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On the Soul and its Σῶμα / Σῆμα

or,

On the Ὀρφικος βίος and its Δόγμα / Λογοι

Many an ancient theologian has grappled with notions of what specifically it is that animates life. Indeed, the words “animate” and “animal” come to us from the Latin “anima,” meaning “breath” or “soul.” It is not wholly unexpected, then, that we find the phrase “the breath of life” in use even today. This idea, that breath is a defining factor of life, provides us an excellent launch-point: it is very much in line with Orphic concepts of the soul. Aristotle gives us a glimpse of this, mocking Orphism in his work titled On the Soul:

The same objection lies against the view expressed in the 'Orphic' poems: there it is said that the soul comes in from the whole when breathing takes place, being borne in upon the winds. Now this cannot take place in the case of plants, nor indeed in the case of certain classes of animal, for not all classes of animal breathe. This fact has escaped the notice of the holders of this view.^[1]

PARS I - ΒΙΟΣ

Aristotle’s mockery here goes against a modern understanding of plant and animal life. By “certain classes of animal,” he likely meant aquatic life, namely fish, which today are commonly thought of as ‘breathing’ with their gills. Similarly, we today think of plants as ‘breathing,’ although their intake and output are reversed from animal life. Of course, this is a gross oversimplification of all of these biological processes.

Ovid, the famous Roman poet, wrote what survives to us as the most detailed telling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice in his Metamorphoses^[2]. Later in the work, he recounts the death of Orpheus at the hands of Maenads, preserving the Orphic idea of the soul-as-air explained by Aristotle:

they hastened to destroy the harmless bard, devoted Orpheus; and with impious hate, murdered him, while his out-stretched hands implored their mercy—the first and only time his voice had no persuasion. O great Jupiter! Through those same lips which had controlled the rocks and which had overcome ferocious beasts, his life breathed forth, departed in the air.^[3]

Ovid here is specific with the phrase “his life breathed forth,” and it certainly does seem to echo the idea presented by Aristotle. To Aristotle, however, the soul of something dies when that thing’s body dies^[4]. To Orphics, the soul is immortal. It has existed before us, and it will exist after us. In Phaedo, Plato mentions an “ancient doctrine” that tells of reincarnation:

Suppose we consider the question whether the souls of men after death are or are not in the world below. There comes into my mind an ancient doctrine which affirms that they go from hence into the other world, and returning hither, are born again from the dead.^[5]

Plato elaborates a bit in Meno, where Socrates recalls another story of reincarnation before reciting a fragment of Pindar:

They were certain priests and priestesses who have studied so as to be able to give a reasoned account of their ministry; and Pindar also and many another poet of heavenly gifts. As to their words, they are these: mark now, if you judge them to be true. They say that the soul of man is immortal, and at one time comes to an end, which is called dying, and at another is born again, but never perishes. Consequently one ought to live all one's life in the utmost holiness. “For from whomsoever Persephone shall accept requital for ancient wrong, the souls of these she restores in the ninth year^[6] to the upper sun again; from them arise glorious kings and men of splendid might and surpassing wisdom, and for all remaining time are they called holy heroes amongst mankind.” Seeing then that the soul is immortal and has been born many times, and has beheld all things both in this world and in the nether realms, she has acquired knowledge of all and everything; so that it is no wonder that she should be able to recollect all that she knew before about virtue and other things.^[7]

Beyond just the nature of the soul, Plato gives us insight into its relationship with the body through Socrates in Cratylus by telling us what the Orphic poets had in mind when they gave the word σῶμα to the body:

I think this admits of many explanations, if a little, even very little, change is made; for some say it is the tomb (σῆμα) of the soul, their notion being that the soul is buried in the present life; and again, because by its means the soul gives any signs which it gives, it is for this reason also properly called “sign” (σῆμα). But I think it most likely that the Orphic poets gave this name, with the idea that the soul is undergoing punishment for something; they think it has the body as an enclosure to keep it safe, like a prison, and this is, as the name itself denotes, the safe (σῶμα) for the soul, until the penalty is paid, and not even a letter needs to be changed.^[8]

The Epistles are thirteen letters attributed to Plato but often seen as spurious. The seventh and eighth letters, however, are public letters and not private ones, which lends credibility to their attribution. The seventh letter specifically contains a passage relevant to our inquiry:

But we ought always truly to believe the ancient and holy doctrines which declare to us that the soul is immortal and that it has judges and pays the greatest penalties, whensoever a man is released from his body; wherefore also one should account it a lesser evil to suffer than to perform the great iniquities and injustices. But to these doctrines the man who is fond of riches but poor in soul listens not, or if he listens he laughs them (as he thinks) to scorn, while he shamelessly plunders from all quarters everything which he thinks likely to provide himself, like a beast, with food or drink or the satiating himself with the slavish and graceless pleasure which is miscalled by the name of the Goddess of Love; for he is blind and fails to see what a burden of sin—how grave an evil—ever accompanies each wrong-doing; which burden the wrong-doer must of necessity drag after him both while he moves about on earth and when he has gone beneath the earth again on a journey that is unhonored and in all ways utterly miserable.^[9]

Again Plato refers to “ancient and holy doctrines” of reincarnation and judgment. This view of giving in to one's urges as being sinful can be related to the Pindar fragment quoted earlier by Socrates in Plato's Meno:

For from whomsoever Persephone shall accept requital for ancient wrong, the souls of these she restores in the ninth year to the upper sun again; from them arise glorious kings and men of splendid might and surpassing wisdom, and for all remaining time are they called holy heroes amongst mankind.^[10]

The aversion to a sinful life, as suggested in Plato’s seventh letter, causes one to suppress their bodily urges, as suggested in the excerpt from Meno. This suppression is the method of repayment for the ancient crime mentioned by Pindar. However, not everyone adhered to a strict lifestyle. In Phaedo, Plato has Socrates quote ‘the mysteries’^[11] as essentially saying ‘many talk the talk, but few walk the walk’:

For as they say in the mysteries, 'the thyrsus-bearers are many, but the mystics few'; and these mystics are, I believe, those who have been true philosophers.^[12]

PARS II - ΘΑΝΑΤΟΣ

So, what does it mean to walk the walk? What are the distinguishing features of an Orphic life? Plato gives us a direct answer in Laws through the voice of the Athenian:

The custom of men sacrificing one another is, in fact, one that survives even now among many peoples; whereas amongst others we hear of how the opposite custom existed, when they were forbidden so much as to eat an ox, and their offerings to the gods consisted, not of animals, but of cakes of meal and grain steeped in honey, and other such bloodless sacrifices, and from flesh they abstained as though it were unholy to eat it or to stain with blood the altars of the gods; instead of that, those of us men who then existed lived what is called an “Orphic life,” keeping wholly to inanimate food and, contrariwise, abstaining wholly from things animate.^[13]

An Orphic life consists of abstaining from bloodshed, up to and including in meals and sacrifice. This definition is corroborated by Euripides in Hippolytus where Theseus, believing his son has raped his wife and caused her to commit suicide, berates Hippolytus:

Are you, then, the companion of the gods, as a man beyond the common? Are you the chaste one, untouched by evil? I will never be persuaded by your vauntings, never be so unintelligent as to impute folly to the gods. Continue then your confident boasting, take up a diet of greens and play the showman with your food, make Orpheus your lord and engage in mystic rites, holding the vaporings of many books in honor. For you have been found out. To all I give the warning: avoid men like this. For they make you their prey with their high-holy-sounding words while they contrive deeds of shame. She is dead. Do you think this will save you? This is the fact that most serves to convict you, villainous man. For what oaths, what arguments, could be more powerful than she is, to win you acquittal on the charge?^[14]

On its surface, this attack appears to present an obvious disdain for Orphics. However, Alberto Bernabé notes that it is more likely that Euripides wrote Theseus as being confused by the nature of his son, and grasping at what was likely seen as a confusing label to try to insult him^[15]. Thus, Euripides is not trying to condemn Orphism, but to use Theseus’ confusion to highlight the perceived gap, as Plato did, between the virtue someone professes and the virtue of their actions.

In his Cretans, Euripides again uses the esoteric nature of Orphism (and related mystery cults), as a narrative tool; specifically here that they live an unusual, sequestered life. Although the play is fragmentary, Porphyry preserves a section where the chorus, summoned to see King Minos, explains that they are Bacchoi and initiates of Idaean Zeus:

Pure is the life I have led since I became an initiate of Idaean Zeus, and celebrated the thunderbolts of night-ranging Zagreus performing his feasts of raw flesh^[16]; and raising torches high to the Mother of the mountain, among the Curetes, I was consecrated and named a Bacchos. In clothing all of white I shun the birth of men, and the places of their dead I do not go near; against the eating of animal foods I have guarded myself.^[17]

The strange nature of the mysteries presented by Euripides proves the quote from Socrates in Phaedo that not everyone ‘walks the walk’; if they did, Euripides would’ve needed different examples of alternative lifestyles.

In Rhesus, whose authorship is usually attributed to Euripides, Orpheus is depicted as the cousin of the title character^[18], who has been slain. Rhesus’ mother a few lines later makes a prayer to Persephone:

So earnest a prayer will I address to the bride of the nether world, the daughter of the goddess Demeter, giver of increase, to release his soul, and debtor, as she is to me, show that she honours the friends of Orpheus. And to me for the rest of time he will be as one who is dead and does not see the light; for never again will he meet me or see his mother; but he will lie hidden in a cavern of the land with veins of silver, restored to life, a deified man, just as the prophet of Bacchus dwelt in a grotto beneath Pangaeus, a god whom his votaries honored.^[19]

This prayer calls back some of what we’ve seen from Pindar and from Plato: souls of ‘friends of Orpheus’ (i.e. those who have lived an Orphic life) are entitled to freedom, to be granted by Persephone. In the Pindar fragment we’ve looked at, She sends the soul back up as a Hero after its penalty is repaid. Pindar does not mention it here, but in his Olympian Ode 2, he does specify that pure souls ascend to “where ocean breezes blow round the Isle of the Blessed”^[20]. Elsewhere in mythology, Heroes live in the afterlife on the Isles of the Blessed. Thus, reincarnation as a Hero entitles one’s soul to a similar escape from the cycle.

We will transition now toward the wholly-Orphic sources, by way first of discussing the Zagreus myth. Radcliffe G. Edmonds III suggests that Olympiodorus in the 6th century CE fabricated the anthropogeny (the generation of mortal life from the ashes of the Titans by the thunderbolt of Zeus as punishment for the dismemberment of Zagreus) as a mashup of other, disconnected myths, and that the anthropogeny and the resulting body/soul dualism rely on the Christian concept of Original Sin^[21]. He also says that “the meaning [Olympiodorus] finds in the story directly affects the elements he chooses to include”^[22]. While Olympiodorus’ conclusion that the body is Dionysiac^[23] is unique to him, he seems to discard the idea of body/soul dualism, which we find along with the dismemberment and tasting by the Titans as early as the 1st century CE. Plutarch writes in On Eating Meat discussing Empedocles, who lived in the 5th century BCE:

For in these, by way of allegory, he [Empedocles] hints at men's souls, as that they are tied to mortal bodies, to be punished for murders, eating of flesh and of one another, although this doctrine seems much ancienter than his time. For the fables that are storied and related about the discerption of Bacchus, and the attempts of the Titans upon him, and of their tasting of his slain body, and of their several punishments and fulminations afterwards, are but a representation of the regeneration. For what in us is unreasonable, disorderly, and boisterous, being not divine but demoniac, the ancients termed Titans, that is tormented and punished…^[24]

Plutarch very clearly mentions the part of us that is Titanic, named after those who were tormented and punished for the sparagmos of Dionysus and who represent the regeneration of life. He also is clear that we inherit the Titanic nature. Olympiodorus ‘invention,’ when viewed this way, is a natural consequence. If we inherit the Titanic nature, and the Titans had tasted or consumed a piece of Dionysus, then we must also inherit a piece. It could just be that the Neoplatonic exegesis that spells it out for us is the earliest that survives. Moreover, Plutarch was a priest of Apollo at His Temple in Delphi, which in the winter months was occupied not by Apollo but by Dionysus, and he also wrote about the mysteries of Osiris^[25], who is often equated with Dionysus (especially in the context of the mysteries). Thus, Plutarch is a very credible source. The Orphic idea can be traced also to Philodemus, who lived in the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE and wrote in his work On Piety about the three births of Dionysus:

They say that Dionysos had three births: one of these is that from his mother, another that from the thigh of Zeus, and the third the one when he was torn apart by the Titans and came back to life after Rhea reassembled his limbs. And in his Mopsopia Euphorion agrees with this account; the Orphics too dwell on it intensively.^[26]

Later in the same work, he also again mentions the dismemberment and reassembly of Dionysus. Euphorion, mentioned here by Philodemus, lived in the 3rd century BC, but he is also quoted much later, by Byzantine scholar John Tzetzes:

And Dionysus was also honored in Delphi with Apollo in this way: the Titans tore the limbs off Dionysus and gave them to Apollo his brother, putting them in a cauldron, and he put it next to the tripod as Callimachus says, and Euphorion saying “they threw divine Bacchus over the fire in a bowl”.^[27]

This quote in Tzetzes seems to show that Dionysus was cooked, and thus presumably eaten (or tasted, as the Delphic priest Plutarch says), by the Titans. We can see that, although the anthropogeny is not mentioned specifically each time, the dismemberment of Dionysus, as well as the Titans and their punishments, are frequently cited as reasons for birth and rebirth. Edmonds’ arguments that this is a later Christian reading or an invention of Olympiodorus both fall flat when we consider that the window of time in which Philodemus and Plutarch wrote (to say nothing of Euphorion and Empedocles) was before the full development of the Christian concept of Original Sin, and well before the life of Olympiodorus.

PARS III - ΒΙΟΣ

Having surveyed a handful of sources adjacent to or that mention Orphism but are not usually themselves classified as Orphic, and with the Zagreus myth settled for now, we may turn finally to Name-famed Orpheus^[28];

The belief in an immortal soul, damned to a cycle of potentially infinite reincarnation by guilt of an ancient crime at no fault of our own, but that can be redeemed from the Titanic nature of the body and freed from the cycle of reincarnation by the denial of its bodily urges in favor of asceticism and cultivating the soul, with the ultimate fate of pure and freed souls being a pleasant afterlife in the Isles of the Blessed, i.e. ascension in unity to the Gods, is a belief that survives today in the ancient Orphica.

By the end of the Hellenistic period, the Hieroi Logoi in Twenty-Four Rhapsodies was likely in circulation^[29]. The Rhapsodies is thought to be a compilation or a reworking of older, individual Orphic myths and texts^[30]. Although the title implies a division similar to the Iliad and the Odyssey, it is unlikely that the Rhapsodies reached the same length as Homer’s works^[31]. Today, the Rhapsodies is fragmentary, as if it has undergone its own sparagmos. However, Anthi Chrysanthou dedicates a chapter in her monograph to the Rhapsodies, and attempts a reconstruction^[32] using the fragments preserved in various 1st to 5th century CE authors, most of whom were commenting on Plato. Chrysanthou’s reconstruction does not make use of the discovery found in the Sinai palimpsest^[33], but the contents of the palimpsest do not mention the soul and cut off before the dismemberment, consumption, and resulting anthropogeny. The reconstruction begins, as we are told did many Orphic texts, with a seal:

I will sing to those who are wise; cover your ears, you profane!^[34]

We will skip for now past much of the Rhapsodies to a thematic break later in the reconstruction that shifts focus from the Gods to the fates of our own souls:

And from men, the ones who dwell purely under the rays of the sun, when they in turn perish, they have a more gentle fate in the beautiful meadow around deep-flowing Acheron, but the ones who acted unjustly under the rays of the sun, the insolent, are led down under the surface of Kokytos to chilly Tartaros.
Men’s soul is rooted in the aether. And as we draw in air, we collect the divine soul since the immortal and unaging soul comes from Zeus. And for all things, the soul is immortal, but the bodies mortal.
And when the souls of beasts and winged birds flit away and divine life abandons them, no one leads their soul to the house of Hades but instead it flutters without a purpose in the same place, until another one would snatch it away being intermingled with the blasts of wind. But whenever a man leaves the sunlight, then Kyllenios Hermes leads the immortal soul down into the vast nether world.
And fathers and sons in the halls, and graceful wives and mothers and also daughters, become the same through exchanging generations among one another, because the soul of humans moves from one place to another with the circulation of time through exchanging with other animals. At one time it becomes a horse, at another <...>^[35] now a sheep and then a bird, dreadful to see, at other times once more the form of a dog with a deep bark and the race of cold snakes which crawls on divine earth.
Out of all the blooming things which mortals take care of on the earth, none of them has one and the same destiny upon their existence, but all move around in a circle, and it is not right to stand still at each one’s turn, but as they begun it, each has an equal part in this course.
And to escape from the cycle and find respite from the misery, men will send you hecatombs of unblemished beasts and offer yearly sacrifices at all seasons, and they will perform your secret rites seeking deliverance from the lawless deeds of their ancestors. And you, Dionysos, having the power as far as these are concerned, shall deliver whomever you will be willing to, from grievous toil and endless agony, for many are the thyrsus-bearers, but few the Bacchoi.
Wild beasts, and birds, the races of mortals that have no purpose, a burden of the earth, created forms without a substance, neither having the intelligence to recognise or observe approaching evil, nor to avoid evil by staying completely away from it, nor being experienced in how to turn their attention towards the good next to them and achieve it, but they stay idly ignorant and imprudent.^[36]

These excerpts from Chrysanthou’s reconstruction of the Rhapsodies mirror much of what we’ve seen from the other sources. Indeed, it says explicitly “soul is rooted in the aether, and as we draw in air, we collect the divine soul”^[37]. It is also explicit in saying that those who live a just and pure life are awarded a better afterlife than those who are impure and unjust^[38]. The Rhapsodies also make a distinction between animal and human souls; animal souls, upon the body’s death, ‘flit away’ until they are captured by the winds and delivered to another body, whereas Human souls are guided by Hermes to the underworld^[39]. The Rhapsodies tells us that no matter the sacrifice or the penalty repaid, only Dionysus chooses who to free^[40], and it ends with a final warning that avoidance of evil is the best and only hope^[41].

What survives of the Rhapsodies gives no inkling as to how the soul should navigate the underworld once it arrives. For this, we turn to the Orphic Gold Tablets. The Gold Tablets is a label given to a collection of small, thin gold sheets; most most of them rectangular, and a few in the shape of mouths or leaves^[42]. There are roughly forty total that have been found and published so far, most of them from burial sites across ancient Greece^[43]. Some tablets contain map-like directions for navigating the entrance to Hades. These tablets contain elaborate detail about what one might encounter immediately after death, and instruct the deceased on how to secure entry to the Isles of the Blessed, to sit with Persephone in eternity along with other Mystai and Bacchoi. Others contain instructions on what the initiate should say to Persephone herself to ensure acceptance.

Of all of the tablets, the ones containing these instructions for the underworld are those numbered by Graf & Johnston as tablets 1 through 18 and 25 through 29^[44]. Christoph Riedweg has used the Tablets to reconstruct a Hieros Logos that they may have been based on^[45], which for the sake of ease is what we will examine today. It warns of a spring in the palace of Hades, next to a white cypress:

Do by no means go near this spring! Further on you will find cold water flowing forth from the Lake of Memory:
There are guardians standing above it. They will ask you with shrewd mind, why you are searching through the darkness of gloomy Hades. “Who are you? Where do you come from?” You, tell them absolutely the whole truth! Say: “I am a son of the Earth and of the starred Sky. And my descent is heavenly: you too know that well yourself. I am dried out with thirst and perishing. So give me quickly to drink cool water from the lake of Memory!”
And they will actually tell it to the Queen of the nether world. And they themselves will give you to drink from the divine spring. And then having drunk you will take the holy path which are treading also the other mystai and Bakkhoi, the renowned. Tell Persephone that Bacchios himself has released you. “I greet Pluto and Persephone!”^[46]

At this point in Riedweg’s reconstruction, there is a shift in the poem representative of the difference between the tablets that contain navigational instructions and the tablets that contain instructions for the meeting with Persephone. It continues:

“I am coming out of the pure ones, myself a pure [soul], Queen of the inhabitants of the nether world, Eucles and Eubouleus and [you], the other immortal Gods. For, I too pride myself to belong to your blessed family. But fate has overpowered me and He, who throws the thunderbolt with his lightning. I have repaid the penalty for the sake of deeds unjust. I have flown out of the cycle of deep affliction and grief. I have set foot on the crown I longed for with swift feet. I have sunk into the lap of the mistress, the Queen of the nether world. Now I come as a suppliant to the pure Persephone, so that she may send me graciously to the meadow of the purified.”^[47]

After this, there is an exchange of passwords or symbols, probably between the Initiate and Persephone, before She finally grants the Initiate passage to the “holy meadows and groves of Persephone”^[48] to “reign hereafter together with the other Heroes. […] bearing all things very well in your memory”^[49].

The Gold Tablets here present a sort of balanced inversion of Socrates’ quote from the Rhapsodies; While living a pure life in repayment of deeds unjust is paramount to the Orphic life, it is not enough on its own to save one’s soul. One must also be an Initiate, which is to possess certain sacred knowledge. Without this knowledge, even a pure and just soul might unknowingly drink from the wrong spring, i.e. be stripped of its memory and forced to live another life.

PARS IV - AΛΗΘΕΙΑ

^[50]

In a previous essay, we examined one facet of why the Derveni papyrus is so important to forming an understanding of Orphism by looking specifically at the author’s interpretation of “Long Olympus” and “Wide Heaven” in the works of Orpheus. “Long Olympus” shows up in the reconstructed Rhapsodies as well:

… the immaculate daemon called Metis, who bore the famous seed of the Gods, and which the blessed on Long Olympus call Phanes the firstborn, in whose tracks the mighty daemon forever trod.^[51]

This comes part-way into the poem, though. The first mention of aether comes early, as the poet recounts the theogony:

From Chronos, the one that never gets old and has imperishable counsel, Aether was born and a great Chasm stretching from this side to the other and it did not have an end, nor a bottom and neither any foundation. And everything was undivided in the dark mist and everything was held together by gloomy Night who covered what was under Aether. Then great Chronos created a shining egg along with the divine Aether. And Protogonos Phaethon the son of enormous Aether, began to move in an incredible circle.^[52]

After a brief description of the emergence of Phanes, we are told that “at the time that Phanes sprung up, the misty chasm below and windless Aether were separated”^[53]. We also get a few more sparse references to Aether, the bit with Long Olympus, and a description of Phanes distributing the world to the Gods and mortals, creating the sun as the guardian and ruler of it^[54]. Eventually, we arrive at Night’s instructions for Zeus to take reign from his father:

Night therefore says to him: ‘Surround all things with ineffable aether, and in the middle of it place the heaven and amidst that place infinite earth and in that the sea, and in that all of the constellations with which the sky is crowned, but as soon as you will expand a strong bond through all things, after hanging a golden chain from the aether you will become the fifth king of the immortal Gods.’^[55]

Immediately after that, the Rhapsodies tells of Zeus putting this plan into place, and we are told that “everything was created anew inside Zeus”^[56]:

and along with the universe, the wide aether and also the bright heights of the sky, the infertile sea and the foundations of glorious Gaia, and the great ocean, and earthly Tartatus anew and rivers and the inaccessible deep, and everything else and all the immortal and blissful Gods and Goddesses and all that has already happened and all that will in the future, became one, tangled inside the belly of Zeus and were brought forth again. For having concealed all these things, he would bring them forth again from his heart into joyful light through a wondrous deed.^[57]

Here, in contrast to Long Olympus, the aether is described as wide, although still contrasted with the sky. Following this is the famous Hymn to Zeus, “Zeus the head, Zeus the Middle, and from Zeus everything is created”^[58]. Then there is a brief explanation of the generation of the Gods from Zeus, culminating in the abduction of Persephone^[59]. Gaps in the reconstruction are apparent here, as it cuts from the abduction to the coronation of Dionysus by Zeus, which then flows into the dismemberment of the infant king:

And even though he was young and only an infant compared to his symposiasts, the father establishes him on the regal throne and entrusts in his hands the sceptre, straight in six parts and of twenty-four measures, and says to all the encosmic Gods: ‘Listen Gods, Him I proclaim as your King.’ And so Father Zeus formed all things, and Bacchos completed them.
However, He did not hold Zeus’ throne for a long time, because the Titans, having smeared cunningly their round faces with deceitful chalk, due to the heartless hatred of enraged Goddess Hera being indignant at Oinos, the son of Zeus, and while He observed his elusive image being reflected in a mirror made by Hephaestos they destroyed Him with a horrible knife. They divided all the limbs of the boy into seven equal parts, leaving only the intellectual heart preserved by Athena.
Apollo then gathers and takes him up to the sky according to the will of the Father, who said to him: ‘Take hold of all the parts of Oinos in the world and bring them to me.’ Afterwards, Zeus produced Dionysos from his thigh, and that is why He is called the sweet child of Zeus. And it is said that Ipta received Dionysos that came from the heart when he was brought forth from Zeus, and took in charge as a nurse by placing him in a winnowing-fan on her head and encircling it with a snake.
And Zeus, being angry with them [the Titans] struck them with his thunderbolts into Tartarus, and from the soot coming from the vapours that transpired from them was produced the matter out of which men are created. Atlas, however, out of strong necessity, holds up wide sky at the limits of the earth.^[60]

Here again, at the tail end of the anthropogeny, we see reference to Wide Sky. Having looked thoroughly at the Rhapsodies and the Gold Tablet Hieros Logos, we will turn now at last to what the Derveni papyrus can tell us about them. In Column 7, the author says the following:

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 very first word all the way to the last. As he also makes clear in the well recognizable verse: for, having ordered them to “put doors to their ears”, he says that he is not legislating for the many but addressing himself to those who are pure in hearing…^[61]

PARS V - ΑΓΡΕΤΕΩ

^[62]

Relevant mentions of Air in the Derveni papyrus come in Columns 17, 18, 19, 21, and 23. Col. 17 is as follows:

it existed before it was named; then it was named. For air both existed before the present things-that-are were set together and will always exist. For it did not come to be but existed. And why it was called air has been made clear earlier in this book. But after it had been named Zeus it was thought that it was born, as if it did not exist before. He also said that it will be “last,” after it was named Zeus and this continues being its name until the present things-that-are were set together into the same state in which they were floating as former things-that-are. And it is made clear that the things-that-are became such because of it and, having come to be, are again in it. He indicates in these words:

“Zeus is the head, Zeus the middle, and from Zeus is everything fashioned.”
Head … he allegorized that the things-that-are … head … beginning of constitution … to have been constituted …^[63]

Unfortunately, this is the first relevant mention of Air in the surviving text, so “why it was called air” has not been made clear to us, unless something is missing from the text or from our understanding. Here, the Derveni author is telling us that Zeus is air, which he makes clearer in Columns 18 and 19:

and those moving downwards. And by saying “Moira” he makes it clear that this Earth and all else are in the air, being breath. It is this breath that Orpheus called Moira. The other people in their everyday talk say that “Moira has spun for them” and that “it will be as Moira has spun,” speaking correctly but not understanding either what Moira is or spinning is. For Orpheus called thought Moira. This seemed to him to be the most suitable of the names that all people had given. Because, 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. This is why he says

“Zeus was born first.”
For first was Moira the thought, later it was held to be sacred being Zeus. But people not understanding the meaning of what is said come to view Zeus as being the first-born God …^[64]

[Col. 18 | Col. 19]

since the time when the things-that-are were given names, each after what is dominant in it, all things were called Zeus according to the same principle. For the air dominates all things as much as it wishes. So when they say that “Moira spun,” they are saying that the thought of Zeus ratified in what way what exists and what comes to be and what will come to be must come to be and be and cease. And he likens it to a king – for this among the names in use seemed to be suitable for it – saying thus:

“Zeus the king, Zeus the ruler of all, he of the bright bolt.”
He said that it is king because, though the magistracies are many, one prevails over all and performs all that no other mortal is allowed to perform … And he said that it is ruler of all, because all things are ruled through …^[65]

It is clear that the Derveni author, familiar with pre-Socratic philosophy, thinks that air is the first principle of the universe, and as he says that Zeus is the air, perhaps this is what he was referring to earlier by saying “why it was called air has been made clear”^[66]. Indeed, if we read the papyrus from the start with the idea that Zeus = air and that there are potentially other names also equated with Zeus/air, we find in Column 14 the following:

to spring out of the brightest and hottest one having been separated from itself. So he says that this Kronos was born from Helios to Ge, because it was on account of the Sun that the things-that-are were induced to be struck against each other. For this reason he says:

“who did a great deed.”
And the verse following:
“Ouranos, son of Euphrone, who was the first to become king.”
Because Mind was striking the things-that-are against each other, he named it Kronos (Striking Mind) and says that he did a great deed to Ouranos; for the latter was deprived of the kingship. He gave it the name Kronos after its action and the other names according to the same principle. For when all the things-that-are were not yet being struck, Mind, as determining the creation, received the designation Ouranos (Determining Mind). And he says that it was deprived of its kingship when the things-that-are were being struck …^[67]

Column 15 follows with more of the same interpretation, this time getting to Zeus specifically:

in order to prevent the Sun from striking them against one another and cause the things-that-are, once separated, to stand apart from each other. For when the Sun is separated and confined in the middle, it holds fast, having fixed them, both those above the Sun and those below. And the next verse:

“following him in turn was Kronos, and then Zeus the contriver.”
He means something like “from that time is the beginning, from which this magistracy reigns.” It has already been related that Mind, striking the things-that-are to one another and setting them apart toward the present transformative stage, created from different things not different ones but diversified ones. As for the phrase “and then Zeus the contriver,” that he is not a different one but the same is clear. And this indicates it:
“Metis … royal honor
… sinews …”^[68]

Next, in Column 16, the Derveni author brings up the sun in relation to Phanes being swallowed by Zeus to recreate the cosmos:

that he called the Sun a genital organ has been made clear. And in support of the fact that the present things-that-are come to be from existent ones, he says:

“Of the First-born king, the reverend one; and upon him all
the immortals grew, blessed gods and goddesses
and rivers and lovely springs and everything else
that had then been born; and he himself became the sole one.”
In these verses he indicates that the things-that-are always existed and that the present things-that-are come to be from the existing ones. As for the phrase “and he himself became the sole one,” by saying this he makes it clear that Mind, being alone, is always worth everything, as if the rest were nothing. For it is not possible for the present things-that-are to exist because of them without mind. Also in the verse after this he said that Mind is worth everything:
“And now he is king of all and will be afterwards.”
It is clear that “Mind” and “king of all” are the same thing. …^[69]

This of course then leads back into Column 17. Columns 21 and 23 further discuss the equating of various names of Gods with various functions of the cosmic Mind^[70], and Column 22 equates a handful of other Goddesses’ names with each other^[71], but none with Zeus.

All of the things examined in this essay point to one monumental idea which itself is the soul of Orphism: That every living thing breathes, and in doing so, draws in the animating principle of life, i.e. comes into possession of a soul. Why this happens is beyond us, and perhaps not for us to know or to understand, as evidenced by the ancestral crime of the Titans. What is important is that we recognize this soul as a divine spark within all living things, that we recognize that our breath of life is a participation in the cosmic Mind, and that we recognize that the divine soul within us is at odds with the Titanic nature of our bodies. The other ideas present, specifically that we should cultivate the soul through asceticism and avoidance of certain or of all these vices, stem first from the idea of an immortal soul, and that its purpose is to return to the Gods, from whom it came and to whom it belongs.

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Footnotes