Apotheosis (from Greek ἀποθέωσις from ἀποθεοῦν, apotheoun "to deify"; in Latin deificatio "making divine") is the glorification of a subject to divine level. The term has meanings in theology, where it refers to a belief, and in art, where it refers to a genre.

In theology, the term apotheosis refers to the idea that an individual has been raised to godlike stature. In art, the term refers to the treatment of any subject (a figure, group, locale, motif, convention or melody) in a particularly grand or exalted manner.

Antiquity[link]

Prior to the Hellenistic period, imperial cults were known in Ancient Egypt (pharaohs) and Mesopotamia (since Naram-Sin). From the New Kingdom, all deceased pharaohs were deified as Osiris.

Ancient Greece[link]

From at least the Geometric period of the ninth century BC, the long-deceased heroes linked with founding myths of Greek sites were accorded chthonic rites in their heroon, or "hero-temple".

In the Greek world, the first leader who accorded himself divine honours was Philip II of Macedon, who was a king, when the Greeks had set kingship aside, and who had extensive economic and military ties, though largely antagonistic, with Achaemenid Persia, where kings were divine. At his wedding to his sixth wife, Philip's enthroned image was carried in procession among the Olympian gods; "his example at Aigai became a custom, passing to the Macedonian kings who were later worshipped in Greek Asia, from them to Julius Caesar and so to the emperors of Rome".^[1] Such Hellenistic state leaders might be raised to a status equal to the gods before death (e.g., Alexander the Great) or afterwards (e.g., members of the Ptolemaic dynasty). Heroic cult similar to apotheosis was also an honour given to a few revered artists of the distant past, notably Homer.

Archaic and Classical Greek hero-cults became primarily civic, extended from their familial origins, in the sixth century; by the fifth century none of the worshipers based their authority by tracing descent back to the hero, with the exception of some families who inherited particular priestly cult, such as the Eumolpides (descended from Eumolpus) of the Eleusinian mysteries, and some inherited priesthoods at oracle sites. The Greek hero cults can be distinguished on the other hand from the Roman cult of dead emperors, because the hero was not thought of as having ascended to Olympus or become a god: he was beneath the earth, and his power purely local. For this reason hero cults were chthonic in nature, and their rituals more closely resembled those for Hecate and Persephone than those for Zeus and Apollo. Two exceptions were Heracles and Asclepius, who might be honored as either gods or heroes, sometimes by chthonic night-time rites and sacrifice on the following day.

Ancient Rome[link]

Apotheosis in ancient Rome was a process whereby a deceased ruler was recognized as having been divine by his successor, usually also by a decree of the Senate and popular consent. In addition to showing respect, often the present ruler deified a popular predecessor to legitimize himself and gain popularity with the people. The upper-class did not always take part in the imperial cult,^{[citation needed]} and some privately ridiculed the apotheosis of inept and feeble emperors, as in the satire The Pumpkinification of (the Divine) Claudius, usually attributed to Seneca. At the height of the imperial cult during the Roman Empire, sometimes the emperor's deceased loved ones—heirs, empresses, or lovers, as Hadrian's Antinous—were deified as well. Deified people were awarded posthumously the title Divus (Diva if women) to their names to signify their divinity. Traditional Roman religion distinguished between a deus (god) and a divus (a mortal who became divine or deified), though not consistently. Temples and columns were sometimes erected to provide a space for worship.

Ancient China[link]

The Ming dynasty epic Investiture of the Gods deals heavily with deification legends. Numerous mortals have been deified into the Daoist pantheon, such as Guan Yu, Iron-crutch Li and Fan Kuai. Song Dynasty General Yue Fei was deified during the Ming Dynasty and is considered by some practitioners to be one of the three highest ranking heavenly generals.^[2][3]

South East Asia[link]

Various Hindu and Buddhist rulers in the past have been represented as deities, especially after death, from Thailand to Indonesia. Even several Sultans of Yogyakarta were semi-deified^{[citation needed]}, posthumously.

Christianity[link]

Generally[link]

Instead of the word "apotheosis", Christian theology uses in English the words "deification" or "divinization" or the Greek word "theosis". Traditional mainstream theology, both East and West, views Jesus Christ as the pre-existing God who undertook mortal existence, not as a mortal being who attained divinity. It holds that he has made it possible for human beings to be raised to the level of sharing the divine nature: he became one of us to make us "partakers of the divine nature"^[4] "For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God."^[5] "For He was made man that we might be made God."^[6] "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods."^[7]

In Eastern Christianity[link]

Christian theology traditionally makes a distinction between "theosis" and "apotheosis". Orthodox Trinitarian Christianity views Jesus Christ as the pre-existing God who undertook mortal existence, not a mortal being who attained divinity. Regarding human beings, the mystical theology of the Eastern Orthodox churches and Eastern Catholic churches characteristically describes the situation as "theosis", a Greek word.

Roman Catholic Church[link]

Corresponding to the Greek word theosis are the Latin-derived words "divinization" and "deification" used in the parts of the Catholic Church that are of Latin tradition. The concept has been given less prominence in Western theology than in that of the Eastern Catholic Churches, but is present in the Latin Church's liturgical prayers, such as that of the deacon or priest when pouring wine and a little water into the chalice: "By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity."^[8] The Catechism of the Catholic Church quotes with approval Saint Athanasius's saying, "The Son of God became man so that we might become God."^[9][6]

Catholic theology stresses the concept of supernatural life, "a new creation and elevation, a rebirth, it is a participation in and partaking of the divine nature"^[10] (cf. 2 Peter 1:4). In Catholic teaching there is a vital distinction between natural life and supernatural life, the latter being "the life that God, in an act of love, freely gives to human beings to elevate them above their natural lives" and which they receive through prayer and the sacraments; indeed the Catholic Church sees human existence as having as its whole purpose the acquisition, preservation and intensification of this supernatural life.^[11]

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints[link]

In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church or Mormons), apotheosis or deification is usually referred to as exaltation, or eternal life, which to Mormons is the belief that mankind may live with God in families and become "gods" themselves. While the primary focus of the LDS Church is on the atonement of Jesus Christ, one reason for the atonement is exaltation, which goes beyond mere salvation. All people may be saved from sin through faith in Jesus Christ, and all will be resurrected from death, but only those who are sufficiently obedient and accept the atonement of Jesus Christ before the resurrection and final judgment will be exalted. One popular Mormon quote, coined by the early Mormon leader Lorenzo Snow in 1837, is “As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be.”^[12] The teaching was taught first by Joseph Smith, Jr. while pointing to John 5:19 in the New Testament; he said that "God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did."^[13] Some Mormons also suggest that discussions of theosis by early Church Fathers show an early belief in the Mormon concept of deification. The LDS Church's belief differs from the Orthodox Christian belief in deification, however, because the Latter-day Saints believe that the core being of each individual, the "intelligence," which existed before becoming a spirit son or daughter of God, is uncreated and eternal.

Art[link]

In art the matter is practical: the elevation of a figure to divine level entails certain conventions. So it is that the apotheosis genre exists in Christian art as in other art. The features of the apotheosis genre may be seen in subjects that emphasize Christ's divinity (Transfiguration, Ascension, Christ Pantocrator) and that depict holy persons "in glory"--that is, in their roles as "God revealed" (Assumption, Ascension, etc.).

Apotheosis of French soldiers fallen in the Napoleonic Wars, Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson, beginning of 19th century.

Apotheosis of George Washington

Ingres, The Apotheosis of Homer.

Apotheosis of Gdańsk by Izaak van den Blocke.

Later artists have used the concept for motives ranging from genuine respect for the deceased (Constantino Brumidi's fresco The Apotheosis of Washington on the dome of the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.), to artistic comment (Salvador Dalí's or Ingres's The Apotheosis of Homer), to mock-heroic and burlesque apotheoses for comedic effect.

Many modern leaders have exploited the artistic imagery if not the theology of apotheosis. Examples include Rubens's depictions of James I of England at the Banqueting House (an expression of the Divine Right of Kings) or Henry IV of France, or Appiani's apotheosis of Napoleon. The term has come to be used figuratively to refer to the elevation of a dead leader (often one who was assassinated and/or martyred) to a kind of superhuman charismatic figure and an effective erasing of all faults and controversies which were connected with his name in life - for example, Abraham Lincoln in the US, Lenin in USSR, Yitzchak Rabin in Israel, or Kim Jong-il of North Korea.

In literature[link]

Joseph Campbell, in his book The Hero With a Thousand Faces, writes that the Universal Hero from monomyth must pass through a stage of Apotheosis. According to Campbell, apotheosis is the expansion of consciousness that the hero experiences after defeating his foe.

Arthur C Clarke's novel Childhood's End has the Overlords refer to Mankind's "apotheosis" when the world's children evolve into their union with the Overmind (see also post-human).

In Chapter 23 of Herman Melville's Moby Dick, regarding Ishmael's friend Bulkington, the term serves as a last word climax for the chapter:

"But as in landlessness alone resides the highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God- so, better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! For worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land! Terrors of the terrible! is all this agony so vain? Take heart, take heart, O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly demigod! Up from the spray of thy ocean-perishing- straight up, leaps thy apotheosis."

In "The Dark Tower" by Stephen King, the desert which is the main setting of the first book in the series; "The Gunslinger", is referred to as "the apotheosis of all deserts".

In music[link]

Apotheosis in music refers to the appearance of a theme in grand or exalted form. It represents the musical equivalent of the apotheosis genre in visual art, especially where the theme is connected in some way with historical persons or dramatic characters. When crowning the end of a large-scale work the apotheosis functions as a peroration, following an analogy with the art of rhetoric.

Apotheosis moments abound in music, and the word itself appears in some cases. Hector Berlioz used "Apotheose" as the title of the final movement of his Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale, a work composed in 1846 for the dedication of a monument to France's war dead. Two of Tchaikovsky’s ballets, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker, as well as La Bayadère, contain apotheoses as finales. The very beautiful concluding tableau of Maurice Ravel's Ma Mere l'Oye is also titled "Apotheose." Czech composer Karel Husa, concerned in 1970 about arms proliferation and environmental deterioration, named his musical response Apotheosis for This Earth. Aram Khachaturian entitled a segment of his ballet Spartacus "Sunrise and Apotheosis." Richard Wagner, referring to the lively rhythms which permeate Beethoven's Symphony No. 7, called it the "apotheosis of the dance".^[14] Also in the song "The Tomb Song" of post progressive band "The Pax Cecilia", there is a line which says: "They whisper: "Oh Apotheosis! Oh holy bulb of light!"

Progressive metal band Last Chance to Reason ends their album, "Level 2", with a track entitled Apotheosis. Similarly, a track of the same name is used in the last stage of the 2012 video game Journey.^[15]

In television[link]

The apotheosis of immortal software, in virtual reality and as a cybernetic robot, is a central storyline of Caprica. Posing as a priestess of Athena, the character Sister Clarice Willow, sees apotheosis of a virtual heaven as a prime goal for her terrorist monotheistic religion, which is dominant on the world Geminon but a minority on the polytheistic world of Caprica. The series' final episode is titled "Apotheosis" and is largely centered on her attempt to bring apotheosis to reality.

It is also a story line in the Stargate franchise with the ascension of Daniel Jackson and the Ancients.

The fourth episode of season four of the science fiction television series Babylon 5 is titled "Falling Toward Apotheosis".

See also[link]

References and further reading[link]

• Arthur E.R. Boak, "The Theoretical Basis of the Deification of Rulers in Antiquity", in: Classical Journal vol. 11, 1916, pp. 293–297.
• Franz Bömer, "Ahnenkult und Ahnenglaube im alten Rom", Leipzig 1943.
• Walter Burkert, "Caesar und Romulus-Quirinus", in: Historia vol. 11, 1962, pp. 356–376.
• Jean-Claude Richard, "Énée, Romulus, César et les funérailles impériales", in: Mélanges de l'École Française de Rome vol. 78, 1966, pp. 67–78.
• Bernadette Liou-Gille, "Divinisation des morts dans la Rome ancienne", in: Revue Belge de Philologie vol. 71, 1993, pp. 107–115.
• David Engels, "Postea dictus est inter deos receptus. Wetterzauber und Königsmord: Zu den Hintergründen der Vergöttlichung frührömischer Könige", in: Gymnasium vol 114, 2007, pp. 103–130.
• Stephen King "The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger
• King David Kalakaua, "The Apotheosis of Pele: The Adventures of the Goddess with Kamapuaa" in The Legends and Myths of Hawaii

External links[link]

Look up apotheosis in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Seneca's Apocolocyntosis at Project Gutenberg

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