ADORATION (Lat. ad, to, and os, mouth; i.e. " carrying to one's mouth ")

This article appears in Volume V01, Page 214 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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ADORATION (Lat. ad, to, and os, mouth; i.e. " carrying to one's mouth ") , primarily an act of

homage

HOMAGE (from homo, through the Low Lat. hominaticum, which occurs in a document of 1035)

worship

WORSHIP (i.e. " worth-ship," O. Eng. weor8scipe)

, which, among the Romans, was performed by raising the hand to the mouth, kissing it and then waving it in the direction of the adored

object

OBJECT

. The devotee had his head covered, and after the act turned himself round from left to right. Sometimes he kissed the feet or knees of the images of the gods themselves, and

Saturn

SATURN
SATURN [SATURNUS]

and Hercules were adored with the head bare. By a natural transition the

homage

HOMAGE (from homo, through the Low Lat. hominaticum, which occurs in a document of 1035)

, at first paid to divine beings alone, came to be paid to monarchs. Thus the Greek and Roman emperors were adored by bowing or kneeling, laying hold of the imperial robe, and presently withdrawing the hand and pressing it to the lips, or by putting the royal robe itself to the lips. In Eastern countries adoration has ever been performed in an attitude still more lowly. The Persian method, introduced by Cyrus, was to bend the knee and fall on the face at the prince's feet, striking the earth with the forehead and kissing the ground. This striking of the earth with the forehead, usually a fixed number of times, is the form of adoration usually paid to Eastern potentates to-day. The

Jews

kissed in homage. Thus in 1 Kings xix. 18, God is made to say, " Yet I have left me seven thousand in

Israel

ISRAEL (Hebrew for " God strives " or " rules "; see Gen. xxxii. 28; and the allusion in Hosea xii. 4)

, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him." And in

Psalms

PSALMS, BOOK
PSALMS, BOOK OF, or PSALTER

ii. 12, " Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way." (See also Hosea xiii. 2.) In England the ceremony of kissing the sovereign's hand, and some other acts which are performed kneeling, may be described as forms of adoration. Adoration is applied in the Roman

Church

to the ceremony of kissing the

pope

's foot, a custom which is said to have been introduced by the popes following the example of the emperor Diocletian. The toe of the famous statue of the apostle in
St Peter's, Rome, shows marked

wear

WEAR

caused by the kisses of pilgrims. In the Roman

Church

a distinction is made between Latria, a

worship

WORSHIP (i.e. " worth-ship," O. Eng. weor8scipe)

due to God alone, and Dulia or Hyperdulia, the adoration paid to the Virgin, saints, martyrs, crucifixes, &c. (See further HOMAGE.)

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