Theoi Soteres

Sōtēr is a frequently used cultic epithet of Greek gods, as is its feminine form, Sōteira. The epithets describe a superhuman agent who saves a human worshiper in a crisis that often involves a threat not just to one’s well-being, but one’s life. Both words are also used as simple names for a superh...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Archiv für Religionsgeschichte
Main Author: Graf, Fritz (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: De Gruyter 2017
In: Archiv für Religionsgeschichte
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Greece (Antiquity) / Gods / Savior / Epithet
RelBib Classification:AG Religious life; material religion
BE Greco-Roman religions
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Description
Summary:Sōtēr is a frequently used cultic epithet of Greek gods, as is its feminine form, Sōteira. The epithets describe a superhuman agent who saves a human worshiper in a crisis that often involves a threat not just to one’s well-being, but one’s life. Both words are also used as simple names for a superhuman power, and there is a generalizing plural (theoi) sōtēres, “savior gods”. This study looks at the pre-Christian use of these terms and tries to answer a few basic questions: who were the divinities that received these epithets, how were they used, and what did they imply? The corpus of texts on which this study relies will be almost exclusively epigraphical.
ISSN:1868-8888
Contains:In: Archiv für Religionsgeschichte
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1515/arege-2016-0013