noun
definition
A supernatural divine being; a god or goddess.
noun
definition
The state, position, or fact of being a god or God. [from 14th c.]
definition
A celestial being inferior to a supreme God but superior to man.
definition
The study of religion or religions.
definition
A type of confectionery made with egg whites, corn syrup, and white sugar.
Examples of divinities in a Sentence
There were also local divinities in all the principal districts.
The discovery that the great Minoan foundation at Cnossus was at once a palace and a sanctuary of the Double Axe and its associated divinities has now supplied a striking and it may well be thought an overwhelming confirmation of this view.
The Cretans themselves claimed for their island to be the birthplace of Zeus, as well as the parent of all the other divinities usually worshipped in Greece as the Olympian deities.
Both alike are merely old Babylonian divinities in a new Biblical garb.
Indeed, towards paganism, at least, he is perhaps even more than tolerant, preferring on the whole to keep on good terms with pagan divinities.
Although images of the divinities were certainly known, the principal objects of cult in the Minoan age were of the aniconic class; in many cases these were natural objects, such as rocks and mountain peaks, with their cave sanctuaries, like those of Ida or of Dicte.
The genesis of Mandaeis.m and the older gnosis from the old and elaborate BabylonioChaldaean religion is clearly seen also in the fact that the names of the old pantheon (as for example those of the planetary divinities) are retained, but their holders degraded to the position of demons - a conclusion confirmed by the fact that the Mandaeans, like the allied Ophites, Peratae and Manichaeans, certainly have their original seat in Mesopotamia and Babylonia.
The sacred barks of the divinities preserved in the sanctuary of Karnak were then conveyed in procession by water to Luxor and back again; a representation of the festal scenes is given on the walls of the great colonnade.
Some few of these have names; and among those names of the old Aryan divinities emerge here and there, e.g.
The former comprised two beneficent gods of the necropolis; the latter also were beneficent, but warlike, divinities.
The progress of navigation and the association of divinities of the sky with maritime affairs probably also assisted to bring about the change, although the memory of her earlier function as a goddess of childbirth survived till imperial times.
These divinities, however, seem to have had little or no place in the popular faith, which was occupied by polytheistic gods of the ordinary barbaric type.
Busiris, Bubastis, Buto, more strictly represent Pusiri, Pubasti, Puto, cities sacred to these divinities.
The ancient Saxons had borrowed the week from some Eastern nation, and substituted the names of their own divinities for those of the gods of Greece.
The class of artisans was under their special protection; and the joint festival of the two divinities - the Chalceia - commemorated the invention of bronze-working by Hephaestus.
The gods whom they worshipped belonged essentially to the earth; the fertile field, trees and mountains, headlands and rivers and springs, were believed to be inhabited by different divinities, who were therefore primarily local, many in number, with no one in particular supreme over the rest.
A great number of divinities are known only as elements in proper names, e.g.
A contest still more stubborn remained with the Slavonic tribes, with their triple and many-headed divinities, their powers of good and powers of evil, who could be propitiated only with human sacrifices.
This mountainous character and the absence of any tolerable harbour - Pliny, in enumerating the islands of the Aegean, calls it "importuosissima omnium" - prevented it from ever attaining to any political importance, but it enjoyed great celebrity from its connexion with the worship of the Cabeiri, a mysterious triad of divinities, concerning whom very little is known, but who appear, like all the similar deities venerated in different parts of Greece, to have been a remnant of a previously existing Pelasgic mythology.
Both were afterwards worshipped as marine divinities, Ino as Leucothea, Melicertes as Palaemon (Odyssey 333).
A heaven of quarrelling divinities cannot inspire a reasonable worship. These gods are not even respectable; how can they be adorable ?
Certain of the carri al gods early became identified with cosmic divinities, and inst latter thus became the objects of a cult; so, for instance, in t Horus of Edfu was a sun-god, and Thoth in Hermopolis as gna was held to be the moon.
And the mystical bent of the Egyptians found satisfaction in the multiplicity of forms that their gods could assume; among the favorite epithets which the hymns apply to divinities are such as mysterious of shapes, multiple of faces.
Notes are here added on some divinities who have received inadequate or no attention in the preceding pages.
The nicknames which they gave to their later kings were Aramaic; and, except Apollo and Daphne, the great divinities of north Syria seem to have remained essentially native, such as the "Persian Artemis" of Meroe and Atargatis of Hierapolis Bambyce.
No less powerful was the attraction exercised by the shrines of the oracular divinities, though the influx of pilgrims was not limited to certain days, but, year in and year out, a stream of private persons, or embassies from the city-states, came flowing to the temple of Zeus in Dodona or the shrine of Apollo at Delphi.
On feast days a division of five watches is made under the protection of five different divinities.
There are, according to Empedocles, four ultimate elements, four primal divinities, of which are made all structures in the world - fire, air, water, earth.
Mr Andrew Lang, on the other hand, supposes that belief in a supreme being came first in order of evolution, but was afterwards thrust into the background by belief in ghosts and lesser divinities (Magic and Religion, 1901, p. 224).
Below the small band of Teutonic divinities were the elves of forest and field, the water-elves or nixes and spirits of house and home.
In the religion of the people, these divinities always survived; and the popularity of Mithras is evinced by the numerous Aryan proper names thence derived (Mithradates, &c.).
Thus the old figures of the Aryan folk-religion return to the foreground, there to be amalgamated with the Babylonian divinities.
But in all these cults the Persian gods are perfectly tolerant of other native or foreign divinities; vigorous as was their propagandism, it was yet equally far removed from an attack on other creeds.
Similar honours were paid to other divinities in subsequent times - Fortuna, Saturnus, Juno Regina of the Aventine, the three Capitoline deities (Jupiter, Juno, Minerva), and in 217, after the defeat of lake Trasimenus, a lectisternium was held for three days to six pairs of gods, corresponding to the twelve great gods of Olympus - Jupiter, Juno, Neptune, Minerva, Mars, Venus, Apollo, Diana, Vulcan, Vesta, Mercury, Ceres.
In his sacred poems he affected to avoid every word with the slightest savour of paganism; and he blamed the poets for their allusions to pagan divinities.
But if we assume that he was the aboriginal Hellenic High God, we must be quite ready to admit that the separate communities were always liable to cherish other divinities with a more ardent and closer devotion, whether divinities that they brought with them or divinities that they found powerfully established in the conquered lands, Athena or Hera, for instance, in Attica or Argolis, or Poseidon in the Minyan settlements.
It was found in the worship of many other divinities of Hellas in early times, and no single explanation can be given that would apply to them all.
In the Eumenides of Aeschylus" the Erinyes are reproached in that by aiding Clytemnestra, who slew her husband, " they are dishonouring and bringing to naught the pledges of Zeus and Hera, the marriage-goddess "; and these were the divinities to whom sacrifice was offered before the wedding," and it may be that some kind of mimetic representation of the " Holy Marriage," the IEpos ydpos, of Zeus and Hera formed a part of the Attic nuptial ceremonies.'
Special mention ought to be made of the Sraosha (Srosh) Yasht (57), the prayer to fire (62), and the great liturgy for the sacrifice to divinities of the water (63-69).
The oriental Aphrodite is connected with the lower world, and came to be looked upon as one of its divinities.
It is suggested that this is due to the fact that, at the time of the adoption of the oriental goddess, the Greeks already possessed lunar divinities in Hecate, Selene, Artemis.
But there is no doubt that the cult of Aphrodite was on the whole as pure as that of any other divinities, and although a distinction may have existed in later times between the goddess of legal marriage and the goddess of free love, these titles do not express the idea.
With this Platonic philosopheme Xenocrates combines the current theology, identifying the universe and the heavenly bodies with the greater gods, and reserving a place between them and mortals for the lesser divinities.
According to Wilamowitz-M011endorff in his edition of Isyllus, the epithet Maleatas alluded to above is also connected with the functions of the healing god, imported into Athens in the 4th century B.C. with other well-known health divinities.
The first part of the Instructiones is addressed to the heathens and Jews, and ridicules the divinities of classical mythology; the second contains reflections on Antichrist, the end of the world, the Resurrection, and advice to Christians, penitents and the clergy.
While in classical times Asclepius and Hygieia are simply the god and goddess of health, in the declining years of paganism they are protecting divinities generally, who preserve mankind not only from sickness but from all dangers on land and sea.
Again, various non-Hellenic divinities were identified with Artemis, and their cult gradually amalgamated with hers.
After Indra, Agni and Soma, they are the most prominent divinities in the Rig-Veda, and have more than fifty entire hymns addressed to them.
The latter are hewn perpendicularly in the rock, while the Roman tombs are chambers excavated horizontally._ In the lagoon itself were found a large number of terra cottas, made of local clay, some being masks of both divinities and men (among them grotesques) others representing hands and feet, others various animals, and of amphorae of various sizes and other vases.
Among the Romans their sphere of influence was restricted, and they appear almost exclusively as divinities of the watery element.