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Chapter XXXI.—Hesiod’s Cosmogony.
“But to this Hesiod adds, that after chaos the heaven and the earth were made immediately, from which he says that those eleven were produced (and sometimes also he speaks of them as twelve) of whom he makes six males and five females. And these are the names that he gives to the males: Oceanus, Cœus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, Chronos, who is also called Saturn. Also the names of the females are: Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Tethys. 869 And these names they thus interpret allegorically. They say that the number is eleven or twelve: that the first is nature itself, which also they would have to be called Rhea, from Flowing; and they say that the other ten are her accidents, which also they call qualities; yet they add a twelfth, namely Chronos, who with us is called Saturn, and him they take to be time. 870 Therefore they assert that Saturn and Rhea are time and matter; and these, when they are mixed with moisture and dryness, heat and cold, produce all things.
[Comp. chap. 17 and Homily VI. 2.—R.]
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