Transforming the sacred into saintliness : reflecting on violence and religion with René Girard

Studies into religion and violence often put religion first. Ren� Girard started with violence in his book Violence and the Sacred and used the Durkheimian term 'sacred' as its correlate in his study of early religions. During the unfolding of his theory, he more and more distinguished the sacred from saintliness to address the break that the biblical revelation represented in comparison to early religions. This distinction between the sacred and saintliness resembles Henri Bergson's complementing Emile Durkheim's identification of the sacred and society with a dynamic religion that relies on individual mystics. Girard's distinction also relates to the insights of thinkers like Jacques Maritain, Simone Weil, and Emmanuel Levinas. This element explores some of Girard's main features of saintliness. Girard pleaded for the transformation of the sacred into holy, not their separation. Cover Title page Copyright page Transforming the Sacred into Saintliness: Reflecting on Violence and Religion with René Girard Contents 1 Introduction 2 Why Violence Precedes Religion and Not the Other Way Around 2.1 Starting with Human Violence 2.2 The French Wars over the Sacred and a Normative Conceptof Religion 3 Violence and the Sacred 3.1 Raymund Schwager’s Emphasis on the Distinctionbetween the Sacred and the Holy 3.2 The Scapegoat Mechanism 3.3 The Relative Peace of the Pre-Axial Sacred 4 The Biblical Difference 4.1 The Book of Job Reveals the God of Victims and Not theAmbivalence of the Numinous 4.2 The Adulterous Woman Who Is Saved from Being Stoned 5 From the Sacred to Saintliness in France 5.1 From Durkheim’s Sacred to a New Saintliness 5.2 Simone Weil’s Distinction between True Religion and Idolatry 6 Dimensions of Saintliness 6.1 From the Sacred Sacrifice to Saintly Sacrifice 6.2 The Saintliness of the Responsible Individual 6.3 An Intimate Mediation 6.4 Detachment from Worldly Power 6.5 A Kenotic Concept of a Nonviolent God 6.6 Transforming the Sacred into Saintliness References Acknowledgments Studies into religion and violence often put religion first. René Girard started with violence in his book Violence and the Sacred and used the Durkheimian term "sacred" as its correlate in his study of early religions. During the unfolding of his theory, he more and more distinguished the sacred from saintliness to address the break that the biblical revelation represented in comparison with early religions. This distinction between the sacred and saintliness resembles Henri Bergson's complementing Emile Durkheim's identification of the sacred and society with a dynamic religion that relies on individual mystics. Girard's distinction also relates to the insights of thinkers like JacquesMaritain, Simone Weil, and Emmanuel Levinas. This Element explores some of Girard's main features of saintliness. Girard pleaded for the transformation of the sacred into holy, not their separation Studies into religion and violence often put religion first. René Girard started with violence in his book Violence and the Sacred and used the Durkheimian term 'sacred' as its correlate in his study of early religions. During the unfolding of his theory, he more and more distinguished the sacred from saintliness to address the break that the biblical revelation represented in comparison to early religions. This distinction between the sacred and saintliness resembles Henri Bergson's complementing Emile Durkheim's identification of the sacred and society with a dynamic religion that relies on individual mystics. Girard's distinction also relates to the insights of thinkers like Jacques Maritain, Simone Weil, and Emmanuel Levinas. This element explores some of Girard's main features of saintliness. Girard pleaded for the transformation of the sacred into holy, not their separation.