HOME is a universal concept of central importance to religious thought. Like such other general symbols as sun and earth, it recurs from prehistoric times across cultures, in contrast to more culture-specific analogues such as the cross and the Kaʿbah. Besides its symbolic importance, home is also a significant locus of ritual in many traditions.

As with most sacred symbols, home is simultaneously an abstraction and a concrete object (as when it is embodied in a dwelling). The development of home as dwelling place can be traced from animal to human habitats; from the dens, windbreaks, and caves of nature to the tents, huts, and houses of culture. To automatically equate house and home, however, is to oversimplify, for home transcends all physical dwellings. Nonetheless, this distinction must be applied cautiously, for it assumes a secular separation of symbol and referent alien to preliterate thought.

The qualities...