All-Father

alternative Allfather

1. The chief god of a pantheon.
2. GermanicNorsehuman sciencesOdin.

plural All-Fathers · alternative Allfather

1. A supreme being; a god who rules over all others.

   The Arunta totemic system could not coexist with an All-Father.

   2010, Harold W. Montzka, The Separation of Heaven and Earth

   2 more examples

   Our first lesson is that God is a Father ; the second, that He is an All-Father ; that His Fatherhood is a fact in which others, without any limit perceptible to us, have an equal share with ourselves.

   1891, Philip Hankinson Newnham, The All-father: Sermons Preached in a Village Church, page 27

   At a primitive stage this is sometimes (e.g. with the Australians) scarcely regarded as communion with a specific divinity or divinities, yet the All-Fathers and the mythical beings fill an important rôle in these rites, while at a more developed stage the rites have a close connexion with chthonic or heavenly powers.

   1913, James Hastings, John Alexander Selbie, Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, page 737