hierophant means an ancient Greek priest who interpreted sacred mysteries, especially the priest of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 85 out of 100.
Why this word is great
HIEROPHANT — [Noun] An interpreter or expounder of sacred mysteries or esoteric principles. From Ancient Greek ἱεροφάντης (hierophántēs), from ἱερός (hierós, "holy, sacred") + φαίνω (phaínō, "to show, to make known"). Unlike a priest (who administers established rites) or a commentator (who explicates public knowledge), a hierophant is a keeper of thresholds, whose purpose is to translate the ineffable into a form just barely apprehensible to the initiate. He is the hand that lifts the cloth from the cult statue in a smoke-thickened shrine, the voice that decodes the cryptic emblems of the Mutus Liber, the guide whose whispered key unlocks the final chamber of the labyrinth. In that act of showing, a sliver of the eternal is made known—an act of revelation that forever divides the before from the after.
noun
- An ancient Greek priest who interpreted sacred mysteries, especially the priest of the Eleusinian Mysteries.“The exhibition of ancient statues, relics, and symbols, concealed from daily adoration (as in the Catholic festivals of this day), probably, made a main duty of the Hierophant.”
- An interpreter of sacred mysteries or arcane knowledge.“Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.”
- One who explains or makes a commentary.