mulation.

4. In order to serve as vehicle for the expression of the highest moral
perfection, the Biblical term for holiness, _Kadosh_, had to undergo a
long process of development, obscuring its original meaning. The history
of this term gives us the deepest insight into the working of the Jewish
genius towards the full revelation of the God of holiness. At first the
word _Kadosh_(261) seems to have denoted unapproachableness in the sense
in which fire is unapproachable, that is, threatening and consuming. This
fiery nature was ascribed by primitive man to all divine beings. Hence the
angels are termed "the holy ones" in Scripture.(262) According to both
priestly practice and popular belief, the man who approached one of these
holy ones with hand or foot, or even with his gaze, was doomed to
die.(263) Out of such crude conceptions evolved the idea of God's majesty
as unapproachable in the sense of the sublime, banishing everything
profane from its presence, and visiting with punishment every violation of
its sanctity. The old conception of the fiery appearance of the Deity
served especially as a figurative expression of the moral power of God,
which manifests itself as a "consuming fire,"(264) exterminating evil, and
making man long for the good and the true, for righteousness and love.

5. The divine attribute of holiness has accordingly a double meaning. On
the one hand, it indicates spiritual loftiness transcending everything
sensual, which works as a purging power of indignation at evil, rebuking
injustice, impurity and falsehood, and punishing transgression until it is
removed from the sight of God. On the other hand, it denotes the
condescending mercy of God, which, having purged the soul of wrong, wins
it for the right, and which endows man with the power of perfecting
himself, and thus leads him to the gradual building up of the kingdom of
goodness and purity on earth. This ethical conception of holiness, which
emanates from the moral nature of God, revealed to the prophetic genius of
Israel, must not be confused with the old Semitic conception of priestly
or ritual holiness. Ritual holiness is purely external, and is
transferable to persons and things, to times and places, according to
their relation to the Deity. Hence the various cults applied the term
"holy" to the most abominable forms of idolatry and impure worship.(265)
The Mosaic law condemned all these as violations of the holiness of
Israel's God, bu