Before “The Sacred” Became Theological: Rereading The Durkheimian Legacy

William Paden’s article on Eliade’s understanding of the sacred stands as one of the clearest defenses of Eliade’s concept of the sacred against the frequently leveled criticism that it is overly theological and based on a simplistic assumption of independent ontology. Paden traces the development of and influences upon the concept of the sacred as Eliade would have inherited it from his academic forebears. Although Eliade regarded Durkheim as one of the “masters of reductionism,” he had read extensively in all of the areas that Paden covers and could only have been influenced by them. Neither Paden nor I mean to imply that Eliade’s use of the concept of the sacred is identical to Durkheim’s. However, this background knowledge is indispensable to the avoidance of overly-simplistic ascriptions of meaning to Eliade’s concept. It is worthy of note that Paden’s analysis supports Eliade’s understanding of the ubiquity of religion by allowing that “the principle of individual rights in a secular society” may be “holy.” From Religion and Reductionism: Essays on Eliade , Segal &s; and the Challenge of the Social Sciences for the Study of Religion , edited by Thomas A. Idinopulos and Edward Yonan, 198–210 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994 ). All rights reserved. Copyright © 1994 by Brill Academic Publishers. Published by permission of Brill Academic Publishers and the author.