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Question

What's the difference between the adjectives sacra and sancta? Don't they both mean holy or sacred?

For example, the St. Benedict medal says:

Crux sacra sit mihi lux.

Why not "Crux sancta"?

Answer 1

Usage of these words differed over time and depending on the religion of the author. I don't have a full grasp of the situation, but here's my best shot, along with some sources I found.

In a Christian religious context, such as your example, sānctus seems to be usable as a general equivalent to the various senses of English "holy" or Hebrew ????. Sacer can be used for "holy" in the sense sacred, consecrated, or divine, but sānctus can generally serve the same function. So either "crux sacra" or "crux sancta" are suitable to express the idea of "the holy cross". I think a holy (godly) person in Christianity is more commonly described as sānctus than as sacer; however, the Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources does record some uses of sacer in this sense as well (e.g. "virgo sacra", "heremita sacer"). Sānctus can also be used as a noun, "saint", which gave rise to the English noun and many nouns in other languages. I know dīvus and beātus have also been used in this context with a similar sense in Christian Latin, as described by Smith and Hall's English-Latin dictionary, although I can't tell you the technical details of how their usage differs or has changed over time.

In contrast, in pre-Christian usage, sacer is clearly the usual adjective when describing a place or thing as sacred or holy (as in, religiously significant). For example, sacer is usual in connection to aedis "temple". Famously, sacer can have a negative sense in Classical Latin; this seems to be its typical meaning when it is used as an epithet to a human being (Lewis and Short cites Plautus, who uses "Ego sum sacer, scelestus" and "homini ... sacerrumo"). The negative sense of sacer is also attested sometimes when it is applied to things. This usage is usually explained as an extension of a sense "set apart to be destroyed (in dedication/sacrifice to a god)". This negative sense is not shared with sānctus.

Sānctus is the less frequent of these two words in Classical Latin, and its precise meaning in this time period may be somewhat different from "holy" (even though it does ultimately have a connection to sacer). Sānctus in Classical Latin is often applied to persons as a positive adjective denoting a certain virtue, sometimes connected to religion or piety, but sometimes apparently having a more general moral sense along the lines of "steadfast, chaste, pure, having integrity". It can also be an adjective with a sense along the lines of "inviolable", "deserving of reverence/respect", which can be applied to persons, things (often abstract nouns), or places. Compare the potentially non-religious use of the derived English terms "sanctuary", "sanctity" and "sanction".

Some examples of the "virtuous" sense:

• Cicero, Philippicae 8.16.7: "Uno in homine, Q. Fufi, fateor te vidisse plus quam me: ego P. Clodium arbitrabar perniciosum civem, sceleratum, libidinosum, impium, audacem, facinerosum; tu contra sanctum, temperantem, innocentem, modestum, retinendum civem et optandum." Pro Caelio 52.6: "quantum ad facinus aurum hoc quaereretur, ad necem legati, ad L. Luccei, sanctissimi hominis atque integerrimi, labem sceleris sempiternam?"
• Livy, Ab Urbe Condita 32.27.3.2: "Siciliam M. Marcellus, Sardiniam M. Porcius Cato obtinebat, sanctus et innocens, asperior tamen in faenore coercendo habitus"

Some examples of the "inviolable/deserving reverence" sense:

• Cicero, Pro S. Roscio Amerino 70.9: "Quanto nostri maiores sapientius! qui cum intellegerent nihil esse tam sanctum, quod non aliquando violaret audacia, supplicium in parricidas singulare excogitaverunt"; In Verrem 1.1.4.9: "nihil esse tam sanctum quod non violari, nihil tam munitum quod non expugnari"; Pro Rabirio Perduellionis Reo 11: "Quam ob rem uter nostrum tandem, Labiene, popularis est, tune qui civibus Romanis in contione ipsa carnificem, qui vincla adhiberi putas oportere, qui in campo Martio comitiis centuriatis auspicato in loco crucem ad civium supplicium defigi et constitui iubes, an ego qui funestari contionem contagione carnificis veto, qui expiandum forum populi Romani ab illis nefarii sceleris vestigiis esse dico, qui castam contionem, sanctum campum, inviolatum corpus omnium civium Romanorum, integrum ius libertatis defendo servari oportere?"
• Statius, Thebais 1.538: "oculique verentes ad sanctum rediere patrem"; Thebais 2.483: "Iuvenum fidos, lectissima bello corpora, nunc pretio, nunc ille hortantibus ardens sollicitat dictis, nocturnaque proelia saevus instruit, et (sanctum populis per saecula nomen) legatum insidiis tacitoque invadere ferro (quid regnis non vile?) cupit."

In terms of form, sānctus is the perfect passive participle of the verb sanciō "to ordain", "enact", "dedicate/devote"; accordingly, sānctus can be used to refer to a state resulting from a process of enacting, ordaining, or dedicating. For example, a phrase like lēgēs sānctae, rather than meaning "holy laws", can be understood as "ordained/decreed laws" or "inviolable laws/laws backed by a sanction". However, I think that this "resultative participle" sense does not always apply, and may be absent in cases where the word is used purely as an adjective. Sānctus in Christian usage is frequently applied to God or any of the three persons of the godhead; I'm not a theologian, but I don't think it makes sense to interpret a phrase like "sanctus Pater" as meaning either "Father who has been sanctified" or "Father who has been ordained/established/made steadfast" (when? by whom?) rather than "Holy Father", where sānctus means "holy" and refers to an inherent and eternal state.

The verb sānctificō "to sanctify" (literally, "to make sānctus") seems to appear only in Christian authors; Classical Latin expresses the sense "to consecrate, hallow" with sacrō and consecrō, verbs built on the adjective sacer.

Dihle, translated by Malzahn, alleges that early Christian authors in Latin intentionally avoided sacer in general, outside of the context of references to pagan religion:

Greek as well as Latin had different words for sacredness and holiness, to refer either to the numinous power of hallowed people, objects, or actions; or to denote purity, innocence, and perfection as qualities ascribed to the hallowed, or to those people who establish the proper kind of relation with it. In Greek, this distinction was expressed by the words hieros and hagios, and in Latin by the words sacer and sanctus, whereas Biblical Hebrew knew only the one word qado? for all aspects of sacredness and holiness. Greek-speaking Jews and Christians avoided the word hieros [...] applying the word hagios to the entire semantic range covered by the Hebrew adjective. [...] A similar situation existed in the early Christian use of Latin. If Tertullian called a pagan cultic ritual a sacrum facinus or sacred misdeed, this was in keeping with his general avoidance of the word sacer in a Christian context, where he would substitute it by sanctus. [...] Later on, after the conversion of large parts of the population and the institutionalisation of Christian worship, the word sacer re-entered Christian Latin, just as its equivalent hieros became acceptable in Christian Greek.

(page 353, "Greek and Latin Literature of the Roman Empire: From Augustus to Justinian", by Albrecht Dihle, English translation by Manfred Malzahn published 1994, published originally in 1989)

Rosén 1995 writes

The entire semantic history of q?do·? and its cognates matches in a striking way that of Latin sanctus. It is a well known fact that sanctus acquired a meaning of "sanctity" only in Christian Latin, whereby it replaced the earlier sacer to the point of relegating that adjective to the domain of paganism, thus distinguishing between sacer of a "false" God in a polytheistic pantheon and sanctus as an attribute of the one and only supreme power in monotheism. However, the obvious relationship of sanctus with the verb sancire as its perfect participle is conducive to its being understood as something "fixed, determined, immutable, permanent, eternal".

Rosén suggests that the use, attested early in Latin, of sanctus in expressions such as "flumine sancto", "aerarium sanctius", "homo sanctissimus" should be understood as deriving from a meaning "steadfast", and says

The permanence or immutability inherent in the sense of sanctus can be the result of destiny or of a wilful act or pronouncement; this is made plausible on the strength of the stem of sancire on the one hand and also by considering again some of the pre-metaphorical, i.e. still secular, uses of the Hebrew factitive denominative qad·ē?.

(pages 51-51, "Hebrew at the Crossroads of Cultures: From Outgoing Antiquity to the Middle Ages", by Haiim B. Rosén)

These excepts from Rosén seem to be arguing that sānctus in pre-Christian Latin did not directly denote the religious concept of something holy or sacred, but referred to a state of inviolability that tended to cooccur with sacred status. That is, you can assume something described as sacer "holy, sacred" is also sānctus "inviolable", but sānctus did not at this time mean "holy, sacred". A holy religious place will by its nature tend to be treated as inviolable; hence in this sense, sānctus can be viewed as a broader category than sacer; see Lewis and Short and also this note by Morris H. Morgan in the Classical Review.

There is a passage in Festus that mentions the difference between sacer and sanctus with the following examples, attributing the illustrated distinction to an Aelius Gallus:

Inter sacrum autem et sanctum et religiosum differentias bellissime refert: sacrum aedificium consecratum deo; sanctum murum qui sit circum oppidum; religiosum sepulcrum ubi mortuus sepultus aut humatus sit satis constare ait, sed ita portione (?) quadam et tem-poribus eadem videri posse. Siquidem quod sacrum est, idem lege aut instituto maiorum sanctum esse puta[n]t violari id sine poena non possit. Idem religiosum quoque esse qui non iam (quoniam?) sit aliquid quod ibi homini facere non liceat; quod si faciat, adversus deorum voluntatem videatur facere. Similiter de muro et sepulcro debere observari ut eadem et sacra et sancta et religiosa fiant sed quomodo [quod] supra expositum est cum de sacro diximus.

Quotation taken from Brouwer 1989, who gives the following translation:

Besides he expounds excellently the differences between sacer and sanctus and religiosus: sacer is the building consecrated to a god; sanctus is the wall surrounding the town; religiosus is the tomb where the deceased is buried or interred; these differences, by his account, are beyond dispute, however, in such a way that, to a certain extent and under certain circumstances (?) they may be considered to have the same meaning. He is of the opinion that if something is indeed sacer it is also sanctus by virtue of law or tradition, so that it cannot be violated without punishment; that in that case it is also religiosus, since (?) it is a thing that a man must not do there; should he do it all the same, he is considered to act against the will of the gods. The same rules are to be observed when a wall or tomb is concerned so that at the same time they should become sacer and sanctus as well as religiosus, yet in such way as was expounded above, where we spoke about sacer.

(pages 209-210, "Bona Dea: The Sources and a Description of the Cult", By H.H.J. Brouwer, 1989)

You can read more about this and similar quotations from ancient sources in the paper "Control of the Sacred in Roman Law", by James Rives (2012). Rives writes

Res sacrae thus represent a very clear example of “the sacred” as defined and controlled by human authority. The nature of res sanctae, on the other hand, is rather more obscure. As I suggested above, the imperial jurists used this category only because it was a traditional subdivision of res divini iuris. Most of them apparently understood sanctus simply to mean “protected by a sanction”, the common meaning of the word. Ulpian, for example, explains that “properly speaking, we use the term sanctus of objects that are neither sacred nor profane, but that are confirmed by some sort of sanction. Thus laws are sanctus, for they are supported by a kind of sanction. Anything that is supported by some kind of sanction is sanctus, even if it is not consecrated to a god.” City walls were sancti because they could not be altered without imperial permission, and so, like res sacrae, seemed to belong to the public realm.

(page 170)

Cicero interestingly distinguishes the virtues of pietās and sānctitās based on the beneficiaries or targets, saying the first is paid to the gods on high and the second to the manes: "Atque etiam aequitas tripertita dicitur esse: una ad superos deos, altera ad manes, tertia ad homines pertinere. Prima pietas, secunda sanctitas, tertia iustitia aut aequitas nominatur" (Topica 90.10).

Answer 2

Well, sacer is an adjective, but sanctus is the participle of sancio (to sanctify). So, if there is a distinction it is that sacer refers to that which is inherently (or indefinitely) sacred, but sanctus refers to what has been made sacred.

So, if we wanted to express this in English, we could say the "sacred cross" versus the "sanctified cross".