Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 4.djvu/468

COSMOGONY differentiation of the primeval matter, sun, moon, and earth arise; by differentiation of space, the realms of heaven, air, and ether. Thus:—

Intellectual Process Tad Protoplasm Tapas Darkness Kama Place Manas Alternation of Time Ritam Division of Space Satyam Great World Bodies Material Process

Another development, or rather another nomencla- ture for the same cosmogonic principles, makes Brah- ma the source of all things. Brahma is Tad, or the impersonal, unconscious All-Soul. This word Brah- ma, from meaning originally sacred sacrificial food, came to be used for the Supreme Being out of which the universe comes and unto which it returns. In later days Atman, or Highest Self, becomes the start- ing point in Indian cosmogonies.

A curious feature, especially in later cosmogonic ideas, is the power of sacrifice, to which even the evolu- tion of the universe is due; in fact sacrificial food is the very material out of which the world is made. This is brought out in one of the latest hymns of the Rig-Veda (Book X, xc, the so-called song of Purusha) and often in the Upanishads. Purusha is one more designation of the Supreme Being. On his spiritual side he is often identified with Brahma and Atman, on his material side he is the proto-matter out of which the world is made. Out of Purusha's mouth proceed Indra and Agni. Indra in popular religion becomes the world-creator, as also Varuna the king. Some refer- ences to King Varuna are of singular sublimity (Atharva- Veda, IV, xvi): "If two persons sit together and scheme, King Varuna is there as a third and knows it. Both this earth here belongs to King Varuna and also yonder broad sky, whose boundaries are far away. The oceans are the loins of Varuna, yet he is hidden in a small drop of water. He that should flee beyond the heav- ens would not be free from King Varuna. King Varuna sees through all that is between heaven and earth and all that is beyond. He has counted the winkings of man's eyes; the world is in his hands as the dice in the hands of a player". In the mind of the people the impersonal abstractions of pantheism became individ- nalized and conceived as an intensely personal creator. On the other hand the most grotesque, and often coarse, conceptions arose as to the physical process of the world's production. As intermediary beings or stages were mentioned seed, or an egg, or a tree, or the lotus-bud; different animals, such as a boar, a fish, a turtle; or sexual intercourse. The most common theory is that of the egg (Chand. br., V, xix): "This all was in the beginning non-existent, only Tad ex- isted, Tad became transformed, it became an egg, this lay there for a year; then it divided itself in two, the two halves of the shell were silver and gold. The Gold is the Heaven, the Silver the Earth, and what was born is the Sun". Not infrequent are the incar- nations of the deity in animals. Brahmanspati, the personification of the creative power of Brahma, or Prajapati, or Vishnu, became incarnate in a boar or a turtle; and similar fancies. In the Atharva-Veda, especially XIX, 53, 54, another fundamental cosmo- gonie being or personification enters, which is un- known to earliest Indian speculations, viz.: Time; it occurs here and there in the Rig-Veda, but in Ath.- Ved., xix, Kala has risen to the first place of all, and even Brahma and Tapas proceed from it. This rise in Kala's dignity was prepared already in the Upani- shads (Maitri-Up., VI, xiv), where Kala and Akala, time and not-time, are two forms of Brahma, after he had produced the world or rather the sun as the first thing in the universe.

PHOENICIAN.—Almost all we know of Phoenician cosmogonies is derived from a late source, Philo By- blius (born A. 1. 42), transmitted to us by Eusebius in his "Praeparatio Evangelica". Philo, however, only claimed to have translated a late copy of an ancient Phoenician author called Sanchoniathon. This state- ment, though believed by Eusebius and by Porphy-T rius before him (De abst., II, 56) is rejected as a liter- ary fraud by many modern, especially German, schol- ars. Philo is supposed to have pretended to use an ex- tremely ancient source merely to bolster up his theory that all mythology was deified ancient history. The great controversy that has raged round the name of a Sanchoniathon cannot here be gone into, but in read- ing this cosmogony it must throughout be borne in Br mind that, instead of being the exposition of very early Canaanitish ideas, it may possibly be a manipulated account of that cosmopolitan mixture of ideas which was current in Syria about A. D. 100. The beginning of all things, according to this account, was air moved by a breath of wind and dark chaos black as Erebus. This windy chaos was eternal, infinite. But when this breath yearned over its own elements, and confusion arose, this was called Desire. This Desire was the ori- gin of all creation, and, though it knew not its own creation, out of its self-embrace arose Mot a slimy or watery substance, out of which all created germs were produced. Animal life without sensation came first; out of this came beings endowed with intelligence which were called Zophesamin, "over- seers of heaven". Mot had a shape like that of an egg out of which came forth sun, moon, and stars. The air being thus illumined, owing to the glow of the sea and land, winds were formed, and clouds and a vast downpour of the heavenly waters took place. By the heat of the sun things were made to split off from one another and, being projected on high, clashed with one another, caused thunder and lightning, and thus awoke the above-mentioned intelligent beings, who took fright and began to stir on the earth and in the sea as males and females. Not unlike this is the cos- mogony given by Damascius on the authority of Eude- Before all things was Time, then Desire, then Darkness. Out of the union of Desire and Darkness were born Air (masc.) and Breath (fem.), Air repre- senting pure thought, and Breath the prototype of life proceeding therefrom by motion. Out of Air and Breath came forth the cosmic egg. According to the cosmogony given by the same writer on the authority of Mochos, Ether and Air generated Oulomos (world- time, sæculum), Chousoros (artificer, creative energy) and the cosmic egg; and Damascius expressly states that, according to the Phoenicians, world-time is the first principle containing all in itself. The origin of mankind is described as the birth of Eon and Proto-- gonos from the wind Colpias and the woman Baau (said to mean "night"). The name Baau strongly suggests of Genesis; for, Colpias several derivation have been suggested: "voice of the wind" "the sound of the voice of Jahve"; or Koλwias "turgid"; or "wind from every side". Bu these derivations are perhaps more ingenious than probable.

Greek.—The cosmogonies are far too numerous and divergent to allow of one simple description embrace ing all. Only some prominent cosmogonies can be in dicated, and some of the points common to all. Home seems to have taken the universe as he found it without inquiring further, but from Iliad, XIV, verse 201, on gathers that Oceanus is origin, and Thetys mother of all; from verse 244 that Ng (Night) has power even over Oceanus; hence Darkness, Water, and Motherly; hood seem the three stages of his cosmogony. The fragments of Orphic cosmogonics given by Eudemo and Plato, and Lydus do not quite agree, but at least Night, Oceanus, and Thetys are elementary being and the first of them in order of existence was proba- bly Night. A more detailed cosmogony of great antics