By this term is understood an account of how the universe (cosmos) came into being (gonia - gegona = I have become). It differs from cosmology, or the science of the universe, in this: that the latter aims at understanding the actual composition and governing laws of the universe as it now exists; while the former answers the question as to how it first came to be
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Cosmogony Search: Submit Search Home Encyclopedia Summa Fathers Bible Library A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Home > Catholic Encyclopedia > C > Cosmogony Cosmogony Please help support the mission of New Advent and get the full contents of this website as an instant download. Includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church Fathers, Summa, Bible and more — all for only $19.99... By this term is understood an account of how the universe (cosmos) came into being (gonia — gegona = I have become). It differs from cosmology, or the science of the universe, in this: that the latter aims at understanding the actual composition and governing laws of the universe as it now exists; while the former answers the question as to how it first came to be. The Christian Faith accounts for the origin of the universe by creation ex nihilo of the matter out of which the universe arose, and the preservatio, or maintenance, of Providence according to which it developed into what it now is. Modern science has propounded many theories as to how the primieval gaseous substance evolved into the present harmony of the universe. These theories may be called scientific cosmogonies; and the account of the origin of the world given in Genesis, i and ii, is styled Mosaic cosmogony. The word cosmogony is, however, usually applied to mythic accounts of the world's origin current among the peoples of antiquity and the more modern races which have not been touched by recent scientific methods. In this article the word is understood only in this latter sense. In treating the strange admixture of psuedo-scientific speculations and religious ideas which the human mind, unassisted by revelation, elaborated to account for the existence and harmony of the universe, we are forced at first to follow only the chronological order. The different accounts given of the origin of the heavens and the earth are at first sight so irreconcilable, so fanciful that no other order of treatment seems possible; but an attempt will be made in the conclusion to sum up and systematize the various ideas enumerated, to trace the various lines along which past thought and fancy developed to some great central principles, and thus to show the unity which underlies even this confusing diversity. As modern scholarship seems to suggest the Euphrates valley as the cradle of all civilization, the cosmogonies there in vogue shall be treated first; although Egyptian ideas on this subject can be traced to an antiquity at least as remote as that of the earliest Babylonian cosmogonies known to us. Babylonian Two different Assyro-Babylonian cosmogonies have come down to us. The longer one is known under the name of Creation Epos or "Enuma elish", the words with which it begins. The shorter one is commonly known as the Bilingual Account of creation because, on the fragmentary tablet on which it is written, the Semitic Babylonian is accompanied by a Sumerian version. The creation epos A good summary of this cosmogony had been known since the sixth century of the Christian era, through Damascus (the Athenian neo-Platonist who emigrated to Persia when Justinian suppressed the schools of Athens), as follows: "The Babylonians, passing over in silence the one-principle of the universe, constitute two, Tauthe and Apason, making Apason the husband of Tauthe and calling her the mother of the gods. And from these proceeds an only-begotten son, Moumis, who, I consider, is nought else but the intelligible world proceeding from the two principles. From them another progeny is likewise produced, Dache and Dachos, and also a third, Kisaré and Assoros, from which last three other proceed, Anos, and Illinos, and Aos. And to Aos and Dauke a son is born called Belos of whom they say that he is the creator of the world [demiurgus]."The Assyrian original upon which this summary is based was first discovered and published by G. Smith, in 1875, from seven fragmentary tablets in the British Museum. It has been translated by a number of scholars, and recently (London, 1903), with the addition of numerous fragments, by L. W. King of the same museum. It opens as follows:— When on high the heavens were not uttered, Below the earth bore not yet a name; The ocean primeval was their begetter, Mummu Tiamtu the parent of all of them. Their waters were mixed together in one and Fields not yet marked, marshes not yet seen [?] When of the gods there existed still none None bore any name, the fates [not yet settled] Then came into being the gods [in order?] Lamu and Lahamu went forth [as the first?] Great were the ages . . . . Ansar and Kisar were produced, and over them Long grew the days, there appeared The god Anu, their son . . . The Greek copyist had evidently mistaken LACHOS for DACHOS, but otherwise the two accounts tally exactly; Apason is Apsu the Ocean; Tauthe is Tiamtu, as Assyrian labializes the nasal; Lache and Lachos are likewise Lamu and Lahamu; Kissare, Assoras, Anos, Illinos, and Aos correspond to Kisar and Ansar, Anu, Enlil, and Ea or Ae. Damascius considered Moumis the son of Tiamtu. But in the Babylonian text Mummu seems to have Tiamat in apposition, and the particle muallidati is in the feminine, yet on a later fragment Mummu does figure as the son of Tiamat, and Damascius' statement seems correct. In any case, they began with a double, purely material, principle Apsu and Tiamet, male and female, probably personifying the mass of salt and sweet water "mixed together in one". Out of all these things even the gods arise, their birth is in reality the gradual differentiation of the as yet undifferentiated, undetermined, undivided watery ALL. The meaning of Ansar and Kisar is plain; they are personified ideals: Above and Below. The meaning of Lahmu and Lahamu is not so clear. Popular mythology speaks of the Lahmu as monsters and demons, spirits of evil, and their progeny sides with Tiamat as the mother of chaos; yet on the other hand, they cannot be evil in themselves, for the good gods, Anu, Bel, and Ea, are their children. It has been suggested with great probability that Lahmu and Lahamu are the personifications of Dawn and Twilight. — In the watery chaos, first the light breaks; an above and a below begin to be, and the result is Anu, Bel, and Ea — Sky, Earth, and Water. But this process of development is not to proceed unopposed, nor are the powers (gods) of order peacefully to conquer the power of Chaos. This war is mythologically described in the great Epos. Tiamat creates a brood of monsters to fight on her side, puts Kingu, her husband, at the head, gives him the tablets of fate in his bosom, thereby giving him supreme power. Ea hears of this plot, tells Ansar, his father, who asks Anu to interfere, but in vain. Ea is likewise applied to, but without result. At last Ea's son Marduk, at the request of the gods, becomes their champion and conquers the Dragon of Chaos. Cutting the lifeless body of the dragon in two he makes of the one half the expanse of the heavens, thereby preventing the waters above from coming down; out of the other the earth. He then firmly fixes the stars, arranging the constellations of the zodiac, creates the moon, "sets him as a creature of night, to make known the days monthly without failing". After this Marduk's "heart urged him, and he made cunning plans, and he opened his mouth and said to Ae: "Let me gather my blood and let me [take my] bone, let me set up a man, and let the man . . . let me make then men dwelling . . ." The gods praise Marduk's work and they applaud him with fifty names; each god transferring to Marduk his own function and dignity. Marduk, then, is the real Demiurgus or world-creator, a dignity, however, which was not originally his. The political success of Marduk's city, Babylon, necessitated this god's rise in rank in the Pantheon; this was ingeniously contrived by inventing the legend of all the gods voluntarily ceding their place to him because he had conquered the Dragon of Chaos, Tiamat. This part of the cosmogony, therefore, probably does not date back before 2000 B.C. It is quite likely, however, that some story of a struggle with a monster of evil and disorder is of much greater antiquity. In any case this cosmogony is sharply characterized because in it the cosmos arises out of a struggle between Chaos and Order, good and evil. It must, however, not be forgotten that both good and bad gods alike are the progeny of Apsu and Tiamat. The bilingual creation story The Bilingual Creation Story was found on a tablet in Sippar by Rassam in 1882. It consists of three columns, the central column being Semitic, the first and third being Sumerian, every line and sentence being cut in two by the intervening Semitic version. It is really an incantation, for purification; unfortunately this tablet is mutilated, and the connection of this temple ritual with an account of the origin of the world is not quite clear. At the end of the tablet, a second incantation beings, of which only the words, "The star . . . long chariot of heaven" are left — sufficient to show that these tablets belonged to an astronomical or scientific series. The cosmogony begins, as is usual with cosmogonies, by thinking away all things in the world. It is remarkable that the empty void is expressed by first thinking away civilization, temples, gardens, houses, cities; the ancient cities are even given by name: "Nippur had not been built, E-Kura [its temple] had not been constructed. Erech had not been built, E-ana had not been constructed." The Abyss had not been made; Eridu [the oldest of all cities, once in the Persian Gulf], with its foundation in the deep [the abyss], had not been constructed, the foundation of the house of the gods was not laid — the whole of the lands was sea. When within the sea there was a stream, on that day Eridu was made, Esagila [its temple] constructed — Esagila, which the god Lugalduazaga founded within the abyss — Babylon he built, Esagila [a counterpart of the Esagila of Eridu] was completed. He created the gods; the Anunnaki [tutelary spirits of the earth] created the glorious city together with him. The seat of their heart's journey he proclaimed on high. Marduk bound together a foundation [amu] upon the waters. He made dust and cast it over the foundation, that the gods might sit in a pleasant place. He made mankind. Aruru [the goddess of Sippar] made the seed of mankind with him."Marduk then creates the animals, the plants, the city, the state, Nippur, Erech, and their temples. Lugalduazaga is considered to be another name for Marduk. In the text it is doubtful whether the Anunnaki were created by Marduk or whether they were assistant-creators with Marduk. The latter seems preferable. The meaning of "he bound together a foundation" because of the uncertainty about the word amu. The ancients thought the earth to be like a section of a hollow ball floating on the great waters, convex side upwards. Marduk is here forming his rough skeleton of the earth as a raft on the waters, and he fills it up with soil or clay dust according to the text. This cosmogony is probably not so ancient as that of the Creation Epos, because it makes Marduk sole creator without reference even to Anu or Ea. It is remarkable that man is created before animals and plants, and scholars have not failed to draw attention to a similar statement in Genesis ii, 7-9. Furthermore, the Tigris and the Euphrates are named in this cosmogony: "He made them and set them in their place — well proclaimed he their name.", which also reminds one of the mention of the rivers in the same chapter of Genesis. Some remote connection is of course possible. Egyptian The fundamental ideas of Egyptian cosmogonies can be gathered from the Book of the Dead, chapter xvii, which goes back to the eleventh dynasty (c. 2560 B.C.). Cosmogonic speculations in greater detail can be found in the funeral inscriptions of Seti I, in the Valley of the Dead near Thebes (ca. 1400 B.C.), nor are they wanting in texts on monuments and papyri down to late in the Ptolemaic period. But according to Brugsch, Egyptian thought was but little subject to change even during the scores of centuries and more during which it is known to us. In the beginning there was neither heaven nor earth. Shoreless waters, covered with thick darkness, filled the world-space. These primeval waters are called Nun, and they were said to contain the male and female germs and the beginning of the future world. From the very first there dwelt in this watery proto-matter a divine source or proto-soul which pervaded and penetrated its as yet not differentiated parts. This penetration was so absolute that this soul became almost identical with the matter it pervaded. The divine proto-soul then felt a desire for creative activity and this will, personified as the god Thot, brought the universe into being; whereas the image of the universe had previously formed itself in the eyes of Thot. The word of Thot brought movement into the still watery substance of Nun — movement both conscious and purposeful. Nun now began to differentiate itself — i.e., its qualities became manifest in a cosmogonic ogdoad of deities (four pairs, male and female); Nun and Nunet, Heh and Hehet, Keke and Keket, Nenu and Nenut. Nun and Nunet represent the begetting and bearing Proto-Matter-Soul; Heh and Hehet are rather difficult ideas to grasp, perhaps active and passive infinity would be a good expression. This infinity is mostly conceived in relation to time, and is consequently equivalent to, and often described by the Greek Aion; as infinity of form it resembles Eros. Keke and Keket are the abysmal darkness, the Erebos of the Egyptians. Nenu and Nenut symbolize rest; the two other names or titles of Nenu, Gohr and Hems, embody the same idea — to settle or lie down, to cease from work. Contrary to the Babylonian idea of war with the Dragon of Chaos, tranquility is, in Egypt, a principle of progress. All united, these divinities of the ogdoad form the beginnings and are the fathers and mothers of all things. Pictorially, they are indicated by figures of four men and women; the men carry a frog; the women a serpent's head on their shoulders. The frog and serpent represent the first elements of animal creation; the unaccounted for appearance and disappearance of frogs in marshes seemed like a sort of spontaneous generation of animal life out of stagnant water; the serpent periodically shedding its skin was a symbol of the yearly renewal of nature. The male figures are colored blue, to signify water the begetter of all things; the female are flesh-colored to signify the life produced. These cosmognic gods then transform the invisible divine will of Thot into a visible universe, harmoniously welded together. The first act of a creation is the formation of an egg, which rises upon the hands of Heh and Hehet out of the proto-matter. Out of the egg arises the god of light, Râ, the immediate cause of life in this world. Now this universe was conceived as being both the house and the body of God, divinity not dwelling in, but being identical with, the cosmic All. This universe, however, was formed by concurrence of nine divine things, i.e., the great Ennead of the Gods: (1) Shu, the dry air of the day; (2) Tafnut, the night air, pregnant with the rays of the waxing moon; (3) Keb, the god of the earth, or soil; (4) Nut, the goddess of the heavens above, (5) Osiris, the moist or fructifying element;(6) Isis, the maternal or conceiving force of the earth; (7) Set, the gods of evil and contradiction — the destructive force in nature, opposing the light, moisture and fertility of the earth — in popular mythology the brother-enemy of Osiris and Isis; (8) Horus, popularly conceived as the divine child of Isis and Osiris, living nature in the circle of perpetual rejuvenescence; (9) Nephthys, the boundary spirit or horizon, the world-limit or the strand of the endless sea. Parallel with these quasi-scientific explanations of the universe, the popular mind attributed to its divinities a share in the cosmogony. In Upper Egypt, the egg-productive energy gave first rise to a divinity, Chnum, the potter who shapes the egg on his wheel; in lower Egypt, Ptah, the artificer, becomes the creator of the egg. Sometimes, however, a divine bird is required to lay it. Not unfrequently the cosmogonic functions of the egg are attributed to a lotus-bud. In one of the inscriptions of Denderah, Pharao hands a lotus flower to the solar deity, saying: "I hand thee the flower which arose in the beginning, the glorious lily on the great sea. Thou camest forth in the city of Chmun out of its leaves, and thou didst give light to the earth, till then wrapped in darkness." On the one hand, Râ is not merely the enlightener, but the personal creator of the world, the Lord, infinite in his being, the Master Everlasting, who was before all things; none is like unto him. He suspended the heavens above that he might dwell therein; he laid the foundations of the earth that it might sustain his form; he created the deep, that he might be hidden in the lower spheres, he the noble youth, came forth out of Nun. This personification of the spirits of light in the sun-god Râ could evoke real sublimity of thought and expression, so much so that, for a little while, the idea reached a quasi-monotheism under Amenophis III and IV. On the other hand the amplitude of the divine titles of each local deity plays havoc with cosmogonic consistency, thus Ptah in Memphis is ruler of infinity (Heh) and Lord of Eternity (Tet), Mim Amum, Lord of Infinity, lasting for eternity; Hathor of Denderah, Mistress of Infinity and Creatrix of Eternity; Hathor and Horus are mother and father to Horsamuti, a phase of Râ the sun-god, and similar fancies. Iranian In considering these cosmogonies we must distinguish a threefold phase of development: (a) The ancient Iranian phase as given in the Avesta, the Yasnas, and the Vendidads. Without entering into the much-disputed question of the date of the Avesta, it may be safely said that these oldest cosmogonies go back to about 1000 B.C.(b) The later Iranian or early Persian phase, as contained in orthodox Pahlavi literature, the Bundahis and the Mainochired. (c) Heterodox Iranian opinion among schismatic sects, as the Zervanites, Gayomarthiya, Rivayets, and others. We shall find the dualism, which is the great characteristic of Iranian thought, showing a gradual tendency toward monism, and its primeval simplicity transformed into fanciful intricacy without, however, losing the loftiness of its first ideas. Although we possess no full systematic expositions of the views of the ancient Iranians on the origins of the universe, yet scattered passages in the Avesta leave no doubt that at the beginning of all things they postulated a twofold principle: good and evil. At the head indeed of all creation stands Ahura Mazda, a purely spiritual being, who is distinctly and expressly styled "Creator of the World" of spirit and matter. Yet in the older books the idea of the unity of origin of the universe is far from having come to maturity; so in the Gathas a distinct dualism is taught. At the end of Yasna xviii, Zarathrustra asks: "Do thou, Ahura Mazda, teach me from thyself, that I may declare it forth, through what the primeval world arose." And in Yasna xxx comes the answer: "Thus are the primeval spirits who, as a pair — yet each independent in his action — have been formed of old. They are [these two spiritual principles] a… truncated (42,395 more characters in archive)