| |
| | CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Deity |
 | | In Homer and Hesiod the forces of nature are conceived as persons -- e.g. |
 | | Uranos (heaven); Nyx (night); Hypnos (sleep), Oneiros (dream), Oceanos (ocean) -- the answer of Achilles to the river Scamander "in human form, confessed before his eyes" (Iliad, XXI), and his prayer to the winds Boreas and Zephyrus, that they kindle the flames on the funeral pyre of Patroclus (Iliad, XXIII). |
 | | Observation of the fact that in nature two energies -- one active and generative, the other passive and feminine -- combine, led men to associate heaven and earth, sun and moon, day and night, as common primal and motherly deities cooperating in the production of being. |
| www.newadvent.org /cathen/04683a.htm (7542 words) |
|