Such authority must be superhuman, otherwise it can have no claim on our respect; it must, therefore, be divine.
In 1877 appeared the second series of La Legende des siecles; and in the same year the author of that colossal work, treating no less of superhuman than of human things, gave us the loveliest and most various book of song on the loveliest and simplest of subjects ever given to man, L' Art d'être grandpere.
Though naturally passionate, Matthias's self-control was almost superhuman, and throughout his stormy life, with his innumerable experiences of ingratitude and treachery, he never was guilty of a single cruel or vindictive action.
However this may be, remnants of their primitive superhuman qualities cling to the Celtic heroes long after they have been transfigured, under the influence of Christianity and chivalry, into the heroes of the medieval Arthurian romance, types - for the most part - of the knightly virtues as these were conceived by the middle ages; while shadowy memories of early myths live on, strangely disguised, in certain of the episodes repeated uncritically by the medieval poets.
In connexion with this attribution of superhuman powers, we may mention also the widespread belief that certain persons had the faculty of " changing shape," and especially of assuming the forms of animals.
DEMONOLOGY (DaL j ow, demon, genius, spirit), the branch of the science of religions which relates to superhuman beings which are not gods.
Speaking generally, the Celtic heroes are differentiated from the Teutonic by the extreme exaggeration of their superhuman, or rather extra-human, qualities.
In polytheism the grades of superhuman beings are continuous; but in monotheism there is a sharp distinction of kind, as well as degree, between God on the one hand, and all other superhuman beings on the other; the latter are the " angels."
1356, Devon's Issues of the Exchequer, 163) and of the king's forests, this carrier of rolls and paymaster at the exchequer, was also the architect of Windsor and Queenborough Castles, of Winchester Cathedral and College, is to credit Wykeham with a superhuman combination of knowledge, of training and of functions.
It cannot be denied that in the later Avesta, and still more in writings of more recent date, he is presented in a legendary light and endowed with superhuman powers.
Simon to his numerous assembly of disciples on the form of the Deity and on pneumatology; (10) " The Young Man," discourses by young men of superhuman origin on the mysteries of ablutions; and (I I) " The Small Assembly," containing the discourses on the Sephiroth which R.
High, and strewn (about 500 acres) with great rocks and ridges of brightly coloured sandstone, whose grotesque shapes and fantastic arrangement have suggested a playground of superhuman beings.
Worship of beings in human form, but of superhuman power and half-ethical nature.
This view is now generally abandoned; for it is recognized that acts of superhuman power, even if established by adequate historical evidence, do not necessarily certify their divine origin.
That his characteristic is for the most part an almost superhuman cleverness rather than positive genius is also true.
Superhuman qualities and powers, too, are commonly ascribed to both, an important difference, however, being that whatever worship may have been paid to the Teutonic heroes never crystallized into a cult.
The primary attitude of man to the numina seems clearly to be one of fear, which survives prominently in the "impish" character of certain of the spirits of the countryside, such as Faunus and Inuus, and is always seen in the underlying conception of religio, a sense of awe in the presence of a superhuman power.
Hence they came to be used collectively of superhuman beings, distinct from Yahweh, and therefore inferior, and ultimately subordinate.'
Thus the pre-exilic literature, as we now have it, has little to say about angels or about superhuman beings other than Yahweh and manifestations of Yahweh; the pre-exilic prophets hardly mention angels.
Towards the end of the 3rd and during the 4th century, as a result of the orientalizing of the Imperial court by Diocletian, it became customary to celebrate as a matter of course the superhuman virtues and achievements of the reigning emperor.
In the spring of 323 he moved down to Babylon, receiving on the way embassies from lands as far as the confines of the known world, for the eyes of all nations were now turned with fear or wonder to the figure which had appeared with so superhuman an effect upon the world's stage.
He was represented as a warrior performing superhuman feats, as a ruler dispensing perfect justice, and even as a martyr suffering for the faith.
There are, however, a few passages which speak of subordinate superhuman beings other than the Mal'akh Yahweh or Elohim.
Adherents of the Yoga philosophy and the system of ascetic practices enjoined by it with the view of mental abstraction and the supposed attainment of superhuman powers - practices which, when not merely pretended, but rigidly carried out, are only too apt to produce vacuity of mind and wild fits of frenzy.
This action, which really broke the back of the rebellion, was bitterly denounced by some of his fellow conspirators, who even ascribed their misfortunes to his insane belief in his own superhuman powers.
Deus, applied to all those superhuman beings of the heathen mythologies who exercise power over nature and man and are often identified with some particular sphere of activity; and also to the visible material objects, whether an image of the supernatural being or a tree, pillar, &c. used as a symbol, an idol.
Circles; but in the prophets the hosts are clearly superhuman powers.
ANGEL, a general term denoting a subordinate superhuman being in monotheistic religions, e.g.
L5 Nevertheless we may well suppose that the popular religion of ancient Israel had much to say of superhuman beings other than Yahweh, but that the inspired writers have mostly suppressed references to them as unedifying.
Here Elisha appears as the head of the prophetic gilds, having his fixed residence at Gilga1.4 Another circle, which presupposes the accession of the house of Jehu, places him at Dothan or Carmel, and represents him as a personage of almost superhuman dignity.
"The Beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit" and, surrounded by a mighty host of nations, slays the "two witnesses" in Jerusalem, is the entirely superhuman Jewish conception of Antichrist.
The counsels of his friend Abul Fazl, coinciding with that sense of superhuman omnipotence which is bred of despotic power, led him at last to promulgate a new state religion, based upon natural theology, and comprising the best practices of all known creeds.
A special feature of the Sakti cult is the use of obscure Vedic mantras, often changed so as to be quite meaningless and on that very account deemed the more efficacious for the acquisition of superhuman powers; as well as of mystic letters and syllables called bija (germ), of magic circles (chakra) and diagrams (yantra), and of amulets of various materials inscribed with formulae of fancied mysterious import.
4 Christianity has, in like manner, in the course of its long and eventful history, admitted numerous agencies within the sphere of superhuman causation.
The popular belief in gods was attributed by Democritus to the desire to explain extraordinary phenomena (thunder, lightning, earthquakes) by reference to superhuman agency.
Philosophy seeking knowledge for its own sake; morality, manifested in the sense of truth, right, and virtue; and religion, the belief in and communion with superhuman powers ruling and pervading the universe, are human characters, of which it is instructive to trace, if possible, the earliest symptoms in the lower animals, but which can there show at most only faint and rudimentary signs of their wondrous development in mankind.
Of Ecce Homo.) Nor did so superhuman a claim crush him, or deprive his soul of its balance.
Seemed so superhuman as during these awful days.
But Lysander's boundless influence and ambition, and the superhuman honours paid him, roused the jealousy of the kings and the ephors, and, on being accused by the Persian satrap Pharnabazus, he was recalled to Sparta.
The Messiah, as all Jews conceived of Him, was a superhuman being; and His First Coming as a man among men did not count as really Messianic. The whole first generation of Christians looked intently for His Coming in power and great glory, which they believed to be near at hand.
For only thus can we explain how his figure acquires numerous superhuman and ghostly traits, which cannot be explained by any particular historical phenomenon on which it may have been based.
Three years afterwards the same theme was rehandled with no less magnificent mastery in L'Homme qui rit; the theme of human heroism confronted with the superhuman tyranny of blind and unimaginable chance, overpowered and unbroken, defeated and invincible.
Without that degree of mental development and activity which perceives the necessity of superhuman creative power, no explanation of natural phenomena is possible.
The seraphim, superhuman beings with six wings, appear as the attendants of Yahweh.
Has already become superhuman, when in Dan.
