The Latin phrase sanctum sanctorum is a Latin translation of the biblical term: "Holy of Holies" which generally refers in Latin texts to the Holiest place of the Tabernacle of Ancient Israel and later the Temples in Jerusalem, but also has some derivative use in application to imitations of the Tabernacle in church architecture.
The Latin word sanctum is the neuter form of the adjective "holy," and sanctorum its genitive plural. Thus the term sanctum sanctorum literally means "the holy of the holy ," replicating in Latin the Hebrew construction for the superlative, with the intended meaning "the most holy ."
The plural form sancta sanctorum is also used, arguably as a synecdoche referring to the holy relics contained in the sanctuary. The Vulgate translation of the Bible uses Sancta sanctorum for the Holy of Holies. Hence the derivative usage to denote the Sancta Sanctorum chapel in the complex of St John Lateran, Rome.
Read more about Sanctum Sanctorum: Use of The Term in Modern Languages, German Catholic Processions, The "enclosed House" of Hindu Temple Architecture
Famous quotes containing the words sanctum and/or sanctorum:
“She saw a dust bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister calxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage!”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“Think of admitting the details of a single case of the criminal court into our thoughts, to stalk profanely through their very sanctum sanctorum for an hour, ay, for many hours! to make a very barroom of the mind’s inmost apartment, as if for so long the dust of the street had occupied us,—the very street itself, with all its travel, its bustle, and filth, had passed through our thoughts’ shrine! Would it not be an intellectual and moral suicide?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)