Ahierophany is a manifestation of thesacred. The word is a formation of the Greek adjectivehieros (Greek:ἱερός, 'sacred, holy') and the verbphainein (φαίνειν, 'to reveal, to bring to light').
The wordhierophany recurs frequently in the works of religious historianMircea Eliade, who preferred the term to the more constrictive wordtheophany, an appearance of a god.[1]
Eliade argues that religion is based on a sharp distinction between thesacred and the profane.[2] According to Eliade, for traditional man, myths describe "breakthroughs of the sacred (or the 'supernatural') into the World"—that is, hierophanies.[3]
In the hierophanies recorded inmyth, the sacred appears in the form of ideal models (the actions and commandments of gods, heroes, etc.). By manifesting itself as an ideal model, thesacred gives the world value, direction, and purpose: "The manifestation of the sacred,ontologically founds the world."[4] According to this view, all things need to imitate or conform to the sacred models established by hierophanies, in order to have true reality: things "acquire their reality, their identity, only to the extent of their participation in atranscendentreality."[5]
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