Holy (pronounced hoh-lee)
(1) Specially
recognized as or declared sacred by religious use or authority; consecrated.
(2) Dedicated
or devoted to the service of God, the church, or religion; godly, or virtuous;
of, relating to, or associated with God or a deity; sacred.
(3) Saintly;
godly; pious; devout; having a spiritually pure quality; endowed or invested
with extreme purity or sublimity.
(4) Entitled
to worship or veneration as or as if sacred.
(5) A
place of worship; sacred place; sanctuary.
(6)
Inspiring fear, awe, or grave distress (archaic).
Pre 900: From the Middle English holi & hali, from the Old English hālig, hāleġ & hǣlig, (holy, consecrated, sacred, venerated, godly, saintly, ecclesiastical, pacific, tame), a variant of the Old English hālig, hǣlig & hāleg, the construct being hāl (whole) + -eg (-y), from the Proto-West Germanic hailag, from Proto-Germanic hailaga & hailagaz (holy, bringing health). It was cognate with the Old Saxon hēlag, the Gothic hailags the Dutch & German heilig, the Old Frisian helich and the Old Norse heilagr. Ultimate root was the primitive Indo-European kóhzilus (healthy, whole). It was adopted at conversion for the Latin sanctus although the Middle English form emerged as holi which remained a common spelling until the sixteenth century. Holy is a nown & adjective. holiness (the spellings holinesse, holyness & holynesse all obsolete) is a noun and holier & holiest are adjectives; the noun plural is holies. The noun holiosity is non-standard and is used in humor when referring to those for who religion has become an obsession and often one they think should be imposed on others.
The primary (pre-Christian) meaning is not possible to determine; documentary evidence simply doesn’t exist but most think it probably meant something like “that must be preserved whole or intact, that cannot be transgressed or violated” and was connected with the Old English hal (health) and the Old High German heil (health, happiness, good luck (source of the German salutation Heil which became so well-known in the 1930s)). Holy water was in Old English and holy has been used as an intensifying word from 1837 and used in expletives since the 1880s; a “holy terror” generally meaning “a difficult or frightening person” but which in Irish informal use means a man thought a habitual gambler, womanizer etc. The adjectival forms are holier (comparative) & holiest (superlative) while the noun plural is holies but “the holy” functions as a plural when referring to persons or things (eh holy relics) invested with holiness. When used in a religious context, it’s common to use an initial capital and probably obligatory when referencing the Christian God, or Christ. The old alternative spellings holi, hali, holie & hooly are all obsolete. Words that depending on context may be synonymous or merely related include divine, hallowed, humble, pure, revered, righteous, spiritual, sublime, believing, clean, devotional, faithful, good, innocent, moral, perfect, upright, angelic, blessed & chaste.
The Old
Testament's Book of Leviticus is regarded by many as a long list of proscriptions, noted especially for the things declared an abomination to the Lord
and within the text (Leviticus 17-26) that surprisingly succinct list is known
as the “Holiness code” (often referred to in biblical scholarship as the “H
texts”), "Holy" in this context understood as “set apart”. The Holiness code exists explicitly as the set
of fundamental rules which the ancient Israelites were required to follow believed
they had to follow in order to be close to God and in that sense are the foundational
basis for all the moral imperatives in scripture. What makes them especially interesting historically
is the suggestion by a number of scholars that additional laws, written in a
style discordant with the rest of the Holiness Code yet in accord with the
remainder of Leviticus, were interpolated into the code by a later priest or
priests, notably some concerning matters of ritual and procedure hardly in
keeping with high moral tone of the apparently original entries. The contested passages include:
The
prohibition against an anointed high priest uncovering his head or rending his
clothes (21:10).
The
prohibition against offerings by Aaronic priests who are blemished (21:21–22).
The
order to keep the sabbath, passover, and feast of unleavened bread (23:1–10a).
The
order to keep Yom Kippur, and Sukkot (23:23–44).
The
order for continual bread and oil (24:1–9).
Case
law concerning a blasphemer (24:10–15a and 24:23).
The
order for a trumpet sounding on Yom Kippur (25:9b).
Rules
concerning redeeming property (25:23 and 25:26–34).
Order
to release Israelite slaves at the year of jubilee (25:40, 25:42, 25:44–46).
Rules
concerning redeeming people (25:48–52, and 25:54).
The
Holy Alliance
The Holy Alliance (styled in some contemporary documents as “The Grand Alliance”) was something not quite a treaty yet more than a modus vivendi (memorandum of agreement). Executed soon after the conclusion of the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815), it linked three of the monarchist great states of Europe (Austria, Prussia, and Russia) and existed very much at the behest of Tsar Alexander I (1777–1825; Emperor of Russia from 1801-1825) who had observed the French Revolution (1789) and the convulsions which spread across the continent in its wake and, having little taste for the idea of the mob leading kings to their execution by the guillotine, sought an alliance which would hold in check the forces of secular liberalism. It was a moment something like that noted by George VI (1895–1952; King of the United Kingdom 1936-1952) who, traveling through the Surrey countryside, pointed at Runnymede (where in 1215 the Magna Carta was forced on a reluctant King John (1166–1216; King of England 1199-1216), saying to his companion: "That's where the trouble started."
Nevertheless,
the Holy Alliance remains an interesting cul-de-sac in European history and
one noted for (by diplomatic standards) the brevity of its three articles:
(1) That all members are brethren, beholden when necessary to assist one
another to protect religion, peace, and justice, (2) That the members are
Christian nations who owe the treasure of their existence to God, and recommend
to their subjects to enjoy God’s gifts, and exercise his principles and (3) That
members agree this alliance shall utilize the principles of God and
Christianity to shape the destinies of mankind over which they have influence. One suspects Metternich (Prince Klemens von
Metternich, 1773–1859, Austrian foreign minister 1809-1848, chancellor
1821-1848) and others might have shared Castlereagh’s opinion of the spiritual
flavor of the Tsar’s wording but it was recognized by even the most cynical of
pragmatists as at least potentially useful and was eventually signed by all
European rulers except (1) the Prince Regent of the UK because of the cabinet’s
opposition, (2) the Ottoman sultan who could hardly countenance such a
Christian document and (3), the Pope in Rome, the papal councilors and bishops
approving not at all of something which, for the sake of unanimity, embraced schism,
heresy, and orthodoxy alike. To the Holy
See, these were the papers of politicians and thus the work of the Devil.
Whatever
it wasn’t, the Holy Alliance was a symbol of the old social order and liberals
viewed it with disdain, revolutionaries with hatred. Although effectively it was in 1825 buried
in the tomb of the dead Tsar, its spirit endured until the revolutions of 1848
and in a sense it continued to influence the actions of statesmen until the Crimean
War (1853-1856). That crafter of
alliances, Prince Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898; Chancellor of the German
Empire, 1871-1890), attracted to something so over-arching yet meaning so
little, sort of resurrected it after the unification of Germany in 1871 but the
withered idea of a unifying Christendom proved by the 1880s not strong enough
to prevail over Austrian and Russian self-interest in the squabbles in the Balkans as the edges
of the Ottoman Empire began to fray.
Of unholy alliances
As a
footnote, the Holy Alliance left a linguistic legacy: the phrase “unholy
alliance”. Unholy alliance is used to
describe a coalition formed between improbable and usually antagonistic
parties, such arrangements often ad hoc and the product of circumstance rather
than choice. There need not be any
religious or anti-religious element for it to be applied and it’s a companion
term to “strange bedfellows” or “uneasy bedfellows”.
There have
been many instances of use and it appeared in the platform of the Progressive
Party, formed by Theodore Roosevelt (TR, 1858–1919; US president 1901-1909) to
contest the 1912 US presidential election: “To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the
unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task
of the statesmanship of the day.”
A classic statement of the rationale came from Winston Churchill
(1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) in 1941 when, after Germany
invaded the Soviet Union (a unilateral repudiation of an earlier unholy
alliance (the Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939) which was one of history’s more cynical
arrangements between adversaries, both parties knowing it was being pursued for
mutual advantage as a prelude to an eventual conflict between them), the UK
suddenly had gained a wartime ally albeit one with which relations had been
hardly friendly and often strained since the revolutions of 1917. In a radio broadcast that evening Churchill
announced: “No
one has been a more consistent opponent of communism for the last twenty-five
years. I will unsay no word I have spoken about it. But all this fades away
before the spectacle which is now unfolding. The past, with its crimes, its
follies, its tragedies, flashes away.… The Russian danger is therefore our
danger, and the danger of the United States, just as the cause of any Russian
fighting for hearth and house is the cause of free men and free peoples in
every quarter of the globe.”
When one of his colleagues noted the queerness of him being the one to
announce such an alliance, he remarked: “If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable
reference to the devil in the House of Commons.”
Portrait of Clare Sheridan (then Ms Frewen) (1907), oil on canvas by Emil Fuchs (1866-1929) (left) and a sepia print of the younger Leon Trotsky (circa 1908) (right).
Churchill didn’t
approve of communism, his attitude hardened by the new regime in Moscow having
murdered the last Tsar and his family. Very
much a monarchist (his wife once described him as “the last man in Europe who believes in the
divine right of kings”), Churchill thus took a dim view of the Bolsheviks
and while serving as Secretary of State for War and Air (1919–1921) was
involved in the allied intervention supporting anti-Communist White forces in
the Russian Civil War (1917-1922), his mood not improved when he learned his favorite cousin, the sculptor Clare Sheridan (1885–1970), had enjoyed a brief affair
with comrade Leon Trotsky (1879-1940; founder of the Fourth International). Whether he ever called Trotsky “the hairiest Bolshevik
baboon of all” remains uncertain but it’s at least plausible and he
would later tell his cousin “we shall never speak of this unpleasantness again”. Her memories of the tryst remained fonder,
recalling the time her lover had whispered: “a woman like you should be the whole world to a man.” At least one “Bolshevik baboon” could be poetic.
By 1941, however bad he thought were the communists in Moscow, the Nazis in Berlin were worse so an alliance with the Soviet Union, unholy though it would have felt, Churchill welcomed with barely a qualm. He was also more perceptive in his assessment of Russian resistance to the invasion than most military & political figures in London, Washington DC or Berlin, the consensus in those circles being the Red Army would be defeated within a few months. Given the bloody purges comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) had committed against his military leadership and the poor performance of the Russian army against the Finns in 1940, the grim expectations weren’t unreasonable but Churchill offered good odds to anyone willing to take his bet: “I will bet you a Monkey to a Mousetrap that the Russians are still fighting, and fighting victoriously, two years from now.” That was slang from the turf, a “Monkey” being a £500 wager and a “Mousetrap” a gold sovereign with a nominal value of £1 (ie odds of 500-1). Unholy the alliance may have been and there were tensions throughout between Moscow, Washington & London but the need to defeat Nazism meant it survived long enough to fulfil its purpose before the Cold War became the world’s new primary political dynamic.
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