Time and fate deities - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Time and fate deities are personifications of time

Time

Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....

, often in the sense of human lifetime and human fate

Destiny

Destiny or fate refers to a predetermined course of events. It may be conceived as a predetermined future, whether in general or of an individual...

, in polytheistic religions.
In monotheism, Time can still be personified, as in Father Time

Father Time

Father Time is usually depicted as an elderly bearded man, somewhat worse for wear, dressed in a robe, carrying a scythe and an hourglass or other timekeeping device...

in European folklore, or Zurvan

Zurvan

Zurvan may be:*Middle Persian reflex of Avestan zruvan "time"**"Time", the transcendent deity in Zurvanism** Zarvan , the personification of Time in the Shahnamehtoponymy*Zurvan , a village in Larestan County, Fars, Iran....

in Persian (Zoroastrian) tradition.
In the book of Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes

The Book of Ecclesiastes, called , is a book of the Hebrew Bible. The English name derives from the Greek translation of the Hebrew title.The main speaker in the book, identified by the name or title Qoheleth , introduces himself as "son of David, king in Jerusalem." The work consists of personal...

in the Hebrew Bible

Hebrew Bible

The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...

, the terms עדן `iddan "time" vs. זמן zĕman "season" express a contrast similar to that of Greek Chronos

Chronos

In Greek mythology, Chronos in pre-Socratic philosophical works is said to be the personification of time. His name in Greek means "time" and is alternatively spelled Chronus or Khronos.Chronos was imagined as an incorporeal god, serpentine in form, with three heads—those of a man, a bull, and...

vs. Kairos

Kairos

Kairos is an ancient Greek word meaning the right or opportune moment . The ancient Greeks had two words for time, chronos and kairos. While the former refers to chronological or sequential time, the latter signifies a time in between, a moment of indeterminate time in which something special...

Ancient Near East

Ancient Egyptian religion:
Hemsut

Hemsut

In Egyptian mythology, Hemsut was the goddess of fate and protection. She is representative of the ka. Her headdress bears a shield, above which are two crossed arrows....

Huh

Huh (god)

In Egyptian mythology, Huh was the deification of eternity in the Ogdoad, his name itself meaning endlessness. As a concept, he was androgynous, his female form being known as Hauhet, which is simply the feminine form of his name...

Assyro-Babylonian religion: Ashima

Ashima

Ashima is one of several deities protecting the individual cities of Samaria who are mentioned specifically by name in 2 Kings 17:30 in the Hebrew Bible...

Ishtar

Ishtar is the Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of fertility, love, war, and sex. She is the counterpart to the Sumerian Inanna and to the cognate north-west Semitic goddess Astarte.-Characteristics:...

Mamitu

In Mesopotamian mythology Mamitu was the goat-headed goddess of destiny, who decreed the fate of the new-borns. She was also worshipped as goddess of the oath, later a goddess of fate and a judge in the underworld, where she lives with the Anunnaku. She is occasionally regarded as a consort of...

Mammetun

Mammetun was the Sumerian goddess of fate....

Manah

' was one of the three chief goddesses of Mecca. The pre-Islamic Arabs believed Manāt to be the goddess of fate. She was known by the cognate name Manawat to the Nabataeans of Petra, who equated her with the Graeco-Roman goddess Nemesis and she was considered the wife of Hubal...

Manu the Great

Manu the Great was a Chaldean god who presided over fate.He is referred to as one of the dii minores, or minor deities, of ancient Chaldea by Lenormant in his 1875 work, Chaldean Magic:...

Meni

Classical Antiquity
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...

Ancient Greek religion:

The Fates: Moirae
Moirae
The Moirae, Moerae or Moirai , in Greek mythology, were the white-robed incarnations of destiny . Their number became fixed at three...

— Atropos

Atropos

Atropos or Aisa , in Greek mythology, was one of the three Moirae, goddesses of fate and destiny. Her Roman equivalent was Morta.Atropos or Aisa was the oldest of the Three Fates, and was known as the "inflexible" or "inevitable." It was Atropos who chose the mechanism of death and ended the life...

Clotho

Clotho is one of the Three Fates or Moirae, in ancient Greek mythology. Her Roman equivalent is Nona. Clotho was responsible for spinning the thread of human life. She also made major decisions, such as when a person was born, thus in effect controlling people's lives...

Lachesis

Lachesis (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Lachesis was the second of the Three Fates, or Moirae, also known as the Triple Moon Goddesses or the Lunar Dieties. Each phase of the moon representing each of the fates - Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos...

Ananke

Ananke (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Ananke, also spelled Anangke, Anance, or Anagke , was the personification of destiny, necessity and fate, depicted as holding a spindle. She marks the beginning of the cosmos, along with Chronos...

Geras

In Greek mythology, Geras was the god of old age. It was considered a virtue whereby the more gēras a man acquired, the more kleos and arete he was considered to have. According to Hesiod, Gēras was a son of Nyx. Hyginus adds that his father was Erebus. He was depicted as a tiny shriveled-up old...

Horae

In Greek mythology the Horae or Hours were the goddesses of the seasons and the natural portions of time. They were originally the personifications of nature in its different seasonal aspects, but in later times they were regarded as goddessess of order in general and natural justice...

Kairos

Khronos

Chronos

Tyche

In ancient Greek city cults, Tyche was the presiding tutelary deity that governed the fortune and prosperity of a city, its destiny....

Moros

In Greek mythology, Moros is the personification of impending doom, who drives mortals to their deadly fate. He is one of the offspring of Nyx , who had conceived him without male intervention, and brother of the Moirae ....

Ancient Roman religion

Religion in ancient Rome

Religion in ancient Rome encompassed the religious beliefs and cult practices regarded by the Romans as indigenous and central to their identity as a people, as well as the various and many cults imported from other peoples brought under Roman rule. Romans thus offered cult to innumerable deities...

:

The Fates: Parcae
Parcae
thumb|#00px|Early 16th-century [[millefleur tapestry]] depicting the Three Fates under their Greek namesIn Roman mythology, the Parcae were the personifications of destiny, often called The Fates in English. Their Greek equivalent were the Moirae. They controlled the metaphorical thread of life of...

— Decima

Decima (mythology)

In Roman mythology, Decima was one of the Parcae, or the Fates. She measured the thread of life with her rod. She was also revered as the goddess of childbirth. Her Greek equivalent was Lachesis....

Morta Nona

Camenae
Camenae
In Roman mythology, the Camenae were originally goddesses of childbirth, wells and fountains, and also prophetic deities.There were four Camenae:*Carmenta*Egeria*Antevorta, or Porrima...

: Antevorta/Porrima

Porrima

Porrima may refer to:* Antevorta, a goddess in Roman mythology* Gamma Virginis, a star in the Virgo constellation* Schinia, a genus of insects known as Flower Moths...

Carmenta

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Carmenta was a goddess of childbirth and prophecy, associated with technological innovation as well as the protection of mothers and children, and a patron of midwives...

Egeria

Egeria (mythology)

Egeria was a nymph attributed a legendary role in the early history of Rome as a divine consort and counselor of the Sabine second king of Rome, Numa Pompilius, to whom she imparted laws and rituals pertaining to ancient Roman religion...

Postverta

In Roman mythology, Postverta or Postvorta was the goddess of the past and one of the two Carmentes...

Aeternitas

In ancient Roman religion, Aeternitas was the divine personification of eternity. She was particularly associated with Imperial cult as a virtue of the deified emperor ...

Anna Perenna

Anna Perenna was an old Roman deity of the circle or "ring" of the year, as the name clearly indicates. Her festival fell on the Ides of March , which would have marked the first full moon in the year in the old lunar Roman calendar when March was reckoned as the first month of the year, and was...

Caerus

In Greek mythology, Caerus was the personification of opportunity, luck and favorable moments. He was depicted with only one lock of hair. His Roman equivalent was Occasio or Tempus. Caerus is called the youngest child of Zeus....

Chronos

Fortuna

Fortuna can mean:*Fortuna, the Roman goddess of luck -Geographical:*19 Fortuna, asteroid*Fortuna, California, town located on the north coast of California*Fortuna, United States Virgin Islands...

Vertumnus

In Roman mythology, Vertumnus — also Vortumnus or Vertimnus — is the god of seasons, change and plant growth, as well as gardens and fruit trees...

Europe

Etruscan — Nortia

Nortia

Nortia is the Latinized name of an Etruscan goddess whose sphere of influence was time, fate, destiny and chance. The Etruscan form was perhaps Nurtia. Variant manuscript readings include Norcia, Norsia, Nercia, and Nyrtia.-Ritual of the nail:...

Tinia

Tinia was the god of the sky and the highest god in Etruscan mythology, equivalent to the Roman Jupiter and the Greek Zeus. He was the husband of Thalna or Uni and the father of Heracle....

Norse — Norns

Norns

The Norns in Norse mythology are female beings who rule the destiny of gods and men, a kind of dísir comparable to the Fates in classical mythology....

(Urðr

Urðr

Urðr is one of the Norns in Norse mythology. Along with Verðandi and Skuld , Urðr makes up a trio of Norns that are described as deciding the fates of people...

Verðandi Skuld

Skuld

Skuld may refer to:* Skuld, one of a group of three norns in Norse mythology* Skuld , a princess in Norse mythology* 1130 Skuld, an asteroid discovered on 2 September 1929 and named after the Norn...

)

Day: (Dagr

Dagr

In Norse mythology, Dagr is day personified. This personification appears in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson...

Skinfaxi) Night: (Nótt

Nótt

In Norse mythology, Nótt is night personified. In both the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson, Nótt is listed as the daughter of a figure by the name of Nörvi and is associated with the...

Hrímfaxi) Seasons: (Sumarr and Vetr

Sumarr and Vetr

In Norse mythology, Sumarr and Vetr are personified seasons. Sumarr and Vetr, personified, are attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson...

) Old age: Elli

Elli

In Norse mythology, Elli is a personification of old age who, in the Prose Edda book Gylfaginning, defeats Thor in a wrestling match.-Gylfaginning:...

Baltic — Dalia

Dalia (mythology)

Dalia is the goddess of fate in the Lithuanian mythology. She is the giver and taker of goods and property. Dalia is often confused with and hard to distinguish from Laima, another goddess of fate. Sometimes Dalia is thought of as a different manifestation of Laima...

Laima

Laima was the personification of fate and luck in the Latvian and Lithuanian mythologies. She was associated with childbirth, marriage, and death; she was also the patron of pregnant women...

Lauma

Latvian: Lauma, Lithuanian: Laumė is a woodland fae, and guardian spirit of orphans in Eastern Baltic mythology. Originally a sky spirit, her compassion for human suffering brought her to earth to share our fate.-In Latvian mythology:...

Polish — Sudz

Sudz

Sudz is a Polish god of destiny and glory. Those born at the time when he strews gold in his palace are destined to be wealthy. When he scatters earthen clods, those born are destined for poverty....

Romanian — Fates: Ursitoare

Ursitoare

The three Ursitoare, in Romanian mythology, are supposed to appear three nights after a child's birth to determine the course of its life. They are similar to the Greek Fates or Moirae....

Other European — Matres and Matrones Father Time

Father Time

Father Time is usually depicted as an elderly bearded man, somewhat worse for wear, dressed in a robe, carrying a scythe and an hourglass or other timekeeping device...

Beten

Beten (Mythology)

The three Beten are a German group of three saints. They are adored in minor churches and chapels in South Tyrol , Upper Bavaria, Baden and the Rhineland...

Asia

Zoroastrian — Zurvan

Zurvan

Philippine — Kan-Laon

Kan-Laon

Kan-Laon is the name of an ancient Visayan deity. During pre-Hispanic times, the deity was worshiped by the natives as their Supreme Ruler. Kan-Laon means "One Who Is the Ruler Of Time"....

Time is thus described Vedas: "My Lord, I consider Your Lordship to be eternal time, the supreme controller, without beginning and end, the all-pervasive one. ... Eternal time is the witness of all our actions, good and bad, and thus resultant reactions are destined by Him. It is no use saying that we do not know why and for what we are suffering. We may forget the misdeed for which we may suffer at this present moment, but we must remember that Paramātmā is our constant companion, and therefore He knows everything, past, present and future. And because the Paramātmā feature of Lord Kṛṣṇa destines all actions and reactions, He is the supreme controller also. Without His sanction not a blade of grass can move. http://vedabase.net/sb/1/8/28/en

Ancient Near East

Classical AntiquityClassical antiquityClassical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...

Europe

Asia

See also

Classical Antiquity
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...