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The fire next time. Cosmology, allegoresis, and salvation in the Derveni Papyrus*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2012

Glenn W. Most
Glenn W. Most
Affiliation:
Heidelberg/Chicago
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Abstract

Just in case there were any hardened sceptics who still doubted, in the second half of the twentieth century, that our world is ruled by an inept and rather junior God with immature judgment and a nasty sense of humour, He did his best to convince them by arranging for the discovery of the Derveni papyrus in 1962. The soldier who was cremated and buried in that Macedonian village towards the end of the fourth century bc had intended that the text of this papyrus be devoured by the flames of his pyre; but as it happened one of the burning logs fell onto the roll, covering and charring its top third and thereby saving that part both from immediate annihilation by the fire itself and from subsequent destruction by organic decomposition; then the Greek excavators sharp-wittedly recognized that the roll was not wood but papyrus, and the restorer of the Viennese papyrus collection managed to put together the more than 200 fragments into 26 columns of text. As A.E. Housman wrote in another connection, such a series of highly unlikely incidents can evidently not be ascribed to ‘chance and the common course of nature’, but only to divine intervention: ‘and when one considers the history of man and the spectacle of the universe I hope one may say without impiety that divine intervention might have been better employed elsewhere’.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 117 , November 1997 , pp. 117 - 135
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1997

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References

1 Housman, A.E., (ed.), M. Manilii Astronomicon Liber Primus (London 1903) xxxii.Google Scholar

2 Especially ‘Der orphische Papyrus von Derveni’, ZPE 47 (1982) after p. 300.Google Scholar

3 Plato Rep. 2.364e.

4 The bibliography of studies on the papyrus compiled by M.S. Funghi and included in Laks, A. and Most, G.W. (ed.), Studies in the Derveni papyrus (Oxford11 1997) 175–85Google Scholar, only goes up to 1995 and already lists well over 150 items.

5 Burkert, W., ‘Orpheus und die Vorsokratiker. Bemerkungen zum Derveni-Papyrus und zur pythagoreischen Zahlenlehre’, AuA 14 (1968) 93–114, here 93-102Google Scholar; see now also especially Laks, A., ‘Between religion and philosophy: the function of allegory in the Derveni papyrus’, Phronesis 42 (11 1997).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 West, M.L., The Orphic poems (Oxford 1983) 68–115Google Scholar; see also e.g. Brisson, L., Orphée: Poèmes magiques et cosmologiques (Paris 1993), 57-63, 162–3Google Scholar, and Orphée et l'Orphisme dans l'Antiquité gréco-romaine (Aldershot-Brookfield 1995)Google Scholar.

7 K. Tsantsanoglou, ‘The first columns of the Derveni papyrus and their religious significance’, in Laks and Most, op. cit., 93 ff.

8 A. Laks and G.W. Most, ‘A provisional translation of the Derveni papyrus’, ibid., 9-22.

9 Burkert, op. cit., 101.

10 See Dijksterhuis, E.J., The mechanization of the world picture: Pythagoras to Newton, trans. Dikshoorn, C. (Princeton 1986).Google Scholar

11 Here and throughout I follow the new numbering of the columns established in Laks and Most, op. cit.; the previous numbering can be obtained by subtracting four.

12 The first-person plural might, of course, in another context, be universalizing, and refer to something all people do. But here this interpretation seems to be excluded by the words τών μαντευομένων ἓνεκεν (col. 5.5), which refer most naturally to the people on whose behalf the speaker goes into the shrine; cf. also perhaps αὑτόίσ (col. 5.4), which may be masculine.

13 Heraclitus 22 B 14 DK, Plato Rep. 2.364e-365a. The latter passage is similar to the Derveni text in associating those who offer rites to cities and those who offer them to individuals, but differs from it in not drawing the same contrast between the two groups. Presumably, the Derveni author differs from the former by not becoming involved in city religious institutions and thinks he differs from the latter by knowing the truth (and perhaps also by not charging money). In any case, the clients of these other experts are also, for the Derveni author, potential readers, followers, and perhaps customers: shrewdly, he expresses pity for them, not contempt.

14 D. Obbink has recognized an apparent quotation from the Derveni author, transmitted to Philodemus by Philochorus: see Obbink, D., ‘A quotation of the Derveni papyrus in Philodemus’ On Piety', CronErc 24 (1994) 1–39.Google Scholar

15 Gen. 1.1, 3, 5, 2.2.

16 Weinberg, S., Gravitation and cosmology (New York 1972) 483.Google Scholar I owe this reference to H.-G. Dosch.

17 See Funkenstein, A., Theology and the scientific imagination from the late Middle Ages to the XVIIth century (Princeton 1986)Google Scholar. I owe this reference to A. Laks.

18 Of course, when I say ‘world’ here I do not mean to suggest that the ancient Greek world as a whole had undergone this shift by his time, but rather that his own particular world, that pocket of culture in which the Derveni author lived, had done so. The relative speed of communications and the ease of travel in the more developed countries of our own age should not mislead us into forgetting that, in comparison, ancient culture tended to be much more heterogeneous, atomized, and local in character.

19 Rhet. ad Alex. 35.18; cf. Arist. Poet, 22.1458a24-30.

20 See my ‘Simonides' ode to Scopas in contexts’, in Modern critical theory and classical literature, ed. Sullivan, J.P. and de Jong, I.J.F. (Leiden, New York and Cologne 1994) 127–52, here p. 127.Google Scholar

21 See Hornig, G., Die Anfänge der historisch-kritischen Theologie = Forschungen zur systematischen Theologie 8 (Göttingen 1960) ch. 8.Google Scholar

22 See especially Edwards, M.J., ‘Notes on the Derveni commentator’, ZPE 86 (1991) 203–11Google Scholar; Henry, M., ‘The Derveni commentator as literary critic’, TAPA 116 (1986) 149–64Google Scholar; Apicella, G. Ricciardelli, ‘Orfismo e interpretazione allegorica’, Bolletino Classico 3.1 (1980) 116–30Google Scholar; Rusten, J., ‘Interim notes on the papyrus from Derveni’, HSCPh 89 (1985) 121–40Google Scholar; West, op. cit.

23 So most persuasively Rusten, op. cit.

24 West, op. cit., 85-6. To be sure, West's hypothesis remains uncertain and controversial.

25 Henry, op. cit., 150.

26 Kapsomenos, S.G., ‘Der Papyrus von Derveni. Ein Kommentar zur orphischen Theogonie’, Gnomon 35 (1963) 222–3.Google Scholar

27 Pfeiffer, R., History of classical scholarship. From the beginning to the end of the Hellenistic age (Oxford 1968) 103 n. 1, 139 n. 7, 237Google Scholar; Geschichte der klassischen Philologie. Von den Anfängen bis zum Ende des Hellenismus (Munich 1978) 132 n. 100, 175 n. 109, 290, 292.Google Scholar

28 Turner, E.G., Greek papyri. An introduction (Oxford 1968) 1, 24, 39, 77CrossRefGoogle Scholar; second edition (Oxford 1980) 1, 18, 39, 56, 77, 205.

29 Edwards, op. cit., 210.

30 Henry, op. cit., 151.

31 The Derveni author combines into a single text what had previously been thought to be two separate fragments of Heraclitus, 22 B3 and B 94 DK. Most scholars have taken this to prove that the two passages had originally formed part of a single text and had been separated from one another during the course of their transmission: so e.g. Burkert, W., ‘Eraclito B3 e B94 DK’, in Rossetti, L. (ed.), Symposium Heracliteum, Chieti 1981, Vol 1 (Rome 1983) 37–42Google Scholar. This is certainly not impossible. But the possibility should also be borne in mind that the Derveni author has conflated into a single text what lay before him as two separate passages. Consideration of his mode of dealing with the text of Orpheus counsels wariness in relying upon him as a witness for the text of Heraclitus.

32 Henry, op. cit., 152.

33 For this interpretation of the phrase, cf. Barrett, W.S. (ed.), Euripides, Hippolytos (Oxford 1964) 229-30 ad 381–5Google Scholar. A more natural translation would be ‘both by fault and by the other pleasure’, but it is unclear how fault could be a pleasure and what the other pleasure in question would be. Other suggestions that have been made include ‘by sin as well as by pleasure’ (Tsantsanoglou) and ‘by fault and the rest of pleasure’ (Janko).

34 E.g., Iambl, . De comm. math. sci. 22, 69.6 ff.Google Scholar, and 34, 75.25-76.11 Festa; Porph. Vita Pyth. 46-7, 42.3-43.6 Nauck.

35 I quote from the translation of Copenhaver, B.F., Hermetica. The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius in a new English translation, with notes and introduction (Cambridge 1992) 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36 Jaeger, W., The theology of the early Greek philosophers, trans. Robinson, E.S. (Oxford 1947).Google Scholar

37 Finkelberg, A., ‘On the unity of Orphic and Milesian thought’, HThR 79 (1986) 321–35.Google Scholar

38 See Seaford, R., ‘Immortality, salvation and the elements’, HSCPh 90 (1986) 1–26Google Scholar, especially 4-9 (mysticism in Magna Graecia), 10-12 (Empedocles), 13-14 (Pherecydes), 14-20 (Heraclitus), 20-22 (the Derveni papyrus), and 22 (gold leaf C from Thurioi).

39 See Schibli, H.S., Pherekydes of Syros (Oxford 1990)Google Scholar, especially 104-27 on Pherecydes' views on the soul.

40 Heraclitus 22 B25, 26, 36, 117, 118 DK.

41 This is one way to interpret the results established conclusively by Burkert, W., Weisheit und Wissenschaft. Studien zu Pythagoras, Philolaos und Platon (Nürnberg 1962)Google Scholar. To be sure, as Myles Burnyeat points out to me, there is no evidence that Philolaus himself had views on the destiny of the soul; thus Huffman, C.A., Philolaus of Croton, Pythagorean and Presocratic. A commentary on the fragments and testimonia with interpretive essays (Cambridge 1993)Google Scholar, lists as genuine fragments about the soul only those concerning epistemology and the soul as harmony (307-32) and rejects as spurious those discussing the fate of the soul (402-14). But if we do not presuppose some kind of link between eschatological doctrines on the one hand and cosmological ones on the other, it is hard to see how Philolaus could have claimed, or been thought, to be a Pythagorean.

42 Feyerabend, B., ‘Zur Wegmetaphorik beim Goldblättchen aus Hipponion und dem Proömium des Parmenides’, RhM 127 (1984) 1–22Google Scholar; Sassi, M.M., ‘Parmenide al bivio. Per un'interpretazione del proemio’, PP 43 (1988) 383–96.Google Scholar

43 See most recently the ardent discussion in Kingsley, P., Ancient philosophy, mystery and magic. Empedocles and Pythagorean Tradition (Oxford 1995).Google Scholar

44 So already Kahn, C.H., ‘Religion and natural philosophy in Empedocles' doctrine of the soul’, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 42 (1960) 3–35.Google Scholar

45 This latter issue has been much discussed in recent scholarship. The various positions are well represented by Wright, M.R., Empedocles. The extant fragments (New Haven and London 1981)Google Scholar; Osborne, C., ‘Empedocles Recycled’, CQ 37 (1987) 24–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sedley, D., ‘The proems of Empedocles and Lucretius’, GRBS 30 (1989) 269–96Google Scholar; Inwood, B., The poem of Empedocles: a text and translation with an Introduction = Phoenix Suppl. 29 (Toronto 1992).Google Scholar

46 I am grateful to Dr Oliver Primavesi for discussing this papyrus with me and for showing me in advance of publication his forthcoming book, Empedokles-Studien. Der Strassburger Papyrus und die indirekte Überlieferung = Hypomnemata 116 (Göttingen11 1997)Google Scholar. H.D. Betz reminds me of a further parallel supplied by the circumstances of discovery and the contents of the Leiden cosmogony, PGM xiii Preisendanz = P.Lugd.Bat. J395(w).

47 Empedocles 31 B 139 DK.

48 See especially OF 220, 222-4, 292-32 Kern.

49 For the text and fullest discussion of the gold leaves discovered before 1971, see Zuntz, G., Persephone. Three essays on religion and thought in Magna Graecia (Oxford 1971)Google Scholar. The more recently discovered gold leaves were first published as follows: Carratelli, G. Pugliese, ‘Un sepolcro di Hipponion e un nuovo testo orfico’, PP 29 (1974) 110–26Google Scholar; Breslin, J., A Greek prayer (Pasadena CA 1977)Google Scholar, cf. Merkelbach, R., ‘Ein neues “orphisches” Goldblättchen’, ZPE 25 (1977) 276Google Scholar; Tsantsanoglou, K. and Parassoglou, G.M., ‘Two gold lamellae from Thessaly’, Hellenica 38 (1987) 3–16Google Scholar; Freh, J., ‘Una nuova laminella “orfica”’, Eirene 30 (1994) 183–4Google Scholar; Dickie, M.W., ‘The Dionysiac mysteries in Pella’, ZPE 109 (1995) 81–6Google Scholar; SEG 41 (1991) 401.

50 So too in Pindar fr. 133 Snell-Maehler: οίσι δὲ Φερσεϕόνα ποινὰν παλαιοῦ πένθεος | δέξεται…

51 The references to milk, apparently in an initiatory context, are even more emphatic in lines 3-5 of the two gold leaves from Pelinna. On ritual uses of milk, see now Schlesier, R., ‘Das Löwenjunge in der Milch. Zu Alkman, Fragment 56 P. [=125 Calame]’, in Bierl, A. and von Moellendorff, P. with Vogt, S. (ed.), Orchestra. Drama Mythos Bühne [Festschrift H. Flashar] (Stuttgart and Leipzig 1994) 19–29Google Scholar.

52 See on this last gold leaf Breslin, op. cit., and Merkelbach, op. cit.

53 Homer's description of what happens to the victims of the Sirens is particularly graphic: πολὺς δ' άμϕ' ὀστεόϕιν θἰς | άνδρών πυθομένων, περἰ δὲ ῥινοἰ μινύθουσιν (Od. 12.45-46).

54 If this suggestion is right, then Heraclitus' view, that the soul is fire and that death for it is to turn into water (22 B 36 DK), may be a characteristically idiosyncratic reversal of a familiar Orphic doctrine.

55 See above, n.24.

56 Nonetheless it must be acknowledged that water does not play as prominent a role in the surviving fragments of the Derveni allegoresis as one might wish. I presume that it was discussed more fully in passages that have been lost.

57 Compare ύπερβάληι and ύπερβάλλειν in col. 24 with ύπερβάλλων in the Heraclitus quotation in col. 4.8.

58 Housman, A.E., The classical papers, Diggle, J. and Goodyear, F.R.D. (eds.), Vol II 1897-1914 (Cambridge 1972) 684Google Scholar = ‘Luciliana [I]’, CQ 1 (1907) 53–74Google Scholar, here 74.