Group

Polytheism

Creed Defunct 6000 BCE – 1251 CE

Polytheism is the belief in multiple deities, usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses with their own mythologies and rituals. Most polytheistic systems, though, were less beliefs one held than cults one performed: Roman religion asked for correct sacrifice, not assent.

Polytheistic systems are the predominant form in the Bronze and Iron Age record, and persist in many regions long after monotheistic and pantheistic systems emerge elsewhere. They are well documented in the religions of Classical Antiquity, particularly Greek and Roman, and in the pre-Christian religions of Europe such as the Germanic and Slavic.

Polytheism is a type of theism, contrasting within theism with monotheism, the belief in a singular God.

Polytheists do not always worship all the gods equally. Henotheists specialize in the worship of one particular deity — a pattern visible in the Rigvedic hymns, where whichever god is addressed is momentarily supreme. Kathenotheists worship different deities at different times, following festival calendars in which the deity in view rotates by season.

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Moran, J. (n.d.). Polytheism. History Atlas. Retrieved 8 October 2026, from https://www.historyatlas.com/groups/polytheism/

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