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by
Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe
The SACRED is that which is the object of veneration and awe.
The term comes from the Latin sacer meaning restricted
or set off. A person may be designated as sacred, and so can an
object or a place which is regarded as extraordinary or unique.
The term sacer is closely related to numen meaning mysterious
power or god. Numinous is used to describe the sacred to indicate its power.
Various traditions around the world have a term which correlates with
sacer. In Hebrew the term is qadosh, in Greek hagios, in
Arabic muqaddas, and in Polynesian tapu. Correlates of
numen are found in the Sanskrit word Brahman, in the Sioux
wakanda, the Melanesian mana, and the old German word haminja
meaning luck.
In his book, The Sacred and the Profane, Mircea Eliade
(1907-1986) explains that the sacred always manifests itself as a reality
different from normal realities. We become aware of the sacred when it shows
itself as something different from the profane.
The presumption is that the divine or some supernatural or spiritual force
is manifesting itself to the beholder, who feels privileged thereby. It may
be suspected, however, that it is often the case that the beholder who,
perceiving something mysterious (inexplicable), a strange vision or event
outside the normal, 'explains' it in terms of the supernatural and invests
with the sacred.
The perception of the divine is usually completely convincing to the
beholder, who can become instantly a believer in whatever supernatural force
of divinity is being made manifest thereby. It is a feature of
manifestations of the sacred that they are invariably interpreted or
identified within the context of the religious beliefs of the beholder (or,
in the case of people who are otherwise non-religious previous to their
experience, with respect to prevailing religious beliefs of their culture).
For example, the vision of the French Catholic peasant girl Bernadette
Soubirous at the grotto of Lourdes was of the Virgin Mary
and not of a deity of another religion or of an earlier Celtic or pagan
goddess. In other words, the sacred manifests itself only in the context
of beliefs of the beholder or his/her community (or, to put it another
way, the beholder can perceive the sacred only in the beholder's terms). It
may be concluded that it is the beholder who creates the sacred and invests
it in the objects around him or her.
It may be argued that most of the world's religions -- from the most
'primitive' to the most highly developed -- were established through
manifestations of the sacred. It is of vital importance to religion that the
manifestation is perceived not as generated by the beholder but as the
purposeful revelation of god (or some lesser deity or saint) to the mortal
beholder. Fundamental to human psychology is the belief in the supernatural,
of a world inhabited by spirits and gods and other powerful primeval forces
beyond human comprehension. Eliade therefore chooses the term
hierophany (something sacred shows itself to us) to describe and
define the act of the manifestation of the sacred.
It has long been a tendency among human beings to perceive and believe the
sacred to be present in anything, ranging from trees, or stones, to human
beings. With respect to trees and stones, Eliade is at pains to point
out that what is involved is not a veneration of the tree, or stone, itself.
The sacred tree or sacred stone is not venerated as a stone or a tree but,
because of hierophany, as something sacred. As a sacred tree,
or a sacred stone, the tree is no longer a tree and the stone no longer a
stone. The same applies when the sacred is invested in human beings; they
are no longer human beings because of their sacredness. It is the central
belief of Christianity, for example, that the sacred is manifest in the
person of Jesus Christ and that Jesus Christ himself is in fact an
incarnation of God.
Sacredness can be invested in human beings when they behave in significant
ways or perform acts that indicate both the presence and/or manipulation of
divine or supernatural forces (commonly called 'miracles'). Often, the
experience or event in which the sacred human being is participating in or
is present at takes place at a spot or location in the landscape which
itself often thereby also acquires sacredness. Obvious examples include
Mecca, the Basilica of St. Peter's and Bodh Gaya.
In other instances, the place itself may already have an ancient sacred
identity, and an individual through contact with it and its sacredness may
thereby himself or herself acquire sacredness. It may be suggested that
Lourdes, a cave with a healing spring,
was already sacred before Bernadette had her vision of the Virgin
Mary. The encounter both identified and claimed the grotto and its water as
sacred to Christians, and also made Bernadette a saint.
Similarly, it can be suggested that Mount Sinai was already a sacred
mountain before Moses had his
encounter there with God (who appeared to Moses in the form of
a burning bush). Again, this encounter confirmed
the sacredness of both Moses and the mountain. The sacredness of
Mount Sinai and the burning bush is made clear by God who told Moses when he
approached: Come no nearer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place
where you stand is holy ground. [Exodus 3, 5].
At the same time, it is important to recognize that an individual's
sacredness is often confirmed, or at least enhanced, through association
with an established sacred place or object. The Bodhi Tree
at Bodh Gaya beneath which
Siddhartha Gautama meditated and achieved enlightenment was already a
sacred tree in India. It is significant, for example, that Jesus Christ
was born in a grotto or cave, was baptized in the
River Jordan (cf. Water and the Sacred), was tempted by the devil on a
mountain and was crucified on a mountain, Mount Calvary (cf. Mountains and
the Sacred), on a wooden tree-cross, and was
buried in a rock-cut tomb, the entrance to which was
blocked by a large stone. (See the Church of the
Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.)
Still other sacred places may be intrinsically sacred, occupying an area of
the landscape which has forever been regarded as holy. Frequently these
places will show evidence of nearly continuous occupation and reverence
dating from the earliest times. Examples of such sites would be those
currently occupied by Chartres Cathedral, and the Mosque
of Córdoba. Numerous other sites were evidently sacred at one time
but are now no longer regarded as such, and have fallen into ruin, such as
Stonehenge, and Delphi.
Divination
A final but very important point is that many sacred sites, especially those
in the ancient world, but also even those associated with the major
contemporary religions, are or were to a greater or lesser extent intimately
associated with divination. Divination, based on the belief that the gods or
other powerful supernatural force can reveal to humans knowledge otherwise
unknown about the present and, especially, about the future, was practiced
almost universally throughout the ancient world and continues to be
practiced today.
Several sacred sites, such as Delphi, where
Apollo's famous oracle was located, or Dodona, where
Zeus's oracular oak tree stood (see Trees and the Sacred), were first
and foremost centers where people sought information about the present and
the future.
To a large extent, the various religions past and present have catered in
one way or another to allaying through divination or promises the prevailing
human fear of the future and anxiety about the present. The Old Testament,
for example, is filled with the utterances of prophets (a
Greek term meaning 'foreteller') about the future, while the
New Testament claims special knowledge about the correct path a person
should take which, if pursued and fulfilled according to the dictates of the
Church, will more or less guarantee a particular future afterlife.
There is good reason to believe that the popularity of sacred sites, many of
them today visited by pilgrims of one kind or another, offer a special
reassurance about life today and the future. Not surprisingly, as the
oracular history of some of them would indicate, many ancient sacred places
were evidently associated with a fundamental knowledge or wisdom, divine in
origin, which a number of people today feel it is possible to recapture.
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