Apotheosis (pronounced formerly Apothe'osis, now Apotheo'sis; from Gr. theos, 'a god'), deification, or the raising of a mortal to the rank of a god. It is a process quite consistent with primitive philosophy, as it is only a particular case of spirit-worship and of ancestor-worship—a special application of the animistic principle. The belief in the immortality of the dead is at once its cause and the condition of its being granted. As the logical corollary to the worship of ancestors, it has been an important factor in religions, though the simplicity of its origin has often been obscured by the accretions of the mythical. The honours paid to the Chinese philosopher Confucius—the principal part for more than two thousand years of the religion of the educated in the Celestial Empire—present the only example of a pure apotheosis, without any admixture of mythological elements. The process is still seen going on among many Indian tribes, as in the case in South India of that departed English officer who continues, as in life, to be appeased with offerings of cheroots and brandy. Apotheosis has had greater influence on political order than on religious conceptions. It has been the instrument of theocracy and of monarchy, the foundation of the divine right of kings. Born of the worship of the dead, it rapidly degenerated into the adoration of the living. Once the survival of the soul was admitted, nothing appeared more natural than to anticipate its future divinity.
Over all the world, sorcerers, chiefs, kings, and conquerors have turned to account this logical consequence of animism. The Peruvian of Pizarro's time, the Chinese, the Japanese, have their sacred kings, sons of the sun or moon. In Egypt, the Pharaohs and the Ptolemies took their place at the same moment on the throne and on the altar. Lysander, the conqueror of Athens, was worshipped in Asia Minor; Alexander declared himself the son of Ammon, and insisted at last on the same honours as were due to his divine parent. At Rome, the apotheosis of the Æneas of fable, and of the legendary Romulus, was but the prelude to that of Caesar. Augustus in his turn became a god; while declining the adulations of the senate, he let himself be deified everywhere except at Rome. In every kingdom temples sprang from the ground, and colleges of priests were instituted for the service of the new deity, whose praises were chanted in unison by Virgil, Horace, and Ovid. Nor was sincerity wanting to that enthusiasm. At the end of frightful civil wars, the world hailed the era of peace. Augustus was quick to see the political advantage of this universal idolatry. It linked the whole empire together, the sacred person of the emperor becoming the guarantee for all its institutions. The cult was assiduously spread, and when once it was linked to the fundamental worship of mankind, that of ancestors, manes, lares—the most tenacious form of animism, particularly dear to the Romans—it proved too strong even to be weakened by the vices and folly of a Caligula or a Nero, or the outrage of an imperial decree requiring divine worship also for a Poppæa or an Antinous. An analogy has been pointed out between apotheosis and the canonisation decreed by Christian pontiffs; and traces of the Roman usage survive in the inveterate notion in the monarchies that grew out of the ruins of the old Roman empire, of the 'divinity that doth hedge a king.' It was not alone in the 'Holy Roman Empire,' which claimed for itself the proud descent of the old Roman power, that this special sanctity was supposed to exist; but by a kind of partial apotheosis it was connected with every head that wore a crown, by none with more perverse and fatal tenacity than some of the least godlike of our English kings.