And Everything Began with Laughs and Tears…The Creation of the Gods According to Esna II, 163, 16-17; III, 206, 8-9 (§13) and III, 272, 2-3: Precedents, Interpretation and Influences

Abstract

Demiurge’s tears play a prominent role in ancient Egyptian cosmogonic traditions as far as the genesis of the human being is concerned. However, the creation of the gods as a consequence of the demiurge’s laughter seems to be a unicum of the texts of the temple of Esna. This does not mean, however, that it is not possible to trace certain laughter precedents as a vitalizing agent at least from the Old Kingdom, which, subsequently, would be duly re-elaborated by the Latopolitan theologians during the Late Period. It is precisely this theme that will be studied in this work, showing some possible antecedents to the idea of the creation of the divine entities by laughter. At the same time it will delve into the meaning of this theogonic method as opposed to anthropogonic. In addition, the relevance or otherwise of the hypothesis put forward by some researchers about the emergence of human beings will be analysed concerning the transmission of this notion of the theogonic laughter towards different texts written in Greek, as well as the intellectual context in which such an event could have occurred.