ANALES DE HISTORIA ANTIGUA, MEDIEVAL Y MODERNA Volumen 45 - 2012

In religions where God is thought of as being in significant respects what man is not (omniscient, omnipotent, immortal, ineffable, and incorporeal), God’s interest and involvement in the world is demonstrated by the existence of material objects charged with supernatural power by their association with individuals closer to the divine than ordinary men. In this chapter I look at the statues and gifts that came to be associated with gods, and at remains of the heroes who were thought to be unusually close to the gods, and ask how the associations came about.