Aidonian's blog

Verily at the first Khaos came to be, but next wide-bosomed Earth, the ever-sure foundations of all the deathless ones who hold the peaks of snowy Olympus, and dim Tartarus in the depth of the wide-pathed Earth, and Eros (Love), fairest among the deathless gods, who unnerves the limbs and overcomes the mind and wise counsels of all gods and all men within them. From Khaos came forth Erebus and Nyx (black Night) but of Night were born Aether and Day, whom she conceived and bare from union in love with Erebus. And Earth first bare starry Heaven, equal to herself, to cover her on every side, and to be an ever-sure abiding-place for the blessed gods. And she brought forth long Hills, graceful haunts of the goddess-Nymphs who dwell amongst the glens of the hills. She bare also the fruitless deep with his raging swell, Pontos, without sweet union of love.

I want to discuss the creation myth of Hellenic polytheism. Its not the only that exists. The Orphics have their version of it, but I’m going with the general one, the one described above.

The story is an example of people trying to come up with a way to how the world came to be. In a time where science was very much in its infancy, people how to come up with other ways to describe how the world came into being. They envisioned that the Gaia was the personification of the Earth, like Ouranos was for the sky, Pontos for the water and seas. Not the oceans mind you. The personification of Night (Nyx) and darkness (Erebos), Eros, who was the embodiment of love (all kinds of love). This meant that Eros is not the son of Aphrodite as later mentioned but that Eros is one of the Protogenoi or First-Born Gods. These were primordial deities who came into our universe with the creation of the universe. Hence Khaos came first. For the ancient Greeks, Khaos meant the void between the air and the heavens and not chaos as we know as disorganised and whatnot. So Khaos is the personification of the universe itself, but not the progenitor of the Gods. They came into our universe on their own, helping to form it further as it is today. The whole term “First-Born Gods” is a misnomer really. The Gods weren’t born per se like ordinary mortals. No, these Gods always existed and came into our universe like they were born in to it to help shape it. These Gods formed the universe and the laws its governed by.

The Gods shaped the universe as it is now. They made the laws that govern it and when They enter the universe, They wil hold themselves to those laws.

I will go into deeper as to how Gods can exist in a world governed by physical laws.

THE CASTRATION OF Ouranos

But afterwards she lay with Heaven and bare deep-swirling Okeanos, Koios and Krios and Hyperion and Iapetos, Theia and Rhea, Themis and Mnemosyne and gold-crowned Phoebe and lovely Tethys. After them was born Kronos the wily, youngest and most terrible of her children, and he hated his lusty sire.

And again, she bare the Cyclopes, overbearing in spirit, Brontes, and Steropes and stubborn-hearted Arges, who gave Zeus the thunder and made the thunderbolt: in all else they were like the gods, but one eye only was set in the midst of their fore-heads. And they were surnamed Cyclopes (Orb-eyed) because one orbed eye was set in their foreheads. Strength and might and craft were in their works.

And again, three other sons were born of Earth and Heaven, great and doughty beyond telling, Kottos and Briareos and Gyes, presumptuous children. From their shoulders sprang an hundred arms, not to be approached, and each had fifty heads upon his shoulders on their strong limbs, and irresistible was the stubborn strength that was in their great forms. For of all the children that were born of Earth and Heaven, these were the most terrible, and they were hated by their own father from the first. And he used to hide them all away in a secret place of Earth so soon as each was born, and would not suffer them to come up into the light: and Heaven rejoiced in his evil doing. But vast Earth groaned within, being straitened, and she made the element of grey flint and shaped a great sickle, and told her plan to her dear sons.

And she spoke, cheering them, while she was vexed in her dear heart: “My children, gotten of a sinful father, if you will obey me, we should punish the vile outrage of your father; for he first thought of doing shameful things.”

So she said; but fear seized them all, and none of them uttered a word. But great Kronos the wily took courage and answered his dear mother: “Mother, I will undertake to do this deed, for I reverence not our father of evil name, for he first thought of doing shameful things.”

So he said: and vast Earth rejoiced greatly in spirit, and set and hid him in an ambush, and put in his hands a jagged sickle, and revealed to him the whole plot.

And Heaven came, bringing on night and longing for love, and he lay about Earth spreading himself full upon her. Then the son from his ambush stretched forth his left hand and in his right took the great long sickle with jagged teeth, and swiftly lopped off his own father’s members and cast them away to fall behind him. And not vainly did they fall from his hand; for all the bloody drops that gushed forth Earth received, and as the seasons moved round she bare the strong Erinyes and the great Giants with gleaming armour, holding long spears in their hands and the Nymphs whom they call Meliae all over the boundless earth. And so soon as he had cut off the members with flint and cast them from the land into the surging sea, they were swept away over the main a long time: and a white foam spread around them from the immortal flesh, and in it there grew a maiden. First she drew near holy Cythera, and from there, afterwards, she came to sea-girt Cyprus, and came forth an awful and lovely goddess, and grass grew up about her beneath her shapely feet. Her gods and men call Aphrodite, and the foam-born goddess and rich-crowned Cytherea, because she grew amid the foam, and Cytherea because she reached Cythera, and Cyprogenes because she was born in billowy Cyprus, and Philommedes because sprang from the members. And with her went Eros, and comely Desire followed her at her birth at the first and as she went into the assembly of the gods. This honour she has from the beginning, and this is the portion allotted to her amongst men and undying gods, — the whisperings of maidens and smiles and deceits with sweet delight and love and graciousness.

But these sons whom be begot himself great Heaven used to call Titans (Strainers) in reproach, for he said that they strained and did presumptuously a fearful deed, and that vengeance for it would come afterward

Here Eros is mentioned again as associate of Aphrodite. Since here is the first mention of Aphrodite coming into the world, most likely mean -in my humble opinion- that Eros prepared the world for the arrival of the Goddess Aphrodite. What the myth of the Castration of Ouranos tells us that the mantle of leadership has been passed down from the protogenoi to the Titans and that the second generation of Gods has come to rule, preparing the way for other Gods to emerge like Aphrodite, the Erinyes. There is a common theme where the youngest son takes on his opressing father, defeats him and takes on the mantle of King of the Gods. Kronos did it with Ouranos and Zeus did with Kronos. When the Titans came, it was needed. They created life. They made it possible for life to exist and to evolve. And when life evolved, so did the Gods and the Titans were replaced by the Olympian Gods.To be honest, at the moment im believe whether or not, the Protogenoi evolved into the Titans and the Titans into the Olympian Gods because that would assume that They aren’t seperated deities which I do tend to believe. The Protogenoi, Titans, Olympians, Khthonic deities are seperate groups of deities. Each group are instrumental for the creation and giving form of the universe we now live in. Like i said earlier. The Gods created the physical laws that govern our universe and are bound by them when they enter our universe. By doing that, they reveal that they favor order over chaos. When they enter our universe, they bound themselves to the physical laws that they installed so to not disrupt the natural order. A God who enters our universe and disregards the laws of nature is not a good thing to do on a cosmic scale. Who knows if it might lead to unforeseen consequences that the God in question will have to rectify in order for the universe stay as it is. So the big question.

How can the Gods exist in a universe bound by physical laws?

Well the Gods exist outside the universe, but they did gave form and helped evolve our universe and created the laws to make it possible so the new universe could expand and evolve into the state it is now. I for one, see the handywork of the Gods everywhere i look in this world, in the cosmos. There is something divine about our universe and I don’t mean that our universe is a divine being, but that its a divine creation, created by the Gods. I see something divine in a beautiful sunset or sunrise, in the night, the sun, the Earth, nature itself. I admit, it is not an easy question to answer. The physical universe can be explored and tested, the Theoi is another matter. Its more subjective than objective like with the universe.