Divinities

The names Demeter and Kore are Greek, and this probably indicates that the Greeks adopted these divinities during their wandering, and that they were later fused with local divinities in the ancient cults.

Among the Roman literate class, their sphere of influence was restricted, and they appear almost exclusively as divinities of the watery element.

Among Zoroastrian priests today the term is frequently applied to the “calendrical” divinities, that is, to all those who have received dedications of the days of the month, together with extra three, Burz Yazad, Hōm, and Dahmān Āfrīn..

Burkert (1985). p. 21. It seems that the Minoan vegetation goddess Ariadne was absorbed by more powerful divinities.

Christianisation went slowly in Asturias without supplanting the ancient pagan divinities.

Similarly, it is argued inconclusively whether Ēl Shaddāi, Ēl ‘Ôlām, Ēl ‘Elyôn, and so forth, were originally understood as separate divinities.

Some general themes are apparent: elves were human(-like); were once pagan divinities of some kind; and were dangerous: they could cause harm to people or livestock, or might seduce people into sexual relationships with them.

The di inferi were a collective of underworld divinities.

The Greek divinities live with Zeus at the helm and each is concerned with a recognizable sphere.

There pagan religious rites were applied and the names of pagan divinities invoked; there the precepts of modesty, purity, and humanity were ignored or set aside, and there no place was offered to the onlookers for the cultivation of the Christian graces.

The spirit of these creatures enters into them at the moment they eat this food, and makes them give out oracles like divinities.

This stands in contrast to classical Greco-Roman religion in particular, where a number of goddesses appear as the physical mothers of other divinities which were considered gods in their own right (cf.