SACRED AND THE PROFANE, THE. When referring to the sacred and the profane and distinguishing between them, the languages of modern scholarship are indebted to Latin, even though they may have equivalent or synonymous terms for both that have been derived from their own linguistic traditions. To the Roman, sacrum meant what belonged to the gods or was in their power; yet when referring to sacrum one was not obliged to mention a god's name, for it was clear that one was thinking of cult ritual and its location, or was primarily concerned with the temple and the rites performed in and around it. Profanum was what was "in front of the temple precinct"; in its earlier usage, the term was always applied solely to places. Originally, profanare meant "to bring out" the offering "before the temple precinct (the fanum...