibula has wigiþonar, interpreted as wigi-þonar "holy Donar" or "sacred to Donar". Old Norse ve means "temple". The weihs group is cognate to Latin victima, an animal dedicated to the gods and destined to be sacrificed.

Definition

The German theologian Rudolf Otto, in The Idea of the Holy (originally in German, Das Heilige), defined the holy as an experience of something "wholly other," most famously mysterium tremendum et fascinans, a frightening and fascinating mystery.[1] (He was following the tradition of Friedrich Schleiermacher, who defined religion as a feeling or experience rather than adherence to doctrine.) Otto claimed that this experience was unlike any other; the subject experienced the spirit (the numinous, in Otto's terminology) as overwhelming, sublime, truly real, while he or she was nothing.

The French sociologist Emile Durkheim emphasized the social nature of religion, in contrast to other leading thinkers of day such as William James, who emphasized individual experience. Based on studies of Indigenous Australians, Durkheim proposed that most central to religion was not deity but the distinction between sacred and profane: "religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden."[2] In Durkheim's theory, the sacred represented the interests of the group, especially unity, which were embodied in sacred group symbols, totems. The profane, on the other hand, involved mundane individual concerns. Durkheim explicitly stated that the dichotomy sacred/profane was not equivalent to good/evil: the sacred could be good or evil, and the profane could be either as well.[3]

Mircea Eliade, among the most influential twentieth-century scholars of religion, adopted Durkheim's terminology, but Otto's idea. Eliade defined the sacred as "equivalent to a power, and in the last analysis, to reality."[4] Like Otto, Eliade insisted that this experience was not reducible to any other experience: in other words, that the sacred is not a mere experience, such as a hallucination, but it really exists. Eliade's analysis of religion focused on the sacred, especially sacred time and sacred space, and very many comparative religion and religious studies scholars in the twentieth century followed him, though scholars such as Jonathan Z. Smith and Russell McCutcheon have challenged his theories.

Holiness in Judaism

The Judaic tradition conceives 'holiness' (from the Hebrew root קדש) in various ways, but most distinctive and central to the Torah is the priestly system, legislation for which comprises the majority of the law delivered at Sinai. It essentially involves the division of time and space into the spheres of the divine and the common. The word used in Leviticus for this separation, hivdil, is that used for the process of Creation in Genesis. Creation is a matter of proper ordering, which involves not only land and water, light and darkness, but also holy and profane, clean and unclean. It is the role of the priesthood, and Israel as God's priestly nation, to maintain this order in accordance with the guidelines set out at Sinai. The safety and stability of each individual, the nation, and ultimately the whole world, depends on it.

The division seems to be understood as a gradual one, with different behavior appropriate to the merely 'holy' and the 'most holy'. The Mishnah therefore lists concentric circles of holiness: Holy of Holies; sanctuary; vestibule; court of priests; court of Israelites; court of women; temple mount; Jerusalem walls; all the walled cities of Israel; and the borders of the holy land. Distinctions are made as to who and what are permitted in each area. Likewise the calendar is divided so that the eve of the Sabbath to the end of the day is holy time, and certain feasts, such as the Day of Atonement, are most holy. Both holy time and holy space are rooted in Creation, with the Sabbath as its culmination, and the Garden traditionally on the site of the temple.

So holiness denotes the sphere of the divine, which is to be set apart, and is manifest in power particularly when its separation is not properly maintained. There are various stories in the Hebrew Bible of disease and destruction resulting from improper contact with or handling of holy things such as the Ark. This dynamic power is divine, and so the holy is very much associated with the divine Presence. The relationship between holiness and Presence is unclear: holiness seems to be a precondition for the manifestation of the Presence, but is not to be equated with it. In practical terms, holiness can be measured and managed by priestly legislation, while Presence is entirely dependent upon God's action. The priestly conception of holiness expresses the distinctively scriptural perception of God as both transcendent (utterly separate) and powerfully immanent in His relationship with the world.

For a summary essay, see: Philip Jenson, 'Holiness in the Priestly Writings of the Old Testament' pp.93-121 in Holiness Past and Present ed. S.C. Barton (T&T Clark, 2003)

A person ascribed with holiness in Judaism are known as a Tzadik.

Holiness in Catholicism

Catholicism has adopted much of the Jewish vision of the world in terms of holiness, with certain behavior appropriate to certain places and times. The calendar gives shape to Catholic practice, which tends to focus on the Eucharist, in which the Real Presence of Christ is manifested. Many features of the Jewish temple are imitated in churches, such as the altar, bread, lamp, incense, font, etc, to emphasize the extreme holiness of the Eucharistic elements, which are reserved in a tabernacle. In extension of this focus on the Sacrament as holy, many objects in Catholicism are also considered holy. They are called sacramentals and are usually blessed by a priest. Such items include rosaries, crucifixes, medals, and statues of Jesus, angels and saints (Virgin Mary).

People in a state of sanctifying grace are also considered holy in Catholicism. A central notion of Catholicism as articulated in contemporary theology is the "[personal] call to holiness," considered as a vocation shared by every Christian believer. Profound personal holiness has traditionally also been seen as a focus for the kind of contagious holiness primarily associated with the Sacrament. So the cult of saints in Catholicism is not only the acclamation of their piety or morality, but also reverence for the tangible holiness that flows from their proximity to the divine. Hence the places where saints lived, died, performed miracles, or received visions frequently become sites of pilgrimage, and notable objects surviving a saint (including the body or parts of it) are considered relics. The holiness of such places or objects, resulting from contact with a deeply holy person, is often connected with the miraculous long after the death of the saint.

Holiness in Protestantism

The Protestant Reformation stood in opposition to the beliefs of tangible holiness in the Catholic Church and rejected most of its teachings regarding devotional practice, language and imagery. The early Reformers, who were often scholars of ancient Greek and also borrowed from Jewish scholarship, recognized that holiness is an attribute of God, and holiness is always part of the presence of God. Yet they also recognized that practical holiness was the evidence of the presence of God in the converted believer. Martin Luther, viewed God's grace (and therefore God's holiness), as an invasion of the life. Actions that demonstrated holiness would spring up, not premeditated, as the believer focused more and more on his or her relationship with Christ. This was the life of faith, according to Luther, a life in which one recognizes that the sin nature never departs, yet grace invades and draws the person after Christ.

Calvin, on the other hand, formulated a practical system of holiness that even tied in with culture and social justice. All unholy actions, Calvin reasoned, resulted in suffering. Thus he proved out to the city fathers of Geneva that dancing and other social vices always ended with the wealthy oppressing the poor. A holy life, in his outlook, was pietistic and simple, a life that shunned extravagance, excess, and vanity. On a personal level, Calvin believed that suffering would be a manifestation of taking on the Cross of Christ, but suffering was also part of the process of holiness. He expected that all Christians would suffer in this life, not as punishment, but rather as participation in union with Christ, who suffered for them. And yet, socially, Calvin argued that a holy society would end up as a gentle, kindly society (except to criminals), where the poor would be protected from the abuses of the wealthy, the lawyers, and others who normally preyed upon them.

In Protestantism, especially in American branches of Protestantism of the more Pentecostal variety, holiness has acquired the secondary meaning of the reshaping of a person through spiritual rebirth. The term owes its origin to John Wesley's concept of "scriptural holiness" or Christian perfection.

The Holiness movement began within Methodism in the United States, among those who thought the church had lost the zeal and emphasis on personal holiness of Wesley's day. In the latter part of the 19th century revival meetings were held, attended by thousands. In Vineland, N.J in 1867 a camp meeting was begun and the National Holiness Camp Meeting Association, which went on to establish many holiness camp meetings across the nation. Some adherents to the movement remained within their denominations; others founded new denominations, such as the Free Methodist Church, the Church of the Nazarene, and the Church of God (Anderson). Within a generation another movement, the Pentecostal movement was born, drawing heavily from the Holiness Movement. Around the middle of the 20th century, the Conservative Holiness Movement was born - a conservative offshoot of the Holiness movement.

The Higher Life movement appeared in the British Isles during the mid 1800's.

In the contemporary Holiness movement, the idea that holiness is relational is growing. In this thought, the core notion of holiness is love. Other notions of holiness, such as purity, being set apart, perfection, keeping rules, and total commitment, are seen as contributory notions of holiness. These contributory notions find their ultimate legitimacy one when love is at their core (Thomas Jay Oord and Michael Lodahl).

Holiness in Buddhism

In Theravada Buddhism one finds the designation of 'noble person' or ariyapuggala (Pali). The Buddha described four grades of such person depending on their level of purity. This purity is measured by which of the ten fetters (samyojana) and klesha have been purified and integrated from the mindstream. These persons are called (in order of increasing sanctity) Sotapanna, Sakadagami, Anagami and Arahant. The latter term designates an enlightened human being and is sometimes rendered into English as the Holy One.

In legend

Some important and powerful objects in legends could be referred to as "hallows" because of their function and symbolism.[5] The Tuatha de Danaan in Ireland possessed four "hallows", the Four Treasures of Ireland: the Spear of Lugh, Stone of Fal, the Sword of Light of Nuada, and The Dagda's Cauldron. In the modern period, these were adapted to become the four suits in the Rider-Waite Tarot cards deck (swords, wands, pentacles and cups), and also took on the representation of the four classical elements of air, fire, earth and water.[6]

Coronation ceremonies for monarchs still invokes four ritual objects, now represented as the sceptre, sword, ampulla of oil, and crown. Similar objects also appear in Arthurian legends, where the Fisher King is the guardian of four "hallows" representing the four elements: a dish (earth), Arthur's sword Excalibur (air), the Holy Lance or spear, baton, or a magic wand (fire), and the Holy Grail (water).[7]

Earlier Welsh tradition, as recorded in Trioedd Ynys Prydain, also refers to Thirteen Treasures of Britain, being the Thirteen Royal Treasures of the Isle of Britain. Symbolically, these could also be interpreted as "hallows", although not actually described as such in the medieval Welsh texts.

In literature

J. R. R. Tolkien

In J. R. R. Tolkien's tale The Lord of the Rings, the kings and stewards of Gondor were laid to rest in tombs in "the Hallows" of Rath Dínen (the Silent Street) in the city of Minas Tirith as described in The Return of the King.[8]

J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the seventh and final book in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. The Deathly Hallows refer to three legendary magical objects mentioned in a fairy tale: the Elder Wand which could defeat all others in battle, the Resurrection Stone which could bring back the souls of the deceased, and the Cloak of Invisibility which could hide the wearer from most forms of detection.[9] Together the objects were said to make their owner a "Master of Death".Template:HP7

In current usage

Hallow is a word usually used as a verb, meaning "to make holy or sacred, to sanctify or consecrate, to venerate".[10] The adjective form hallowed, as used in The Lord's Prayer, means holy, consecrated, sacred, or revered.[11]

In modern English usage, the noun hallow appears mostly in compounds in Halloween and Hallowmas. Halloween (or Hallowe'en) is a shortened form of All Hallow Even, meaning "All Hallows' Eve" or "All Saints' Eve".[12] Hallowmas, the day after Halloween, is shortened from Hallows' mass, and is also known as "All Hallows' Day" or "All Saints' Day".[13]

Notes

  1. (Pals 1996, 164-5)
  2. (Durkheim 1965, 47)
  3. (Pals 1996, 99)
  4. (Eliade 1957, 12)
  5. Arthurian A-ZZ. Mystical WWW. Retrieved 2007-02-16.
  6. THE FOUR BASIC TOOLS. Rhuddlwm Gawr (1998). Retrieved 2007-01-29.
  7. Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named Fisher_king
  8. J. R. R. Tolkien, Return of the King, Book V ch. 4, 7, and 8, and Book VI ch. 5 and 6; Allen & Unwin, Houghton Mifflin, and Random House's Del Rey Books and Ballantine Books editions.
  9. Alastor Moody's magical eye and the homenum revelio spell could overcome the cloak's stealth.Template:HP4 Moreover, Dementors used people's emotions to perceive their location, so the cloak was useless against them.Template:HP3
  10. Dictionary.com. Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. (2007-01-15). Retrieved 2007-01-23.
  11. Webster's Collegiate Dictionary entry for hallowed
  12. Webster's Collegiate Dictionary entry for Halloween
  13. Webster's Collegiate Dictionary entry for Hallowmas

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Durkheim, Emile. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. New York: Free Press, 1965. ISSN 268860
  • Eliade, Mircea. The Sacred and the Profane The Nature of Religion. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1957. ISBN 015679201X
  • Oord, Thomas Jay, and Michael E. Lodahl. Relational Holiness Responding to the Call of Love. Kansas City, Mo: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 2005. ISBN 0834121824
  • Pals, Daniel L. Seven Theories of Religion. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. ISBN 0195087240
  • Sharpe, Eric J. Comparative Religion A History. New York: Scribner's, 1975. ISBN 0684146754.

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