Cosmology Cosmogony and Theogony
Though the meanings of these three words differ slightly etymologically, in the context of religion and mythology, they’re practically synonymous, so I’m going to use them interchangeably. We could, more simply, call them Creation Myths.
We’re used to thinking of cosmology in a context of modern astronomy and physics as the study of the origins and evolution of the universe. This points us in a direction for what we mean when we talk about cosmology in the context of myth and religion, but there are differences. Religious/mythological cosmogonies are different in that they ask different sorts of questions: Their starting point is the world as it exists today and asks questions like “How did it take on the form that it now has? What was it like before? What is the nature and destiny of humanity? How do we fit into this world? Is there a life after death?”
For this week we read three different account: Apollodorus, Hesiod, and Ovid. And each presents a different point of view.
Again, just to emphasize what we’re getting in Apollodorus: We don’t know a thing about him, but he’s a 1st or 2nd century AD/CE writer who had access to and read a number of sources for Greek myth – some of which we have and many of which no longer exist. In his re-tellings of the myths he tries to synthesize as much of the material as he has into a cohesive narrative. He’s not a scintillating storyteller, but what makes him interesting (to me at least) is that we sometimes get some bizarre details that don’t know about from any other source.
We’re mostly going to focus on Hesiod. Apollodorus will be mostly incidental, and then we’ll compare Ovid’s Creation account.
Since Hesiod’s work is called Theogony (The Birth of the Gods), let me just start with a few comments about these Greek gods and their nature. If you approach them from the standpoint of what we tend to think of as God, you’ll probably be a little disappointed in them. Those of us who believe in a god, typically believe in one god. Most of us think of this god as transcendent, all-knowing, all-powerful, and often omni-present (however intrusive that might be). We don’t tend to attribute physical form to him/her.
The ancient Greeks had plenty of gods. It’s a polytheistic world. In our typically monotheistic world, even if you’re an atheist, you disbelieve in one god, not a whole colony of them. These gods are not transcendent – they are born into and inhabit the world. They don’t, for instance, create the cosmos and watch it run like a perfect swiss watch.
They stand somewhere between anthropomorphic – that is, having essentially human form and characteristics and being forces in nature. Notice that as they are forces in nature, it’s might be a bit more difficult for an ancient Greek to be an atheist. Say, for instance, Zeus is not only the king of the gods but he’s the personification of lightning. It sounds a little weird to us to ask: Do you believe in lightning? But as anthropomorphic creatures, they have the same sorts of limitations that we do. They are more powerful than us, but they’re not all-powerful. They can’t be everywhere at once (even though they can move very fast – Homer describes Athena as moving at the speed of thought). They have the same sense limitations as we do. So, if you make faces or rude gestures at Poseidon behind his back, unless he’s looking in a mirror, you’re not likely to be killed by him.
And, being anthropomorphic, they have the full range of human emotion – they get angry, jealous, happy, etc. The biggest, most crucial difference between the gods and us is that they live forever, and we don’t.
So…back to theogonies.
In a way, it makes sense to study creation myths at the end of a myth course because cosmologies typically come into existence after everything is established. So, for instance, in the Hebrew Bible, Genesis is placed first – it’s not even close to being the earliest book of the Bible, but it provides a cosmic framework for understanding the Books that are placed after it.
Because cosmologies try to impose organization on the world, they provide a sort of meaningful map to explain that however chaotic the world might seem, there is an order, and that order helps us to find our place in the universe – to know which paths lie open to us and which do not.
So, despite not having chronological priority, it makes some sense to begin here because it allows us to understand the way other myths work.
So: Hesiod.
He’s probably composing around the year 700. He stands at the end of a long oral tradition and the beginning of a new age that begins to make use of writing to preserve texts. We don’t know anything about the works of his Greek predecessors (though they clearly existed – since he tells us that their accounts are false and that his is the true account) but we know some of the creation myths of various peoples of the Near East – and these show a strong influence on Hesiod’s poetry. What we don’t know for certain is whether these stories made their way into Greece from the Near East during the Mycenaean Age (1600 – 1200 — remember from the Eric Cline video that there was plenty of contact and cultural exchange before the collapse) or after the Dark Age (c. 1000) or both.
Hesiod tells us that before the world and the gods came into existence there was only Chaos (= a gap, empty space). Then there come into existence four primordial deities. In order: Gaia/Ge (Earth), Tartaros (the underworld), Eros (sexual desire), and Night/Darkness.
Since Hesiod’s view of the universe is geocentric, it makes sense that Gaia appears first. If you’ve already studied some Greek mythology, you might find it a bit strange that Eros is one of the primordial deities – and that because elsewhere Eros (Cupid) is the son of Aphrodite. But since almost all the gods and other things that come into existence from now on in his narrative come into being because of sexual unions, it makes sense that sexual desire should have to come to exist sooner rather than later.
Gaia then gives birth to Ouranos (Sky), Pontos (the Mediterranean Sea) and mountains – and we’re quickly on our way to moving toward the world as it currently exists. What do I mean by this? Mythically speaking, the world looks like this early on: picture the earth as a flat plate, there’s a river called Ocean circling this plate, and over the earth there is a dome. That dome is Ouranos. But if you look around, the earth doesn’t look like a flat plate – unless you live in Iowa. So, all of the things that are born afterwards fill out the picture of how the world looks now – mountains, rivers, etc. We’re going to ignore all that here and focus on just a few things. The main thing here is the succession myth – Zeus’s rise to power and how did this happen.
So, Gaia then gives birth to Ouranos and he becomes her mate. All the time. They have 12 kids who are called the Titans. Some of whom continue to fill out the picture of the cosmos as it is now – Sun, Moon, the River Ocean.
Before Ouranos became the dome over the Earth, he was literally lying on top of her. And while conception wasn’t a problem, childbirth was: Ouranos wasn’t allowing the children to be born, or if they were born, he’d just stuff them back into Gaia’s womb. Very reasonably Gaia was getting tired of this activity and she found a way to put a stop to it. She produces a sickle and asks that one of her kids (who are still in utero) take the sickle and castrate Ouranos next time he decides he wants to have sex with her. All the rest are afraid to do so but Kronos steps up and says he’ll do it. And that’s just what happens. And when it does, Ouranos flies up to the sky, putting a respectable distance between him and his wife- as probably any man would. So now he’s up in the sky where we would expect him to be, and he’s also just this inert, powerless god.
Kronos, now takes over as king of the gods, he marries Rhea and they have kids – the Olympian gods – So the first generation of gods are the 12 Titans, the next generation is what will come to be known as the 12 Olympian gods. These are Zeus and his 5 siblings: Hera, Hestia, Demeter, Poseidon, and Hades; But also, six children of Zeus: Apollo & Artemis, Athena, Aphrodite, Hermes, Hephaestus (later Dionysus will replace Hestia in the pantheon).
But like his father, Kronos also has his issues with bad parenting skills. Whenever Rhea bears a child Kronos demands “Hand over the child” and he swallows the child whole. After the fifth time Rhea has had enough of his activities; and when Kronos demands the last child (Zeus) she instead gives him a rock wrapped in swaddling clothes. Kronos doesn’t inspect the contents and swallows the rock. Zeus meanwhile is hidden in a cave on the island Crete and grows up to be big and strong.
Kronos in the meantime, at some point, vomits up the other kids and this younger generation of gods, the Olympians, challenge the older generation of Gods, the Titans, for control of the cosmos. This really comes down to a contest between Zeus and Kronos. Zeus wins and now he becomes king of the gods.
There is a further development later in Hesiod’s narrative. After Zeus is firmly in power, Gaia produces a monster called Typhoeus with the intention of overthrowing Zeus – but this fails – and at that point, Zeus is then king of the gods for all time. Btw. Just as the Succession myth, where we go from Ouranos to Kronos to Zeus, the story of Typhoeus is also a borrowing from the Near East.
One thing we want to do in this course is to recognize mythological patterns and developments. So, a few things to point out here.
- The direction of cosmic evolution is from physical (Gaia, Ouranos, rivers, mountains, and such) to human – Zeus, his siblings and their children are fully anthropomorphic – human in their form and nature but with control over natural forces.
- Often in Greek myth, there’s a male fear of women’s deviousness. Men are susceptible to women’s plotting. Both Ouranos and Kronos are victims of female trickery/treachery.
- In highly patriarchal societies tensions between fathers and sons are exacerbated. This might find expression in a father’s fear of being replaced by the son; or maybe his effort to keep that from happening; or of sons trying to supplant his father.
- Hesiod offers a movement from the earlier gods (Ouranos, Kronos) trying to get their way by the use of force to Zeus’s success because he establishes political alliances (with the Cyclopes and the Hundred Handers) and by relying more on intelligence (implied in his swallowing of the goddess Metis – though this is a behavior he seems to have learned from his father.
Ovid
With Ovid, we are in a different world. Ovid is a Roman poet living about 700 years after Hesiod. Rome in his time is a very literate culture and he assumes a highly literate readership – one that is familiar with earlier versions of his stories and will recognized how Ovid is very self-consciously reworking the myths he’s treating. Just a few points:
- Where Hesiod was interested in talking about how the gods came into being, Ovid assumes that the gods are already in existence. He is interested in offering a handful of possibilities for how the world came into existence but without committing to any one of them – he’s just telling his audience, oh yeah, I read this version, and this version, and this one too. Among them he offers scientific theories of creation: Maybe the world was created from the four elements (a theory of early Greek philosophers of the 6th century BCE. Or maybe it was the result of discordant atoms colliding (the Atomic theory of Democritus – 5th century BCE, and later renewed by later Greek and Roman thinkers). Then he offers some theological explanations: Maybe there was a creator god who existed outside of nature? Maybe nature herself created this.
- Hesiod doesn’t care about the creation of man (the creation of women is a different matter); in Ovid’s account the creation of humanity is the culmination of the development of the cosmos. In Hesiod Prometheus is just a benefactor of mankind who ultimately makes a muck of things. In Ovid’s account Prometheus is the creator of humanity.