This explanation of gods as deified men is known as Euhemerism, from Euhemerus, who broached the theory in the third century, b.c. (supra, 10, note 1); but ‘there were Euhemerists in Greece before Euhemerus’ (Jowett’s Plato, 2. 101). The Fathers very commonly adopt the theory, for which, however, there are very slight grounds. Such cases as those of Antinous and the Emperors, as well as the legends of heroes and demigods, gave it some plausibility (see Döllinger; Gentile and Jew, vol. i. p. 344, Eng. Tr.).