My research explores how early Greek literature developed a religious ideal of heroic sanctity, centred on purity, eschatology, and divine likeness. I argue that the figure later known as the theios anēr (‘divine man’) has deep roots in Hesiodic, Pindaric, Pythagorean, Orphic, and Platonic thought, where moral transformation and knowledge of the soul replaced martial glory and heroic renown as the path to a blessed afterlife. This project recovers a parallel tradition of Greek heroism grounded not in fame, but in holiness.
