momentary god
English edit
Etymology edit
Calque of German Augenblicksgott, coined by Hermann Usener in his Götternamen in 1896.
Noun edit
momentary god (plural momentary gods)
- A specific phenomenon, such as a lightning bolt, interpreted and experienced as a deity.
- 2018 August 6, Karen Lang, Chaos and Cosmos: On the Image in Aesthetics and Art History, Cornell University Press, →ISBN, page 96:
- Concentrating his attention on the conception of lightning, Usener discovers a transition in the way lightning is conceived: initially experienced as an exclamation in response to a "momentary god"—Zeus originally meant "he who thunders"— […]
References edit
- Kroll, W. (1916) “Momentary gods”, in James Hastings, editor, Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, volume 8, Charles Scribner’s Sons, pages 777–79