Sacred
religion
Main
the power, being, or realm understood by religious persons to be at the
core of existence and to have a transformative effect on their lives and
destinies. Other terms, such as holy, divine, transcendent, ultimate
being (or reality), mystery, and perfection (or purity) have been used
for this domain. “Sacred” is also an important technical term in the
scholarly study and interpretation of religions.
For a discussion of dogmatic interpretations of the Divine as a being
or force, see doctrine and dogma.
The emergence of the concept of the sacred
It was during the first quarter of the 20th century that the concept of
the sacred became dominant in the comparative study of religions. Nathan
Söderblom, an eminent Swedish churchman and historian of religions,
asserted in 1913 that the central notion of religion was “holiness” and
that the distinction between sacred and profane was basic to all “real”
religious life. In 1917 Rudolf Otto’s Heilige (Eng. trans., The Idea of
the Holy, 1923) appeared and exercised a great influence on the study of
religion through its description of religious man’s experience of the
“numinous” (a mysterious, majestic presence inspiring dread and
fascination), which Otto, a German theologian and historian of
religions, claimed, could not be derived from anything other than an a
priori sacred reality. Other scholars who used the notion of sacred as
an important interpretive term during this period included the
sociologist Émile Durkheim in France, and the psychologist-philosopher
Max Scheler in Germany. For Durkheim, sacredness referred to those
things in society that were forbidden or set apart; and since these
sacred things were set apart by society, the sacred force, he concluded,
was society itself. In contrast to this understanding of the nature of
the sacred, Scheler argued that the sacred (or infinite) was not limited
to the experience of a finite object. While Scheler did not agree with
Otto’s claim that the holy is experienced through a radically different
kind of awareness, he did agree with Otto that the awareness of the
sacred is not simply the result of conditioning social and psychological
forces. Though he criticized Friedrich Schleiermacher, an early
19th-century Protestant theologian, for being too subjective in his
definition of religion as “the consciousness of being absolutely
dependent on God,” Otto was indebted to him in working out the idea of
the holy. Söderblom recorded his dependence on the scholarship of the
history of religions (Religionswissenschaft), which had been a growing
discipline in European universities for about half a century; Durkheim
had access to two decades of scholarship on nonliterate peoples, some of
which was an account of actual fieldwork. Scheler combined the interests
of an empirical scientist with a philosophical effort that followed in
the tradition of 19th-century attempts to relate human experiences to
the concept of a reality (essence) that underlies human thoughts and
activities.
Since the first quarter of the 20th century many historians of
religions have accepted the notion of the sacred and of sacred events,
places, people, and acts as being central in religious life if not
indeed the essential reality in religious life. For example,
phenomenologists of religion such as Gerardus van der Leeuw and W. Brede
Kristensen have considered the sacred (holy) as central and have
organized the material in their systematic works around the
(transcendent) object and (human) subject of sacred (cultic) activity,
together with a consideration of the forms and symbols of the sacred.
Such historians of religions as Friedrich Heiler and Gustav Mensching
organized their material according to the nature of the sacred, its
forms and structural types. Significant contributions to the analysis
and elaboration of the sacred have been made by Roger Caillois, a
sociologist, and by Mircea Eliade, an eminent historian of religions.
Basic characteristics of the sacred » Sacred–profane and other
dichotomies
The term sacred has been used from a wide variety of perspectives and
given varying descriptive and evaluative connotations by scholars
seeking to interpret the materials provided by anthropology and the
history of religions. In these different interpretations, however,
common characteristics were recognized in the sacred, as it is
understood by participant individuals and groups: it is separated from
the common (profane) world; it expresses the ultimate total value and
meaning of life; and it is the eternal reality, which is recognized to
have been before it was known and to be known in a way different from
that through which common things are known.
The term sacred comes from Latin sacer (“set off, restricted”). A
person or thing was designated as sacred when it was unique or
extraordinary. Closely related to sacer is numen (“mysterious power,
god”). The term numinous is used at present as a description of the
sacred to indicate its power, before which man trembles. Various terms
from different traditions have been recognized as correlates of sacer:
Greek hagios, Hebrew qadosh, Polynesian tapu, Arabic ḥaram; correlates
of numen include the Melanesian mana, the Sioux wakanda, the old German
haminja (luck), and Sanskrit Brahman.
Besides the dichotomy of sacred–profane the sacred includes basic
dichotomies of pure–unpure and pollutant–“free.” In ancient Rome the
word sacer could mean that which would pollute someone or something that
came into contact with it, as well as that which was restricted for
divine use. Similarly, the Polynesian tapu (“tabu”) designated something
as not “free” for common use. It might be someone or something specially
blessed because it was full of power, or it might be something accursed,
as a corpse. Whatever was tabu had special restrictions around it, for
it was full of extraordinary energy that could destroy anyone
unprotected with special power himself. In this case the sacred is
whatever is uncommon and may include both generating and polluting
forces. On the other hand there is the pure–impure dichotomy, in which
the sacred is identified with the pure and the profane is identified
with the impure. The pure state is that which produces health, vigour,
luck, fortune, and long life. The impure state is that characterized by
weakness, illness, misfortune, and death. To acquire purity means to
enter the sacred realm, which could be done through purification rituals
or through the fasting, continence, and meditation of ascetic life. When
a person became pure he entered the realm of the divine and left the
profane, impure, decaying world. Such a transition was often marked by a
ritual act of rebirth.
Basic characteristics of the sacred » Ambivalence in man’s response to
the sacred
Because the sacred contains notions both of a positive, creative power
and a danger that requires stringent prohibitions, the common human
reaction is both fear and fascination. Otto elaborated his understanding
of the holy from this basic ambiguity. Only the sacred can fulfill man’s
deepest needs and hopes; thus, the reverence that man shows to the
sacred is composed both of trust and terror. On the one hand, the sacred
is the limit of human effort both in the sense of that which meets human
frailty and that which prohibits human activity; on the other hand, it
is the unlimited possibility that draws mankind beyond the limiting
temporal–spacial structures that are constituents of human existence.
Not only is there an ambivalence in the individual’s reaction to the
numinous quality of the sacred but the restrictions, the tabus, can be
expressive of the creative power of the sacred. Caillois has described
at length the social mechanism of nonliterate societies, in which the
group is divided into two complementary subgroups (moieties), and has
interpreted the tabus and the necessary interrelationship of the
moieties as expressions of sacredness. Whatever is sacred and restricted
for one group is “free” for the other group. In a number of
respects—e.g., in supplying certain goods, food, and wives—each group is
dependent on the other for elemental needs. Here the sacred is seen to
be manifested in the order of the social–physical universe, in which
these tribal members live. To disrupt this order, this natural harmony,
would be sacrilege, and the culprit would be severely punished. In this
understanding of the sacred, a person is, by nature, one of a pair; he
is never complete as a single unit. Reality is experienced as one of
prescribed relationships, some of these being vertical, hierarchical
relationships and others being horizontal, corresponding relationships.
Another significant ambiguity is that the sacred manifests itself in
concrete forms that are also profane. The transcendent mystery is
recognized in a specific concrete symbol, act, idea, image, person, or
community. The unconditioned reality is manifested in conditioned form.
Eliade has elucidated this “dialectic of the sacred,” in which the
sacred may be seen in virtually any sort of form in religious history: a
stone, an animal, or the sea. The ambiguity of the sacred taking on
profane forms also means that even though every system of sacred thought
and action differentiates between those things it regards as sacred or
as profane, not all people find the sacred manifested in the same form;
and what is profane for some is sacred for others.
Basic characteristics of the sacred » Manifestations of the sacred
The sacred appears in myths, sounds, ritual activity, people, and
natural objects. Through retelling the myth the divine action that was
done “in the beginning” is repeated. The repetition of the sacred action
symbolically duplicates the structure and power that established the
world originally. Thus, it is important to know and preserve the eternal
structure through which man has life, for it is the model and source of
power in the present.
The recognition of sacred power in the myth is related to the notion
that sound itself has creative power—in particular special, sacred
sounds. Sometimes these sounds are words, such as the name of god,
divine myth, a prayer, or hymn; but sometimes the most sacred sounds are
those that do not have a common meaning, for example, the Hindu om, the
Buddhist oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ, or the Jewish and Christian “Hallelujah.”
Closely connected with verbal expressions of sacred power are
activities done in worship, in sacraments, sacrifices, and festivals.
Part of the importance of religious ritual is that in the realm of the
sacred all things have their place. In order for human existence to
prosper (or even continue) it must correspond as closely as possible to
the divine pattern (destiny, or will). Different religious traditions
have different theological and philosophical formulations of the meaning
of sacraments. In Roman Catholic Christianity, a sacrament is “an
outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace.” In Brahmanic
Hinduism a saṃskāra (sacrament) is a sacred act that perfects a person
and that culminates at the end of a series of saṃskāras in a spiritual
rebirth, a symbolic “second birth.” In both of these cases, the sacred
action establishes the relation between the divine and human worlds.
Other sacred activity includes initiation, sacrifice, and festival.
Initiation rites among nonliterate societies both expose and establish
the world view of the participants. The initiate learns the eternal
order of life as proclaimed in the myth. Life is viewed essentially as
the work of supernatural beings, and the initiate in this ritual is
taught this secret of life and how to gain access to divine benefits.
The initiate learns the tabus and is often given a sacred mark—e.g.,
circumcision, tattoo, or incisions—to express physically that he is part
of the sacred (original) community. In other religions, such as
Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism, an initiate to a special holy
(often monastic) community within the larger religious community is
designated by a change in name and wearing apparel, denoting his special
relation to the sacred.
In festivals and sacrifices two religious functions are often
combined: (1) to provide new power (energy, life) for the world, and (2)
to purify the corrupted, defiled existence. Religious festivals are a
return to sacred time, that time prior to the structured existence that
most people commonly experience (profane time). Sacred calendars provide
the opportunity for the profane time to be rejuvenated periodically in
the festivals. These occasions symbolically repeat the primordial chaos
before the beginning of the world; and just as the world was created “in
the beginning,” so in the repetition of that time the present world is
regenerated. The use of masks and the suspension of normal tabus express
the unstructured, unconditioned nature of the sacred. Dancing, running,
singing, and processions are all techniques for re-creation, for
stimulating the original power of life. Ritual activity moves power in
two directions: (1) it concentrates it in one place, time, and occasion,
and (2) it releases power into the everyday stream of events through its
self-abundance—the primal vibration reverberates throughout existence.
The new energy dispels the old, depleted, polluted energy; it cleanses
the constricted, clogged, hardened channels of life.
One of the most important forms in which man has access to the sacred
is in the sacrifice. The central procedure in all sacrifices is the use
of a victim or substitute to serve as a mediator between the sacred and
profane worlds. The sacrifice (Latin sacri-ficium, “making sacred”) is a
consecration of an offering through which the profane world has access
to the sacred without being destroyed by the sacred. Instead, the
sacrificial object (victim) is destroyed in serving as a unique,
extraordinary channel between these two realms. In sacrificial rites it
is important to duplicate the original (divine) act; and because
creation is variously conceived in different religious traditions,
different forms are preserved: the burning or crushing of the “corn
mother,” the crushing of the soma stalks, the slaughter of the lamb
without blemish, the blood spilling of a sacred person, such as the
firstborn.
Sacredness is manifested in sacred officials, such as priests and
kings; in specially designated sacred places, such as temples and
images; and in natural objects, such as rivers, the sun, mountains, or
trees. The priest is a special agent in the religious cult, his ritual
actions represent the divine action. Similarly, the king or emperor is a
special mediator between heaven and earth and has been called by such
names as the “son of heaven,” or an “arm of god.”
Just as certain persons are consecrated, so specific places are
designated as the “gate of heaven.” Temples and shrines are recognized
by devotees as places where special attitudes and restrictions prevail
because they are the abode of the sacred. Likewise, certain images of
God (and sacred books) are held to be uniquely powerful and true (pure)
expressions of divine reality. The image and the temple are, in
traditional societies, not simply productions by individual artists and
architects; they are reflections of the sacred essence of life, and
their measurements and forms are specified through sacred communication
from the divine sphere. In this same context, natural objects can be
imbued with sacred power. The sun, for example, is the embodiment of the
power of life, the source of all human consciousness, the central pivot
for the eternal rhythm and order of existence. Or, a river, such as the
Nile for the ancient Egyptians and the Ganges for the Hindu, gave
witness to the power of life incarnated in geography. Sacred mountains
(e.g., Sinai for Jews, Kailāsa for Hindus, Fujiyama for Japanese) were
particular loci of divine power, law, and truth.
Basic characteristics of the sacred » Dimensions of the sacred
The sacred, by definition, pervades all dimensions of life. Within the
kind of religious apprehension that is expressed in sacred myth and
ritual, however, there is a special focus on time, place (cosmos), and
active agents (heroes, ancestors, divinities). When existence is seen in
terms of the dichotomy of sacred and profane—which assumes that the
sacred is wholly other than, yet necessary for, everyday existence—it is
very important to know and to get in contact with the sacred. In
periodic festivals men celebrate sacred time; a sacred calendar marks
off the intervals of man’s life, and these sacred festivals provide the
pattern for productive and joyous living.
Seasonal sacred calendars are especially important in predominantly
agricultural societies. In the very order of nature, people see that
different seasons have their distinct values. These differences are
celebrated with spring festivals (when the world is re-created through
ritual expressions of generation) and harvest festivals (of thanksgiving
and of protecting the life force in seeds for the next spring). Here
time is regarded as cyclical, and one’s life is marked by those rituals
in which one continually returns to the divine source.
Similarly, the myths and rituals mark off the world (cosmos) into
places that have special sacred significance. The territory in which one
lives is real insofar as it is in contact with the divine reality.
Within this territory is life; outside it is chaos, danger, and demons.
Throughout most of history the “sacred world” was coextensive with a
certain territory, and one could speak literally of Christian lands, the
Jewish homeland, the Muslim world, the place of the noble people
(Āryāvarta, Hindu), or the central kingdom (China). Consecrating one’s
possession of land with certain rituals was equal to establishing an
order with divine sanction. In Vedic ritual, for example, the erection
of a fire altar (in which the god Agni—fire—was present) was the
establishment of a cosmos on a microcosmic scale. Once a cosmos is
established, there are certain places that are especially sacred.
Certain rivers, mountains, groves of trees, caves, or human
constructions such as temples, shrines, or cities provide the “gate,”
“ladder,” “navel,” or “pole” between heaven and earth. This sacred place
is that which both allows the sacred power to flow into existence and
gives order and stability to life.
Another dimension of the sacred is divine or heroic activity: the
decisive action done by creative or protective agents. One’s spiritual
ancestors need not be biologically defined ancestors; they may not even
be human. They are the essential forces on which survival depends and
can be embodied in animal skills (longevity, rebirth, magical skills),
in the “ways of the ancients,” or through a special hero who has
provided present existence with material and spiritual benefits. If the
notion of sacred manifestation is extended to include the social
relationships (especially tabus) in a community, then communal relations
can be viewed as a dimension through which the sacred is manifested.
Here human values are sacralized by social restraints that
prescribe—e.g., with whom one can eat or whom one can marry or kill. The
establishment of a community requires forming certain relationships; and
these relationships are sacred when they bear the power of ultimate,
eternal, cosmic force. For example, the consecration of a king or
emperor in traditional agricultural societies was the establishment of a
system of allegiance and order for society.
By extending the notion of “sacralization” to include human
reorganization of experience within the context of any absolute norm,
the sacred can be seen in such dimensions of life as history,
self-consciousness, aesthetics, and philosophical reflection
(conceptualization). Each of these modes of human experience can become
the creative force whereby some people have “become real” and gained the
most profound understanding of themselves.
Critical problems
Phenomenologists of religion who use the concept “sacred” as a universal
term for the basis of religion differ in their estimation of the nature
of the sacred manifestation. Otto and van der Leeuw hold (in different
formulations) that the sacred is a reality that transcends the
apprehension of the sacred in symbols or rituals. The forms (ideograms)
through which the sacred is expressed are secondary and are simply
reactions to the “wholly other.” Kristensen and Eliade, on the other
hand, regard the sacred reality to be available through the particular
symbols or ways of apprehending the sacred. Thus, Kristensen places
emphasis on how the sacred is apprehended, and Eliade describes
different modalities of the sacred, while Otto looks beyond the forms
toward a meta-empirical source.
A second problem is the continuing question of whether or not the
sacred is a universal category. There are religious expressions from
various parts of the world that clearly manifest the kind of structure
of religious awareness characterized above. It is especially apropos of
some aspects in the religion of nonliterate societies, the ancient Near
East, and some popular devotional aspects of Hinduism. There is,
however, a serious question regarding the usefulness of this structure
in interpreting a large part of Chinese religion, the social
relationships (dharma) in Hinduism, the effort to achieve superconscious
awareness in Hinduism (Yoga), Jainism, Buddhism (Zen), some forms of
Taoism, and some contemporary (modern) options of total commitment that,
nevertheless, reject the notion of an absolute source and goal
essentially different from human existence. If one takes the notion of
sacred as something above (beyond, different from) the religious
structure dominated by divine or transcendent activity (described
above), then this suggests that the notion of sacredness should not be
limited to that structure. Thus, some scholars have found it confusing
to use the notion of sacred as a universal religious quality, for it has
been accepted by many religious people and by scholars of religion as
referring to only one (though important) type of religious
consciousness.
The 20th-century discussion of the nature and manifestation of the
sacred includes other approaches than those of scholars in the
comparative study of religions. For example, Sri Aurobindo, a Hindu
mystic-philosopher, speaks of the supreme reality as the
“Consciousness-Force”; and Nishida Kitaro, a Japanese philosopher,
expresses his apprehension of universal reality as that of “absolute
Nothingness.” Martin Heidegger, a German philosopher, speaks of “the
holy” as that dimension of existence through which there is the
illumination of the things that are, though it is no absolute Being
prior to existence; rather it is a creative act at the point of engaging
the Nothing (Nichts). In contrast, the Protestant theologian Karl Barth
rejects philosophical reflection or mystical insight for apprehending
the sacred, and insists that personal acceptance of God’s
self-revelation in a particular historical form, Jesus Christ, is the
place to begin any awareness of what philosophers call “ultimate.”
Sociologists who study religion have, since Durkheim, usually
identified the sacred with social values that claim a supernatural
basis. Nevertheless, the sacred has been identified predominantly as
found in the social occasions (festivals) that disrupt the common social
order (by Caillois), or as the reinforcing of social activities that
secure a given social structure (by Howard Becker). During the 1960s,
however, the usual definition of religion as those sacred activities
which claimed a transcendent source was questioned by some empirical
scholars. For example, Thomas Luckmann, a German-American sociologist,
described the sacred in modern society as that “strata of significance
to which everyday life is ultimately referred”; and this definition
includes such themes as “the autonomous individual” and “the mobility
ethos.”
The sacred today
The problems of defining and investigating religion mentioned above are
already expressive of the shifts in modern consciousness regarding the
sacred. Both the physical and social sciences have given modern man a
new image of himself and techniques for improving his present life. The
acceptance of rational and critical perspectives for judging the claims
of religious authorities in Europe since the 18th century, plus the
development of historical criticism and a sense of historical
relativism, has contributed to the affirmation of man as basically a
secular person. The once absolute authorities in the West (the Bible,
priest, rabbi) are no longer the prime sources for one’s self-identity.
To a growing extent the cultures in the East are also experiencing a
loss of their traditional authorities. Some attempts have been made to
resacralize contemporary cosmology, history, and personal experience by
(1) extending the scope of religious concerns to “secular” areas such as
politics, economics, personality development, and art; and (2) modifying
theological positions, ethical norms, and liturgical forms to
incorporate new modes of expression and to experiment with new styles of
living.
An important 20th-century development in religious life has been the
easy flow of information between religious communities on different
continents. This has provided an opportunity for experimenting with
religious forms from outside the traditionally acceptable forms in a
culture. During the 1950s and 1960s, for example, Yoga and Zen
meditation were serious religious options for some Westerners and a form
of experimentation for large numbers. The concern to experiment with
personal experience and with styles of living during the 1960s in the
West has itself been considered an important religious expression by
some commentators. These years saw considerable exploration in exotic
experience with psychedelic drugs, many attempts to set up new
communities for group living (communes)—though few lasted more than a
year—and a shift in the values of middle class youth from a concern for
personal economic security to social and experiential concerns. These
recent activities may be viewed as attempts to recapture the experience
of the sacred.
Throughout the past hundred years a number of philosophers and social
scientists have asserted the disappearance of the sacred and predicted
the demise of religion. A study of the history of religions shows that
religious forms change and that there has never been unanimity on the
nature and expression of religion. Whether or not man is now in a new
situation for developing structures of ultimate values radically
different from those provided in the traditionally affirmed awareness of
the sacred is a vital question. The suggestion that a radically
different kind of reality is possible is, of course, nonsense for those
to whom the sacred already has been manifested once and for all in a
particular form.
Frederick J. Streng
