Description
digital painting
entry for the #tezos4Tezos event
In Greek Mythology, Chaos was the beginning of all things. The word means chasm, emptiness, and vast void in Greek. In the creation myths, it is the primordial or formless state or the gap created by the separation of heaven and earth. The deities Chaos, Gaea, Tartarus and Eros were said to emerge from Chaos. Also known as Khaos, it is viewed as the lower atmosphere surrounding earth in certain sources.
Origin
The Orphic Hymns of approximately the 2nd century AD first introduced the term. Orpheus suggested the universe was compressed into a giant Cosmic Egg, which erupted and formed the gods, as well Phanes, the primordial god, and Ouranos, the son of Nyx (night). In Orphic cosmogony, the ageraos (never aging) and Chronos (time) first emerged, followed by the creation of Aether (air) and Chaos. Chronos and Aether then created the Cosmic Egg. In the 6th Orphic hymn, Chaos contracts into the Cosmic Egg. The concept of a Cosmic Egg appears in the creation myths of various religions, including Hinduism, Finnish legends and even in Dogon (a primitive tribe from Mali) mythology.
Hesiod’s Theogony introduces the concept as a formless, moving mass and the origin of the gods and the cosmos. The concept is mentioned in the bible, too, in the book of Genesis. The spirit of God was said to move across the universe when it was in a state of watery disorder. The Roman poet, Ovid, was responsible for the more modern understanding of the word. He viewed Chaos as the disorganized mass the universe was in, before creation.
In Greek Philosophy
Greek philosophers generally believed the void, though abstract, still possessed cosmological characteristics. They made no mention of any personal gods who were responsible for creating the universe, but focused rather on the sequence of events which happened through their own impetus. Hesiod’s view suggested it was not a definite thing and could represent formless matter and infinite space. The cosmos grew from a beginning, he postulated. Anaximander, a Greek Philosopher (610 – 546 BC), claimed the origin was apeiron, meaning unlimited or infinite. He believed it to be a perpetual substance from which everything originated and will return. Following Anaximander, Heraclitus viewed primal chaos or continual change as the true basis of reality.
more at: https://mythology.net/greek/greek-concepts/chaos/#:~:text=In%20Greek%20Mythology%2C%20Chaos%20was%20the%20beginning%20of,and%20Eros%20were%20said%20to%20emerge%20from%20Chaos.