35
LATENT MEANING AND MANIFEST CONTENT
IN THE DERVENI PAPYRUS*
Spyridon Rangos
Introduction
This essay modestly aims (1) ‘to evaluate [some of] the exegetical techniques
which permit the passage from the theogonic poem to this [i.e. the Derveni
author’s] cosmology’ and (2) ‘to investigate the possibility that, despite the
apparent arbitrariness of allegoresis, more fundamental affinities might link
Orphic theogonies on the one hand and physical cosmologies on the other’.1
The quotations are two questions of interpretation, in an overall list of four,
which may be said to ‘have perhaps not yet sufficiently engaged scholars’.2 To
be sure, the situation has significantly changed since the editors of the first
major volume devoted to the Derveni papyrus noticed the gap, and tried,
independently, to fill it.3 Until now, the most important contribution to an
overall interpretation is Betegh (2004), to which we are greatly indebted.
But until recently scholars have been working in the dark. We are now
happy to possess an authoritative edition of the text with commentary and
* I would like to thank all the participants in the Derveni papyrus workshop
organized by Chloe Balla in the University of Crete (Rethymno, 15–16 May 2006),
and in particular Gábor Betegh and Michael Frede with whom I have had very
inspiring discussions. Michael Frede has also been kind enough to read a previous
draft of the present paper and to make precious comments. I am greatly indebted.
Needless to add, all errors and other inadequacies in method, presentation or
substance are my own.
1
Laks and Most (1997), 5.
2
Ibid.
3
Laks (1997), Most (1997).
IV.1 (2007), 35–75
36
SPYRIDON RANGOS
photographs of the papyrus (Kouremenos, Parássoglou and Tsantsanoglou
2006).4
The opposition between the hidden and the evident permeates the entire
text of the Derveni author, and assumes various forms, but its most obvious
application lies in the distinction between the manifest content and the latent
meaning of the Orphic poem which the Derveni author is interpreting. We
shall, therefore, focus on that aspect of the hidden-evident polarity and try to
compare the theogonic myth that is embedded in the Derveni poem with its
cosmogonical interpretation by the Derveni author. But the comparison cannot
be accomplished in abstracto. Our approach to the Derveni author’s natural
interpretation of the Orphic poem can only be adequate if it does not avoid
taking a stance with respect to the poem. We must try hard to find a plausible
interpretation of the meaning of the Orphic poem which was obviously meant
to correct Hesiod’s traditional picture of theogony. To do so, we must first
establish the sequence of mythical events narrated in the poem and distinguish
those which seem to be original with the poet or his innovative predecessor.
It is very likely that the new theogony narrated in the Orphic poem provided
initiates with a symbolic structure with which they could identify and in which
their mystery experience would acquire particular form.
There is at least one feature which the Orphic theogony shares with the
Derveni author’s cosmogony, and that is the idea that the universe is created
twice. The psychological significance of such a double creation of the world
should be stressed, if it was indeed the case that both the original poet and the
Derveni interpreter were preoccupied with mystery initiation and its efficacy.
The main part of this essay is divided into three unequal sections. In the first
section, an attempt is made to identify the mental makeup and the intellectual
preoccupations of the Derveni author by interpreting specific columns of the
papyrus in the light of the text as a whole. Particular emphasis is put on his
interpretative techniques as well as on the influence that Heraclitus seems to have
exerted on the author’s thought. The second section establishes the sequence of
mythical events contained in the Orphic poem, and tries to account for their
4
Unless otherwise stated, all quotations and translations come from this edition.
For alternative readings and suggestions proposed over the last forty years I have
consulted the apparatus criticus in Janko (2002) and Betegh (2004). In the case of
the surviving verses of the poem and possible parallels in other Orphic literature,
I have constantly used Bernabé (2004–2005) (henceforward OTF). Translations
of Orphic fragments and other sources are my own unless a translator is
mentioned.
LATENT MEANING AND MANIFEST CONTENT
37
novelty in the context of traditional theogony and mystery initiation. Emphasis
is put on the absorption of Protogonos by Zeus and on the second creation
of the universe that follows upon the swallowing. The third section deals with
the Derveni author’s cosmogony from the perspective of a two-phased worldformation, and presents a table of tentative correspondences across the author’s
cosmogony and the Orphic theogony. The final remarks bring the threads of
the preceding analyses together, and try to specify the kind of aporias that the
Derveni author was facing in the intellectual climate of his time.
Throughout this essay, ‘poet’ without qualification or qualified by ‘Orphic’
refers to the original composer of the poem which the Derveni author interprets,
i.e. to ‘Orpheus’ as the Derveni author would have it; ‘Derveni author’ and
‘commentator’ are synonymous designations of whoever composed the entire
text,5 but ‘commentator’ and ‘commentary’ are reserved for the second part of the
papyrus (from col. VII onwards); ‘scribe’ denotes the person who wrote down the
text on the papyrus found at Derveni. It is almost certain that the actual composer
of the verses that the Derveni author had in front of his eyes was different from the
original creator of the new theogony (West 1983, 101, 108). It is generally admitted
that ‘Orphic’ theogonies were posterior to Hesiod’s traditional account, were
initially composed with an eye to it, and served some hard-to-define purposes.
For the original Orphic theologian, whoever he was, we shall use the same
designation of ‘poet’ or ‘Orphic poet’, since the question of literary transmission
or dissemination lies besides the scope of the present paper.
I. The Derveni author as a religious and literary interpreter:
Heraclitus’ influence
1.
We shall take col. V.6–10 as our point of departure because its relevance to a
preliminary understanding of the author’s mind and method has not been duly
appreciated. The column provides the necessary link between the first part of
the Derveni text, which deals with religious ritual, and the second part in which
the Orphic poem is interpreted in terms of natural philosophy. Here the author
expresses his view about the requirements of understanding in the form of a
rhetorical question: ‘Without knowing [the meaning of] dreams or any other
5
Euthyphro (pace Kahn 1997) seems the most probable among those suggested.
Other candidates include Stesimbrotos of Thasos (Burkert 1986) and Diagoras of
Melos (Janko 2001).
38
SPYRIDON RANGOS
things, by what kind of evidence would they believe? For, overcome by error
and pleasure as well, they neither learn nor believe. Disbelief and ignorance
[are the same thing.]’
The word ‘evidence’ translates the Greek parade…gmata which would
perhaps be better rendered as ‘signs’ or ‘omens’.6 The Derveni author may
indeed have been a religious interpreter with technical expertise in dream
analysis,7 but his point in col. V is not about the meaning of specific dreams but
about the nature of dreaming. oÙ gignèskontej ™nÚpnia means ‘not knowing
what kind of things dreams are’. Dreaming is, to his mind, the royal road to
an intimation of another realm of existence that is different from empirical
reality and passes unnoticed in ordinary life. The advantage that dreams and
dreaming have, over other kinds of extra-ordinary experience, is that they
are daily available to all people. That is presumably why they are singled out
in the author’s account. Other pr£gmata providing such parade…gmata as
the author will have had in mind might include poetic inspiration, prophetic
anticipation, orgiastic ecstasy, and erotic infatuation, i.e. all those altered states
of consciousness referred to generically by the Greek term man…a (madness),
which Plato discusses in the Phaedrus (244a–245c, 265bc). Drug-induced
hallucinatory states and experiences of mediumistic trance8 may have been
in the author’s mind too. But other signs, whatever they were, would have
been the prerogative (and perhaps the burden) of the few. Dreams, we are to
understand, are readily available to us all if only we pay attention.
What prompted those thoughts of the Derveni author was widespread
disbelief in the terrors of Hades and perhaps disrespect for those who bring such
knowledge from oracles.9 The author wanted to stress that such disbelief stems
6
7
8
9
par£deigma is meant as warning of possible future suffering in Thucydides
III.39.3.17–20, quoted by Kouremenos (2006), 163. In general, parade…gmata
would be tokens or examples of a particular kind of action or affection, hence
signs indicative of the whole in terms of the part (pars pro toto).
Most (1997), 120; Kouremenos (2006), 163.
For a general appreciation of altered states of consciousness in Greek antiquity
Dodds (1951), especially the chapter on the ‘Blessings of madness’ (64–101),
remains essential reading.
Col. V.4–6: aÙto‹j p£rimen [e„j tÕ ma]nte‹on ™per[w]t»s[ontej,] / tîn
manteuomšnwn [›n]eken, e„ qšmi […]..hda / «r' “Aidou dein¦ t… ¢pistoàsi;
(‘for them we enter the oracle in order to ask, with regard to those seeking
a divination, whether it is proper … Why do they disbelieve in the horrors of
Hades?’).
LATENT MEANING AND MANIFEST CONTENT
39
from ignorance, not from superior knowledge as the disbeliever might selfdelusively think. The ‘error’ (¡mart<…>h) meant here is not primarily a merely
cognitive mistake, but the kind of cognitive fault which finds expression in a
behaviour that habitually disregards important things in life. The phrase ØpÒ [te
g¦r] ¡mart<…>hj kaˆ [t]Áj ¥llhj ¹don[Á]j is syntactically parallel to Plato’s
Symposium 191b: ØpÕ limoà kaˆ tÁj ¥llhj ¢rg…aj, in that the second part of
the combination, qualified literally by ‘and the rest of ’, is the primary cause of the
first.10 Humans are, then, said to practically err, in the sense of ‘not paying due
attention’ and therefore of ‘not being able to learn or believe’, because of pleasure.
According to the author, the primary cause of a misguided life that is
disrespectful of important things, such as concern for post-mortem existence, is
pleasure. But this view is not limited to the religious first part of the papyrus.
It reappears in col. XXII in a modified version. The ‘pleasure’ of col. V comes
semantically very close to the ‘greed’ (pleonex…a) of col. XXII.6, although the latter
term emphasizes injustice no less than enjoyment. ‘Greed’ and ‘ignorance’ (¢maq…a)
are coupled together in col. XXII, as ‘pleasure’ and ‘ignorance’ were coupled in col.
V, and they are there said to be the two causes of a continual mental change that is
customary among humans while they are strong and healthy (kratisteÚontej).
In coll. XXI-XXII the commentator implies that an understanding of the identity
of the divinities under consideration11 with Zeus, presupposes a shaking of
customary beliefs based on individual strength and health. He wants to shake his
readers’ convictions about the permanence of their bodily well-being in order to
show them that conceptual differentiations of what are truly different aspects of
the same divine nature is caused by this very state. Paradoxically, he implies that
understanding cosmic unity presupposes alertness to human frailty, partiality and
dependence. One way of achieving this end is, we suggest, by laying stress on the
significance of dreaming as an altered state of consciousness that calls into question
the waking perception of a strong and unified self.
By equating ‘disbelief ’ with ‘ignorance’ in the context of a discussion
about the terrible situations awaiting disbelievers in the afterlife (cf. Heraclitus
B 27 DK), the Derveni author implies that ‘belief ’ should be understood in
the sense of ‘acknowledging something real by means of personal knowledge
and experience’, rather than in the (Christian) sense of ‘faith’, which seems
to be ‘emotional confidence in hoped-for but unseen things’ (cf. ‘Paul’, Letter
to the Hebrews 11.1). A very similar sense of ¢pist…a in a very similar (i.e.
10
11
Cf. also Euripides, Hippolytus 381–383, and Barrett 1964 ad loc.
They are Persuasion and Harmony in col. XXI, Earth, Mother, Rhea, Hera, and
possibly Hestia in col. XXII.
40
SPYRIDON RANGOS
initiatory and otherworldly) context occurs in Plutarch’s fragment 178.19–20
(ed. Sandbach = Stobaeus IV.52.49): fÒbJ d qan£tou to‹j kako‹j, ¢pist…v
tîn ™ke‹ ¢gaqîn, ™mmšnonta (sc. tÕn ¢mÚhton Ôclon). Plutarch refers to the
uninitiated mass of people who are fearful of death and stick to the toils and
pains of this life because they have no idea of the well-being that a discarnate
afterlife may provide (cf. line 90 of the same fragment: t¾n ¢dhlÒthta kaˆ
¢pist…an tîn met¦ t¾n teleut»n). Plutarch is explicit that such knowledge
is available on earth through participation in mystery ceremonies. In a similar
vein, Heraclitus (B 86) is said to have claimed that many things about gods
¢pist…V diafugg£nei m¾ gignèskesqai. ‘Disbelief ’ is, once again, ‘ignorance’
or ‘lack of knowledge’.
In general, it seems that the requirements for understanding the Orphic
poem as the author would like his readers to understand it in the second part
of the papyrus, are the same as, or at least similar to, those suggested in the
first part with respect to oracles. Dreaming, in the sense of dream symbolism
(i.e. the manifest content understood in the light of some latent meaning),
featured very prominently there, and we may take it as equally important for
understanding the second part. In the first part of the papyrus, before embarking
upon the heavy task of literary interpretation, the author seems to have stated
the demands he had of his readers if they were to count as adequate.
2.
In the second part of the papyrus, before starting his line-by-line exegesis, the
Derveni author provides the reader with the following general statement about
the nature of Orphic poetry under consideration (col. VII.4–8):
œsti d x[šnh tij ¹] pÒhsij
[k]aˆ ¢nqrè[poij] a„ni[gm]atèdhj, [ke]ˆ ['OrfeÝ]j aÙt[Õ]j
[™]r…st' a„n[…gma]ta oÙk ½qele lšgein, [™n a„n]…gmas[i]n d
[meg]£la. ƒer[olog]e‹tai mn oân kaˆ ¢[pÕ to]à prètou
[¢eˆ] mšcri oá [tele]uta…ou ῥ»matoj.
This poem is strange
and riddling to people, though [Orpheus] himself
did not intend to say contentious riddles but rather great things in riddles.
In fact he is speaking mystically, and from the first
word all the way to the last.
Notice that the author understands the so-called ‘riddles’ used by Orpheus
as a necessity required by the subject-matter of his poetry, rather than the
outcome of the poet’s intention to hide important things from the masses. It
is, therefore, reasonable to suggest that the Derveni author’s understanding
LATENT MEANING AND MANIFEST CONTENT
41
of what counts as a‡nigma is different from our modern ‘allegories’ and
‘riddles’.
In Hesiod (Works and Days 202) the original meaning of anoj is simply
that of a ‘tale’ or ‘story’, and a‡nigma which comes from the same lexical root,
will have originally meant nothing other than a paradigmatic story.12 Hesiod
addresses the story of the hawk and the nightingale to the kings whom he
qualifies as ‘mindful’ (fronšousi kaˆ aÙto‹j). He clearly implies that his
anoj is an allegory of hybris, as opposed to dikē (Works and Days 213), and
that the recipients of the story, be they mindful kings or his brother Perses,
must understand its message. His purpose is not to hide but to reveal.
In a similar way, the Derveni commentator does not ascribe to the poet
an intentional tendency to puzzle people. He, rather, ascribes to him a will to
help humans by revealing to them great things. In col. XXII. 1–2 it is said that
‘he [viz. Orpheus] named everything in the same way as best he could, knowing
the nature of men’. In col. XIX.8–9 it is said: ‘And he [viz. Orpheus] likens it
(viz. air) to a king for this among the names in use seemed to be suitable for it.’
The name of ‘king’ was suitable in the sense that it would make people think
that the royal element of air was meant thereby. In both columns the Derveni
author’s point underlines revelation rather than intentional obscurity.
One may reasonably claim that the distinction between the many and
the few is a point where the Derveni author and the poet are in essential
agreement (Laks 1997, 139). At the very beginning of his composition the
Orphic poet will have banned the uninitiated (col. VII. 9–10): listening to
the myth was not permitted to the vulgus profanus.13 This alone does not
necessarily show, however, that the poet intended his poem to be received as
a sort of allegory. Quite the contrary. The prohibition makes more sense if the
poet meant precisely what he said. For if the theological doctrine contained in
the poem was secret and esoteric, the uninitiated many could but should not
come to know it, at least not without some preparation, since that knowledge
would induce them into thinking ill of divinity. They would be misled by
their own ignorance into regarding the theogony contained in the poem as an
impious challenge to traditional belief. More than once, Herodotus refrained
from giving details of the myths considered secret, out of profound piety, not
12
13
West (1978), 205: ‘“riddle” is too narrow a translation’.
The first hemistich of the Orphic verse in question should be either ¢e…sw
xuneto‹si (West) or fqšgxomai oŒj qšmij ™st… (Tsantsanoglou, Bernabé), but
the second part is agreed upon (qÚraj d' ™p…qesqe bšbhloi), after Burkert’s
ingenious suggestion (apud West 1983, 82 and apud Tsantsanoglou 1997, 124).
42
SPYRIDON RANGOS
disbelief.14 Pausanias (I.37.4), on the other hand, who repeatedly expresses a
similar hesitation to reveal things related to secret initiations,15 clearly implied
that participation in the Eleusinian mysteries and reading the so-called Orphic
poems were parallel procedures of attaining mystic knowledge. The mystic
knowledge he had been discussing was about the symbolic nature of beans and
about a divine or heroic character named after them (Kuam…thj). The context
would make one think that Pausanias understood beans as sexual symbols,
perhaps representations of testicles,16 and that he found the meaning of such
sexual symbolism in Eleusinian mysteries (cf. VIII.15.4) and Orphic poems
alike.17 The famous Pythagorean prohibition against beans shows that they were
tabooed in certain religious sects, but it does not explain the reasons why they
were considered to be unclean food. Pausanias implies that the reasons for the
prohibition were provided by the ritual of Eleusinian mysteries and the text of
Orphic poetry. It follows that at least some Orphic poetry was considered to be
the verbal equivalent to mystery initiation.
Isocrates (Bousiris 38–39) is explicit in stating that Orpheus ascribed
to gods immoral actions to a higher degree than any other poet. Sexual
transgressions, including incest with the mother and rape within the family,
were certainly among them. When Alcibiades, in a playful mode, uses the
same expression as the Orphic poet in order to ban the ‘uninitiated’ slaves
from listening to his praise of Socrates (Plato, Symposium 218b), what he has in
mind is the description of an intimate erotic scene. Words and deeds, he says
in a language reminiscent of the mysteries,18 will be empathetically understood
(suggnèsesqe) only by those who have ‘participated in philosophical madness
and ecstasy’. By implication, others will come to learn true things, i.e. events that
have actually occurred, but fail to capture their deepest message.19 The failure
14
15
16
17
18
19
Mention of a sacred myth (ƒrÕj lÒgoj) and intriguing silence about its content
abound in the book devoted to Egypt, the religious country and mystery land
par excellence according to Herodotus, e.g. II.48.3, II.51.2–4, II.61.1–62.2, II.65.2,
II.170.1–171.1 Cf. Henrichs (2003), 235–239.
E.g. VIII.37.9, IX.27.2.
Cf. Diogenes Laertius VIII.34; Pierris (2006), 435.
For the sexual symbolism of ancient mysteries, see Pierris (2006), 241–392.
Tsantsanoglou (1997), 126.
A boorish person might, for instance, think that Socrates was sexually impotent
or suffering from unbearable narcissism, since he did not take advantage of
Alcibiades’ offer. The paedagogical and ethical message of Socrates’ denial to
indulge in corporeal gratification would thus be lost, and his understanding of
eros would pass unnoticed.
LATENT MEANING AND MANIFEST CONTENT
43
will be all theirs. But their failure will not consist in taking an allegory as a real
event, but in missing the point of the real event understood as a paradigmatic
story with some latent meaning.
Quite obviously, mere reading of an Orphic epic or hymn did not suffice to
make one a mystēs. But much of what will have taken place in an Orphic initiation
would be cryptically contained in Orphic myths. In this sense, it is more than
probable that the mythology contained in the Derveni poem was originally
meant as the symbolic kernel of Orphic initiation. If the author thought of his
cosmological exposition as the right method for imparting mystic knowledge,20
he may not have been very far from the poet’s original purpose.
According to the Derveni author, Orpheus’ composition of the theogonic
myth and of the poem, including the exclusion of the profane, was motivated
by a profound urge to benefit humankind, not by any separatist envy against
the masses.21 Still, it remains true to say that ‘the poetry [of Orpheus] is strange
and riddling’ in the sense that its full meaning will not be immediately evident
to all initiates, let alone the uninitiated many. Hence the need for exegesis.
3.
The commentator’s opposition between the manifest story and the latent
meaning of the poem is obviously marked: the hidden content is much more
significant than the apparent mythical form. But the significance of the latent
becomes obvious only after interpretation. The Derveni author clearly implies
that interpretation is the outcome of knowledge and that knowledge brings the
latent to the fore. But if so, does not the very practice of a written interpretation,
and then of publication, betray the poet’s spirit who banned the profane? We
may easily answer this question in the negative by assuming that the recipients
of the book were meant to be initiates. The Derveni author’s attack on the
initiates’ profound ignorance that persists even after their initiation (col. XX)
would make us think that he conceived his mission to be precisely the filling of
that gap. The Derveni author, on that view, wants to give a rational explanation
of mystery rites for those initiates who are not satisfied with mere participation
in sacred ceremonies, i.e. those who are not content with the irrational affection
(p£qhma) of which Aristotle speaks (fr. 15 Rose3), and perhaps even those who
have not undergone such an experience during initiation, namely those who
have not been affected in any profound manner by mystic ritual.
20
21
Obbink (1997), Janko (1997); cf. Seaford (1986).
The negation in col. XXV.13: [oÙ b]ou[lÒ]meno[j] p£ntaj gin[è]ske[i]n is an
editorial addition.
44
SPYRIDON RANGOS
But even so, a published book may always reach an improper audience.
One is reminded of a famous passage in the Platonic Seventh Letter (341d–e)
which states that a written discourse on the most important things (i.e. the
first principles) is unnecessary for the few, who need only a small indication
in order to discover everything by themselves, and dangerous for the many,
who will erroneously assume to have gained knowledge and, because of their
ignorance, will subsequently ridicule the pursuit of philosophy. How does the
Derveni author solve the problem posed by the fact that a written discourse is
always an orphan liable to all kinds of misconstrual, harassment and abuse by
improper step-fathers? How does he, as the father of the text, secure that his
publication will not reach an inappropriate audience and will not therefore be
abused in sacrilegious ways? My suggestion is that his interpretative strategy
uses obfuscation rather than illustration, less rather than more light, and is itself
allusive rather than straightforward.
In col. XXV.4–6 what is said to be ¥dhlon is not something hidden
from sight because of darkness, but something hidden from sight because of
superabundant light. Therefore, ¥dhlon, on the commentator’s view, is not
necessarily something that is not manifest at all. It may well be something that
appears dimly while something else appears more forcefully and renders the
dimly-appearing non-apparent. In such a case, what is needed for the nonapparent to appear is darkness. In the case of stars or shooting stars, it is only
at night that their dim light manifests itself. The stars or shooting stars are
always there during daylight but the presence of the sun makes them invisible.
In a similar way, we may assume that the latent meaning of the Orphic poem
is, on the commentator’s view, always there while the apparent content, the
mythical story proper, hides it from sight. What is needed for the latent content
to appear is not more but less light. Interpretative obfuscation would lay stress
on minor details of the text, show them to be inconsistent with common sense
or with what the same poet says elsewhere, and lead the reader to think that the
inconsistency is a sign of some profound hidden meaning.
This is done all over the place in the Derveni exegesis. It is done, for
instance, in col. XII, where the author wishes to convince us that ‘Olympus’
means ‘time’ (Brisson 1997).22 It is again done in col. XIII.4–9 and col. XVI.1–3
22
The supplement in line 9 should be crÒnon as in Janko 2002 (cf. Brisson 1997),
since what the author is concerned to show in this column is that one epic word
(”Olumpoj) has two distinct meanings (either ‘sky’ or ‘time’) in different contexts.
The correct meaning is determined, on the author’s view, by the qualifying adjective
of Olympus. However, if the editors are right in ascribing such an unnatural and
LATENT MEANING AND MANIFEST CONTENT
45
where ‘reverend’ is interpreted as ‘genital’ (cf. below section III.2). It is finally
done in the last col. XXVI, where the author renders the possessive pronoun
‘his’ (˜©j) into the adjective ‘good’ (™©j) by quoting a verse from a different
poem (i.e. Homer’s Odyssey VIII.335) and by ignoring the aspirate breathing.
The Derveni author is no fool who thinks that the apparent content makes
no sense (Betegh 2004, 133). It is precisely because the apparent content
makes perfect sense that it manages to hide from the sight of most people the
underlying meaning of the myth.
In col. XXIII.1–3, where reference is made to a verse about Okeanos, the
Derveni author presumably says: ‘This verse is composed so as to be misleading;
it is unclear [¥dhlon] to the many, but quite clear [eÜdhlon] to those who have
correct understanding, that “Okeanos” is the air and that air is Zeus.’
The phrase ‘so as to be misleading’ is an overtranslation. The author
writes toàto tÕ œpoj pa[ra]gwgÕn pepÒhtai and he means that the poet has
composed the preceding verse about the generation of Okeanos by Zeus in a
derivative or creative way, i.e. allusively.23 His purpose was not to deceive but
to illuminate. Now, it is clear that the select knowers must know that ‘Okeanos’
is the standard name of a particular river which has a cosmological and even
cosmogonical role to play in Homeric poetry, and that Zeus is the standard
name of the present ‘father of mortals and immortals’ in most of Greek
literature and belief. Already the unknowing many know that much. What
the many ignore is that Okeanos is something more than just a river. They do
not understand that river is an image and they do not delve further into the
meaning of that image. In other words, what the many ignore is that the image
of a ‘broadly flowing’ river is indeed an image, a symbol, a pointer, employed
in order to signify something that is neither water flowing on a bank nor even
water in general. Another image of water flowing on a bank, under the name of
Acheloos this time, is indeed used, according to the most plausible supplement
of the same column, in order to signify, on the commentator’s view, water in
general as perhaps a specific modification of omnipresent Air. But the image of
Okeanos is, according to the author, used differently. It signifies omnipresent
Zeus qua Air, i.e. Zeus in his most natural manifestation.
23
twisted argument to the author as they do in their Bryn Mawr Classical Review
reply to Janko (2006), their hypothesis would give further support to our claim
that the author uses obfuscation as an interpretative device.
Cf. Numenius fr. 25 (des Places), where the same word is applied to a verse (œpoj)
in order to qualify it as allusive, but not necessarily as parodic, contra LSJ s.v. II; cf.
Kouremenos (2006), 256.
46
SPYRIDON RANGOS
4.
We may now focus our attention on the primacy that the Derveni author
accords to night over light. His view on the subject may be taken as one more
indication of his interpretative techniques of obfuscation as well as a sign of his
Orphic affinities.
In col. XI.1–4 the author argues for the view that night, properly
understood, never sets. As everyday experience teaches, night daily gives place
to daylight (cf. Hesiod, Theogony 746–757). The statement that night never sets
would contradict experience. But the Derveni author does not say that. What
he says is that the depth of night remains in the same place (™n tù aÙtù mšnon)
when the beam of light comes to overtake it (aÙg¾ katalamb£nei). What
this view implies is that there is a dark depth, which is not apprehended by the
senses and which may perhaps be distinguished from empirical night insofar as
empirical night, with stars and all, is something seen. It is this dark depth that
functions as the material basis for light to appear. This dark depth is, to speak in
Aristotelian terms, a kind of prîton Øpoke…menon which light requires in order
to ground itself. A conception of darkness as absence of light, hence as nothing
in itself, is implicitly juxtaposed to a conception of darkness as something basic
and fundamental which remains intact and endures after the arrival of light.
This dark depth does not have light as its enantiomorphic opposite. It is rather
the grounding material of light. The dark depth, I suggest, appears through the
alternation of such opposite states as presence and absence of light, and in this
sense it may be said to appear more vividly at the precise time when a beam of
light seems to overtake it than when it is left to itself. (For our sense of sight
perceives only lightened objects or sources of light.) Therefore the dark depth
may be said to appear through luminous presence. But even when it so appears,
it appears as that which never manifests its own nature. That which never sets
is that which never hides. But that which never hides is also that which never
becomes manifest. To hide would be a betrayal of its essentially ¥duton nature,
and to become manifest, we may add, would be a betrayal of its essentially
¥dhlon nature. In the case of the depth of night, the ¥dhlon, that which is not
immediately given to sight, and the ¥duton, that which never sets or hides from
sight, come together. And this dark depth is, I would suggest, Misty Air, on the
one hand, and Unconscious Mind, on the other.
Although it is not explicitly stated in the preserved part of the papyrus, it
can be shown that the personal Night of the poem, who proclaimed oracles to
Zeus from a sanctum, was, for the Derveni author, not something distinct from
Zeus but, rather, an aspect of himself. To prove this point we shall have to make
a rather long digression.
LATENT MEANING AND MANIFEST CONTENT
47
All the divine persons that appear in the Orphic poem are assimilated
by the Derveni author, in either a straightforward or a roundabout way, with
Zeus. This is most evident in the case of Kronos who is said to be Mind striking
things against one another (col. XIV.7) and be the same as Zeus (col. XV.11–
12). The identity of Zeus with the female divinities of sexual attraction and
love (Aphrodite Ourania, Peitho and Harmonia) is the point of col. XXI, and
his identity with the mother goddesses (Ge, Meter, Rhea, Hera and Hestia) the
point of the following col. XXII.
In col. XVIII.9–12 it is stated that ‘before it was called Zeus, Moira existed,
being the thought of god eternally and ubiquitously. But after it had been called
Zeus, it was thought that it was born, though it existed before too but was not
named.’ A very similar claim is made in the previous col. XVII.4–6 where the
commentator discussed the relationship of Zeus’ substantial nature, namely
air, to Zeus’ appearance as the divine being whom mortals worship under the
name of Zeus. He said there: ‘But after it had been named Zeus it [viz. air] was
thought that it was born, as if it did not exist before.’ It follows that, although
Zeus’ substantial nature has been one and the same since the beginning, it
appeared in different forms at different stages of world-formation.
Contrary to what one might prima facie think, the arguments about names
work well only if names are not arbitrarily given to things (Henry 1986, 161).
People are castigated not because they think that something new is born when
a new name is given. People are castigated because they do not understand that
what is born and given a new name is a new aspect of something that existed
before and had a different name because, back then, it exhibited a different aspect
of the same thing. The old name of Zeus was given by Orpheus himself and was
‘Fate’. Orpheus, according to the commentator, saw that people acknowledge
Fate and believe that it spins all their future states of affair. Since all people
acknowledge Fate and believe in the spinning which Fate does, although they
do not know what ‘Fate’ and ‘spinning’ really mean, Orpheus decided to use this
same popular name in the narrative. But people are content with names and
images without being able to see what these names and those images refer to. We
may assume that, according to the Derveni author, ‘Moira’ did not refer to Zeus’
entire being, but only to a property of his: the property of being wise. ‘Fate’ would
thus be one of the names of Zeus’ wisdom. To the extent that Fate was used in
the narrative of the poem before Zeus’ mythical birth, ‘Fate’ would denote for the
Derveni author the wisdom of hidden Zeus, or the wisdom which can be found
in the cosmogonical course of things when Zeus’ fully-fledged being had not
yet become manifest. Now that Zeus’ being is no longer hidden, the expression
‘Moira spins’ refers to Zeus’ manifest wisdom which sanctions (™pikurîsai),
48
SPYRIDON RANGOS
but does not have to ordain or steer, present, probably past (if we accept Burkert’s
emendation genÒmena instead of the scribe’s ginÒmena), and future states of affair
(col. XIX.4–7). We might therefore say that ‘Fate’ denotes the hidden wisdom of
Zeus in the sense of an unconscious wisdom which will lead to the manifestation
of the conscious wisdom, or reason, of the person involved. That may be why this
wisdom is identified by the Derveni author as breath (pneàma) in the previous
column XVII.2–3. Since Zeus was Air before manifesting himself as Zeus, his
wisdom must have become manifest as a modification of air, i.e. as air in motion
or moving air in the sense of a life-providing substance which sets things in
motion and thus animates them. It is certainly not a coincidence that, according
to Aristotle’s testimony (De anima I.5 410b27–30 = OTF 421), the Orphics
thought of the soul as coming to the body through inhalation, and they believed,
in the same spirit, that souls are transported by the winds. We find a similar view
in Diogenes of Apollonia (fr. B 4 DK).
In the last column (col. XXVI.8–16) of the papyrus, the sexual mixture
of Zeus with his own mother, which the Orphic poem certainly narrated, is
interpreted by the Derveni author as a coming-together of Zeus with himself.
It follows that, according to the Derveni author, when Zeus is said to copulate
with his mother he is actually doing nothing more than coming to terms with
his own good mind. Sexual congress here means reversion to the self ’s best part.
And this best part is the creative and procreative aspect of Zeus. For ‘Mind is
the mother of all the other things’ (col. XXVI.1).
We may also safely assume that the strength (¢lk») which Zeus received
from Kronos in the poem was interpreted by the Derveni author as something
which Zeus, in his aspect of being the strongest, (be)got out of himself (col.
IX.1–2). In the same spirit, the oracle which Night supplied to Zeus in the
poem would be an oracle, according to the Derveni author, which Zeus
himself, in his aspect of being the most mindful, procured to himself. This is
implied in the statement of col. XIII.3 oÜte ¹ NÝx keleÚei (‘nor does Night
give instructions’).24 It follows that Night is itself an aspect of Zeus and that the
Dark of Night is Zeus qua that which never sets. Fate qua the hidden phronēsis
of Zeus may come to the same (cf. OTF 243.20).
5.
The extent to which the Derveni author is influenced by Heraclitus’ thought
is well known. Besides the passage where he explicitly mentions him in the
24
Could we possibly read oÜte ¹ NÝx keleÚei ¥lla ‘nor does Night command
other things (than what Zeus himself thought)’?
LATENT MEANING AND MANIFEST CONTENT
49
first part of the papyrus (col. IV.5–10; Tsantsanoglou and Parássoglou 1988;
Lebedev 1989), there are several other implicit allusions to him, as has been
noted by scholars (e.g. Sider 1997). But one important allusion has not been duly
stressed. The commentator’s reference to that which never sets in col. XI.1–4,
from which the previous digression got started, is a very brave encounter with,
or even opposition to, Heraclitus’ thought. Let us dwell on it for a while.
Heraclitus’ fragment B 16 reads thus: tÕ mÁ dànÒn pote pîj ¥n tij
l£qoi; ‘How could anyone escape the notice of that which never sets?’ (Kirk’s
translation 1962, 362).
Obviously, the question is rhetorical. In Heraclitus’ thought there is
something which never sets. This thing, unlike the physical sun, who notices
presences and is able to see everything in popular thought, does not ever set.
This thing cannot, therefore, be either the sun or any other thing that comes
into being and passes away.25 It must be something ever-present and ever-alive.
It must therefore be pàr ¢e…zJon. According to Heraclitus, this ever-lasting
fire is not always kindled fire; it is also extinguished fire (B 30). And this everlasting and ever-living fire, which must be distinguished from the empirical
fire that is not ever-lasting, is the quintessence of this world (B 30, cf. B 90), and
the thunderbolt that steers all things (B 64) and that ‘one wisdom which alone
is both willing and not willing to be called by the name of Zeus’ (B 32). This
fire is hidden from sight: it is not manifest in itself; it comprises the opposites,
and it is the true divinity which appears through such polar characters as day
and night (cf. B 57), winter and summer, war and peace, plenitude and want/
starvation (B 67).
In the same fragment B 67 we learn that this divine fire assumes contrary
features, and presumably different names (cf. B 15), like the physical fire that is
called after the particular incense that it is burning at each time. A similar view
is found in the Derveni author when he states in col. XIX.1–4:
… žn [›k]aston kšk[lht]ai ¢pÕ toà
™pikratoàntoj, ZeÝ[j] p£nta kat¦ tÕn aÙtÕn
lÒgon ™kl»qh. p£ntwn g¦r Ð ¢¾r ™pikrate‹
tosoàton Óson boÚletai.
… each one of the existing things has been called after what is
dominant in it, and all things were called Zeus, according to the same
principle; for the air dominates everything
25
Cf. Kirk (1962), 363–365; Kahn (1979), 271–276.
50
SPYRIDON RANGOS
as far as it wishes.
(My translation based on that provided by Tsantsanoglou and Parássoglou.)
Although scholars have repeatedly detected the influence of Anaxagorean
physics here, I think that it is Heraclitus’ thought, put in a form which may
indeed have a debt also to Anaxagoras’ vocabulary, that lies in the background
and informs the Derveni author’s view in this passage. There are many
indications, namely:
(i) the idea that everything is Zeus (B 32 together with B 67 and B 50),
(ii) the expression kat¦ tÕn aÙtÕn lÒgon (cf. B 31) meaning ‘measure’ and
‘proportion’ as well as ‘principle’.
(iii) the ascription of will to the first principle (Óson boÚletai) (cf. B 114:
krate‹ g¦r tosoàton ÐkÒson ™qšlei kaˆ ™xarke‹ p©si kaˆ perig…gnetai),26 and
(iv) the reference to name-giving (kšklhtai in the Derveni papyrus,
Ñnom£zetai in Heraclitus’ B 67).
The distinctly Heraclitean points are (ii) and (iii); (i) and (iv) can also be found
in tragic poetry (e.g. Aeschylus, Agamemnon 160–166; Sophocles, Trachiniae
1278).
In both Heraclitus and the Derveni author, that which never sets is not
perceptible through the senses: although hidden from eyesight, it remains
identical with itself and manifests itself indirectly through contrary states
or opposite features. But whereas Heraclitus identified that which never sets
with ever-living but invisible fire, the commentator identified it with the very
opposite of luminous fire, with invisible night or night’s innermost depth. It
seems reasonable to suppose that, as Heraclitus implicitly identified that which
never sets with his first principle of the world, so the Derveni author would
identify it with his own. But the first principle of the Derveni author’s universe
was Air. If that which never sets was explicitly identified with dark night or the
depth of night, what the commentator wanted his readers to understand was
that this dark night is at once dense (or misty) Air and oracular (or unconscious
and esoteric) Mind. We shall come back to those implicit identifications later
(section III). But one things seems clear enough. If the Derveni author decided
to identify ‘that which never sets’ with the dark of night, rather than with light
or the sun, it must have been because of the mental affinities he had with Orphic
myth and mystery initiation.
26
This is noted by Burkert (1997), 173.
LATENT MEANING AND MANIFEST CONTENT
51
II. The poet on the double creation of the world:
An interpretation
1.
It is generally admitted that the Orphic poet began his narration in medias res
by describing the establishment of Zeus’ power. However, if we assume that the
commentator was following the sequence of original verses, we must infer that
the poem, after the initial prohibition against the profane (col. VII.9), began
with the present world-order, as does Hesiod’s long theogonic proem (West
1983, 84–85). In col. VIII.2 Zeus has already assumed power, since reference is
made to his descendents. Nonetheless, the central event which all subsequent
verses describe is indeed the establishment of Zeus’ power. Therefore, it is safe
to conclude that the events which led to Zeus’ rule formed the backbone of the
poem. A succession myth was certainly involved by means of flash-backs. But
the poet’s narrative dwelt more on the events which secured Zeus’ rule after his
birth than on the states of the world which preceded his generation.
If we are to judge the content of the Orphic poem by means of the
surviving verses,27 it would seem that the central event of the narrative was the
swallowing of Protogonos by Zeus. Protogonos is either the name of a distinct
divine being (i.e. Phanes) as in the Rhapsodic Theogony, or a characterization of
Ouranos who is said to be the offspring of Night and the first ruler of the world
(col. XIV.6). In any case, it is hardly plausible that Zeus swallowed the severed
phallus of Ouranos, for a number of reasons.28
First, we possess no independent evidence for such a story in Greek
mythology, and that is why the Oriental myth of Kumarbi is often adduced as the
closest parallel. By contrast, the Rhapsodic Theogony does narrate the swallowing
of Phanes by Zeus (OTF 240–241, cf. 242.7–10). Second, if we assume that
Zeus swallowed a distinct person, either Ouranos or some other independent
divinity like Phanes, the Hesiodic parallel of the swallowing of Metis (a wellknown Orphic appellation of Phanes-Protogonos) would come readily to mind
(Theogony 890). Last but not least, grammatical reasons prohibit taking the
word a„do‹on as neuter. The quotations of the poem, which the Derveni author
provides, show that the object of swallowing is masculine (Brisson 2003, 23)
in both col. XIII.4 and col. XVI.3 (= fragments 8 and 13 in the papyrus edition
= OTF 8 and 12, respectively). We need not, therefore, assume that what was
27
28
Kouremenos, Tsantsanoglou and Parássoglou (2006), 21.
Contra Torjussen 2005, 13–15; pro Brisson 2003, 22–27.
52
SPYRIDON RANGOS
shocking in the Orphic myth was the swallowing of a penis. Zeus’ copulation
with his mother (col. XXVI.1–2, 9–10) would be shocking enough to justify
banning the uninitiated, and we possess plenty of evidence that this was indeed
a myth told by mystery experts, especially of the Orphic kind.
The swallowing of Protogonos, whoever he was, entailed the absorption
of everything in Zeus’ belly. Zeus remained alone, all things being interiorized
within him. Either this was meant to be the present state of the world and,
notwithstanding appearances, we are all now in Zeus’ belly – a rather implausible
option – or a second creation ensued in the form of mental planning from Zeus’
heart (as in OTF 243.31–32). To speak of regurgitation, as is often done, is a
hypothesis that, to my knowledge, is not supported by extant evidence. We may
conclude that Zeus’ taking of royal power follows four distinct stages: (i) Zeus
overturned his father Kronos and became king of the world, (ii) Night gave an
oracle to Zeus, (iii) Zeus swallowed Protogonos and the whole world became one
with him, (iv) Zeus created a new world, with deities and all, out of himself.
The first stage need not concern us here, since it comes from the traditional
material. Stages (ii)-(iv) are very interesting because here the original poet
gives voice to a cosmogonical account that clearly differs from the traditional
picture.
Quite obviously, the Orphic poet made a point in explicitly narrating a
double generation of the world. And we may ask: what is the purpose of this
double creation? What kind of experience did the original Orphic poet aim to
announce with such a mythical innovation? Why was he not satisfied with the
traditional account as it is found in Hesiod’ Theogony? What prompted him
to speculate further in order to reach the conclusion that the present worldorder is the outcome of a double, rather than a single, process of generation?
Could not Zeus be placed at the beginning of time alone and could he not
be assumed to have created the deities and the other parts of the world out
of himself, if that was indeed the poet’s point? Traditional polytheism would
thus be accommodated in a new mythical framework which would primarily
emphasize such a novel henotheistic conception of divinity as mainstream
scholarship finds for the first time in the poetry of Xenophanes (B 23–26 DK).
People will say that the Orphic poet wanted his theogony to reach a wide
audience, and in order to achieve that goal he had to make concessions to the
widespread Hesiodic account. His innovations, so the argument would run, in
order to be effective, had to be built in an already authoritative structure, and
such a structure was provided by Hesiod’s epos.
The argument is correct as far as it goes. But is does not go far enough. It
is certainly correct to say that Orphic theogonies arouse out of, among other
LATENT MEANING AND MANIFEST CONTENT
53
things, speculation on Hesiod’s model. It is also correct that Orphic literature
wanted to usurp the predominance of Homer and Hesiod. The ascription of
the whole new corpus to the authority of ‘famous Orpheus’29 served, no doubt,
a political goal. But what was the purpose of changing the traditional picture?
What prompted the dissemination of such new ideas as can be found in the
double creation of the world?
The following answers have been suggested:
(i) The double creation of the world solves the problem of the diversity of
particular things without jeopardizing the unity of the entire cosmic
structure. A mythical image of the kind we encounter in the Derveni
papyrus may be seen as the answer which ‘theologians’ (in Aristotle’s sense
of the world) gave to the challenge of philosophical monism.30 This must
have been a cosmogonical radicalization of the traditional view that Zeus
is ‘the father of mortals and immortals’.31 The double creation of the world
could thus be seen as the poetical, i.e. mythical, solution to the problem of
the unity of cosmos that was raised by the one-versus-many controversy
among philosophers. All present things are united because they all come
from the same source, namely Zeus, and yet they are distinct because they
have come out of that source. But we know next to nothing about the dates
in which so-called Orphic poetry was composed and we cannot exclude
the possibility that Orphic theogonies prompted philosophers to speculate
about the unity of things, rather than the other way round.
(ii) The double creation of the world gives a solution to the ambiguity of the
Greek ¢rc» which means both ‘beginning’ and ‘rule’ (Betegh 2004, 172–
174). Obviously, the problem that the Orphic poem faced cannot have
been semantic, in the sense of an ambiguity in the notion of beginning
which may be priority either of time or of rank and power and goodness.
It would have been, rather, the problem of what comes first: the good and
determinate and stable, or the bad and indeterminate and unstable? (cf.
Aristotle, Metaphysics N.4 1091b4–15). In Hesiod’s account, the beginning
does not coincide with the present ruler of the world. Justice is the outcome
of struggle and violence, and Zeus who establishes Justice through victorious
29
30
31
Ibycus (fr. 306 Page-Davies) mentions ÑnomaklutÕn 'OrfÁn in the earliest
surviving literary reference to Orpheus by name (cf. OTF 865).
This is a view that Gruppe (apud Guthrie 1966, 74–78) suggested, Guthrie (1966,
105–107) accepted and Betegh (2004, 175–179) elaborated further.
Cf. OTF 201 said of Kronos but implied in the case of Zeus, too (cf. OTF 200).
54
SPYRIDON RANGOS
battles comes last in the succession myth. Pherecydes of Syros may be said
to have addressed precisely that problem with his new myth, according to
which Zas (= Zeus) existed from all eternity but at a particular point in
time he married Chthonie (= Earth), who also existed from all eternity, and
thereby created the world in its present form (Schibli 1990, 50–77).
Philological investigations seek to detect influences and they usually succeed
in finding them out. But when all significant influences have been tracked
down, the problem of the unity of the work remains. Was the Orphic poem
a patchwork or bricolage (Edmonds 2004, 4) made of recycled material from
various sources, or did it possess a unity of its own, quite irrespective of the
provenance of the distinct elements that went to its production? If we assume
that it did possess such a unity, we have to address the issue of its meaning in
view of the whole sequence of events that it narrated, their mode of exposition
and their relevance to the mental life of both poet and audience.
In a sense, the problem which the original poet faced was indeed that of
unity-versus-plurality. The poet will then have said that one and many are the
two sides of the same coin which is the world at large. But to interpret him
as saying just that is to miss the dynamic element of his myth. For the unity
and plurality of the world are not just given from the beginning of time. They,
rather, represent the outcome of a process which his myth vividly brings to sight.
In order to understand the poet’s point we need to address questions like the
following: Why is Zeus not satisfied with mere kingdom like his predecessors,
but goes on to swallow Protogonos? Why does he follow Night’s advice? What
do Night and Zeus and Protogonos represent in this myth? Why is Zeus not
content with interiorization but goes on to create a new world out of presumably
intelligent planning?
2.
I think with Guthrie (1966, 82) that the solution can be found in the following
Orphic verses (OTF 237.1–3) if taken seriously. Zeus is addressing Nyx:
Ma‹a, qeîn Øp£th, NÝx ¥mbrote, pîj, t£de fr£ze,
pîj cr¾ m' ¢qan£twn ¢rc¾n kraterÒfrona qšsqai;
pîj dš moi ›n te t¦ p£nt' œstai kaˆ cwrˆj ›kaston;
Nanny, highest of gods, Night divine, tell me how,
how should I establish firm sovereignty over immortals?
and how will all things be one with me, and each thing be also separate?
In this fragment, Night is addressed as the supreme goddess (qeîn Øp£th).
Zeus addresses her as his great-grandmother or as an old nurse (ma‹a). Zeus
LATENT MEANING AND MANIFEST CONTENT
55
seeks particular advice from her. He poses two specific questions which,
though interrelated, are obviously distinct from one another (t£de, pîj dš).
The second question addresses the problem of unity-versus-plurality. The first
question addresses the problem of Zeus’ sovereignty.
The advice that Night gives to Zeus in this fragment is the swallowing
of the Protogonos (cf. OTF 240.(VI)-(VII)). The parallelism of this myth to
the Derveni tale is obvious enough. For in the Derveni poem too, Zeus seems
to follow Night’s advice when he swallows the Protogonos (col. XIII.3). The
evidence of the quoted Orphic fragment thus provides the necessary link
between Phanes’ invisibility (see below under 3) and Zeus’ success in tracking
him down and managing to swallow him.
We may say that the Orphic poet who came up with this myth wanted to
address the problem of the immanence or transcendence of divinity with respect
to the world. Zeus’ two interrelated questions are particular versions of this
problem, each approaching the aporia of immanence-versus-transcendence
from a different perspective. The two questions have a common psychological
preoccupation. The problem of immanence-versus-transcendence is posed by
an individual god who is now ruler of the universe but realizes that the universe
is external to him. To the extent that Zeus addresses a psychological problem
posed not by failure but by his preliminary success in establishing power, his
questions may be seen as giving archetypal voice to concerns that successful
human beings will face in maturity. The following thoughts are an attempt to
supply this sketchy idea with flesh and blood in the contexts of mythology and
initiation involved in the Derveni poem.
In the earliest Orphic theogony known independently of the Derveni
papyrus, the one written down by Aristotle’s pupil Eudemus, Night comes
first without a consort (OTF 20, cf. West 1983, 116–118). This agrees nicely
with Aristotle’s reference to the poets who generated everything from Night
(Metaphysics Λ.6 1071b27). Aristotle grouped together the ‘theologians’ who
generated everything form Night with those natural philosophers who held an
Ðmoà p£nta cr»mata doctrine. He obviously had Anaxagoras in mind. And
with good reasons. For Anaxagoras’ fragment B 4.17–18 (DK) says: prˆn d
¢pokriqÁnai taàta p£ntwn Ðmoà ™Òntwn oÙd croi¾ œndhloj Ãn oÙdem…
a,32 and that is clearly a state of affairs reminiscent of, and similar to, the dark
of night. We may thus assume that Night came first in the Derveni myth for
32
Cf. B 1: Ðmoà p£nta cr»mata Ãn […] kaˆ p£ntwn Ðmoà ™Òntwn oÙdn
œndhlon Ãn ØpÕ smikrÒthtoj.
56
SPYRIDON RANGOS
two distinct reasons.33 First, because this is how things stood in the Orphic
theogony which is, of all known versions, the most proximate in time to the
Derveni myth. And second, because if the Derveni poem started with Night,
that would facilitate the Derveni commentator’s transition from the mythical
origin of deities to an Anaxagorizing version of cosmogony.
3.
Night is obviously a dark origin of things. Her offspring is a luminous presence.
He is called ‘firstborn’ (either a proper name or a divine epiklēsis) because he
was the first deity to spring forth. ‘The first who sprang to aither’ (Öj a„qšra
œkqore prîtoj, col. XIII.4) – a„qšra is evidently an accusative of place
denoting the direction of movement – is the first who manifested himself. The
totality of subsequent things is encapsulated in his being. But the Firstborn,
though luminous in himself – he is also called Phanes, the Manifest One, in
subsequent literature (OTF 126) – is visible only to Night. An Orphic fragment
says (OTF 123):
PrwtÒgonÒn ge mn oÜ tij ™sšdraken Ñfqalmo‹sin,
e„ m¾ NÝx ƒer¾ moÚnh. toˆ d' ¥lloi ¤pantej
qaÚmazon kaqorîntej ™n a„qšri fšggoj ¥elpton
to‹on ¢pšstilben croÕj ¢qan£toio F£nhtoj.
Nobody has seen the Firstborn with their eyes,
apart from sacred Night alone; all the rest
were astonished to observe in the sky such an unexpected brilliance
that was radiating from the immortal skin of Phanes.
In this fragment we learn that none of the things that are around may notice
Phanes’ presence, apart from his mother (or daughter) Night. The First-born
is all over the place; his luminous presence is equally everywhere. He cannot
be seen not because he is essentially invisible, but because he is ultra-visible,
so to speak. Eyesight notices distinct entities, things with contours, and he has
none, since he is the splendour of everything, not more present in this thing
33
Betegh (2004), 154–156, claims, wrongly in my view, that Night was coupled
with Aither in the Derveni poem. This inference is based on the erroneous
understanding of the accusative a„qšra in col. XIII.4 as meaning the source,
rather than the direction or destination, of movement. For Betegh’s view to stand
we should have a genitive. It is true that some external evidence (not grammatical)
stemming from later Orphic theogonies does support Betegh’s suggestion, but the
earliest known version, i.e. the so-called Eudemus theogony, places Night alone at
the roots of the world’s genealogy.
LATENT MEANING AND MANIFEST CONTENT
57
than in that. To see him would require to assume a stance outside him. This
only Night, his mother, can do. She can see him because he is born out of her,
he is her product, which means that he distinctly expresses a power which is
already implicit in her (cf. Hesiod, Theogony 124). All subsequent things and
deities come out of the Firstborn. But their generation does not annihilate the
Firstborn. The Firstborn still lives in each and every of his descendants. His
being swallowed implicates the being-swallowed of everything. It is not the case
that Zeus swallows each and every thing and as a result of such total swallowing
he also swallows the Firstborn. It is rather the case that by managing to swallow
the Firstborn – an almost impossible task for Zeus to achieve on his own, since
the Firstborn is invisible and undetectable – he eo ipso swallows everything else.
To put it in awkward philosophical jargon, Zeus manages to lay hands on the
beingness of things, and by so doing he puts all things under his power. Zeus
does that by following the oracular advice of Night. ‘Oracular’ here does not
mean ambiguous or riddle-like; it means esoteric in the sense of an advice or
warning, that can be articulated in propositional form but is not produced by
rational deliberation. Night’s oracle is an intuition or insight offered to Zeus.
That such an intuition or insight comes from Night might mean that Zeus
receives the advice given to him by his lower, unconscious part, as it were. That
Night prophesies from the recesses of the earth, from an untrodden dark cave,
as in the Derveni poem, means that the advice comes from the innermost, from
the darkest, part of the unconscious. It is as if a dark principle (Night) had to be
immersed in another dark principle (the insides of the earth), or a dark agent to
hide in a dark region, for the advice to be valid. That Zeus duly follows it means
that he is ready to listen to what the unconscious declares, to pay heed to it and
accept the course of action prescribed thereby. Zeus is fully individuated. This is
shown by his readiness to follow the advice which stems from the unconscious,
but it is all the more shown by the kind of advice that the unconscious professes.
Night actually prophesied, not just anything, but precisely all the things that were
right and proper and permitted (qšmij) for Zeus to achieve. Night announced
what was to happen. And if Zeus was ready to follow her advice, as he was in our
story, what was to happen would undoubtedly happen. Zeus has fully accepted
his fate as ruler of the world by accepting all the stages that led to this rule.
Albeit already the ruler of the universe, Zeus was, prior to swallowing the
Firstborn, just one among the many things that exist in the world. His being,
although strongest, was still derived. This is shown by the traditional myth
which the Orphic poet obviously accepted and which said that Zeus is born
from Kronos and Rhea. Although the most powerful deity in the world, Zeus
was not, as yet, identical with the world. In order to become the world, Zeus
58
SPYRIDON RANGOS
had to find out the secret of the beingness of things and to absorb it. This secret
was the omnipresent and for that matter invisible Firstborn. On Night’s advice
Zeus found the secret, absorbed it, and by so doing he absorbed everything.
Now his being was no longer derived. His parents and grandparents and greatgrandparents became one with him, and he became truly a master. His majesty
no longer involved an opposition as it did when Zeus, in traditional myth,
had exercised his rule by strength and violence (Kratos and Bia in Hesiod’s
Theogony 385–389). He was now alone in the universe and the universe was
one with him, no longer something external. Zeus became fully full. There
was no deficiency in him, no want, no lack. Everything is Zeus and Zeus is
everything. This state of fullness denotes utmost autarky. Yet, it is not the final
state. As soon as he has absorbed everything, Zeus is pregnant with everything.
And he immediately gives birth without, it seems, pangs of labour. His new
creation is effortless, painless and thoughtful. It is the outcome of a free will
that has come to itself and wills nothing external. To the extent that the poet
believed that the ‘immortal blessed gods and goddesses’ and the things (‘rivers
and lovely fountains and everything else’) which Zeus absorbed (col. XVI.4–5
= OTF 12.2–3) are still to be seen around, we may assume that this new worldorder is, in important respects, similar to, if not identical with, the world-order
that existed before. But it is no longer the outcome of chance and crude necessity.
It is no longer the product of struggle and violence. The new creation is now
fully intelligible and, in this sense, entirely transparent. For everything has
come from the intelligent planning of the supreme ruler and the supreme ruler
is present in everything, as an artist is present in his/her works.
The whole myth of swallowing and of a second creation thus signifies
transformation. Zeus knowingly consents to undergoing the transformation
implied in Night’s oracle, he absorbs the beingness of things, and the whole
world, as a result, gets transformed. The secret of being has been revealed: deity
dwells there, in any and every part of the world. From being a place where just
anything could happen, the world is now a place where only the best actually
occurs. What is a miracle worthy of the highest admiration and, indeed, of
cult is that what used to happen before the transformation got started and
what now happens after its completion, or the erratic and unintelligible ways
of the past and the best possible ways of the present (which alone are fully
intelligible), denote one and the same course of things. ‘Wisdom is one: it is
both willing and not willing to be called by the name of Zeus’ (Heraclitus B 32;
cf. B 108). The Orphic poem articulated in a symbolic myth a concern of the
late Archaic age that seems to have cut across the distinct (for us) domains of
natural philosophy and mystery religion.
LATENT MEANING AND MANIFEST CONTENT
59
4.
The reading of the Orphic poem that we have attempted says that cominginto-being begins from a dark principle, which remains hidden throughout,
and proceeds gradually with the generation of distinct entities that eventually
oppose one another. The process is continuous until that flowery faculty
emerges which we may call Reason or Conscious Mind. As it matures, Reason
becomes master of the violent and cruel, irrational and unaccountable, powers
which produced it. In the process, Reason realizes that the only way to achieve
permanent sovereignty over the powers upon which it is dependent is not to
oppose them but to grant them free reign. This is in fact the esoteric advice that
Reason receives by his innermost self. In coming to terms with those irrational
powers, Reason decides to integrate the Self. And he succeeds. The whole
process of establishing a new order counts as a new creation. This new order is
the external sign of successful integration.
All the actors in this divine drama may be seen as aspects and powers of the
Self. As all actors in some very significant dreams represent distinct and often
unacknowledged faculties and tendencies of the dreaming individual in a state
of conflict, dynamic equilibrium, preponderance of some over others etc., so this
divine myth dramatizes the human conflict in an archetypal way and ends up
by bringing an equilibrium of psychic factors to stand under the supremacy of
the upper, conscious and deliberative, part. The goal of integration has been fully
achieved. The creative urge of Reason has been fuelled and propelled by the motor
power supplied by the lower parts which Reason has taken into account. The Self
that emerges is no longer identified with Reason alone, although it is a Self that has
cast the beam of Reason to most parts of the Self (apart from the very root of being
symbolized by Night). This is truly a new creation, and it is truly the outcome
of the Self ’s integrated heart. The famous Orphic hymn to Zeus, which has an
important antecedent in the Derveni papyrus,34 says (OTF 243.31–32):
p£nta d' ¢pokrÚyaj aâqij f£oj ™j polughqj
mšllen ¢pÕ krad…hj profšrein p£li, qšskela ῥšzwn.
having hidden all things, Zeus was going to bring them forth again,
back to joyous light from within his heart, performing thus a
marvellous job.
If we assume that Zeus represents the Self before and after integration, the
verses would make some sense even today.
34
Coll. XVIII.12–13 and XVII.6 = OTF 243.1, XVII.12 = OTF 243.2, XIX.10 ≈ OTF
243.5.
60
SPYRIDON RANGOS
If the above interpretation, though presented in the idiom of modernity,
is not fundamentally mistaken, the Orphic theogonical myth would be a
symbolic representation of the kind of psychological transformation that the
initiand had to undergo during initiation. The mystēs had to identify with Zeus
and, like him, become master of his/her own fate by accepting, knowingly and
willingly, all the events that have led to his/her present state.
III. The commentator on the double creation of the world:
a speculative reconstruction
1.
The fragmentary state of the papyrus has prevented scholars from reaching
an agreement on the cosmogonical model that the Deveni author had in
mind. His ambiguous vocabulary stemming, as we suggested in section I.3,
from intentional obfuscation, has made things worse. But one thing which is
clear enough is that the material stuff and the moving cause of the universe
are one and the same, and they are named Air and Mind, respectively. Their
identity does not, however, preclude differences of aspect and of emphasis in
the course of cosmogony. We have already seen how Night, Kronos, Fate,
Okeanos, Aphrodite, Persuasion, Harmony, Earth, Mother, Rhea, and Hera are
all understood as different aspects of the same deity. It is, therefore, more than
probable that now the airy and then the intelligent aspect of Zeus would be
stressed at different phases or stages of the Derveni author’s cosmogony. For
if cosmogony there is, and if moreover deity is seriously meant to dwell in the
world, then deity should evolve on the same pace as the world changes.
Michael Frede has suggested in conversation that we should not think of
primordial Air as necessarily homogeneous. We should, rather, think of the
Derveni author’s Air as a nebulous mixture of aerial substances, i.e. a kind of
airy stuff which is in constant motion thanks to indeterminacy and lack of
homogeneity. This view seems to tally with Aristotle’s idea that any kind of
matter that holds a mid-position between water and fire, but is not identical
with (Aristotle’s) air, is a better candidate for the primary substance of a monist
natural philosopher than any of the elements of our present experience (Physics
I.6 189b2–6). The reason Aristotle gives for this view is that the primary stuff
has to be more indeterminate than the known elements which are already
combined with the opposites (so that fire, for instance, is hot and dry, air is hot
and wet etc.). According to Aristotle, the best candidate for a monist natural
philosopher who still wants to choose among the four known elements, is air.
‘For it has sensible differences in the least degree when compared with the
LATENT MEANING AND MANIFEST CONTENT
61
other three elements’ (189b6–8). We may therefore assume that the Derveni
author’s Air was meant to be more like an intermediary stuff (between, say, fire
and water, or even fire and air35) than like the determinate air of our experience,
although it was clearly named ¢»r.
Now, it is clear that, although Air/Mind existed from the very beginning,
the formation of the universe did not occur instantaneously. The universe
has a history in the sense that it was evolving for an indeterminate stretch
of time before reaching its present state. Its evolution, albeit continuous, was
not uniform. The evolution of the universe seems, rather, to have followed
two distinct phases,36 if we do not count as distinct the pre-cosmic state of
nebulous air:
(i) A phase when the original nebulous stuff or primordial Misty Air changed
(perhaps through friction) into a hot aerial substance, so that fire or heat
became dispersed throughout the universe and was mixed with all other
things (tÕ pàr ¢namemeigmšnon to‹j ¥lloij in col. IX.5–6). In that phase,
fire predominated to such a degree that things were melting together and
were thus prevented from coagulating to form permanent structures (col.
IX.8–10).
(ii) A second phase when fire was modified (™xall£ssei and ™xallacqn
in col. IX.7–8),37 its power being diminished or delimited in the creation
of the sun (coll. XIII.10–12 and XV.2–5), such that things could be, on
the one hand, distinct from one another and, on the other, not so firmly
distinct in their isolation as to prevent interdependence. This second
phase, when the relative independence and mutual interdependence of
things reached an equilibrium, was in all likelihood identified as the phase
when Zeus/Mind took firm control of everything. The first phase would
be collectively identified as the reigns of Ouranos and Kronos understood,
in all likelihood, the former as Ðr…zwn noàj or Delimiting Mind, and the
latter as kroÚwn noàj or Striking Mind (col. XIV.7–13).
In col. XVII.7–10 the Derveni author assumes two such successive phases in the
history of the universe. The first temporal phase, which is now past (prÒsqen),
35
36
37
Cf. Aristotle, Physics I.4 187a14.
Cf. Burkert (1997), 173; Kouremenos (2006), 30.
The verb ™xall£ssw does not mean ‘remove to a distance’ vel sim., as it is usually
translated, but rather ‘modify’. Thucydides V.71, often quoted at this juncture
in support of a ‘removal’ meaning, means ‘exchange’, rather than ‘withdraw’ or
‘remove from’ as LSJ s.v. II.1 explains. A cognate occurs in Anaxagoras B 21 (DK):
t¾n par¦ mikrÕn tîn crwm£twn ™xallag»n.
62
SPYRIDON RANGOS
was a phase when everything was floating in the air (ºiwre‹to).38 The second
temporal phase, which indicates the present state of the world, is clearly a phase
when things have come together (sunest£qh) and have assumed identifiable
forms. For both phases the cause is Zeus. He is explicitly said to represent both
the efficient cause (di¦ toàton) and the material cause and space condition (™n
toÚtJ) of the universe’s past and present states (col. XVII.10–11). Although
the author does not explicitly draw a correspondence between the two phases
and the two causal functions of Zeus, we may perhaps assume that he thought
of Zeus qua Misty Air and Unconscious Mind as the cause of the first phase and
of Zeus qua Transparent Air and Conscious Mind as the cause of the second. It
is, in any case, clear that the Derveni author envisaged a chaotic state of Ðmoà
p£nta cr»mata at the beginning of things.
It follows that, although the ur-stuff of Air existed from the beginning, the
intelligent aspect of the world, i.e. Mind, came to be evident at a later stage.
When Mind arose, it gave a new arrangement to the entire cosmic structure.
In this sense, the author believed that the world as we know it is the product
of a two-stage procedure. The first stage is the spontaneous configuration of
primary material into a kind of dynamic structure. At the end of this stage Mind
manifests itself. The second stage begins when the Mind decides to rearrange
things according to its will. It thus subsumes all things under his power. This
second phase is a sort of new creation. What this new creation brings about is
structural perfection and harmony. In a sense, it is this second cosmogonic stage
that makes the universe an intelligible world. By rearranging pre-existing things
into a harmonious structure the Mind manages to permeate everything, to make
itself present in all things. Insofar as all things come from the ur-stuff of Air,
which is identical with Unconscious Mind, they have all shared in Mind from
the very beginning. But insofar as Mind qua Conscious Reason is a latecomer in
the author’s cosmogony, intelligence has to be breathed in them again.
2.
That the commentator assumed something like a double creation of the world
becomes more plausible by the way he decides to interpret the swallowing of
the Firstborn in coll. XIII and XVI. What I mean is the following.
The Orphic poem narrated the swallowing of the Firstborn by Zeus. It also
narrated how everything became absorbed in Zeus and how Zeus came to be
alone (moànoj œgento). It then presumably narrated how everything was created
38
I take it that the air meant here is not the aboriginal misty substance but, rather,
the hot aerial mixture at the end of stage (i) when fire predominated.
LATENT MEANING AND MANIFEST CONTENT
63
anew with effortless intelligence. It is unlikely that the Derveni author did not
understand this sequence of mythical events. But he undertook to interpret them
differently. The apparent myth was to him a pointer to the latent meaning. In
order to maintain that Orpheus intended what he himself found in the poem, the
Derveni author assumed that Orpheus used some specific words as signs. One
such word was the word a„do‹on. The Derveni author understood that the word
means ‘reverend’ (Henry 1986, 159). He understood that the many would take
it in this sense. He also thought that Orpheus used it knowingly, not in order to
deceive but in order to indicate something profound. The word a„do‹on means
also ‘phallus’. Phallus is the symbol of procreative natural dynamism and it has,
for this reason, become the symbol par excellence of Dionysus (cf. Heraclitus B
15). The Derveni author identifies it with the sun. The sun is also a procreative/
fertilizing principle. Zeus, who is to him Intelligent Air, absorbed the procreative
principle. Intelligent Air thus fertilized himself. For the Derveni author such an
absorption and self-fertilization is a single process, but for our own analytical
purposes we may see it as working simultaneously on two levels, the physical
and the mental. On the physical plane, Air would absorb Fire. This Fire, we may
assume, was an offspring of Misty Air, i.e. of Air qua Night, at the beginning of
things. On the mental plane, Mind would receive Illumination. This Illumination,
we may assume, was the product of Unconscious Mind, i.e. of Mind qua Night at
the beginning of things. But those two levels are not for the Derveni author really
distinct. What ensues is a new creation which is now the product of intelligence
rather than the outcome of mere chance. In this way, Mind, which is a latecomer
in the Derveni author’s universe, assumes sovereignty over everything. The new
creation that ensues when Mind receives Illumination is transparent rather than
opaque, and in harmony rather than in conflict with itself.
3.
All in all, the phases or stages of world-formation are four rather than two, if we
count the primordial misty air as first, and distinguish the reigns of Ouranos
and Kronos. We may now venture a bolder suggestion of correspondences
between the Derveni author’s cosmogony and the poet’s Orphic theogony. But
before we are in a position to do so, we must first establish who was meant to
be the Protogonos of the poem.
Since Ouranos is explicitly said to be the son of Night and the first ruler
of the universe (col. XIV.6); since, in later Orphic literature, the Firstborn is
intimately linked with Night (by being either her father or her son); since we
have seen why Night should be placed alone at the beginning of the Derveni
theogony; and since, finally, the succession Ouranos-Kronos-Zeus is secured,
64
SPYRIDON RANGOS
it follows that Protogonos must be an appellation of Ouranos rather than the
proper name of a distinct divinity.
In the Orphic fragment that we have quoted in the previous section (III.3
= OTF 123), we have seen that the invisible Protogonos shines through the
sky to an astonishing degree. If that was how the Derveni poem described the
Firstborn Sky it would not be strange if the Derveni author decided to interpret
the heavely radiance of Ouranos as the sun’s brilliance. That he decided to
identify the object of Zeus’ swallowing with the sun is clear enough (col.
XIII.9). The identity of the Firstborn with the Sky would provide us with the
reason behind the Derveni author’s decision.
The following table aims to provide tentative lines of correspondence
between the Derveni author’s phases in the evolution of the universe and the
genealogy of the original Orphic poem.
Derveni author
Physical aspect
1. Misty Air (cold)
2. Dispersed fire (hot)
Mental aspect
Unconscious Mind
Emergent
Consciousness (i)
Delimiting Mind
Ðr…zwn noàj
3. Cold (air) and hot
Emergent
(fire) in opposition
Consciousness (ii)
Striking Mind
kroÚwn noàj
4. Cold (air) and hot
Emergent
(fire) in (relative)
Consciousness (iii)
harmony
Reason
4.1 Concentration of (hot) Illumination
fire / Creation of Sun Conscious Mind
alone
4.2 New cosmic
arrangement /
Cold (air) and hot
(fire) in perfect
harmony /
Present world-order
Conscious Mind
together with other
things
Orpheus
Night
Firstborn Ouranos
Kronos
Zeus
Advice of Night to
Zeus / Swallowing of the
Firstborn /Absorption of
everything in Zeus’ belly
Second creation of the
universe through Zeus’
mental planning
LATENT MEANING AND MANIFEST CONTENT
65
4.
It seems that for the Derveni author the processes through which the universe
assumed its present form were reflected in the mental development of individual
human beings. The culmination of that development in the human sphere will
have been initiation in a mystery cult, if undergone in the right mental attitude
and with the right kind of knowledge (col. XX). It would be there that the
initiate might receive a kind of illumination similar to the harmonious and
intelligible transparency that the world received in the second phase of its
creation when Mind was breathed into it again.
In the long and unintelligible Orphic lamella from Thurii (OTF 492 = Graf
and Johnston 4), which has been rightly brought into comparison with the text of
the Derveni papyrus (Betegh 2004, 332–337), we find the phrase f£oj ™j fršna,
‘light to the mind’ (line 9). This phrase seems to indicate the sudden illumination
that the Orphic mystēs is expected to receive during initiation. The same lamella,
according to the most plausible reconstruction, mentions Protogonos, Earth
Mother, Cybele, Kore, Demeter, Zeus, Air, Sun, Fire, Moirai, Night and Day, and
Phanes. The identity of these deities with those mentioned in the Derveni papyrus
can hardly be fortuitous. The text of the Orphic lamella seems, rather, to stem
from the same cluster of mythical ideas that we find in the papyrus. What is more
interesting, however, is that in both kinds of text, divine persons are mentioned
side by side with so-called elements and processes (e.g. ¢ntamoib» in line 4 of
the lamella) of early Greek natural philosophy. The general impression is that the
composers of those texts aimed to create new syntheses of telestic Orphic myths
with cosmogonical and cosmological processes by harmonizing the redemptive
value of the former with the mystical doctrine of the latter (Seaford 1986). Rather
than simply translating traditional, or not so traditional, myths into the idiom of
natural philosophy through allegoresis, the authors of those texts seem to have
used both in an attempt to discover the structure of the world and man’s place
in it. As is clear in the case of Empedocles, it was natural philosophy, rather than
mystery religion, that was the truly secret and esoteric doctrine (Kahn 1993).
Final Remarks
The author of the Second Alcibiades bears witness to the view that poetry
in general was considered by some to be by nature symbolic or riddling
(a„nigmatèdhj).39 The point is that poetry narrates tales or stories, and it takes
39
Plato (?), Alcibiades II 147b: ¢ll' a„n…ttetai, ð bšltiste, kaˆ oátoj kaˆ ¥lloi
d poihtaˆ scedÒn ti p£ntej. œstin te g¦r fÚsei poihtik¾ ¹ sÚmpasa
a„nigmatèdhj kaˆ oÙ toà prostucÒntoj ¢ndrÕj gnwr…sai.
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SPYRIDON RANGOS
effort and a qualified person to understand their meaning. The view sounds
Platonic enough,40 but need not be considered original with the Academy. It
was rather the clear-cut differentiation between philosophy and poetry and
their subsequent opposition that was the product, and the legacy, of Plato’s
thought.
In a sense, the text of the Derveni papyrus supplies an instance of ‘the
ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry’ avant la lettre. To be sure, the
two ‘opponents’ are synthesized on a higher level through a certain kind of
allegoresis that seems to cut both ways: it is rational explanation of myths no less
than religious mystification of natural philosophy. But the opposition between
natural philosophy and religious poetry can still be seen in the stretched
exegetical labour of the Derveni author. By ‘quarrel’ we should understand
not so much (or necessarily) a difference in purpose or subject-matter as a
fundamental difference in the means of expression. Orphic poetry employed
anthropomorphic figures, emotional situations and intentional actions, as
does dreaming; natural philosophy used concepts of higher abstraction, be
they material principles or forces of a less clearly personal character. The first
narrated a story; the second stated, or argued for, a case. Both kinds of discourse
emphasized causal relations and tried to explain present states of affairs with
recourse to some antecedent processes or changes in the past. They both served
a cognitive goal.
We are now in a position to admit that, prior to the poetry-versusphilosophy or myth-versus-reason distinction and eventually opposition,
there were many other types of discourse which tended to combine abstract
requirements of the intellect with vivid particularity and concreteness
demanded by the imaginative faculty. Orphic theogonies as well as mixedtheologies (like that of Pherecydes of Syros, for instance) provide clear
instances of such essentially symbolic discourses. As a matter of course, we
should not think of Orphic myth in Aristotelian terms, as a kind of mimesis,
i.e. as imitation of action that articulates the universal by means of the
particular. For such an interpretation of myth already approaches poetry as
a handmaid to philosophy, i.e. a kind of ‘light philosophy’ suitable for the
masses, and thus places it under the authority of the universal concept which
only philosophy manages adequately to articulate. We should, rather, think of
poetry as originally symbolic. And I think that this is how the Derveni author
approaches the Orphic poem.
40
Cf. Theaetetus 194c, Republic 332b.
LATENT MEANING AND MANIFEST CONTENT
67
In their primary sense, symbola were signs of identity and tokens of
recognition.41 In Plato’s Aristophanes, they become means of recognizing the
missing part, and of attaining unity with it (Plato, Symposium 191d). Since a
symbolon was a half of a thing, such as a coin or ankle-bone, the notion of the
thing’s unity or entirety was predominant in its function. Aristotle could write
that opposites, such as the cold and the hot, desire one another like symbola,
because their combination produces a mean equilibrium between them.42
Aristotle’s overall point is that enantiomorphic, no less than complementary
opposites like the sexes or the members of the master-slave polarity, tend to
form unities in which their opposition is finally resolved. In the course of the
fifth and fourth centuries BC, symbola were thus seen as means of effective
integration.
The word does not occur in the Derveni papyrus. But it does occur in a
little gold lamella found at Pherae (OTF 493 = Graf and Johnston 27). This plate
belongs to the same ever-increasing corpus of inscriptions coming from tombs
of Dionysian-Orphic initiates as the Thurri lamella that we have discussed.
The context indicates that sÚmbola means ‘passwords’ reserved for initiates.43
Those passwords laconically refer to religious symbols and divinities that must
have played important roles during initiation. Their utterance enabled the
initiate to ‘enter the hole meadow’ or, as another lamella indicates in slightly
different imagery, ‘go along the sacred road on which other glorious initiates
and bacchoi travel’ (OTF 474.15–16 = Graf and Johnston 1.15–16, translation
by Johnston). Symbola qua passwords allow for post-mortem happiness in
company with other mystai. It follows that not only words but ritual objects,
deities and myths could be considered to be symbolic, in the sense of being
means for attaining the desirable integration of the self that was the end of
mystery cults.
Obviously, speaking of the self ’s integration is a modern way of putting
the matter. The Pherae lamella says that ‘the initiate is redeemed’. But if his/her
redemption, which was clearly the outcome of initiation, had any significant
effect on his/her earthly life, this could only occur because initiation (telet»)
produced a kind of perfection (tšloj) of the individual by means of a symbolic
41
42
43
E.g. Herodotus, Histories VI.86α5-β1; Euripides, Medea 613.
Eudemian Ethics VII.5 1239b31–32: æj sÚmbola g¦r Ñršgetai ¢ll»lwn di¦
tÕ oÛtw g…nesqai ™x ¢mfo‹n žn mšson.
Johnston in Graf and Johnston (2007), 133.
68
SPYRIDON RANGOS
death (teleut»).44 By undergoing such ‘a rehearsal for death’45 the initiand was
expected to be freed of mortal fear for the rest of his life, by coming to terms
(as we would put it) with the unconscious, lower part of the self in which the
terror of death is rooted. We have argued that the central myth contained in
the Derveni papyrus was meant as symbolic in the above sense, and that the
commentator was as much alert to that, as he was alert to the growing ignorance
of his contemporaries concerning the efficacy of religious symbolism. Perhaps
it is not by accident that the concluding phrase of the gold lamella of Pherae
(¥poinoj g¦r Ð mÚsthj) finds verbal echoes in col. VI of the Derveni papyrus
where we find the words poin»n (VI.5) and mÚstai (VI.8). 46
The Derveni author clearly believes in the efficacy of initiation if
undergone with the right mental attitude. In his digression on the proper
attitude to the mysteries,47 which is the theme of col. XX, the Derveni author
stresses the significance of knowing in the sense of understanding as opposed
to mere learning or undergoing an experience (summarized in the opposition
between ™pitelšsai and e„d»sein in line 11).48 What he clearly has in mind
is an understanding which is of a conscious and intellectual nature. The whole
exegesis of the Orphic poem which he provides is of the same kind. For the
commentator, the road to salvation passes through a kind of knowing which is
conscious and to a certain extent reflective. The initiate, in his opinion, must be
able to give an account, so to speak, of what happened to him during initiation
for initiation to be effective. This demand applies both to the mystery cults
established by the cities (such as the Eleusinian mysteries) and to the holy
44
45
46
47
48
One is, once again, reminded of Plutarch’s fr. 178: ™ntaàqa d' ¢gnoe‹ [sc. ¹
yuc»], pl¾n Ótan ™n tù teleut©n ½dh gšnhtai. tÒte d p£scei p£qoj oŒon
oƒ teleta‹j meg£laij katorgiazÒmenoi. diÕ kaˆ tÕ ῥÁma tù ῥ»mati kaˆ
tÕ œrgon tù œrgJ toà teleut©n kaˆ tele‹sqai prosšoike. ‘Here on earth,
the soul is ignorant, except when death approaches. But at the time of death it is
affected in a way similar to that which affects initiands in great telestic rituals. That
is why “to die” and “to be initiated” are similar to one another in both word and
deed.’
The phrase, reminiscent of the Platonic melšth qan£tou, is borrowed from
Seaford (2005), 602.
Tsantsanoglou (1997), 116.
I cannot accept the view that almost the whole col. XX (1–10) is a verbatim
quotation from another prose author (Rusten 1985, 139). Obbink (1997, 44–46)
has rightly criticised this view for papyrological and substantial reasons.
Col. XX uses an excess of words related to knowledge: 2 ginèskein, 3 maqe‹n, 6
e„d»sein, 7 e„dšnai, 8 e„dÒtej, œmaqon, 10 tÁj gnèmhj, 11 e„d»sein.
LATENT MEANING AND MANIFEST CONTENT
69
rites performed by individual priests who supposedly possessed expertise in
things divine (such as the itinerant priests of Orphism). What is more, the
commentator does not present this demand as something which he himself
would require from the initiates, but as a need which the initiates themselves
feel (col. XX.11–12).
We are clearly in an age when mere participation in a mystery cult does not
fully satisfy human needs. What is also required by religious people is a proper
understanding of what is going on in the universe as a whole, of which the soul
and her survival after the corruption of the body, as well as the constitution of
the body itself, are parts. The age of innocence is over. Reason has emerged and
has put new requirements on people’s lives. Integration of the self can no longer
neglect the demands of the intellect.
Now, imagine an interpreter with such views and requirements in mind,
as we have tried to sketch in the preceding two paragraphs, approaching the
Orphic poem. To the extent that the poem says something to him, to the extent
that it moves him deeply, to that very extent our intellectual will be forced to
find out what it is that moves him there. The only cosmological theory known
to him or accepted by him is that of Mindful Air. He believes that everything
is, in one way or another, a specific modification of this first principle which
is also the god of the universe. In what sense would it be unacceptable for him
to use this theory as an interpretative tool for coming to terms with the poem’s
message? For if the theory is true and if, moreover, the poem says something
that appears to be true to him, then the poem and the theory cannot be
separated by an unbridgeable gap. They must, rather, be different formulations,
one possibly more adequate than the other, of the same reality.
And yet, we do not know how much of the natural philosophy that the
commentator expounds in his exegesis of the poem has been modified by his
reading of poetry, either Orphic or of any other kind. We cannot therefore
determine whether he applied a ready-made physical theory assumed to be
true to a poem independently assumed to be sacred, as a Christian scientist
of our own times would have to do so as to betray neither faith nor scientific
earnestness (Most 1997, 122), or whether he used, rather, all his erudition that
stemmed from various discussions and readings in both philosophy and poetry,
in order to create his own theory of Being which would be sensitive both to the
vivid imagery of poetry and to the conceptual satisfaction provided by philosophy.
He was perhaps an eclectic, as he is usually called, most often in a derogatory
sense, in modern studies. But he was an eclectic, not because he was a fool or
an amateur with no proper training, but because he was serious enough to be
striving for his own theory of Being which would reconcile a mystery religion
70
SPYRIDON RANGOS
of the Orphic type with a natural philosophy of the Pre-Sophistic kind (Burkert
1967), as Empedocles had done before him. Whether or not he succeeded in
his endeavour we cannot tell. To judge by the firmness49 of his voice I would
be inclined to say that he did. But in comparison with Empedocles’ success,
his must have been as less conspicuous as his dependence on Orpheus and
Heraclitus, the two authors he mentions by name, shows a somewhat inferior,
rather scholarly, spirit that needs crutches for mental support. We may yet delve
further into the two more evident (though unacknowledged by him) sources of
his eclecticism: Diogenes of Apollonia and Anaxagoras of Klazomenai.
Diogenes describes and explains the present state of the world. All his
extant fragments are cosmological. Anaxagoras, by contrast, is interested in the
origins and the processes whereby the present state of the world has come to
be out of the initial mixture. Most of his extant fragments are cosmogonical.
The Derveni author takes the cosmology of Diogenes and combines it with
the cosmogony of Anaxagoras. He, after all, wants to interpret a poem which
describes the generation of the universe by focusing on divine activities, on
action. In his blend of Anaxagoras’ cosmogony with Diogenes’ cosmology,
the Derveni author has used Heraclitus, perhaps as a catalyst for the new
synthesis.
If, as with Diogenes, everything is a modification of Air, it follows that Air
cannot be found in a pure and unmixed state. If, on the other hand, the Mind
is separate and pure and unmixed, as with Anaxagoras, it follows that Mind
is transcendent. Diogenes’ doctrine entails immanence but pays the price for
such immanence by not being able to find a place for Intelligent Air to be in
itself. Intelligent Air can only be seen through its products, mixed as it always is
with them. Anaxagoras’ doctrine presupposes transcendence of Mind, but if
transcendence is pressed too far, then the initial reason for postulating such
a cosmic Mind vanishes. This seems to be Socrates’ disappointment with
Anaxagoras’ theological physics in the Phaedo. The Derveni author seems to
hold a mid-position between those two extremes, a position which may appear
self-refuting. He wants it both ways. He seems to believe that everything is
Intelligent Air and that Intelligent Air is separate from everything else (cf. Laks
1997, 131).
But if this is so, then the Derveni author has managed to articulate in
the mode of Pre-Socratic thinking, the problem that had already been posed
49
I do not say ‘clarity’ because the Derveni author’s voice is not sufficiently clear.
But, then, neither is Heraclitus’.
LATENT MEANING AND MANIFEST CONTENT
71
in the Orphic poem, namely that the present ruler of the world is and is not
its creator, is and is not present in everything, is and is not a separate entity
among other things. The problem which the Derveni author was facing and
which was in a sense also the problem of the Orphic poem itself, is perhaps
one of the most fundamental problems which any monistic philosophy has to
face. It was already present in Heraclitus (cf. B 32 and B 108). Mutatis mutandis
we may compare it with Aristotle’s dilemma in Metaphysics E.1 as to whether
the subject-matter of first philosophy, which is also called ‘theology’, namely
being qua being, is restricted to a particular domain of reality or extends to the
beingness of all things (1026a23–32).
The author of Metaphysics a, who was a direct pupil of Aristotle’s (often
identified with Pasicles of Rhodes), writes (a.1 993b9–11): ésper g¦r t¦ tîn
nukter…dwn Ômmata prÕj tÕ fšggoj œcei tÕ meq' ¹mšran, oÛtw kaˆ tÁj
¹metšraj yucÁj Ð noàj prÕj t¦ tÍ fÚsei fanerètata p£ntwn. His point
is that the most manifest things are the most invisible for the eye of our human
intellect which is compared with the blindness of bats. This reminds us of both
the Orphic Protogonos-Phanes and the Derveni author’s Air/Mind/Zeus.
The invisibility of the first god became a recurrent motif in the Platonic
tradition, in both the erudite and the popular late antique versions. Plutarch
(On Isis and Osiris 381b) says that the first god sees without being seen, and the
fifth Hermetic treatise deals with the same paradox, namely ‘that the invisible
god is the most manifest’ (Óti Ð ¢fan¾j qeÕj fanerètatÒj ™sti). Plotinus
will use the same distinction between those who know and those who do not as
the Derveni poet and the Derveni author did, in order to show the paradoxical
situation that obtains with respect to his own first principle, the One, which is
truly believed to be everywhere and nowhere in particular, at once. Plotinus
writes (Enneads V.5.8.24): ‘Someone might be astonished with that [viz.
paradox], but for him who knows it would be more astonishing if the opposite
were the case’. The opposite of which Plotinus speaks is that the One should be
here rather than there. The Derveni author and, prior to him, ‘Orpheus’ and
Heraclitus were haunted by the same aporia.
Department of Philology
University of Patras
Campus 265 04 Patras
Greece
<rangos@upatras.gr>
72
SPYRIDON RANGOS
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