Greek primordial deities

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Greek deities
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Primordial deities
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In Greek mythology, the primordial deities, are the first gods and goddesses born from the void of Chaos. Hesiod's first (after Chaos) are Gaia, Tartarus, Eros, Erebus, Hemera and Nyx. The primordial deities Gaia and Uranus give birth to the Titans, and the Cyclopes. The Titans Cronus and Rhea give birth to Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Hestia, Hera and Demeter who overthrew the Titans. The warring of the gods ends with the reign of Zeus.

Hesiod's primordial genealogy[edit]

Hesiod's Theogony (c. 700 BC) tells the story of the genesis of the gods. After invoking the Muses (II.1–116), he tells of the generation of the first four primordial deities:

"First Chaos came to be, but next... Earth... and dim Tartarus in the depth of the... Earth, and Eros..."[1]

According to Hesiod, the next primordial gods that come to be are:

Genealogical tree[edit]

Other sources[edit]

Chaos[edit]

In some variations of Hesiod's creation myth, in Greek mythology, Chaos is the first being to ever exist. Chaos is both seen as a deity and a thing, with some sources seeing chaos as the gap between Heaven and Earth.[2] In some accounts Chaos existed first alongside Eros and Nyx,[2] while in others Chaos is the first and only thing in the universe. In some stories, Chaos is seen as existing beneath Tartarus.[2] Chaos is the parent to Night and Darkness, although Chaos is never given a distinct gender.[3]

Gaia[edit]

Gaia was one of the first beings to be formed from Chaos in Hesiod's theogony, and parthenogenetically gave birth to Heaven, who would later become her husband and her equal, the Sea, and to the high Mountains[4]

Gaia is a mother earth figure and is seen as the mother of all the gods, while also being the seat on which they exist.[2] Gaia is the Greek Equivalent to the Roman goddess, Terra. The story of Uranus' castration at the hands of Cronus due to Gaia's involvement is seen as the explanation for why Heaven and Earth are separated.[5] In Hesiod's story, Earth seeks revenge against Heaven for hiding her children the Cyclopes deep within her, Gaia then goes to her other children and asks for their help to get revenge against their cruel father; of her children, only Cronus, the youngest and "most dreadful" of them all agrees to do this. Gaia plans an ambush against Uranus where she hides Cronus and gives him the sickle to castrate him. From the blood Gaia again become pregnant with the Furies, the Giants, and the Melian nymphs.[6] Cronus goes on to have six children with his sister, Rhea; who become the Olympians. Cronus is later overthrown by his son, Zeus, much in the same way he overthrew his father. Gaia is the mother to the twelve Titans; Okeanus, Kois, Kreios, Hyperion, Iapetos, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoibe, Tethys, and Cronus.[3]

Later in the myth, after his succession, Cronus learns from his mother and father that his own son (Zeus) will overthrow him, as he did Uranus. To prevent this, Cronus swallowed all of his children with his sister Rhea as soon as they were born. Rhea sought out Gaia for help in hiding her youngest son, Zeus, and gave Cronus a rock instead to swallow. Zeus later went on to defeat his father and become the leader of the Olympians.

After Zeus's succession to the throne, Gaia bore another son with Tartarus, Typhon, a monster who would be the last to challenge Zeus's authority.[6]

Heaven and Earth have three sets of children[4]

Nyx[edit]

Nyx (Night) is the mother of the Moirai (The Fates) and many other offspring. In some variations of Hesiod's Theogony, Nyx is told as having black wings; and in one tale she laid an egg in Erebus from which Love sprang out.[7] With Erebus (Darkness) she has Aether and Hemera, both embodying the antithesis of their parents.[8] However, the children Nyx has through parthenogenesis reflect the dark aspects of the goddess.[8] One version of Hesiod's tale tells that Night shares her house with Day in Tartarus, but that the two are never home at the same time.[9] However, in some versions Nyx's home is where Chaos and Tartarus meet, suggesting to the idea that Chaos resides beneath Tartarus.[5]

Children of Nyx[edit]

The three fates are:[4]

Other offspring of Nyx through parthenogenesis include:[4]

Eros[edit]

Eros is the god of love in Greek mythology, and in some versions of Greek mythology, is one of the primordial beings that first came from Chaos. In Hesiod's version, Eros was the "fairest among the immortal gods... who conquers the mind and sensible thoughts of all gods and men."[3]

Tartarus[edit]

Tartarus is described by Hesiod as both a primordial deity and also a great abyss where the Titans are imprisoned. Tartarus is seen as a prison, but is also where Day, Night, Sleep and Death dwell, and also imagined as a great gorge that's a distinct part of the underworld. Hesiod tells that it took ten days for the Titans to fall to the bottom of Tartarus, describing how deep the abyss is.[9] In some versions Tartarus is described as a "misty darkness"[5] where Death, Styx, and Erebus reside.

Non-Hesiodic theogonies[edit]

The ancient Greeks entertained different versions of the origin of primordial deities. Some of these stories were possibly inherited from the pre-Greek Aegean cultures.[10]

Homeric primordial theogony[edit]

The Iliad, an epic poem attributed to Homer about the Trojan War (an oral tradition of 700 or 600 BC), states that Oceanus (and possibly Tethys, too) is the parent of all the deities.[11]

Other Greek theogonies[edit]

  • Alcman (fl. 7th century BC) made the water-nymph Thetis the first goddess, producing poros (path), tekmor (marker) and skotos (darkness) on the pathless, featureless void.
  • Orphic poetry (c. 530 BC) made Nyx the first principle, Night, and her offspring were many. Also, in the Orphic tradition, Phanes (a mystic Orphic deity of light and procreation, sometimes identified with the Elder Eros) is the original ruler of the universe, who hatched from the cosmic egg.[12]
  • Aristophanes (c. 446 BC – c. 386 BC) wrote in his Birds that Nyx was the first deity also, and that she produced Eros from an egg.

Philosophical theogonies[edit]

Philosophers of Classical Greece also constructed their own metaphysical cosmogonies, with their own primordial deities:

  • Pherecydes of Syros (c. 600 – c. 550 BC) made Chronos (time) the first deity in his Heptamychia.
  • Empedocles (c. 490 – 430 BC) wrote that Philotes ("Love") and Neikos ("Hate") were the first principles, who wove the universe out of the four elements with their powers of love and strife.
  • Plato (c. 428/427 – 348/347 BC) introduced (in Timaeus) the concept of the demiurge, who had modeled the universe on the Ideas.

Interpretation of primordial deities[edit]

Scholars dispute the meaning of the primordial deities in the poems of Homer and Hesiod.[13] Since the primordials give birth to the Titans, and the Titans give birth to the Olympians, one way of interpreting the primordial gods is as the deepest and most fundamental nature of the cosmos.

For example, Jenny Strauss Clay argues that Homer's poetic vision centers on the reign of Zeus, but that Hesiod's vision of the primordials put Zeus and the Olympians in context.[10] Likewise, Vernant argues that the Olympic pantheon is a "system of classification, a particular way of ordering and conceptualizing the universe by distinguishing within it various types of powers and forces."[14] But even before the Olympic pantheon were the Titans and primordial gods. Homer alludes to a more tumultuous past before Zeus was the undisputed King and Father.[15]

Mitchell Miller argues that the first four primordial deities arise in a highly significant relationship. He argues that Chaos represents differentiation, since Chaos differentiates (separates, divides) Tartarus and Earth.[16] Even though Chaos is "first of all" for Hesiod, Miller argues that Tartarus represents the primacy of the undifferentiated, or the unlimited. Since undifferentiation is unthinkable, Chaos is the "first of all" in that he is the first thinkable being. In this way, Chaos (the principle of division) is the natural opposite of Eros (the principle of unification). Earth (light, day, waking, life) is the natural opposite of Tartarus (darkness, night, sleep, death). These four are the parents of all the other Titans.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "The Theogony of Hesiod". www.sacred-texts.com. Retrieved 2016-01-21.
  2. ^ a b c d Bussanich, John (July 1983). "A Theoretical Interpretation of Hesiod's Chaos". Classical Philology. 78 (3): 212–219. doi:10.1086/366783. JSTOR 269431.
  3. ^ a b c Van Kooten, George (2005). Creation of Heaven and Earth. Brill. pp. 77–89.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Gotshalk, Richard (2000). Homer and Hesiod, Myth and Philosophy. Boston Way, Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America. p. 196.
  5. ^ a b c Sale, William (Winter 1965). "The Dual Vision of "Theogony"". Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics. 4 (4): 668–699. JSTOR 20162994.
  6. ^ a b Leftkowitz, Mary R. (September 1989). "The Powers of the Primeval Goddess". American Scholar – via EBSCOhost.
  7. ^ Dietrich, B.C. (1997). "Aspects of Myth and Religion". Classical Association of South Africa. 20: 59–71. JSTOR 24591525.
  8. ^ a b Park, Arum (2014). "Parthenogensis in Hesiods Theogony" (PDF). Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural. 3 (2): 261–283. doi:10.5325/preternature.3.2.0261. hdl:10150/622192. JSTOR 10.5325/preternature.3.2.0261.
  9. ^ a b Johnson, David (Spring–Summer 1999). "Hesiod's Description of Tartarus ("Theogony" 721-819)". Phoenix. 53 (1/2): 8–28. doi:10.2307/1088120. JSTOR 1088120.CS1 maint: date format (link)
  10. ^ a b Clay, Jenny Strauss (2006-05-26). The Politics of Olympus: Form and Meaning in the Major Homeric Hymns (2 ed.). London: Bristol Classical Press. p. 9. ISBN 9781853996924.
  11. ^ Homer, Iliad (Book 14)
  12. ^ Phanes
  13. ^ Nagy, Gregory (1992-01-01). Greek Mythology and Poetics. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0801480485.
  14. ^ Vernant, Jean Pierre (1980-01-01). Myth and Society in Ancient Greece. Harvester Press. ISBN 9780855279837.
  15. ^ "The Internet Classics Archive | The Iliad by Homer". classics.mit.edu. pp. Book I (396–406), Book VIII (477–83). Archived from the original on 2011-07-14. Retrieved 2016-01-21.
  16. ^ "'First of all': On the Semantics and Ethics of Hesiod's Cosmogony - Mitchell Miller - Ancient Philosophy (Philosophy Documentation Center)". www.pdcnet.org. October 2001. doi:10.5840/ancientphil200121244. Retrieved 2016-01-21.

External links[edit]

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