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Literary notes about deification (AI summary)

The word deification in literature carries a broad range of meanings, oscillating between the literal transformation of human or historical figures into divine entities and a more metaphorical exaltation of abstract ideals. Some authors portray it as a process where emperors or notable individuals—such as Caesar or other heroic figures—are elevated posthumously into godlike statuses ([1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]). In other contexts, deification is used to encapsulate the elevation of abstract concepts, such as progress, beauty, or even the human condition itself ([7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12]). Moreover, certain philosophical and mystical texts invoke deification to explore the transformative union between mortal existence and the divine ([13], [14], [15], [16], [17]), while some works critically address the societal and cultural implications of such exaltations ([18], [19], [20]). This multiplicity of uses underscores deification's versatility as a literary device for interrogating the boundaries between the earthly and the transcendent.
  1. [ Contents ] Deification of Noted Persons.
    — from The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, Vol. 1 (of 2) by William Crooke
  2. His death, of which I shall now speak, and his subsequent deification, were intimated by divers manifest prodigies.
    — from The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete by Suetonius
  3. The deification of the emperors is the only instance in which they departed from their accustomed prudence and modesty.
    — from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
  4. The deification of Julius Caesar while Emperor of Rome, is scarcely referred to in the more familiar literary sources of Roman history.
    — from Woman, Church & State The Original Exposé of Male Collaboration Against the Female Sex by Matilda Joslyn Gage
  5. The deification of the emperors 21 is the only instance in which they departed from their accustomed prudence and modesty.
    — from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
  6. The deification of his emperor was the only religious instinct which impelled him.
    — from Ambassador Morgenthau's Story by Henry Morgenthau
  7. The philosopher of the Superman adroitly filled the vacancy by the deification of Man.
    — from Modernities by Horace Barnett Samuel
  8. Art is essentially the affirmation, the blessing, and the deification of existence."
    — from Nietzsche and Art by Anthony M. (Anthony Mario) Ludovici
  9. Even this poem is a deification of progress through effort, not through repose.
    — from Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning by Robert Browning
  10. How people can bring themselves to use india-rubber rings, which are a sort of deification of string, as lightly as they do, I cannot imagine.
    — from Cranford by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
  11. The great classic idea, the deification, the worship of beauty, was completed by the ancients.
    — from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 64, No.394, August, 1848 by Various
  12. The whole essence of Catholicism, however, consists in the deification of tradition generally.
    — from History of Dogma, Volume 2 by Adolf von Harnack
  13. Nicholas appeared as the apostle of love in and through which the mystical deification of man is accomplished.
    — from Church History, Volume 2 (of 3) by J. H. (Johann Heinrich) Kurtz
  14. But in the case of the apostle Paul, who had never seen Him, the process of deification could go on unchecked.
    — from The Origin of Paul's Religion by J. Gresham (John Gresham) Machen
  15. [Pg 167] With the former we shall celebrate the incarnation of God from all eternity; with the latter the necessary deification of man.
    — from Prolegomena to the Study of Hegel's Philosophy, and Especially of His Logic by William Wallace
  16. The deification is the highest possible resemblance to God and union with Him.
    — from A Source Book for Ancient Church History by Joseph Cullen Ayer
  17. The deification of man: such is the popular translation of the philosophy of the idea.
    — from The Heavenly Father: Lectures on Modern Atheism by Ernest Naville
  18. In other words, the idea of God may be arrived at either by personification or by deification.
    — from Shinto (the Way of the Gods) by W. G. (William George) Aston
  19. The two great sources of religious thought, personification and deification, are constantly intermingling their streams and reacting upon each other.
    — from Shinto (the Way of the Gods) by W. G. (William George) Aston
  20. [208] In the tenth and latest book of the Rigveda , “the deification of purely abstract ideas, such as Wrath and Faith, appears for the first time.”
    — from The Origin of Man and of His Superstitions by Carveth Read

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