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IF RELIGION IS A SEARCH FOR LIFE, THE “HOLY” IS THE
GOAL AND THE “SACRED” IS HOW TO GET THERE.
ANGLO-SAXON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE: HAL, HALIG
Human language (Latin lingua = tongue) comes from our capacity to make and organize sounds that
capture and communicate our experience among ourselves. But no one speaks “language.”Any particular
language, English, Spanish, Japanese, Navajo or whatever, records and passes on human experience over
time and space. Thus it is the chief vehicle of tradition. It is important to realize, however, that these
traditions are not just the same thing in different words, but they often offer quite different ways of
experiencing and processing human experience. Languages are also the cause and the effect of quite
different cultures. They cannot simply be transferred wholesale into one another. Their differences are
valuable because they allow us to access varied interpretations of similar things.
When people talk about religion, the term "holy" (or alternatively "sacred") inevitably comes into
play. There are varied uses and meanings assigned to the term, but for our purposes here, "Holy"
refers to anything that has life-giving power. The point is that something holy is something that can
satisfy the conditions for life, for successful living, in some way.
“Holy can also be used more generally and abstractly (often as "The Holy") to refer to the ultimate
life-giving-ness of reality that lies behind all particular life-giving powers. Generally, the first kind
of use is as an adjective and the second use is as a noun.
The words "sacred" and "holy" are often used interchangeably, but they do have very different
origins, they have very different meanings, and they are based on different understandings,
different experiences and different metaphors. The confusion exists in English probably because
early scholars conflated the terms and later scholars never noticed and attempted to set things
right. It is not uncommon for academics, especially in the humanities, to ignore the root meanings of
words and the shifts and drifts in those meanings, even when the meanings are central to matters at
hand. It never hurts to ask, “What do you mean?” when people are using words. It is a first step in
understanding one another.
The Anglo-Saxon based term "holy" fits more readily with the approach we are taking here in our
attempt to lay a foundation for “religion and the Human Quest.”. The word "holy" is among a set of
English words that have derived from the Anglo-Saxon words hal and halig. This is the same
linguistic tradition that shows up in German, as in heil, and heilige.
Some English words that derive from halig are "health," "wealth," "whole," "holistic," "hale," "weal."
One can see that all these words all point to some kind of prosperity or well-being, things that are
implied in the word halig. In short, something is hal or halig if it has the capacity to cause life. It
points to something that manifests the qualities of prosperity and well being. It refers to something
"life-giving," “life-sustaining” or "life-enhancing."
By contrast, the Latin-based word "sacred" comes from sacrare, which refers to something
"separated off." Sacred things are things that are kept separated, kept in some special way. It is true
that holy things might be treated in a special way. But that is not what makes them holy. They are
holy regardless of the way we handle them. They are holy on their own account. To hold something
sacred is a response to its holiness, its perceived life-giving power.
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Latin does have a set of words that come close to the idea of the English idea of holy. They are
related to salus, salvus, and salvare. These words have to do with health (note the Spanish, salud),
with being "safe" or "saved" in the sense of protected from disintegration by disease, attack or
other evils. Hence, "salvation" implies a being healed (Anglo Saxon, hal, "made whole"). In English
we refer to “salve,” an ointment that helps healing, which is precisely the point.
A simple example of something "holy" is water. Water has life-giving power for human beings. In
fact, it is essential for human life as we know it because of the actual relationship it has to staying
alive. Humans do not last long without water. It embodies and manifests a kind of power we need.
Hence, water is by definition something holy for humans. This means that since it is holy, we
should treat is with respect, that is, we should consider it sacred.
One may imagine and think about holy power in various ways. We could imagine a sort of pervasive
and indistinct power manifested in water and everything else (called mana in some traditions) or, we
could catalogue all the particular kinds of powers that we encounter (water, foods, air, etc.), or lofty
and mysterious powers like love, truth, and beauty. But the point is that anything which gives,
sustains or enhances life is holy simply because it is what it is in relation to human life and living. To
such things we apply the term "holy".
"Holy" can also apply to activities. If water is sacred, the act of drinking water (and thereby
assimilating its power) is also holy, a (i.e., life-giving) action. People consider things sacred because
they are holy. The holiness of something is objective. Its sacredness is subjective.
There is an interesting problem here, however. Something is holy because it has the power to
affect life. But if something is powerful, it can also be destructive of life. Water not only is
productive for life and necessary for life, the wrong relationship to that powerfulness can also
result in injury, destruction and death. One can drown in water. It can destroy my home or my
farmlands. From the human standpoint, water in such circumstances is not holy but evil. As we
shall see, religious traditions are not simply concerned about what is. They are very concerned
about what is holy and good and what is destructive or evil. The problem of evil and suffering in
its various forms and how to deal with power is a central issue for religion.
ANOTHER APPROACH: TWO LATIN EXPERIENCES
So far the discussion of life giving power has been based on the Anglo-Saxon language tradition.
People often confuse this with another tradition behind English vocabulary: the Roman (Latin)
tradition. There are two common examples that will be considered here.
The first set is often used, though used mistakenly, as interchangeable with the Anglo-Saxon
based holy-evil: this pair is sacred and profane. The first includes pair of words we commonly
hear: save, salvation. We shall see how these Latin-based words convey an experience very
similar to the Anglo-Saxon words described above.
First, the English word sacred derives from the Latin sacrare, which is akin to the Latin,
sancire, “to make sacred,” or “to set aside for the service of a deity.” The idea is that some is
dedicated or con-secrated or sanctified for use in worship or other special “religious” purposes.
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The Latin idea is that powerful things should be treated with care, under official sanction in a
temple sanctuary where special rites can be performed by special sacerdotal (sacer-, “sacred,”
+ “-dot, fr. “to make”) officials such as “priests.”
When holy powers are “inside the temple,” they can be treated properly and effectively. In short,
they can be controlled, at least to some extent, and applied as needed by circumstance. You
would not be wrong to see a tinge of magic in this kind thinking.
On the other hand, when powers are outside the temple, they are outside of ritual control. They
are pro-fanum, “outside of (or in front of) the temple.” They are profane.
While identifying, assimilating and using the positive powers that are necessary for life and living is
difficult, our life-world also includes other forces or powers: those which diminish or destroy life, the
death-dealing powers as opposed to the life-giving powers. The term "profane" is used for these.
This word has a complex relation to our discussion. It is usually paired with the word "sacred." The
Latin pro-fanum means "outside or in front of the temple." The "sacred" is something set aside,
something inside the temple and under ritual control. The profane is outside that special environment
and is therefore unpredictable and dangerous.
In another context, we could say it is tabu, powerful but unruly. We could use the English word
"evil," the opposite of "holy," but that may be less informative. Profanity includes a sense of misuse
or de-sacration. It is not just a matter of positive and negative powers in themselves. What counts is
the relationship they have to life and how we relate to them.
To use the example of water again, while it has life-power and is necessary for life, it can also turn
against us, particularly if we relate to it improperly or carelessly or without preparation. Its power
can be destructive. Encountered in the wrong way it can lead to drowning, to the destruction of our
homes or crops. In all dimensions of human living we need to know the differences between powers,
how they are holy, how they can be sacred or profane, and how we can deal with them. Much in
religious traditions is about this sort of thing. In the human quest, these matters are very important
because they are quite literally about life and death.
Latin does have words that are similar in meaning to the Anglo-Saxon hal, halig and their English
derivatives: salus, salvus, and salvare. From these are derived English words such as save, salve,
salvation, salute, salutary. This root can also be seen in the Spanish word salud, “health,” which is
used as a noun and as a greeting or blessing just as one can say in English, “To your health,” when
offering a toast. So to wish someone hal (Anglo-Saxon), or heil German), or health (English), or
salud (Spanish), or santé (French) is to wish the person the blessings of holiness, health, prosperity,
and healing and salvation from all bad things.
THE HUMAN QUEST FOR LIFE IN THE WORLD: SECULARITY
A final term to examine is the word "secular." It comes from the Latin word saeculum, which means "the
age," or "the world at this or that time." Actually the Latin word is derived from an Etruscan idea which
measured time in terms of the span of a long human life (i.e., a span that covers childhood, young
adulthood, middle age, and elder hood). Often it is translated to mean simply "the world," though this is
not the world as an abstraction but the lived-in world of human experience. Often it has carried
negative overtones, as in "the world, the flesh and the devil."
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The German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) observed that human beings are “thrown
into a world.” We don’t get to pick the time or the place or the circumstances. As long as we are
here, we have to work out our living and try to make sense of it largely in terms of factors over which
we have little or no control. As we saw earlier, this is why religion as the search for life emerges.
In the present context, “secular” is used as a neutral term which refers to the world simply as we
know and experience it. Something secular can be good or bad. It has to be examined and
evaluated. One has to be in the world but one can be not of it. Traditions evaluate this worldly
situation variously. Some emphasize the importance of worldly action. Others prefer to focus on
escape from here. Most see a mixed emphasis on both worldly living (secularity) and on life beyond
this world (life-after-death) because, as Ben Franklin noted, death is among the few of life’s
certainties. Or, as Heidegger puts it, “Man is a being towards death.”
The term "secularism" refers to a worldview that, from a "religious" viewpoint, accepts "the world"
and its phenomena uncritically as ends in themselves, as self-validating, or as simply good.
Secularism seeks to interpret and to live entirely within the world as experienced in the present as a
closed system. Religious organizations are often concerned about the character and scope of
secularism, especially as it affects public policy.
Randolph F. Lumpp, Ph.D.
Regis University
Copyright 2010