Liquid holy sites

Abstract

2. M. Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion, 2nd ed. (Lincoln, NE, 1996), 188–215. More recent works on the political, religious, and symbolic functions of water in human experience from a comparative viewpoint include H. Böhme, ed., Kulturgeschichte des Wassers (Frankfurt, 1988); R. H. W. Wolf, Mysterium Wasser: Eine In the Holy Land, the material foci of cultic phenomena are grafted onto the soil: they are portions of ground deemed to be hallowed by their contact with the key figures of biblical history. These memorial signifiers of sacred events, unlike other Christian cult objects, are topographical in nature, spots embedded on the earth’s surface. In order to demonstrate their exceptional status as holy sites, they can be framed within architectural structures, made either easily or hardly accessible, or staged via various forms of ritual performance and mise-en-scène, but they cannot be moved or involved in kinetic ceremonies. It can therefore be wondered to what extent liquid sites, being by definition formless and instable, can be experienced as manifestations of holiness, and questions can be raised as to whether and under what circumstances they may have given shape to some form of religious materiality in the context of pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In the argumentation that follows, I will not tackle the issue of the use of water and oils in the performance of rituals, whose symbolic efficacy assuredly made a significant impact on the perception of such liquids at all levels of religious experience. I take this for granted, as my basic aim is to focus on those forms of devotion that were considered, in a more or less conscious way, to provide believers with a nonsacramental, nonliturgical, objectoriented, and site-bound access to the divine sphere. In this respect, I use the term “holy,” as conceptually distinct from “sacred,” to describe an experience of the supernatural dimension perceived as inherent and active in matter, independently from the mediation of any human activity.