the orphic blessing

The Orphic BlessingAuthor(s): E. BikermanSource: Journal of the Warburg Institute, Vol. 2, No. 4 (Apr., 1939), pp. 368-374Published by: The Warburg InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/750044 .Accessed: 30/07/2013 08:53

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THE ORPHIC BLESSING

By E. Bikerman

I Qrpheus is primarily associated with the magic influence of his lyre, whose

notes enchanted the wild beasts, the trees and the lifeless rocks. But Orpheus is not merely the greatest of legendary musicians; he was also an inspired theologian' who discovered and revealed the way to Immortality and exhorted men "to escape from death."'2 The music of Orpheus' lyre enchanted even the implacable lord of Hades.

The alliance between theology and music is not so surprising as it sounds, for music was closely related to charms and incantations,3 and the Greeks considered music to have a civilising influence, which the merely 'technical' arts did not possess. The historian and statesman, Polybius, asserts that music has a soothing effect upon men; and in seeking to explain the savage nature of the Cynaetheans in Arcadia, he remarks: "I believe the reason was that they were the only people in Arcadia to abandon the practice of music."4 One Orphic book specifically denied that "Souls can ascend (to heaven) without a lyre."5 In the art of the Roman catacombs, where representations of Orpheus charming all nature with his playing are frequent, the magic power of his music becomes a symbol of the Christian Logos that overcomes even a heart of stone.6

The followers of the Orphic cult were the first among the Greeks to formulate (about 6oo B.C.) the solemn doctrine that our destiny in the Beyond is dependent entirely on our earthly conduct. The theory of reincarnation takes shape in various cultures, but it usually assumes the form of an automatic process;7 whereas in Orphism, metampsychosis becomes an integral part of a moral doctrine. During the cycle of rebirths the fallen soul was gradually absolved from its sins by saving faith and sacraments.

From Heraclitus to the Neoplatonists, the Greek mind was fascinated by this theory that the destiny of each soul depends on its merits. We find it expressed by Plato, whose use of Orphic speculation on metempsychosis gave it a wide influence.8 Later the musical teacher of the religion of salvation was taken over by the Jews and Christians. In an apocryphal "testament" of Orpheus, forged by a Jew of Alexandria, the "first preceptor"

1 The material on Orphism is to be found in O. Kern, Orphicorumfragmenta (1922) The best book on the matter is Orpheus and Greek religion (1935) by W. K. C. Guthrie. But see also : G. Rathmann, Quaestiones Pytha- goreae, Orphicae Empedocleae (Diss. Halle, 1933), and Nilsson, Early Orphism in Harv. Theol. Rev. 1935; M. J. Lagrange, L'Orphisme, 1937, and A. Cameron, The Pythagorean Background of the Theory of Recollection, 1938. Cf. Guthrie in Cl. Rev. I939, p. I4. 2 Alcaeus, fr. 8o, ed. Diehl. Cf. Rathmann, op. cit., p. I4I.

3 Cf. P. Boyanc6, Le culte des Muses, I937, p. 38ff.

4 Polyb. IV, 21I f. (transl. W. R. Paton). 6 A. D. Nock, Cl. Rev. 1927, p. 169, and 1929, p. 6o. 6 Cf. R. Eisler, in Vortrdge der Bibliothek Warburg II, 2, pp. 32 ff., 6I ff. SCf. G. v. d. Leeuw, Phanomenologie der Religion, 1933, p. 280.

8 Cf. E. Rohde, Psyche, v. II, and now the brief survey of W. Stettner, Die Seelenwande- rung bei Griechen und Rilmern (1934)-

368


THE ORPHIC BLESSING 369 of pagan religion is converted to monotheism and, in fact, made to proclaim that God is One.-'

Orphism is only known to us in the later literature which it inspired. We find traces of Orphic survival in the fourth Eclogue of Virgil, in the Wisdom of Solomon, in the paintings of the Villa Item at Pompeii; and Euripides tells us that the pure Hippolytos "had Orpheus for his Lord."2 But we possess no testimony of an actual devotee of Orphic ritual. The sacred literature of the movement, but for some meagre theological fragments, is lost. The Orphic collection of hymns to various deities belongs to Neo- platonic times and is only a compilation which nowhere contains specifically Orphic ideas.3 Epigraphic evidence is almost entirely wanting.4 The famous amulets found in the graves in South Italy and in Crete, like the fragments of the Egyptian "Book of the Dead" found with mummies, do not transmit the intimate conviction of an actual man, but only give fragments from a theological poem.5 We lack, then, all testimony of a living, personal faith. Any evidence, therefore, which provides us with an insight into the hopes and fears of a devotee of Orphism should not be overlooked.

II In 1931 a Greek funeral stele was discovered in the neighbourhood of

Kertsch (Panticapaeum) in the Crimea. The relief is lost,6 but the inscription is preserved complete,7 and it is unfortunate that the Soviet editor who does not appear to have taken much interest in the text, should have confined his attention to the social position of the dead person and have been satisfied with the result-very doubtful incidentally-that he was a philosopher from the upper class of Greek merchants on the Bosphorus. Whether or not a Greek sepulchral epitaph is an appropriate Marxist weapon, the fact remains that the importance of the Panticapaeum epitaph does not depend upon the 'class' of the owner of the tomb.

The Greek text is as follows 0t Aoyov aAA fliov ao 4pt-qg

~virwoaao ooov, Ai',o&q ?EpWV YW0O1EVOI KpqLacLTWv

,

E&Swv, oiv, 'EkaTak'aE, IaLoXpovoS, caO'- 6raacov

KV'KAov Lv&7)WpOGv E.EcpVYES

KallaTWV.

1 0. Kern, op. cit., frr. 245-248, and R. Eisler, op. cit., p. 5 if.

2 Eurip., Hippol. 952. 3 Guthrie, op. cit., p. 257 ff. Cf. A. Bou- langer, Bullet. Assoc. G. Budd, I929, p. 30 ff.

4 Cf. Kern, op. cit., fr. 32, IV (Griechische Dialekt-Inschr. II, 2, no. 511 2). Cf. Rohde, op. cit., p. 386, no. 4.

" Cf. for the Neopythagorism the inscription from Philadelphia (Lydia): A. Brinkmann, Rhein. Museum, 1911, p. 64 and A. J. Festu- gire, L'idial religieux des Grecs, 1932, p. 8o0 ff. 6 Only two pairs of feet are visible on the rest of the relief. According to the editor

(J. J. Marti) the relief represented, perhaps, a man and his slave. An additional (lost) inscription may have given the name of Hekataios' father and Hekataios' age. Cf. e.g. the epitaph of Heliodoros from Pantica- peum, published in the same Russian work (p. 78 and fig. 14).

7V. F. Gaidukewich, B. N. Grakoff, S. A. Jebeleff, T. N. Knipovitch, J. J. Marti, Iz istorii Bospora. Leningrad, 1934 (P. 76 and fig. I3). From the character of the writing the inscription should belong to the ist century B.C. or the ist century A.D.


370 E. BIKERMAN

The epitaph is composed of two 'elegiac' distichs, the classic form of sepulchral epigram. Plato himself required that the funeral stone should not be larger than would be sufficient to receive the praises of the dead in four "heroic" lines.'

It is in this form that the epitaph from Panticapaeum addresses the dead man. The ancients placed their dead along the roads and one must imagine a wayfarer stopping before the monument and reading the inscription. Since in antiquity all reading was done aloud, the dead man in the grave was supposed to hear the greeting written on the monument. Invented in the Platonic age, this type of epitaph had a wide currency in the Greek (and Roman) world.2

The wayfarer addresses the dead "Hekataios". The text adds that Hekataios was pEoxpo'v(t)oF, an astrological term,3 alluding to the doctrine that every man has a fixed number of years allotted to him, predetermined by the position of the stars at the moment of his birth. "Our end is fixed from our beginning."4 Astrology divided mortals into three classes: those predestined to longevity, those whose life will be short, and those, like Hekataios, with an average duration of existence.5 Hekataios died in middle age; but he was not cut off by a fatal accident. He died suo die.

III The wayfarer is not content with merely addressing the dead man : he

wishes to give a consolation to the victim of astral fate. "Sleep quiet, Hekataios..." Two main types of consolation are found in the ancient epitaphs, the one negative and democratic, which says :"Courage, no human being is immortal,"6 the other positive and aristocratic, containing the promise of a future life for the deceased exempted from the common lot of his kind. A beautiful epitaph drawn up by Callimachus says7 : "Here Saon, son of Dicon of Acanthus is sleeping the holy sleep. Say not that the good are dead."

The fear of death, "which troubles human life to its inmost depths,"'8 is not removed by belief in an after-life; the annihilation of our body still remains the most terrible of evils. A freeman from Rome who in the inscription on his grave rejoices that death has delivered him from attacks of gout and that the hospitality of the tomb is free, is only making a ribald jest.9

But in reading aloud the epitaph of Hekataios, the wayfarer speaks a word of positive encouragement, which must strike us as curious. "Sleep on quietly, Hekataios, though thou didst die in thy middle age. Know

I Plato, Leg. XII, 958 e. 2 Cf. G. Rasch, de Anthologiae Graecae epi-

grammatis quae colloquii formam habent. Diss. Mtinster, 1910, p. I I. 2 Vettius Valens, Anthol., p. 314, ed. G. Kroll.

* Manil., Astron. IV, I6. Nascentes mori- mur; finisque ab origine pendet. Cf. F. Cu- mont, After Life in Roman paganism, 1922, p. I31 ff.

r A. Bouch&-Leclercq, Astrologie grecque, 1899, p. 403 if. 6 Cf. M. Simon, Rev. hist. rel., 1936, v. II, p. 188ff.

7 Callimachus, Epigr. IX (Anth. Pal. VII, 451). On the "sleep of death" cf. E. Rohde, Psyche, II, p. 386. 8 Lucret. III, 38 funditus humanam qui vitam turbat ab imo. Cf. Plato, Phaedo 77 d.

9 F. Cumont, After Life, p. ii and p. 192.


THE ORPHIC BLESSING 371 that thou hast sooner escaped from the cycle of dire calamities." This form of speech is Orphic.

When the author of the Wisdom of Solomon wrote "A corruptible body weigheth down the soul," he was reflecting the Orphic doctrine that the immortal soul is condemned to take a material and mortal body to inhabit?. The soul, contaminated by the passions of the body, is unable to return to heaven after the death of the body and is condemned to dwell in another body in which it has another chance to render itself worthier of heaven. But all bodies are sinful and the soul expiates the faults committed with its consent through an endless succession of reincarnations, the 'cycle of rebirths.'2

According to this manner of thought, life on earth is ipso facto a calamity, but death itself does not mean deliverance; it is only a link in the infernal chain of punishment by reincarnation. The body still remains like a prison to keep the soul from escaping.3 But this dispensation is not entirely inexor- able, for a righteous follower of the Orphic cult may hope that his soul will be set free from the cycle of rebirths at the end of his present life. For him, but only for him, death is welcome : it ends the sequence of rebirths and the soul returns to heaven for ever. On an Orphic gold plate from South Italy, the soul is made to say4 : "I have flown out of the sorrowful weary cycle," and again : "happy and blessed one, thou shalt be god instead of mortal." Hekataios is among those who are blessed in having escaped from the prison of earthly life, from the cycle of reincarnations.

IV As the first distich of the epitaph shows-"Thou hast won the reputation

of wisdom not with mere words but in thy manner of living"-Hekataios believed he was living his last life on earth before salvation.

If we remember that it was not unusual for the Greeks to draw a contrast between true wisdom and the declamations of philosophers,5 the antithesis of life (or work) and word appears natural enough, but it still remains to be discovered what exactly this contrast implies in Hekataios' epitaph.

The ancient conception of immortality was based on the aristocratic principle6 that, just as all men were not born equal, so all men did not have equal destinies. The intellectual aristocracy which claimed for itself the privilege of immortality, maintained that eminent men were enabled to escape the common lot of mortals. Plato affirms that only the soul of the true philosopher can hope to escape from the wheel of eternal generation,7 and, after philosophy, science and art were believed to be means of salvation.8

1 Wisdom of Solomon, ix, 15. Cf. Is. Levy, La lIgende de Pythagore, 1927, p. 225 ff. 2 Cf. Guthrie, op. cit., p. 156 ff.; E. Rohde, op. cit., II, p. 121 ff. "The cycle of rebirths." O. Kern, op. cit., frr. 228 f. 3 Plato, Cratyl. 400. Cf. E. Rohde, op. cit., II, p. 386, n. 3. It is worth remembering that prisons were used in Greece only as places for confining and not for punishing offenders.

40. Kern, op. cit., fr. 32 c : KuKAov 'EeTTrav flapVwEvOSoc dpyaAoto. Cf. Guthrie,

op. cit., p. 173. 5 Cf. W. Jaeger, Sitzungsber. Preuss. Akad.,

1928, p. 392. Cf. e.g. Dicearchus (ap. H. v. Arnim, Hermes, 1892, p. 120) on Pythagoras. 6 F. Cumont, After Life, p. I Io0.

7 Plato, Phaedo, 69, Phaedrus, 249 e. 8 F. Cumont, op. cit., p. I I4; P. Boyanc6,

Le culte des Muses, I937, p. I67 ff.


372 E. BIKERMAN

Sarcophagi were decorated with the figures of the Muses' to imply that those who had made themselves masters of the liberal arts looked forward to deification as their happy lot.

Hekataios, while denying that the process of learning Truth is sufficient to secure salvation, claims that the real purgation of the soul is the "philo- sophic one," i.e. righteous living, for according to the genuine Orphic doctrine a life of purity absolved the devotee from Sin. The Orphic followers called themselves "pure ones" and "wise ones,"'2 and not only were abstinence from flesh, atonements and purifications required but also moral goodness.3 In the hellenistic age, every mystery was regarded by its followers as the true "philosophy" and philosophical study was itself a way of purification.4 Correct training was an essential preparation for the mystery of philosophy; religion promised salvation by way of faith and initiation.

V We gather, in fact, from the second verse that Hekataios was initiated,

but the full meaning of the passage is not clear without elucidation. The association of the words tEp6ov

KpqLat-cov is in itself surprising. Kp4la means

judgment, judicium in the general sense of the Latin term, as it is used for example by Marcus Aurelius when he says that it is not the external thing which affects us, but our Kp4La, our opinion of it.5 "Holy opinions" is a strange expression, but for metrical reasons6 the author of the epitaph was unable to use the words

86ya or Aoyo at the end of the verse, which would have been

the natural words to use in this context and which are actually associated with "holy" by Marcus Aurelius.7 In using the word Kpq/a he wished to signify "the idea of the dogma."8 Hekataios, says the epitaph, was familiar with the "holy principles" and that was the reason of his philosophical life. The implication of 8oyta is intelligible when we remember that Orphism was a "dogmatic" religion,9 whose "principles" had been revealed by its founder, Orpheus. It is significant that even Nigidius Figulus, the friend of Cicero, who had introduced Neo-Pythagorism, a variety of Orphism, into Rome, invoked the authority of the founder, Orpheus.1o

But Hekataios was not entirely orthodox in his approach to the dogmas of his religion, he was av'ro8al, a very rare poetic word, literally signifying "self-taught." The famous atheist, Diagoras of Melos, contemporary of

1 F. Cumont, Syria, I929, p. 217; H. I. Marrou, Mousikos aner, Paris, 1938.

2 Cf. Rohde, op. cit., II, p. I27. For o'99po& cf. e.g. Plato, Meno, 8I a; Gorgias, 493 a, etc. Cf. for the Neo-Pythagorism G. M6autis, Recherches sur le Pythagorisme, 1922, p. 17.

3 Guthrie, op. cit, p. I96 ff. Orphism did not try to reform the soul, it only wished to preserve the pure soul from material contam- ination. Cf. Rohde, op. cit., II, p. I65. 4 See E. R. Goodenough, Literal Mystery in Hellenistic Judaism (in Quantulacumque offered to K. Lake, 1937).

6 M. Aurel. VIII, 47.

6The second part of the Pentameter is always dactylic. The first syllable of dogma is long, but the first syllable of krima was short in post-classical literature.

SM. Aurel, X, 9. 8E. g. Sext. Empir. VII, I95; Stoic. vet.

fragm., ed. H. v. Arnim III,fr. 243 (Chrysip- pus); Epict. II, I5, 8; IV, 10, I3-. .

9 Cf. Rohde, op. cit., II, p. II I. Cf. e. g. Kern, op. cit., fr. 29I.

10 Nigidius ap. Serv., ad Verg. Ecl. IV, I o. Cf. J. Carcopino, Virgile et le mystire de le IVe iclogue, I930, p. 53.


THE ORPHIC BLESSING 373 Socrates, says in a pious hymn' that man is helpless without the assistance of God and that "the journey is but short which courage can make unaided (av3ro8aw7s)." The fact that Hekataios learnt the "holy principles" as a self- taught man is very interesting for it shows that the religion he professed was scriptural and not sacramental. It was, indeed, the characteristic of the Orphic religion, founded upon sacred writings, "Epo 0'yo," that the neophyte could be initiated without the assistance of any professional priest or teacher. The type is illustrated in the person of Hippolytus, in Euripides, who made the Orphic religion his guide to life, "devoting himself to the vapourings of wordy volumes."3

In having obtained his wisdom as a "self-taught man," Hekataios repres- ents a superior form of conversion, for the Greeks believed that knowledge gained under constant drill and supervision was less worthy of merit.4 "Those who have been held worthy of a wisdom which needs no external aid are dependent on no agency but their own"5, which implies that self-taught wisdom, coming by nature and requiring only the grace of God, is higher than the knowledge won by the instruction of men.6 Zoroaster is singled out in the traditional literature of the movement as "a man who was self- taught."7

We find St. Paul stressing the same idea, when, as the apostle of the Gentiles, he records that he made no attempt to obtain from the apostles in Jerusalem any guidance or teaching but that he relied entirely on God's grace. As regards conversion, St. Paul and Hekataios represent similar types of religious experience.

VI We may now attempt a translation of the epitaph : "Thou hast won the

reputation of wisdom not by words but by the manner of thy life. Thou hast mastered the holy principles without assistance of any man. So sleep quietly, Hekataios, carried off by Fate as a man of middle age. Know that by this untimely death thou hast sooner escaped from the cycle of dire calamities."

This statement of the Orphic beliefs explains the secret of its enormous influence, so profoundly felt for a thousand years, from Heraclitus to Jambli- chus. It is true that every mystery which promises immortality is capable of freeing the initiate from the fear of death; but it is not until a man has

1 Diagoros fr. I (in J. M. Edmonds, Lyra Graeca). 2 Cf. Guthrie, op. cit., p. 2oi ff.

3 Eurip., Hippol. 952. Cf. Festugiere, op. cit., p. 120 ff.

4 Cf. Hans Lewy, Sobria Ebrietas, 1929, p. 55 ff.

- Philo, de post. Caini, 78 (transl. Colson- Whitaker).

6 Cf. E. R. Goodenough, By Light, Light, 1935, p. I156 ff. 7 J. Bidez, F. Cumont, Les mages hellinisds, I938, fr. 24 B.

8 Orphism was probably absorbed by Neopythagorism (cf. J. Carcopino, op. cit., 52 if; A. Boulanger, Rev. it. latin, I937, p. I2 ff. contra: G. Meautis, in Milanges G. Glotz II, p. 577 and Guthrie, op. cit., p. 249 if.) But Hekataios cannot be an orthodox Pythagorean. The Pythagoreans preferred a speculative life and formed communities (cf. Is. Levy, op. cit., p. 231 ff. A. J. Fes- tugi"re, op. cit., pp. 82 ff and 182 ff.) For this reason I call the epitaph "orphic."


374 E. BIKERMAN the certainty of happiness in the Beyond, that he will overcome the 'love of living.' When a pious man told the philosopher Antisthenes that the initiate into the Orphic mysteries would partake of many good things in the Beyond, Antisthenes asked: "Why then do you not die ?"1 The answer is that while the Orphic religion deprecated life on earth as being only the prison of the immortal soul, its code did not permit the cycle of reincarnations to be voluntarily broken." Even so, earthly life was rendered valueless by the promise of blessing after death. Fear and Hope, says the Greek proverb, are the two grimmest enemies of man.3 Orphism delivered him equally from fear and hope.

1 Diog. Laert. VI, I, 4 (transl. R. D. Hicks).

2Rohde, op. cit., II, I22. Cf. F. Cumont, After Life, p. I43.

3 Theogn. I, 636 (ed. Diehl); cf. Lucian. Alex., 8; Demonax, 2o. Cf. Goethe, Faust II, 5440.


Article Contentsp. 368p. 369p. 370p. 371p. 372p. 373p. 374

Issue Table of ContentsJournal of the Warburg Institute, Vol. 2, No. 4 (Apr., 1939), pp. 277-422Volume Information [pp. 409-421]Front MatterA Lecture on Serpent Ritual [pp. 277-292]Eagle and Serpent. A Study in the Migration of Symbols [pp. 293-325]The Tree of Life in Jewish Iconography [pp. 326-345]Pagan Sacrifice in the Italian Renaissance [pp. 346-367]The Orphic Blessing [pp. 368-374]Two Toponymic Puzzles [pp. 375-381]Prognosis and Diagnosis: A Comparison of Ancient and Modern Medicine [pp. 382-398]Back Matter [pp. 399-408]

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