More on the Dionysian Anthropogony
Feb. 6th, 2009 03:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
endymions_bowerThe full interpretation of the myth of Dionysos and the Titans, with the explicit statement that humans have a divided nature as a result of the Titans' deed, is only known from Olympiodorus’ commentary on Plato’s Phaedo, which is from the 6th c. CE. The argument against accepting it as part of the original Orphic theology is made especially forcefully by Radcliffe Edmonds, “Tearing Apart the Zagreus Myth: A Few Disparaging Remarks on Orphism and Original Sin,” Classical Antiquity 18, 1999, pp. 35-73.
It’s a reasonable argument to make. Most writers on the Orphica tend to just include this doctrine as part of their reconstruction of Orphic beliefs without much reflection because it seems to tie the soteriology together so nicely, but when one reads the passage from Olympiodorus, it does seem possible that there is some original thought going into it on his part. Part of it is the use of alchemical terminology. Note that the alchemist Zosimos (4th c. CE) had referred to the pneuma, or ‘spirit’ as an aithalê, a vapor, sublimed from the body—or perhaps the soot from this vapor? The term aithalos (masc.) means ‘smoky flame, thick smoke’. This encourages the perception that the context is that of later speculation, but nevertheless I’m reluctant to buy Edmonds’ argument.
[On the alchemy specifically, it is worth mentioning that Luc Brisson (“Le corps ‘dionysiaque’. L’anthropogonie décrite dans le Commentaire sur le Phédon de Platon (1. par. 3-6) attribué à Olympiodore est-elle orphique?” in M.-O. Goulet-Cazé et al. (eds.), ΣΟΦΙΗΣ ΜΑΙΤΟΡΕΣ, “Chercheurs de sagesse”. Hommage à Jean Pépin, Paris 1992, pp. 481-499, reprinted in Brisson’s Orphée et l’orphisme dans l’antiquité gréco-romaine, 1995) cites two definitions from an alchemical lexicon relating this myth to the production of quicklime: titanos is “the lime of the egg” (asbestos ôou) and the “stone of Dionysos” is lime (asbestos).]
First, I’m not sure that I understand how much Edmonds wishes to attribute to Olympiodorus’ creativity here. It seems enough to me to attribute to Olympiodorus the use of this doctrine as an argument against suicide, so as to explicate the passage from the Phaedo (61c9-62c9). If it was already part of the doctrine that humans were made of the aithalê of the vapor (atmôn) the Titans sent up (anadothentôn) after Zeus blasted them—note that this seems like a slightly different use of aithalê from Zosimos'—then it hardly seems reasonable that it wouldn't have been part of the point of the story for the Orphics that humans are partly Dionysian and partly Titanic in nature, with all of the implications this carries. Note that Plato, in the Laws (701bc) already refers to “the fabled ancient Titanic nature” of humans. Granted, this could just refer to the rebelliousness of the Titans in the ‘mainstream’, Hesiodic account; but he does refer specifically to a Titanikên phusin, and so it is not IMO just a “comparison”, as Edmonds characterizes it (44).
Then Plutarch (De esu carnum [‘On the Eating of Flesh’], 1.996bc) gets even closer, bringing in Empedocles and reincarnation: “Empedocles … says allegorically that souls, paying the penalty for murders and the eating of flesh and cannibalism, are imprisoned in mortal bodies. However, it seems that this account is even older, for the legendary suffering of dismemberment told about Dionysos and the outrages of the Titans on him, and their punishment and their being blasted with lightning after having tasted of the blood, this is all a myth in its hidden inner meaning about reincarnation. For that in us which is irrational and disorderly and violent and not divine but demonic, the ancients used the name ‘Titans’ and the myth is about being punished and paying the penalty.”
[Note the evolving Hellenistic distinction here between ‘divine’, theios, and ‘demonic’, daimonikos, formerly synonymous. But I don’t think ‘demonic’ just in itself has implications of evil for Plutarch yet; rather I think he simply means that this is the ‘subdivine’ portion of our nature, which is thus vulnerable to disorder and violence.]
Now by this point, I’m not sure that Edmonds isn’t drawing a distinction without a difference, as the saying goes. There is also the Pindar fragment about “those from whom Persephone receives the penalty of ancient grief,” whom she “sends back … to the sun above, and from them grow glorious kings and men swift with strength and great in wisdom,” who are “at the last … called sacred heroes among men.” Now, this could simply refer to Persephone receiving recompense because she is the queen of the dead, and whatever sins you have committed, she must receive the payment. But it is more than tempting to feel that the penalty is paid to her because it is her son, the Orphic Dionysos, who was, and is, the victim of our Titanic nature, in whatever crimes it commits.
In addition, as Edmonds notes (51), there are the myths of Medea’s cauldron and of the not-entirely-averted devouring of Pelops by the Gods (which is crucial to understanding the whole subsequent history of the House of Pelops), which seem like kindred motifs. Certainly, the dismemberment of Dionysos also has its 'physical’ interpretations, from the most basic (winemaking) to the most elaborate (the differentiation of the cosmic substance through the conflict of immanent natural forces), but this variety of interpretations is part of the nature of myth, of course.
Also in Edmonds’ favor, I guess, are the lack of attestation for this doctrine in Nonnos’ Dionysiaca, but I don’t think it would have been easy to work something like that into the linear narrative structure of Nonnos’ poem; he would have had to say that there weren’t any humans around before the episode with the Titans and Dionysos. It is also absent from Proclus, at least explicitly, but I’m not sure that the philosophical content there is to be extracted from it isn’t there; and Proclus is writing, after all, as a philosopher, and not a theologian (as he points out often enough). At any rate, I encourage those interested to read Edmonds’ article, because it gathers the relevant texts together and subjects them to the sort of critical scrutiny which is vital to any real understanding of them, even if he doesn’t ultimately convince me that the doctrine in question is a late fabrication.
It’s a reasonable argument to make. Most writers on the Orphica tend to just include this doctrine as part of their reconstruction of Orphic beliefs without much reflection because it seems to tie the soteriology together so nicely, but when one reads the passage from Olympiodorus, it does seem possible that there is some original thought going into it on his part. Part of it is the use of alchemical terminology. Note that the alchemist Zosimos (4th c. CE) had referred to the pneuma, or ‘spirit’ as an aithalê, a vapor, sublimed from the body—or perhaps the soot from this vapor? The term aithalos (masc.) means ‘smoky flame, thick smoke’. This encourages the perception that the context is that of later speculation, but nevertheless I’m reluctant to buy Edmonds’ argument.
[On the alchemy specifically, it is worth mentioning that Luc Brisson (“Le corps ‘dionysiaque’. L’anthropogonie décrite dans le Commentaire sur le Phédon de Platon (1. par. 3-6) attribué à Olympiodore est-elle orphique?” in M.-O. Goulet-Cazé et al. (eds.), ΣΟΦΙΗΣ ΜΑΙΤΟΡΕΣ, “Chercheurs de sagesse”. Hommage à Jean Pépin, Paris 1992, pp. 481-499, reprinted in Brisson’s Orphée et l’orphisme dans l’antiquité gréco-romaine, 1995) cites two definitions from an alchemical lexicon relating this myth to the production of quicklime: titanos is “the lime of the egg” (asbestos ôou) and the “stone of Dionysos” is lime (asbestos).]
First, I’m not sure that I understand how much Edmonds wishes to attribute to Olympiodorus’ creativity here. It seems enough to me to attribute to Olympiodorus the use of this doctrine as an argument against suicide, so as to explicate the passage from the Phaedo (61c9-62c9). If it was already part of the doctrine that humans were made of the aithalê of the vapor (atmôn) the Titans sent up (anadothentôn) after Zeus blasted them—note that this seems like a slightly different use of aithalê from Zosimos'—then it hardly seems reasonable that it wouldn't have been part of the point of the story for the Orphics that humans are partly Dionysian and partly Titanic in nature, with all of the implications this carries. Note that Plato, in the Laws (701bc) already refers to “the fabled ancient Titanic nature” of humans. Granted, this could just refer to the rebelliousness of the Titans in the ‘mainstream’, Hesiodic account; but he does refer specifically to a Titanikên phusin, and so it is not IMO just a “comparison”, as Edmonds characterizes it (44).
Then Plutarch (De esu carnum [‘On the Eating of Flesh’], 1.996bc) gets even closer, bringing in Empedocles and reincarnation: “Empedocles … says allegorically that souls, paying the penalty for murders and the eating of flesh and cannibalism, are imprisoned in mortal bodies. However, it seems that this account is even older, for the legendary suffering of dismemberment told about Dionysos and the outrages of the Titans on him, and their punishment and their being blasted with lightning after having tasted of the blood, this is all a myth in its hidden inner meaning about reincarnation. For that in us which is irrational and disorderly and violent and not divine but demonic, the ancients used the name ‘Titans’ and the myth is about being punished and paying the penalty.”
[Note the evolving Hellenistic distinction here between ‘divine’, theios, and ‘demonic’, daimonikos, formerly synonymous. But I don’t think ‘demonic’ just in itself has implications of evil for Plutarch yet; rather I think he simply means that this is the ‘subdivine’ portion of our nature, which is thus vulnerable to disorder and violence.]
Now by this point, I’m not sure that Edmonds isn’t drawing a distinction without a difference, as the saying goes. There is also the Pindar fragment about “those from whom Persephone receives the penalty of ancient grief,” whom she “sends back … to the sun above, and from them grow glorious kings and men swift with strength and great in wisdom,” who are “at the last … called sacred heroes among men.” Now, this could simply refer to Persephone receiving recompense because she is the queen of the dead, and whatever sins you have committed, she must receive the payment. But it is more than tempting to feel that the penalty is paid to her because it is her son, the Orphic Dionysos, who was, and is, the victim of our Titanic nature, in whatever crimes it commits.
In addition, as Edmonds notes (51), there are the myths of Medea’s cauldron and of the not-entirely-averted devouring of Pelops by the Gods (which is crucial to understanding the whole subsequent history of the House of Pelops), which seem like kindred motifs. Certainly, the dismemberment of Dionysos also has its 'physical’ interpretations, from the most basic (winemaking) to the most elaborate (the differentiation of the cosmic substance through the conflict of immanent natural forces), but this variety of interpretations is part of the nature of myth, of course.
Also in Edmonds’ favor, I guess, are the lack of attestation for this doctrine in Nonnos’ Dionysiaca, but I don’t think it would have been easy to work something like that into the linear narrative structure of Nonnos’ poem; he would have had to say that there weren’t any humans around before the episode with the Titans and Dionysos. It is also absent from Proclus, at least explicitly, but I’m not sure that the philosophical content there is to be extracted from it isn’t there; and Proclus is writing, after all, as a philosopher, and not a theologian (as he points out often enough). At any rate, I encourage those interested to read Edmonds’ article, because it gathers the relevant texts together and subjects them to the sort of critical scrutiny which is vital to any real understanding of them, even if he doesn’t ultimately convince me that the doctrine in question is a late fabrication.
