I am going to dispute this, with some deference. You’re right about a lot of cases being mere mortals (although they tended to be pretty extraordinary mortalsd – LikeHelen of Troy and Perseus and other heroes and heroines and founders of cities). Some were monsters, like Polyphemous the Cyclops, son of Poseidon.
Hercules was, at least at some stage in his mythic existence, seen as partially divine. Not onlyb did Hercules have extreme strength, he was said to have had the mortal parts burnt out of him after that affair with the poisoned cloak, and to now feast with the gods of Olympus. But for all I know, that might be a late addition.
One of the pair of Castor and Pollux was partially divine (the other might not have been, or might be the true son of their nominal mortal father), and he was supposed to be immortal, which is beyond mere human. He evebtually shared this gift with his brother, which was a pretty nice thing to do. Again, for all I know, this might only be a later addition – I’ll have to check. The point is that at least some of the time the Classic myths envisioned the offspring of some giods and mortals as more than human and less than fully divine. That sounds pretty much like a demigod.
This could work, this could work. We just need to allow Gilgamesh to be a time traveler. Say Dad was a god, and Mom was the daughter of a human mother and Gilgamesh himself. (That’s right: he’s his own grampa!)
Both in the cases of Hercules and Pollux (if I remember correctly, he’s the divine twin), they were subjects of apotheosis when they died - during their lives, they were mortals. Obviously it’s almost impossible to state anything as fact in mythology, so I don’t want to imply I’m doing that! This argument is based mostly off of Paul Cartledge’s thesis that the Greeks saw the world as sets of binary opposites - Greek and other, male and female, god and mortal.
It’s definitely true that the heroes were special, and I do think that in some of the versions, they have divine elements. I still think Cartledge has a point and that one could be either mortal or a god, never both at the same time.
Most interesting. I’ve never heard of Paul Cartledge. I’ll have to look tyhis up. Do you know where I can find it?
I’m more than a bit suspicious about a single theory that encompasses all aspects of the myth – The Greek myths were told and depicted over several hundred years and over an area encompassing the entire Mediterranean, even before the Roman Empire came along , and in that time were told and retold by many tellers with different emphases and agendas, and with no central authority to reign in any heretical views. Even if this binary theory held over one region and at one time, there were plenty of other areas to hold different views.
“Demigod” is a useful analytical category which isn’t necessarily a term that the Greeks would have used themselves. (Though I do find “hemitheos” in my Ancient Greek dictionary, I think it’s more literal / genealogical than analytical.) It describes what we know to be the case: people who are related to the gods, of interest to the gods, and although not gods themselves, they are not quite mortal, either. Helen, for example, hatched from an egg, which is a pretty mythological thing to do. Her cousin Penelope, in some traditions, gave birth to Pan after having had all of her suitors while Odysseus was away. That is a case of all-human parents (admittedly a rather large number of them) producing a god. Neither of them meets the conventional definitions of “hero(ine),” but they’re… something. Whether the Greeks had a word for it or not doesn’t prevent us from naming it, especially if we’re going to compare cross-culturally, or even (as CalMeacham points out) within one culture that spans a great deal of time and space.
No, you’d be a Nephil (or Naphil, I’m not sure on the pronunciation), seeing as Nephilim is the plural. Dogma (the movie) screwed this up too. The Metatron should have told Bethany that he’s a Seraph, not a Seraphim.
Wouldn’t it make more sense that the state of being part God works like traditional ancestry does. It’s an inseperable mix of heredity rather than a distinct gene.
When people talk about their own ancestry, they say their descended from multiple nationalities generally.
Or for a literary comparison, take the history of the half-elves in Middle Earth. Both Eärendil (who had an elven mother and human father) and Elwing (who had a half-human, quarter maia, quarter elven father and an elven mother) were termed as half-elves. And both their children (Elrond and Elros) were also termed as half-elves, though at that point half-elves were given the choice to have their fates entwined with those of humanity (as Elros did) or with those of the Elves (as Elrond did). The Rangers lived as long as they did because they still have a considerable amount of elven blood in them.
So I say that two demigods having children are going to have nothing but demigod children if godhood is determined by blood alone. In the case of a hemisemidemigod, we have a god who mates with a mortal which produces an offspring who mates with a mortal and produces another offspring who mates with a mortal who produces another offspring.
I thought their life was extended as a result of being on Númenor, which was far enough west that they had influence from the undying lands (as well as for a while the blessings of the Valar).
Not necessarily. If we insist on a single god-gene, then it’s possible that many gods have only a single copy of the gene. This would account for some offspring of gods and mortals to be gods, while others are mortal. Then again, it would also allow for some offspring of two gods to be mortal, which I don’t think is attested in the literature. I think the best model would be multiple god-genes at different loci, which would allow for both full gods, demigods, and extraordinary though not quite divine mortals.
