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<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <title>CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Holiness</title><script src="https://dtyry4ejybx0.cloudfront.net/js/cmp/cleanmediacmp.js?ver=0104" async="true"></script><script defer data-domain="newadvent.org" src="https://plausible.io/js/script.js"></script><link rel="canonical" href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07386a.htm"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <meta name="description" content="Holiness or sanctity is the outcome of sanctification, that Divine act by which God freely justifies us, and by which He has claimed us for His own; by our resulting sanctity, in act as well as in habit, we claim Him as our Beginning and as the End towards which we daily unflinchingly tend"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="http://feeds.newadvent.org/bestoftheweb?format=xml"><link rel="icon" href="../images/icon1.ico" type="image/x-icon"><link rel="shortcut icon" href="../images/icon1.ico" type="image/x-icon"><meta name="robots" content="noodp"><link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="../utility/screen6.css" media="screen"></head> <body class="cathen" id="07386a.htm">  <br/> <div id="capitalcity"><table summary="Logo" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 width="100%"><tr valign="bottom"><td align="left"><a href="../"><img height=36 width=153 border="0" alt="New Advent" src="../images/logo.gif"></a></td><td align="right"> <form id="searchbox_000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0" action="../utility/search.htm">  <input type="hidden" name="safe" value="active"> <input type="hidden" name="cx" value="000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0"/> <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="FORID:9"/>  <label for="searchQuery" id="searchQueryLabel">Search:</label> <input id="searchQuery" name="q" type="text" size="25" aria-labelledby="searchQueryLabel"/>  <label for="submitButton" id="submitButtonLabel" class="visually-hidden">Submit Search</label> <input id="submitButton" type="submit" name="sa" value="Search" aria-labelledby="submitButtonLabel"/> </form> <table summary="Spacer" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td height="2"></td></tr></table> <table summary="Tabs" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff"></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../"> Home </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_white_on_color" href="../cathen/index.html"> Encyclopedia </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../summa/index.html"> Summa </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../fathers/index.html"> Fathers </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../bible/gen001.htm"> Bible </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../library/index.html"> Library </a></td> </tr></table> </td> </tr></table><table summary="Alphabetical index" width="100%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td class="bar_white_on_color"> <a href="../cathen/a.htm"> A </a><a href="../cathen/b.htm"> B </a><a href="../cathen/c.htm"> C </a><a href="../cathen/d.htm"> D </a><a href="../cathen/e.htm"> E </a><a href="../cathen/f.htm"> F </a><a href="../cathen/g.htm"> G </a><a href="../cathen/h.htm"> H </a><a href="../cathen/i.htm"> I </a><a href="../cathen/j.htm"> J </a><a href="../cathen/k.htm"> K </a><a href="../cathen/l.htm"> L </a><a href="../cathen/m.htm"> M </a><a href="../cathen/n.htm"> N </a><a href="../cathen/o.htm"> O </a><a href="../cathen/p.htm"> P </a><a href="../cathen/q.htm"> Q </a><a href="../cathen/r.htm"> R </a><a href="../cathen/s.htm"> S </a><a href="../cathen/t.htm"> T </a><a href="../cathen/u.htm"> U </a><a href="../cathen/v.htm"> V </a><a href="../cathen/w.htm"> W </a><a href="../cathen/x.htm"> X </a><a href="../cathen/y.htm"> Y </a><a href="../cathen/z.htm"> Z </a> </td></tr></table></div> <div id="mobilecity" style="text-align: center; "><a href="../"><img height=24 width=102 border="0" alt="New Advent" src="../images/logo.gif"></a></div>  <div id="mi5"><span class="breadcrumbs"><a href="../">Home</a> > <a href="../cathen">Catholic Encyclopedia</a> > <a href="../cathen/h.htm">H</a> > Holiness</span></div> <div id="springfield2"> <div class='catholicadnet-728x90' id='cathen-728x90-top' style='display: flex; height: 100px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; '></div> <h1>Holiness</h1> <p><em><a href="https://gumroad.com/l/na2"><strong>Please help support the mission of New Advent</strong> and get the full contents of this website as an instant download. Includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church Fathers, Summa, Bible and more  all for only $19.99...</a></em></p> <p>(A.S. <em>hal</em>, perfect, or whole). <em>Sanctitas</em> in the <a href="../cathen/15515b.htm">Vulgate</a> of the <a href="../cathen/14530a.htm">New Testament</a> is the rendering of two distinct words, <em>hagiosyne</em> (1 Thess., iii,13) and <em>hosiotes</em> (<a href="../bible/luk001.htm#vrs75">Luke 1:75</a>; <a href="../bible/eph004.htm#vrs24">Ephesians 4:24</a>). These two Greek words express respectively the two <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">ideas</a> connoted by "holiness" viz.: that of separation as seen in <em>hagios</em> from <em>hagos</em>, which denotes "any matter of religious awe" (the Latin <em>sacer</em>); and that of sanctioned (<em>sancitus</em>), that which is <em>hosios</em> has received <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God's</a> seal. Considerable confusion is caused by the <a href="../cathen/07356b.htm">Reims</a> version which renders <em>hagiasmos</em> by "holiness" in Hebrews 12:14, but more correctly elsewhere by "sanctification", while <em>hagiosyne</em>, which is only once rendered correctly "holiness", is twice translated "sanctification".</p> <p><a href="../cathen/14663b.htm">St. Thomas</a> (<a href="../summa/3081.htm#article8">II-II:81:8</a>) insists on the two aspects of holiness mentioned above, viz., <em>separation</em> and <em>firmness</em>, though he arrives at these meanings by dint of the etymologies of <a href="../cathen/11306b.htm">Origen</a> and <a href="../cathen/08186a.htm">St. Isidore</a>. Sanctity, says the <a href="../cathen/14663b.htm">Angelic Doctor</a>, is the term used for all that is dedicated to the Divine service, whether <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">persons</a> or things. Such must be pure or separated from the world, for the mind needs to be withdrawn from the contemplation of inferior things if it is to be set upon the Supreme Truth  and this, too, with firmness or stability, since it is a question of attachment to that which is our ultimate end and primary principle, viz., <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> Himself  "I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor <a href="../cathen/01476d.htm">angels</a>. . . nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the <a href="../cathen/09397a.htm">love</a> of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>" (<a href="../bible/rom008.htm#vrs38">Romans 8:38-39</a>). Hence St. Thomas defines holiness as that virtue by which a man's mind applies itself and all its acts to <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>; he ranks it among the infused moral virtues, and identifies it with the virtue of religion, but with this difference that, whereas religion is the virtue whereby we offer <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> due service in the things which pertain to the Divine service, holiness is the virtue by which we make all our acts subservient to <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>. Thus holiness or sanctity is the outcome of sanctification, that Divine act by which <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> freely justifies us, and by which He has claimed us for His own; by our resulting sanctity, in act as well as in habit, we claim Him as our Beginning and as the End towards which we daily unflinchingly tend. Thus in the moral order sanctity is the assertion of the paramount <a href="../cathen/13055c.htm">rights</a> of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>; its concrete manifestation is the keeping of the Commandments, hence <a href="../cathen/11567b.htm">St. Paul</a>: "Follow peace with all men, and holiness [<em>sanctimoniam</em>, <em>hagiasmon</em>]: without which no man shall <a href="../cathen/02364a.htm">see God</a>" (<a href="../bible/heb012.htm#vrs14">Hebrews 12:14</a>). The Greek word should ne noted; it is generally rendered "sanctification", but it is noteworthy that it is the word chosen by the Greek translators of the <a href="../cathen/14526a.htm">Old Testament</a> to render the <a href="../cathen/07176a.htm">Hebrew</a> (rendered as <em>Ayin-Zayin</em>), which properly means strength or stability, a meaning which as we have seen is contained in the word holiness. Thus to keep the Commandments faithfully involves a very real though hidden separation from this world, as it also demands a great strength of character or stability in the service of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>.</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <p>It is manifest, however, that there are degrees in this separation from the world and in this stability in <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God's</a> service. All who would serve <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> truly must live up to the principles of <a href="../cathen/14601a.htm">moral theology</a>, and only so can men save their <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">souls</a>. But others yearn for something higher; they ask for a greater degree of separation from earthly things and a more intense application to the things of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>. In <a href="../cathen/14663b.htm">St. Thomas's</a> own words: "All who worship <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> may be called 'religious', but they are specially called so who dedicate their whole lives to the Divine worship, and withdraw themselves from worldly concerns, just as those are not termed 'contemplatives' who merely contemplate, but those who devote their whole lives to contemplation". The saint adds: "And such men subject themselves to other men not for <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">man's</a> sake but for God's sake", words which afford us the keynote of <a href="../cathen/12748b.htm">religious life</a> strictly so-called (<a href="../summa/3081.htm#article7">II-II:81:7, ad 5um</a>).</p> <div class='catholicadnet-728x90' id='cathen-728x90-bottom' style='display: flex; height: 100px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; '></div> <div class="cenotes"><h2>Sources</h2><p class="cenotes">Newman, Sermons, vol. I: Holiness Necessary for Future Blessedness; Fuller, The Holy and the Profane State; Mallock, Atheistic Methodism and the Beauty of Holiness, Essay V in Atheism and the Value of Life (London, 1884); Faber, Growth in Holiness (London, 1854).</p></div> <div class="pub"><h2>About this page</h2><p id="apa"><strong>APA citation.</strong> <span id="apaauthor">Pope, H.</span> <span id="apayear">(1910).</span> <span id="apaarticle">Holiness.</span> In <span id="apawork">The Catholic Encyclopedia.</span> <span id="apapublisher">New York: Robert Appleton Company.</span> <span id="apaurl">http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07386a.htm</span></p><p id="mla"><strong>MLA citation.</strong> <span id="mlaauthor">Pope, Hugh.</span> <span id="mlaarticle">"Holiness."</span> <span id="mlawork">The Catholic Encyclopedia.</span> <span id="mlavolume">Vol. 7.</span> <span id="mlapublisher">New York: Robert Appleton Company,</span> <span id="mlayear">1910.</span> <span id="mlaurl"><http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07386a.htm>.</span></p><p id="transcription"><strong>Transcription.</strong> <span id="transcriber">This article was transcribed for New Advent by Robert B. Olson.</span> <span id="dedication">Offered to Almighty God for His graces and blessings granted to Fr. Jeffrey A. Ingham.</span></p><p id="approbation"><strong>Ecclesiastical approbation.</strong> <span id="nihil"><em>Nihil Obstat.</em> June 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor.</span> <span id="imprimatur"><em>Imprimatur.</em> +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.</span></p><p id="contactus"><strong>Contact information.</strong> The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is webmaster <em>at</em> newadvent.org. Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads.</p></div> </div> <div id="ogdenville"><table summary="Bottom bar" width="100%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td class="bar_white_on_color"><center><strong>Copyright © 2023 by <a href="../utility/contactus.htm">New Advent LLC</a>. 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