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Religion & the Senses

Religious Properties of Smell

By Genesis Lantigua


Introduction:

    Candles, incense and essential oils have become our best friends when cleaning and perfuming our homes. Most of us also do not step outside our homes without first taking a shower and layering ourselves with lotions, deodorants and perfumes. Where does this obsession with scent come from and why is this a conversion in religious studies? Let's sniff into history and find out.

    Diane Ackerman has composed a beautiful and easily captivating text, A Natural History of the Senses, where she clearly illustrates the historical component of each of the senses. For this posts' sake, we will analyze Ackerman's first chapter on smell.

The History of Aromas

    According to Ackerman, perfumed scents were first used in Mesopotamia as incense offering to “sweeten the smell of animal flesh burned as offerings” (Ackerman, 56). Perfumes were eventually considered to contain mystical and sacred characteristics. The ancient uses of perfumes are many. Some used them to signal their royal status. Sometimes they were used to heal wounds. Some used them to conduct exorcisms. And others, as Ackerman informs Cleopatra and Marc Antony did, used them for couple intimacy. According to Ackerman, Egypt was the first region to use perfumes for everyday self indulgence rather than for sacred rituals.

Aromas and Religions

    In terms of religions, perfumed scents have always been very important. Ackerman brings up the following religions and their relationships to scents: when one who practices the Islamic religion picks up a rose (one of the most central components of ingredients in perfumes) this person must sigh "Allah, Allah", the first catholic rosaries were made of dry roses, the Anglican crusaders were attracted to the New World mainly because of aromatic spices and the Bible has several mentions of scents used for religious rituals. In the New Testament, we find Mary Magdalene and the other women seeking to anoint Jesus' body in aromatic spices. Ackerman also brings up king Solomon and his poem Song of Songs. In this poem, two lovers describe one another as pleasing aromas such as frankincense, myrrh, saffron, camphire (commonly known as henna), pomegranates, aloes, cinnamon, calamus, and other 'treasures'.

    The Aroma of Righteosness: Scent and Seduction in Rabbinic Life and Literature by Deborah Green, professor of Hebrew language and Judaic studies, goes further into the usage of incense and aromas in Biblical and Rabbinic context. Green states that it is believed Balsam, also known as the chief of spices, was given to Solomon as a gift from the queen of Sheba, along with other spices. Balsam is considered the best scent and to have been exclusively gifted to the land of Judea. Green also states that Biblically speaking, to be anointed and to be perfumed are equivalent and that in ancient Hebrew times, a perfumer, or an apothecary, and a spice seller were either close business partners or were one and the same. This supports Ackerman's argument that perfumes were considered mystical and sacred.

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