Within the depth-psychology corpus, holiness emerges not as a simple moral predicate but as a complex phenomenological category situated at the intersection of purity, numinosity, and transformative encounter. Rudolf Otto’s foundational analysis treats holiness as the defining quality of the mysterium tremendum et fascinans — a sui generis mode of apprehension irreducible to rational categories. The Philokalic tradition, spanning Hesychios the Priest through Symeon the New Theologian, maps holiness as the interior fruit of watchfulness, hesychasm, and the purification of impassioned thoughts; here holiness is simultaneously the condition and the consequence of unceasing prayer. Paul’s theology, as read by Thielman, grounds holiness in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and demands a corresponding moral transformation — particularly sexual self-discipline — that extends the sanctity of the individual outward to unbelieving family members and the ecclesial body. Hillman introduces a phenomenologically charged reading, citing Jung’s ‘inexpressible sanctity’ and Heidegger’s identification of blueness itself as the holy, thereby dislodging holiness from ethical discourse and relocating it in sensory-aesthetic depth. Edinger’s Jungian commentary identifies the Holy Spirit as the ‘accredited bearer of the holiness of God’ while acknowledging the terrifying ambivalence of that bearer. The central tension running through all these positions is whether holiness is achieved through moral discipline and ascetic practice or received as archetypal gift — a question that unites Orthodox hesychasm, Pauline pneumatology, and analytical psychology.
Heidegger writes: ‘Blue is not an image to indicate the sense of the holy. Blueness itself is the holy, in virtue of its gathering depth which shines forth only as it veils itself.’
This passage, via Hillman’s invocation of Heidegger to explicate Jung’s vision of ‘inexpressible sanctity,’ argues that holiness is an immanent quality of sensory depth rather than a property attributed to a transcendent God.
, Alchemical Psychology, 2010thesis
The Holy Spirit, ‘the accredited bearer of the holiness of God.’ But who will recognize him as such? Everyone will certainly say that he is drunk or a heretic or mad.
Edinger’s commentary on Jung’s letters frames divine holiness as a dangerously ambivalent force borne by the Holy Spirit, whose appearance is indistinguishable from madness, thus linking holiness to the uncanny and the socially disruptive.
, The New God-Image: A Study of Jung’s Key Letters Concerning the Evolution of the Western God-Image, 1996thesis
The holiness of God’s Spirit, therefore, demands moral holiness from those among whom he dwells.
Thielman argues that for Paul, the Spirit’s intrinsic holiness generates an obligatory moral holiness in believers, establishing an inseparable pneumatological and ethical nexus.
, Theology of the New Testament: A Canonical and Synthetic Approach, 2005thesis
The law of Christ changes the Mosaic law in the direction of greater inclusiveness. Both Jews and Gentiles viewed Jewish food laws to be distinctive practices of the Jewish people.
Thielman shows that Paul redefines the boundaries of holiness under ‘the law of Christ,’ making holiness more inclusive and extending sanctity across traditional ethnic and ritual boundaries.
, Theology of the New Testament: A Canonical and Synthetic Approach, 2005thesis
You will then attain a vision of the Holy of Holies and be illumined by Christ with deep mysteries. For in Christ ‘the treasures of wisdom and knowledge’ are hidden.
Hesychios the Priest presents holiness as the telos of inward watchfulness and the Jesus Prayer — a visionary encounter with the Holy of Holies made possible through purified attention.
, The Philokalia, Volume 4, 1995thesis
The heart that is constantly guarded, and is not allowed to receive the forms, images, and fantasies of the dark and evil spirits, is conditioned by nature to give birth from within itself to thoughts filled with light.
Hesychios establishes that holiness of heart is the organic consequence of neptic vigilance — a guarded interiority that spontaneously generates luminous contemplative states.
, The Philokalia, Volume 1, 1979thesis
Sanctification is truly the complete mortification and cessation of desire in the senses. When we have achieved this we assuage the uncouth turbulence of our incensive power, for the desire that arouses it and persuades it to fight for its own pleasures has now been quelled by holiness.
This Philokalic text defines holiness functionally as the mortification of sensory desire, portraying it as the power that pacifies the incensive faculty and enables the soul to pray ‘Thy kingdom come.’
, The Philokalia, Volume 2, 1981supporting
St Nikodimos identifies the writer of the work that follows, On Watchfulness and Holiness, with Hesychios of Jerusalem… the combination of these three expels from the soul and obliterates every trace of forgetfulness, ignorance, and laziness, and henceforth grace reigns within it.
The editorial note situates Hesychios’s treatise on watchfulness and holiness within the Philokalic tradition, framing holiness as the reign of grace achieved by the triad of knowledge, mindfulness, and ardor.
, The Philokalia, Volume 4, 1995supporting
Be thou thyself holy in all manner of conversation: for, ‘Be ye holy: for I am holy,’ saith the Lord.
John of Damascus transmits the Levitical and Petrine imperative that human holiness is grounded in and measured by divine holiness, rendering it an imitatio Dei enacted through daily conduct.
, Saint John of Damascus Collection, 2016supporting
To those who are just beginning to long for holiness the path of virtue seems very rough and forbidding… But those who have traveled more than half its length find the path of virtue smooth and easy.
Diadochos of Photiki describes holiness as a developmental threshold — initially austere but progressively transformed by habituated grace into effortless virtue.
, The Philokalia, Volume 4, 1995supporting
If through prayer and humility you sanctify the root, as we said, you will attain outward sanctity as well.
This Philokalic passage argues that holiness proceeds from interior sanctification of the mind through prayer and humility outward to bodily conduct, rejecting purely ascetic approaches.
, The Philokalia, Volume 4, 1995supporting
We can come to be as dangerously attached to our own will in matters of piety and holiness as we can in worldly things, and such ‘pious pigheadedness’ is still self-love, however spiritualized.
Kurtz cites Caussade to argue that holiness pursued as a rigid project of self-mastery becomes a subtle form of self-love, undermining the flexible surrender that genuine spirituality requires.
, The Spirituality of Imperfection Storytelling and the, 1994supporting
There may be a gradual growth in holiness without a cataclysm; in spite of the obvious leakage of much mere natural goodness into the scheme of salvation; revivalism has always assumed that only its own type of religious experience can be perfect.
James observes that revivalist Christianity monopolizes the path to holiness through crisis conversion, while acknowledging the validity of gradual growth — a typological tension directly relevant to depth-psychological accounts of transformation.
, The Varieties of Religious Experience Amazon, 1902supporting
Is there also such a thing as holiness?… nothing can be holy if holiness is not holy.
Plato’s Socrates insists on the self-referential necessity of holiness as a concept — it possesses the nature of the holy by definition — establishing the logical foundation that later theological traditions will fill with substantive content.
, Protagoras, -390aside
Just as he who looks at the sun cannot but fill his eyes with light, so he who always gazes intently into his heart cannot fail to be illumined.
This apophthegm from the treatise ‘On Watchfulness and Holiness’ uses solar imagery to suggest that sustained interior attention inevitably produces the illumination that constitutes holiness.
, The Philokalia, Volume 4, 1995aside