Anthropol'atry

Anthropol'atry (Gr., 'man-worship'), the worship of man, the giving of divine honours to a human being, a term always employed in reproach. Thus, the early Christians accused the heathens of anthropolatry, because, in their mythology, men were represented as exalted among the gods, although an Apotheosis (q.v.) was in these cases alleged by their worshippers; and the heathens retorted the charge because of the worship of Christ, the reply to which was the assertion of his divinity. But the term is chiefly known in ecclesiastical history as employed by the Apollinarians (see APOLLINARIS; also CHRIST, Vol. III. p. 213) against the orthodox Christians of the 4th and 5th centuries, with reference to the doctrine of the perfect human nature of Christ.