Claims of divine status by leaders of religious movements have occurred across cultures and eras. Pinpointing the “first documented” case is inherently difficult: records are uneven, earlier claims may be lost, and later chroniclers often wrote with polemical aims. Historians therefore treat early examples cautiously, noting both the evidence and its limits. Among well-documented early instances within the Christian world are leaders associated with the Paulicians, a movement that emerged in the Byzantine East in the 7th–9th centuries. Contemporary and near-contemporary Byzantine and Armenian sources describe Paulician communities as rejecting established ecclesiastical structures and embracing dualistic and anti-clerical doctrines. Some later hostile accounts depict certain Paulician leaders—most notably a figure often identified in sources as a charismatic head in the 9th century—as being venerated by followers in ways that approached claims of divine authority or special, godly status. These descriptions come primarily from polemical texts produced by opponents (imperial chroniclers, ecclesiastical writers) and from later Armenian histories. Because surviving sources are written by adversaries, they may overstate heretical innovations or ascribe theological positions in order to justify suppression. Beyond the Paulicians, other early examples often cited by scholars include certain Gnostic and dualist sect leaders in late antiquity (2nd–4th centuries). Gnostic literature—some of it preserved in texts like the Nag Hammadi library—presents figures who claim special revelatory authority or possession of divine knowledge. However, many Gnostic texts are theological or mythic in nature rather than straightforward historical reportage about a living leader claiming literal divinity; the distinction between asserting divine nature, claiming divine insight, or presenting oneself as a revealer of hidden knowledge can be subtle and contested. In the Islamic world, claims by charismatic figures to prophetic or messianic status appear in early centuries as well; again, contemporary responses and later histories provide much of the evidence, making interpretation complex. Similarly, in South and East Asian contexts, ascetic leaders and gurus sometimes received deified status within their followings, but documentary dating and interpretation vary. Because of the fragmentary and polemical nature of early sources, scholars prefer to identify specific, well-documented cases within particular traditions rather than claim a single global “first.” The 9th-century Paulician leader is frequently mentioned in secondary literature as an early, relatively well-documented instance in Byzantine sources of a communal leader being treated by followers in quasi-divine terms, but historians emphasize that this characterization rests on hostile accounts and that earlier or contemporaneous movements may have contained comparable examples. In sum, while the 9th-century Paulicians represent a cautious candidate in the Christian-Byzantine record for an early documented case of a leader being presented in divine terms, definitive claims about the very first documented occurrence globally are not supportable given surviving evidence. Scholars recommend treating each case on its documentary merits and acknowledging the biases and gaps in the sources.