Kathenotheism is a term coined by the

philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also defined as the study of ...

Max Müller Friedrich Max Müller (; 6 December 1823 – 28 October 1900) was a German-born British comparative philologist and oriental studies, Orientalist. He was one of the founders of the Western academic disciplines of Indology and religious s ...

to mean the worship of one

god In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

at a time. It is closely related to

henotheism Henotheism is the worship of a single, supreme god that does not deny the existence or possible existence of other deities that may be worshipped. Friedrich Schelling (1775–1854) coined the word, and Friedrich Welcker (1784–1868) ...

, the worship of one god while not rejecting the existence of other gods. Müller coined the term in reference to the

Vedas FIle:Atharva-Veda samhita page 471 illustration.png, upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the ''Atharvaveda''. The Vedas ( or ; ), sometimes collectively called the Veda, are a large body of relig ...

, where he explained each deity is treated as supreme in turn.

Etymology

Kathenotheism, a more specific form of

, refers to the worship of a succession of supreme gods "one at a time", from the Greek ''kath' hena'' "one by one" + ''

theism Theism is broadly defined as the belief in the existence of at least one deity. In common parlance, or when contrasted with '' deism'', the term often describes the philosophical conception of God that is found in classical theism—or the co ...

''.

Ancient Greece

The ancient Orphic religion had a polytheistic theology. The deities were each distinct individuals that were not equated with one another.

Hinduism

The

Smarta Tradition The ''Smarta'' tradition (, ) is a movement in Hinduism that developed and expanded with the Puranas genre of literature. It reflects a synthesis of four philosophical strands, namely Uttara Mīmāṃsā, Advaita, Yoga, and theism. The Smar ...

of Hinduism worship the five major deities as supreme in turn and collectively.

References

Theism {{religious-philo-stub