“The figure of the sacred king seems to carry within it a two-faced identity. Alongside the dominant presence of the divine, a disturbing taint of human impurity or abjection can always be detected. For Christians, however, this bifurcated identity reflected an underlying order, designed by God, in which even impurity or abjection had a sacred purpose. Through his debased flesh and exalted person, the monarch represented both the earthy wretchedness of the self and its potential glorification in heaven. To make a human being into such a powerful symbol of divine order is an astonishing claim, and for most of us today an utterly unbelievable one. Sacred kingship, therefore, is the most obvious and hollow of cultural constructions; but it is also one of the most historically important. It is much easier to embrace its charisma blindly, or reject it impatiently, than to understand it.”