2. HOLDING SACRED THAT WHICH IS NOT SACRED

2. Holding Sacred that which is not Sacred ~ 76 ~ to please it, escape its punishments and elicit its favours. “Sacredness is manifested,” observes the Encyclopaedia Britannica, in “sacred officials, such as priests and kings; in specially designated sacred places such as temples and images, and in natural objects, such as rivers, the sun, mountains, or trees. The priest is a special agent in the religious cult, his ritual actions represent the divine action. Similarly, the king or emperor is a special mediator between heaven and earth and has been called by such names as the ‘son of heaven,’ or an ‘arm of god.”33 The following important anthropologists are listed by the Encyclopaedia Britannica as holding sacredness to be the basis of religion: Nathan Soderblom, Rudolf Otto, Emile Durkheim, Max Scheler, Gerardus Vander Leeuw, W. Brede Kristemsen, Friedrich Heiler, Gustov Mensching, Roger Caillois, Mircea Eliade.34 Modern scholars of religion are right in saying that the basic idea behind religion is the concept of holiness, which they claim is a natural feeling. However, when some other object besides one God