Monotheism and Polytheism

“Monotheism” and “polytheism” are recent words, not older than the 17th century ce, and they have different statuses. Monotheism is a general term for religions that confess to and worship only one god. “One God!” (Heis Tbeos) or “No other gods!” (first commandment)—these are the central mottos of monotheism. The religions subsumed under the term polytheism cannot, how­ ever, be reduced to a single motto of opposite meaning, such as “Many gods!” or “No exclusion of other gods!” On the contrary, the unity or oneness of the divine is an important topic in Egyptian, Babylonian, Indian, Greek, and other polytheistic traditions. Polytheism is simply a less polemical substitute for what monotheistic traditions formerly called “idolatry” and “paganism” (Hebrew ‘aboda zara, Arabic shirk or jahiliya). Whereas monotheism consti­ tutes a self-description of religions subsumed under that term, no such self­ description exists for polytheistic religions. Monotheism asserts its identity by opposing itself to polytheism, whereas no polytheistic religion ever asserted it­ self in contradistinction to monotheism, for the simple reason that polytheism is always the older or “primary” and monotheism the newer or “secondary” type of religion. Monotheism is self-description, polytheism is construction of the other. However, although polytheistic religions include a concept of di­ vine unity, these religions undoubtedly do worship a plethora of gods, which justifies applying a word built on the element poly (many) to them. Unity in this case does not mean the exclusive worship of one god, but the structure and coherence of the divine world, which is not just an accumulation of deities, but a structured whole, a pantheon.