Sacred king

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
(Redirected from
Divine kingship
)
This article is about the tradition in general. For the ancient Roman position, see Rex Sacrorum. For Western tradition, see Divine right of kings. For Sinosphere tradition, see Mandate of Heaven.
"Priest king" redirects here. For the sculpture belonging to the Indus Valley Civilization, see
Priest-king (sculpture)
.
Figure of Christ from the Ghent Altarpiece (1432).

In many historical societies, the position of

sacral meaning; that is, it is identical with that of a high priest and judge. The concept of theocracy
is related, although a sacred king does not need to necessarily rule through his religious authority; rather, the temporal position itself has a religious significance behind it.

History

paradigms, but not that one developed from the other.[4]

According to Frazer, the notion has

shaman-kings credited with rainmaking and assuring fertility and good fortune. The king might also be designated to suffer and atone for his people, meaning that the sacral king could be the pre-ordained victim in a human sacrifice, either killed at the end of his term in the position, or sacrificed in a time of crisis (e.g. the Blót of Domalde
).

The

Ashantehene) before enthroning
him. So that he might remember what it felt like to suffer as a man, to restrain him in his thereafter acquired god-like power, as the Auriga reminded the conquering hero returning to Rome in his triumph, the crowd's ecstatic adulation rolling in waves across his ego, that he remained but a mortal, and must die.

From the

Catholic Pope takes the role of the "Vicar of Christ".[5]

Kings are styled as

Sumerian princes such as Lugalbanda in the 3rd millennium BCE. The image of the shepherd combines the themes of leadership
and the responsibility to supply food and protection, as well as superiority.

As the mediator between the people and the divine, the sacral king was credited with special wisdom (e.g. Solomon or Gilgamesh) or vision (e.g. via oneiromancy).

Study

Study of the concept was introduced by

Theodism
). The school of
Pan-Babylonianism derived much of the religion described in the Hebrew Bible from cults of sacral kingship in ancient Babylonia
.

The so-called British and Scandinavian cult-historical schools maintained that the king personified a god and stood at the center of the national or tribal religion. The English "myth and ritual school" concentrated on anthropology and folklore, while the Scandinavian "Uppsala school" emphasized Semitological study.

Frazer's interpretation

A sacred king, according to the systematic interpretation of

dying and reviving god". Osiris, Dionysus, Attis and many other familiar figures from Greek mythology and classical antiquity were re-interpreted in this mold. The sacred king, the human embodiment of the dying and reviving vegetation god, was supposed to have originally been an individual chosen to rule for a time, but whose fate was to suffer as a sacrifice
, to be offered back to the earth so that a new king could rule for a time in his stead.

Especially in Europe during Frazer's early twentieth century heyday, it launched a

cottage industry of amateurs looking for "pagan survivals" in such things as traditional fairs, maypoles, and folk arts like morris dancing. It was widely influential in literature, being alluded to by D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and in T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land
, among other works.

fantasy writer Katherine Kurtz in her novel Lammas Night
.

Examples

Monarchies carried sacral kingship into the Middle Ages, encouraging the idea of kings installed by the Grace of God. See:

  • Capetian Miracle
  • Royal touch, supernatural powers attributed to the kings of England and France
  • The Serbian Nemanjić dynasty[9][10]
  • The
    House of Árpád
    (known during the Medieval period as the "dynasty of the Holy King"')
  • The
    Prince-Bishops
    , existing in various European countries in Medieval and later times.

In fiction

Many of Rosemary Sutcliff's novels are recognized as being directly influenced by Frazer, depicting individuals accepting the burden of leadership and the ultimate responsibility of personal sacrifice, including Sword at Sunset, The Mark of the Horse Lord, and Sun Horse, Moon Horse.[11]

In addition to its appearance in her novel Lammas Night noted above, Katherine Kurtz also uses the idea of sacred kingship in her novel The Quest for Saint Camber.[12]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Frazer, James George, Sir (1922). The Golden Bough. Bartleby.com: New York: The Macmillan Co. http://www.bartleby.com/196/1.html.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. ^ R Fraser ed., The Golden Bough (Oxford 2009) p. 651
  3. ISBN 978-0-19-280347-4
    .
  4. ISBN 0-415-92898-2
    .
  5. ^ "CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Vicar of Christ". www.newadvent.org. Retrieved 2017-08-23.
  6. ISBN 9780404184285
    .
  7. ISBN 8189233262
    . Retrieved 14 September 2012.
  8. ISBN 978-963-482-113-7
    .
  9. ISBN 978-86-7179-044-4
    .
  10. ISBN 978-1-4051-4291-5
    .
  11. ^ Article about Rosemary Sutcliff at the Historical Novels Info website; paragraph 15
  12. ISBN 0-345-30099-8, Ballantine Books
    , 1986, p 360-363.

References

General

"English school"

  • S.H. Hooke (ed.),The Labyrinth: Further Studies in the Relation Between Myth and Ritual in the Ancient World (1935).
  • S.H. Hooke (ed.), Myth, Ritual, and Kingship: Essays on the Theory and Practice of Kingship in the Ancient Near East and in Israel (1958).

"Scandinavian school"

  • Geo Widengren, Sakrales Königtum im Alten Testament und im Judentum (1955).
  • Ivan Engnell, Studies in Divine Kingship in the Ancient Near East, 2nd ed. (1967)
  • Aage Bentzen, King and Messiah, 2nd ed. (1948; English 1970).

External links


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