Cronus and Uranus

 Hesiod, known as a simple Greek poet, was a near contemporary of the great Homer, living some 750 to 650 BC. Today we have two of his poems: “Works and Days” and “Theogony”. The first one transmits to us some wisdom about work – as seen mainly from the farmer’s perspective. It is of some interest for the historians of social sciences. Theogony, on the other hand, provides us with the myths of creation and of the origins of gods.

Chaos

According to this story, at the beginning Chaos (or Chasm) ruled the world – which, by the way, may have something to do with “in the beginning there was a KMS state” . We will return to this idea later on. For now we will skip through all the creation process and concentrate on just one thread – the tragic and unfortunate interplay between Gaia (or Earth), Cronus, Uranus (or Sky).

There are no 100% “good” characters in these stories. Each of these three gods exhibits, as it seems, some weaknesses, but that is not the main point here. The important thing that I would like to emphasize is the castration of Uranus, the father of Cronus, by his son.

The Castration of Uranus, pl. 1 from the series Subjects from Roman History after Polidoro da Caravaggio's fresco on the façade of the Palazzo Milesi, Rome

How did it happen and why? And what is the relation of this brutal act to the relation between Science and religion? Well, let’s see if it becomes apparent.

Castration of Uranus by Cronus, part of the fresco by Giorgio Vasari and Cristofano Gherardi in the 16th century Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.

According to the story related to us by Hesiod, Uranus, in contrast to Gaia, did not really want to have children; pure pleasure of senses without responsibility – that is what he was after. Not only did he not want them – he was actively getting rid of them as they arrived – in the underground hell. So Gaia convinced her son, Cronus, (and even helped by providing the sickle), to castrate his evil father, Uranus (who was also a son of Gaia, by the way). But Cronos was told by Gaia and Uranus that he was destined to be overcome by his own sons and, as a preventive measure, he devoured them all as soon as they were born – all except Zeus, who was saved by Gaia and his sister, Rhea. He did, indeed, subsequently, overthrow Cronus.

In the next post we will compare religion to Uranus and Science to Cronus. This comparison will draw our attention to certain important points, but, of course, as it is with every parable – care must be taken if we do not want to go too far with our analogies.

Here are the exact words which Cronus addresses to his mother:

Mother, I would promise and perform this deed, since I do not care at all about our evil-named father. For he was the first to devise unseemly deeds.

Coming next: Defining "Science"