“Holy” Literal and Etymological Meaning

“Holy.” The first meaning that comes to mind for this word is as the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it as “something exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness” or in simpler terms as Cambridge Dictionary says: “related to religion or a god” or “very religious or pure.” In modern terminology, “holy” is associated with something that is venerated or respected in the context of religion, such as we regard our religious images, the Bible, the altar and the tabernacle in a church or the whole church itself and many other things.

However, its etymology is rather interesting. In the ancient scriptures, the literal meaning of the word in which the term “holy” is coined actually means “set apart” which is different but still related to the definition of holy; in Hebrew, the word is Kadosh. When the scriptures were translated into Greek that made the Septuagint, it was translated as Agios (Aγιος) which still means the same. “Set apart” is the actual meaning of the word in the Old Testament, in the first Abrahamic religion.

Then, in the time of Christianity. The New Testament was written in Greek and there already exists a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible which is the Septuagint. However, Rome needed a translation of the Bible in the language of her liturgy, Latin. So, St. Jerome was commissioned to translate the Scriptures in the late 4th century. He translated the Greek Agios into Sanctus, which means in “sacred.” This understanding strongly influenced how the term "holy" is used in Christian tradition today.

To conclude, even though the modern literal meaning or the etymological meaning of the word “holy” differs. They still bear the same essence, since something sacred (holy) is something that is “set apart” or “treated separately” from the other non-religious objects. That is why we place our Bible in the altar and not in the bookshelves with other books because it is “holy” and “set apart” from the other books.