The Symbolism of the Christian Temple

That sacred art scarcely exists today is all too clear. We can perhaps speak of a “religious,” but certainly not a sacred art. True sacred art is not sentimental or psychological, but ontological and cosmological in nature. Sacred art cannot be the result of the feelings, fantasies, or even “thought” of the artist—as with most modern art—but rather the translation of a reality largely surpassing the limits of human individuality. Sacred art is precisely a supra-human art. The temple of former times was an “instrument” of recollection, joy, sacrifice, and exaltation. First through the harmonious combination of a thousand crafted symbols, then by offering itself as a receptacle to the symbols of the liturgy. For the temple and the liturgy together constitute a prodigious formula capable of preparing man to become aware of the descent of Grace, of the epiphany of the Spirit in corporeity. It is a matter of urgency, then, to recall what is true in sacred art, especially since in the cultural wasteland of our age signs of resistance to its anarchy and subversion manifest themselves, and a pressing call is felt to recover the traditional conceptions that must form the basis and condition of any restoration.

“Through his research into hidden or lost meanings, Jean Hani has revealed and restored to our attention the most ‘initiatic’ dimensions of the Christian religion.” Jean Borella, author of The Secret of the Christian Way, and The Crisis of Religious Symbolism (forthcoming from Angelico Press)