Most people who grow up in the Church have heard the word holy more than enough. It’s so ubiquitous in churches it becomes almost invisible. Nearly everything in a church is called holy from the books that are read, to the water by the door, to the pictures and the windows. Churches are filled with “holy” things. So many things are designated as holy, that the word itself is often undetected, unexamined, and misunderstood. Holiness is a word that becomes like the air that is breathed. It is often unnoticed, but without it there would be no life.
When people speak of “holiness” in the church there is a vast semantic landscape behind theword. It comes into the Christian tradition from three words – sanctus, in Latin; ἅγιος (hagios), in Greek; and קֹדֶשׁ (qôdesh), in Hebrew. These words are all related to one another, as well as our English word for holiness, but need to be examined individually to gain a better sense of what is meant when Christians today speak of holiness.
Since both the Latin and Greek words are foundationally used as translations of the Hebrew word קֹדֶשׁ, examining the Hebrew word is an appropriate starting place in this exploration. The word is used in the Hebrew bible with astonishing frequency. It is used to describe anything that is to be brought into the cultic life of the worshiping community. Any object, sacrifice, space, time, or person who is to participate in worship is to be קֹדֶשׁ. At its root the word is associated with the concept of a sanctuary, understood as “a place in which the LORD is normally present when ritual and moral purity are practiced.” The word is also associated with the action and nature of God. If a thing is called holy it means that it is somehow elevated beyond its normal context and somehow becomes a participant in the divine life or action.
The Greek word ἅγιος is used to translate a number of Hebrew words in the LXX. It translates קֹ֫דֶשׁ of course, but it also translates another Hebrew word for sanctuary (מִקְדָּשׁ), as well as the words forconsecrate (קדשׁ), separation (נֵ֫זֶר), Nazerite (נָזִיר), and is used in two places to translate excellence as it relates to the gifts of the profit Daniel (Dan 5:12; 63). Although the word’s definition is closely linked with the meanings associated with its Hebrew counterpart, in the Greek it takes on a new focus. The Greek word has more of an emphasis on sin. Not only is the word associated with the cultic elevation of something to participate with God, it also denotes a deeper sense that the thing is separated form evil. In using the Greek word ἅγιος there is a focus as on being absolutely separate from evil, every possibility of sin or defilement is repelled. To be ἅγιος is to not only set apart for God, but to be free from sin itself.
The Latin word sanctus is much less closely associated with cultic worship as the Greek or Hebrew term. It has more of a legal undercurrent. For example, a royal decree can be sanctus,meaning that it is unchangeable. This unchangability is much more the focus. Being sanctusimplies that something is august, and inviolable. It is often applied to God, but does not have the same kind of inherent association with divinity that one might find in the Hebrew and Greek words.
These three words are helpful in triangulating what exactly is meant when Christians today talk about holiness. There is an inescapable foundation of worship and participation with God that grounds the word, but there are also other elements that have made their way in. The Greek influenced thinking about holiness making it more focused on separation from evil, while the Latin added an element of immovability to the term. Both of these foci can be seen in the development of Christian theology about holiness.
A final word that should be explored is the English word holy itself. The English word has its origins in the Old English word hālig, meaning whole. This implies an early understanding that holiness is in a sense a destiny or destination. To be holy means one has lived into their very nature. This is consistent with the Christian view that human life is itself sacred, a word that also comes from the Latin sanctus. Each person has been created to be holy, made as an image bearer of the divine, and therefore is ontologically related and rooted in God.
To call something holy is fundamentally to speak of something’s relationship with God. It’s a term rooted in in the temple codes of the Pentateuch, and developed in the liturgical life of the Christian community. When the creed speaks of the Church being holy it is using cultic language declaring the Church itself as a sanctuary of divine communion. It is also offering the faithful their marching orders.
For further reading see:
- Ernst Jenni and Claus Westermann, Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1997), 1107–1108.
- “Ἅγιος — Holy; Sacred,” in The Lexham Analytical Lexicon to the Septuagint (Bellingham, WA:Lexham Press, 2012).
- Richard Chenevix Trench, Synonyms of the New Testament, 9th ed., improved. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1880), 333–334.
- James Swanson, “קֹדֶשׁ,” in Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc, 1997).
- Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, “Sancĭo,” in A Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1879), http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0059:entry=sancio.
- Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson, eds., “Holy,” in Concise Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
- Alister E. McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction (John Wiley & Sons, 2011), 348–50.
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