Capítulo 7 de la "La rama dorada" [Dioses humanos encarnados.] por Sir James George Frazer [1922]

"La noción de un hombre-dios, o de un ser humano dotado de poderes divinos o sobrenaturales, pertenece esencialmente a ese período anterior de la historia religiosa en el que los dioses y los hombres todavía son vistos como seres del mismo orden, y antes de que se dividan por el abismo infranqueable que, para el pensamiento posterior, se abre entre ellos. Por extraño que nos parezca la idea de un dios encarnado en forma humana, no tiene nada de sorprendente para el hombre primitivo, que ve en un hombre-dios o en un dios-hombre sólo un grado superior de la misma naturaleza sobrenatural,poderes que se arroga de perfecta buena fe.

Tampoco establece una distinción muy clara entre un dios y un hechicero poderoso.

Sus dioses son a menudo simplemente magos invisibles que detrás del velo de la naturaleza realizan el mismo tipo de hechizos y encantamientos que el mago humano realiza en forma visible y corporal entre sus compañeros. Y como se cree comúnmente que los dioses se exhiben a semejanza de los hombres con sus adoradores, es fácil para el mago, con sus supuestos poderes milagrosos, adquirir la reputación de ser una deidad encarnada.

_________________________________

The notion of a man-god, or of a human being endowed with divine or supernatural powers, belongs essentially to that earlier period of religious history in which gods and men are still viewed as beings of much the same order, and before they are divided by the impassable gulf which, to later thought, opens out between them. Strange, therefore, as may seem to us the idea of a god incarnate in human form, it has nothing very startling for early man, who sees in a man-god or a god-man only a higher degree of the same supernatural powers which he arrogates in perfect good faith to himself. Nor does he draw any very sharp distinction between a god and a powerful sorcerer.

His gods are often merely invisible magicians who behind the veil of nature work the same sort of charms and incantations which the human magician works in a visible and bodily form among his fellows. And as the gods are commonly believed to exhibit themselves in the likeness of men to their worshipers, it is easy for the magician, with his supposed miraculous powers, to acquire the reputation of being an incarnate deity.

-Chapter 7. Incarnate Human Gods.

"The Golden Bough

by Sir James George Frazer

[1922]