Poetry as Initiation: The Center for Hellenic Studies Symposium on the Derveni Papyrus

Citation: Papadopoulou, Ioanna, and Leonard Muellner, eds. 2014. Poetry as Initiation: The Center for Hellenic Studies Symposium on the Derveni Papyrus. Hellenic Studies Series 63. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_PapadopoulouI_MuellnerL_eds.Poetry_as_Initiation.2014.

Chapter 6. How to Learn about Souls: The Derveni Papyrus and Democritus

Walter Burkert

University of Zurich

The derveni papyrus has been called the most important discovery for Greek philology in the twentieth century: a burned papyrus scroll from the fourth century BC, one-third of which has been preserved in a carbonized state. The discovery was made nearly fifty years ago, and I myself have been working on this fascinating text for forty-five years. Yet it has been only a few years since a real edition appeared (2006)—and not in Thessaloniki, where the papyrus is kept, but in Italy, thanks to the diplomacy of Maria Serena Funghi.

It was clear from the first fragmentary publication of 1964 (or rather 1965) that this is mainly a commentary on the theogony of Orpheus, based on the philosophy of Anaxagoras and Diogenes of Apollonia—in other words, it is Presocratic. The name of Heraclitus turned up later (col. IV 5). My first study appeared in 1968. I stated, and I think this still holds true, that the “Presocratic” author was writing in about 400 BC and dealing with a sixth-century text. The quotations from the Orphic theogony have laid a new foundation for Orphic studies (comprising fr. 2–18 in Bernabé’s Orphicorum fragmenta [2004]). My interpretation of this strange yet highly interesting text was published in 2006.

The quotations from the theogony start in column VII. Fragments of the first six columns have successively accumulated, but, because they form the outside of the scroll, they are badly damaged and desperately lacunose. No wonder modern judgments as to this part of the text are widely, or wildly, divergent. Suggestive catchwords to be read are Erinyes (cols. I, II, III), Hadou deiná (“terrors of the Underworld,” col. V), daimones (cols. III, VI), oracles (col. V), mystai (col. VI)—but what does the author say about these? Is he preaching, is he criticizing, is he just reporting? Is he an Orphic initiation priest or even a magos himself, is he an “Anaxagorean,” a “Presocratic” rationalist, is he kind {107|108} of a historian? Column IV quotes Heraclitus by name in two famous fragments which are now linked together (B 12; B 94); but what is the point?

Let me first sketch the author’s position on the basis of the better-preserved, later columns. I find the author has a concept of “reality,” prágmata (col. XIII 5), eónta, which can be adequately transmitted by speech: an ónoma can be “adequate,” prospherés, or even prospheréstaton (col. XVIII 8). This “reality” of our world is described in the terms of Anaxagoras/Diogenes/Leucippus: the world of reality always was there; there is no real génesis; but things were mixed, in fine particles (leptomerés), dominated by air, which can also be called “god” or “Zeus,” or “Intelligence” (Noûs); thus there has evolved the structure of our world, and corresponding “names,” in accordance with the changing interrelations of real things (eónta). The author is quite sure as to his own “knowledge” about reality, and he is looking down at those “many” people who do not know, who misunderstand, who suffer from amathía; these people do not know even what they are practicing themselves (col. XX), and they do not know the full meaning of their own words (col. XVIII 5). The author will help his reader to “learn” and “recognize” (manthánein, ginóskein).

But what about those catchwords hinting at “underworld,” “mysteries,” and “mágoi” in the earlier columns? I start from column V, where I find at least a few consecutive sentences with clear meaning:

… they disbelieve, not recognizing dreams nor the single instances of other realities by which examples they might believe. For overcome by gluttonness and other pleasure, they do not learn or believe. Disbelief and ignorance are the same thing. For if they do not learn or recognize, it is impossible that they should believe, even when seeing…

“Disbelief” recurs in the following line, and “it appears” is what is left from the last.

I presume the author is speaking here in his own name. His insistence is on “learning,” “knowledge,” and “belief,” in contrast to “ignorance” and “disbelief” (amathíe, apistíe). People—“normal”—people, fail to acquire knowledge on account of disbelief: the fault is theirs, motivated by an unruly life. In contrast to this, there is a chance for knowledge, through dreams, and by other “examples” or “single facts” (paradeígmata). In contrast to this, people may use oracles. This has been mentioned before: people go there to ask, and to ask again, about the “terrors of Hades.” These people are disregarding the real sources of “belief.”

It is helpful to realize that the author is applying, with slight variation, a sentence of Heraclitus (B 86) about “the Divine” (τὸ θεῖον): “on account of disbelief it escapes so that it is not recognized,” ἀπιστίηι διαφυγγάνει μὴ γιγ- {108|109} νώσκεσθαι. These are nearly the same words, for the same effect: through ἀπιστίη men block their own chances of knowledge; they should just look instead, and pay attention. We may recall the sentence of Heraclitus B 1, the invective against normal people who “prove to be inexperienced while they do experience” reality as Heraclitus is going to describe it. Evidently, for Heraclitus “the Divine” is there, perhaps everywhere; everything is full of gods, according to the saying of Thales (Α 22) which Heraclitus quotes in another place (A 9). The Heraclitus parallel suggests a similar understanding even for our author: there are things to be seen and to be learned which escape many people on account of disbelief.

“Disbelief” ἀπιστία also makes its appearance in a famous section of Plato’s Gorgias (493a–d), [1] an allegorical interpretation of an underworld myth, probably Orphic. Plato, or Socrates, refers to somebody else who “has spoken” to Socrates; the passage describes pouring water from sieves into a leaky vessel (pithos), as certain souls are said to do in the underworld; this recalls, the explanation goes, the futile exertions of a “leaky” soul that, dominated by pleasures, cannot “keep” and retain knowledge, on account of ἀπιστία and forgetfulness, λήθη. This allegorizer changes the mythical Beyond into an image of reality. The word apistia has been found odd here (Dodds), but seems to recall Heraclitus B 86 once more, and is now supported by the Derveni text.

Heraclitus, the Derveni text, and the Plato passage form a closely connected group in their treatment of “nonbelieving” and “knowledge.” I do not claim that Plato is quoting the Derveni book, but the warning against pleasure makes a strong link. Unfortunately, in the Derveni text what could or should be learned in contrast to disbelief has disappeared in the following lacuna. It should be some part of reality, not immediately obvious but attainable through observation, including dreams, and also by other “examples.” It is “the divine” in Heraclitus, and “the soul” in Plato. Remembering those catchwords mentioned above, we conclude that it is about souls even in the Derveni text.

The following column (VI) deals with the rites and teachings of mágoi. It leaves us at a loss as to whether these mágoi are priests of the Medes and Persians, as in Herodotus, or even Zoroastrians, or else mages hellénisées, as treated by Cumont, or even—as has been suggested by Betegh—a group of the author himself and his associates. This text concerns rituals and their explanation concerning “souls.” The author mentions “prayer and sacrifices” and states: “The incantation of the magoi can make daimones who stand in the way to change place; daimones are in the way…”; the following words indicate some correlation between daimones and souls; unfortunately the lacuna of eight letters can be filled by different supplements. {109|110}