that confused mass or state of confusion in which matter is supposed to have existed before it was reduced to order by the creating power of God. The term is taken from the Greek mythology, according to which Chaos was the vacant and infinite space which existed before the creation of the world, and out of which the gods, men, and all things arose. (Hesiod, Theog. 116; Óvid, Met. i. 5.) The description which Ovid gives of Chaos itself, and of the formation of the world from the chaotic mass, bears so many striking resemblances to the Mosaic account of the creation, that one can scarcely fail to regard it as having been derived from traditions, the source of which is to be traced to the sacred record. See CREATION and GEOLOGY.