Odin was Allfather. Veleda addresses Floris as:
"'Niaerdh... All-Mother...'" (14, A.D. 43, p. 592)
This, more than anything else, demonstrates that this prophetess is promoting her goddess to the highest position.
Ulstrup says:
"'...she is making her goddess into a being at least as powerful, as...cosmic...as any.'" (11, A.D. 49, p. 561)
Floris says that Veleda's new religion:
"'...would not become monotheistic or anything like that. But this goddess would be the supreme figure, around whom everything gathered.'" (p. 568)
But that is one kind of monotheism. There are two routes from polytheism to monotheism -
the Hebrew route: there is only one god;
the Hindu route: all gods are one.
If Niaerdh becomes supreme and if everything else gathers around her, then other gods become her aspects or her subordinates, demoted to angelic/messenger roles: a feminine monotheism, which can be found in Hinduism.
6 comments:
A lot of Classical philosophers "did the Hindu thing" and thought that all the various Gods were emanations of a single thing.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I have to disagree with those philosophers because I believe God used the Jews to reveal that only one God exist/can exist. A process culminating with the Incarnation of Christ.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: different roads to the same conclusion.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I partially agree, it is possible for philosophers to reason their way to belief in a single transcendent God. But it still took divine intervention, thru Judaism/Christianity, to make that a living faith.
The closest non-Judaeo-Christian analog I can think of being Zoroastrianism, which, tho' technically dualist, was functionally monotheistic. Zoroastrians believe only Ahura Mazda should be worshiped, not the evil god Ahriman.
Ad astra! Sean
You can be a monotheistic Hindu, or for that matter Shintoist. Shinto is a good analogue for Classical paganism, btw. It's a development of animism.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I don't disagree at all that there are people who are philosophical monotheists. But that is not the same as them being adherents of monotheistic faiths.
Ad astra! Sean
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