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What is a word for adapting a god into a demi-god or saint?

English Language & Usage Asked on May 31, 2021

There are words that describe elevating a person into the divine: apotheosis, divinization, and deification as nouns, and deify as a verb. In some religions, it is possible for a human to undergo apotheosis (like Heracles in ancient Greek mythology); in Catholicism, the terms deification and divinization (but not apotheosis) denote believers acquiring salvation through becoming one with God.

Is there a single word that denotes the reverse, namely a noun for making a god into a demi-god, saint, or otherwise non-god entity? For example, pre-exile Israel had widespread polytheism, and books in the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament refer to the worship of multiple gods. 2 Kings 23:14 refers to removing items of worship for Asherah, a goddess who may have at one time been considered a wife to Yahweh (Wikipedia). In that case, human (non)believers choose to remove recognition of divine status. Alternatively, there are fictional mythologies where gods are cast down within the mythology, as may have happened with Aroden in the Golarion (Pathfinder) mythos. My target word would ideally refer to either situation:

Asherah underwent _____________ by the time of the Babylonian captivity. She was no longer recognized as a goddess within Judaism.

Many clerics speculate about the cause of Aroden’s _____________ and eventual death.

I can think of one option. The OED attests undeify, but undeification is unattested in dictionaries I consulted and very rare (about 100 results on Google), so I’d prefer something more common if possible.

4 Answers

demotion

is a term which has seen use when describing vertical changes in corporate structure since at least the 1880s. It has also seen usage when discussing goddesses (such as Asherah) and their loss of goddess-hood.

The biblical passages that best illustrate the "demotion" of the goddess Asherah to solely an object can be seen in these passages in the book of Kings in which Asherah is referred to in the singular, together with parallel accounts in Chronicles...

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Congress Volume Cambridge (1995)


Eventually She was seen as a "pole" to be destroyed.

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From the book Mother Goddess and other Goddesses...

...it may be inaccurate for us to credit invading Israelites alone with the demotion and destruction of goddess religion in Canaan.

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More recently...

Many people were disappointed when some historically popular saints were "demoted" some 50 years ago. Saint Christopher, Valentine, and even Nicholas were demoted. It was suggested that at least one of them had never even existed.

Once a Saint, always a Saint--kind of, unless you are demoted.

from this clip at ABCNews

Correct answer by Cascabel on May 31, 2021

You can ‘renounce’ or ‘desanctify’ a former subject of worship.

Demotion is really about downgrading a service rank or a corporate position. It can be applied to a religious figure only as a metaphor.

Answered by user416741 on May 31, 2021

How about "relegate"?

to put someone or something into a lower or less important rank or position:

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/relegate

Answered by paw88789 on May 31, 2021

In a comment, John Lawler said...

Reification

...is a wonderful term that applies here; reify means to re-make, differently. So when shine is made transitive, it's reified and becomes regular: He shined his shoes instead of *He shone his shoes. It's a general term and doesn't just apply to gods.

Lexico defines reification as ...

(formal) (to) Make (something abstract) more concrete or real.

Another term, which gods would not approve of, is repurposing; when Terry Pratchett invented the goddess Anoia, currently in charge of things getting stuck in drawers, he noted that she is always pictured smoking a cigarette because she used to be a volcano goddess, but she's been...

repurposed.

Adapt for use in a different purpose.

Answered by Cascabel on May 31, 2021

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