Studies on the Derveni Papyrus

OXFORD

Studies on the Derveni Papyrus

Edited by

Andre Laks and Glenn W. Most

Studies on the Derveni Papyrus edited by

Andre Laks and

Glenn W. Most

CLARENDON PRESS· OXFORD 1997

Studies on the Derveni Papyrus

This book has been printed digitally and produced in a standard design in order to ensure its continuing availability

OXFORD UNlVERSITY PRESS

Great C1arendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department ofthe University ofOxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melboume Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris Silo Paulo Shanghai Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw with associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Andre LaksjGlenn Most 1997

The moral rights ofthe author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) Reprinted 2001 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries conceming reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on anyacquirer ISBN 0-19-815032-6

Contents

Notes on Contributors

vii

Introduction ANDRE LAKS AND GLENN W. MOST

1

l. TRAN SLA TION

A Provision al Translation of the Derveni Papyrus ANDRE LAKS AND GLENN W. MOST

9

II. GENERAL ESSA YS

1. The Derveni Papyrus MARIA SERENA FUNGlIT

25

2. Cosmology as Initiation vs. the Critique of Orphic Mysteries 39

DIRK OBBINK

3. Was Euthyphro the Author of the Dcrveni Papyrus? CHARLES H. KAHN

55

4. Figures of Sexuality and Initiatory Transition in the Derveni Theogony and its Commentary 65

CLAUDE CALAME

5. Hocus-Pocus in East and West. Theogony, Ritual, and the Tradition of Esoteric Commentary 81

MARTIN L. WEST

III. SPECIFIC COLUMNS

6. The First Columns of the Derveni Papyrus and their Religious Significance K. TSANTSANOGLOU

93

7. Herac!itus in the Derveni Papyrus DAVID SIDER

129

vi

Contents

8. Chronos in Column XII of the Derveni Papyrus LUC BRISSON

149

9. Star Wars or One Stable World? A Problem of Presocratic Cosmogony (PDerv. Co!. XXV) WALTER BURKERT

167

Bibliography of the Derveni Papyrus MARIA SERENA FUNGHI

175

Index of Passages in the Derveni Papyrus Index of Passages in Other Ancient Authors Index of Names and Subjects Index of Greek Words

187 191 202 204

Notes on Contributors

Luc BRISSON is a researcher at the CNRS (Paris, Prance). He has published books and artieies on the history of philosophy (Plato, Platonism) and on religion in ancient Greece and the Roman Empire (on the notion of myth, on thc myth of Teiresias and on Orphism). W ALTER BURKERT is Professor of Classics at the University of Zürich. He is the author of many studies on Greek religion and philosophy, including Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism (1972), Greek Religion (1985), and Ancient Mystery CuIts (1987).

CLAUDE CALAME is Professor of Greek Language and Literature at the University of Lausanne. His books include Les Choeurs de jeune filles en Grece archafque (1977), Le RecH en Grece ancienne (1986), Thesee et l'imaginaire athenien (1990), I greci e I'eros (1992); he has published an edition and commentary on Alcman (1983). MARIA SERENA FUNCH! is Senior Researcher on Papyrology at the Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa. She has edited literary papyri, mainly philosophical, and she is on the editorial staft' of the Corpus dei Papid Filosofici Greci e Latini. CHARLES H. KAHN is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, and author of Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology (1960), The Verb 'Be' in Ancient Greek (1973), The Art and Thought of Heraclitus (1979), and Plato and the Socratic Dialogue (1996). ANDRE LAKS is Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the University Charles de Gaulle - Lille III, Prance. He has published a number of artieles on early Greek philosophy, on Plato's political philosophy, on the history of thc reception of Plato in the nineteenth century, and on Hellenistic philosophy. He has edited Diogenes of Apollonia (Lille, 1983) and, in collaboration with Glenn W. Most, Theophrastus' Metaphysics for the Bude collection. Most recently he

viii

Notes on Contributors

has co-edited, with John Glucker, a collection of essays entitled Jacob Bernays: Un philologue juif(Lille, 1996). GLENN W. MOST is Professor of Classics at the University of Heidelberg and of Sodal Thought at the University of Chicago. He has edited and published books and articles on Greek and Latin poetry, on ancient and modern philosophy, and on the classical tradition, including The Measures of Praise: Structure and Function in Pindar's Second Pythian and Seventh Nemean Odes (1985) and Theophrastus' Metaphysics, co-edited with Andre Laks for the collection Bude (1993). DIRK OBBINK lectures on Papyrology and Greek Literature at the University of Oxford. He has written numerous articles in professional journals and collected volumes on Greek literature, religion, and philosophy and is the author, with C. A. Faraone, of Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magie and Religion (1991) and the editor, with P. A. Vander Waerdt, of The SchooI of Hellas: Essays on Greek History, Archaeology and Literature by A. E. Raubitschek (1991). DAVID SIDER, Professor of Classics at Fordham University, writes on Greek poetry and philosophy. He is the author of The Fragments of Anaxagoras (1981) and The Epigrams of Philodemus (1997). KYRIAKOS TSANTSANOGLOU is Professor of Greek Literature at the University of Thessaloniki. He is the author of a book on the Lexicon of Photius (1967) and has edited the new fragments of Greek literature found in that text (1984). He has written a number of articles on fragmentarily preserved Greek literature and is now preparing an edition of the Derveni papyrus. MARTIN L. WEST is a Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. He is the author of many editions, translations, and studies relating to early Greek poetry and philosophy, including The Orphic Poems (1983) and Ancient Greek Music (1992).

Introduction ANDRE LAKS AND GLENN W. MOST

If the Derveni papyrus has been surrounded by an aura of mystery

ever since its discovery a third of a century ago, this has been due not only to its contents-theological. eschatological. allegorical, cosmological-but also to the circumstances of its delayed diffusion. For the first two decades after its discovery, no text of the papyrus was generally available at alt; the unauthorized publication of a transcription in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 47 (1982) after p. 300 strained relations within the scholarly community but provided a basis-albeit one whose correctness could not be checked-for a growing number of published studies and for a far greater number of research projects. This situation may help to explain why, despite the obvious need for a public forum in which scholars who shared interests and questions could discuss their views with one another and foster the understanding of the Derveni papyrus, there were, as far as we know, no conferences on this extraordinary document during these years. With this in mind, we organized a colloquium at Princeton University on 17-18 April 1993 which sought to bring together a number of scholars who had worked on the Derveni Papyrus and to lay the basis for a more fruitful international collaboration in the future. Funding for the conference was provided by the following programmes and departments at Princeton University: the Council for the Humanities (Prof. V. Brombert), the Prentice Fund 01' the Department of Classics (Prof. E. Fantham). the Program in Hellenic Studies (Prof. D. Gondicas), the Late Antiquity Seminar (Prof. P. Brown), and the Program in the Ancient World (Prof. E. J. Champlin). We thank all those involved tor their generosity, which made this conference possible.

2

Andre Laks and Glenn W. Most

The following scholars delivered papers at the conference (they are listed here in alphabeticalorder):

J. Bollack, 'L'lkriture initiatique et son exegese'. L. Brisson, 'On Col. XII and the Status of Chronos'. W. Burkert, 'Star Wars or one Stable World? A Problem of Presocratic Cosmogony (Col. XXV)'. C. Calame, 'Figures de la sexualite et transition initiatique dans la theogonie de Derveni et son commentaire'. C. Kahn, 'On the Authorship of the Derveni P.apyrus'. R. Lamberton, 'The Interpretive Repertory of the Derveni Commentator' . A. Lebedev, 'The Derveni Treatise as a Document of Sophistic Atheism. With some Remarlcs on the Authorship'. D. Obbink, 'Cosmology as Initiation vs. the Critique of Orphic Mysteries (Col. XX) in the Derveni Papyrus'. D. Sider, 'On the Heraclitus Material in the Derveni Papyrus'. K. Tsantsanoglou, 'On the First Columns and their Religious Significance' . M. L. West, 'Hocus-Pocus in East and West. Theogony, Ritual and the Tradition of Esoteric Commentary'. The risks involved in such an undertaking were evident. But all the participants agreed that the colloquium had been successful in clearing the lines of communication among the members of the scholarly community working on this text and in laying a sound basis for future research upon it. Hence the decision to make available arecord of the colloquium by publishing a collection of papers. But the present volume, though it arises from the Princeton colloquium, is not simply a reflection of it. On the one hand, for various reasons it turned out not to be possible to include in this book all the papers that were delivered on this occasion; to those scholars who enriched the conference by their contributions but who are not represented here we express our thanks. On the other hand, we have added a number of texts to the present volume which were not discussed at the Princeton colloquium but which we hope will make it of greater usefulness to readers. These are (1) a general presentation of the Derveni papyrus (which will serve as an introduction for readers not familiar with the material) and (2) an

Introduction

3

(updated and revised) bibliography of scholarly studies of it,l both prepared by Maria Serena Funghi for the Corpus dei papiri filosofici; and (3) a translation of the Derveni papyrus, prepared by the editors of this volume and revised on the basis of the suggestions of Prof. K. Tsantsanoglou. In this last regard, as in all others, Prof. Tsantsanoglou has provided generous assistance without which this volume would certainly have been less useful and might not even have been possible. Not only did he present the missing columns of the papyrus in his contribution to the Princeton colloquium (thereby permitting the new, definitive numbering of the columns which is followed here). What is more, he has provided an indispensable authorization for the present volume by carefully checking all the articles in it against the readings of the papyrus; and his many important suggestions for the translation presented here mean that this volume is now able to supply a more secure basis for working upon the papyrus than the only edition in Greek currently available. The editors of the present volume hope that it will not only provide scholars a more seeure foundation for work on the papyrus but: also embody a spirit of productivc international collaboration which will continue in thc coming years. This volume is necessarily heterogeneous in character. Wc are referring not only to the evident differences in approaches and views among the various scholars represented here--these testify, after all, to the extraordinary richness of this document. But beyond that, its various parts represent slightly different stages in the development of scholarship on this text and are based upon slightly different textual material. The contributions of Maria Serena Funghi were prepared before the Princeton colloquium and could not take account of the material and interpretations presented on that occasion; the articles by the various authors were written before the translation by the present editors and without full knowledge of the additional material provided by Prof. Tsantsanoglou's suggestions. Even if it had been possible, we think it would have been inadvisable to revise all the contributions in this volume so as to unify them in this regard. 1'0 have tried to do so would have falsified a scholarly 1 Works eited in the papers in this volume are either provided with full bibliographieal information on first occurrenee or, if they are primarily eoncerned with the Derveni papyrus, are cited in abbreviated form (author -- date) with referenee to this bibliography.

4

Andre Laks and Glenn W. Most

situation which is extremely fluid and heterogeneous, and which is no less interesting and productive for this reason--quite the contrary. The contributions collected here, whether they have a general character or focus primarily upon the interpretation of a single column, indicate some of the many kinds of questions to which the Derveni papyrus lends itself. On the basis of their many agreements and divergences, we might suggest in conclusion some further possible lines of research. The discovery of the Derveni papyrus confirmed a widespread scholarly expectation, but it did so in an unforeseeable way. A number of pieces of evidence had suggested the existence at a relatively early date of allegorical interpretations of a 'philosophical' nature, whether their perspective was physical or moraL Little information on Theagenes or the circle of Anaxagoras was available, but that little was confirmed by what we knew about the Sophists, in particular via Plato. No work of this kind, however, had survived. The Derveni papyrus permitted scholars to glimpse for the first time directly and concretely a literary genre to which access had previously only been indirect and abstract. But this confirrnation involved two surprises: that it was Orpheus who was involved rather than Homer, and that the physical allegoresis deployed was not worked through for its own sake but coexisted with, indeed was in the service of a project which was religious, and more particularly initiatory, in character. The problem of establishing a connection between allegorical rationalization and eschatalogical initiation was linked with the difficulty of understanding the relation between the two parts of which the text seems to be composed: the first six, very incompletely surviving columns articulate a set of religious beliefs, while the remaining twenty-one columns constitute a sustained exercise in allegorical exegesis, apparently interrupted only once, in col. xx, by the voice of the mystagogue. Hence the first question that arises is that of the genre of this text. Once the first surprise had passed, it turned out to be rather less difficult to suggest an answer to this question than might have been expected. Indeed. a general consensus seems to have developed among scholars. including a number of the authors in the present volume. that. at least within the cultural horizon to which this document belongs. initiation and exegesis. so far from being opposed to one another. are two sides ofthe same coin. On the one hand. the

Jntroduction

5

dose linking of religious practice to a specilic text is a distinctive characteristic of the Orphic movement. On the other hand, in the present case exegetical expertise seems to serve as a particularly effective instrument of initiation within wh at seems to be a highly specific variety of Orphic religious ritual, since it requires both a sophisticated kind of knowledge (that provided by the cosmoontological systems of treatises On nature) and refined interpretative techniques. This might explain why textual exegesis of the sort performed here could stand in contrast to other, competing, contemporary initiatory practices, as is implied by the intra-professional polemic of col. xx. Assuming that, within the sophisticated version of Orphism of which the Derveni author is the spokesman, religious initiation takes the form of a rationalizing exegesis 01' the episodes of an Orphic theogony set into systematic relation with the episodes of a late 'Presocratic' kind of physical cosmology, the interpreter faces a series of precise tasks: (1) to reconstruct the cosmology to which reference is being made as coherently and in as much detail as possible; (2) to evaluate the exegetical techniques which permit the passage from the theogonie poem to this cosmology; (3) to investigate the possibility that, despite the apparent arbitrariness 01' the allegoresis, more fundamental affinities might link Orphic theogonies on the one hand and physical cosmologies on the other; and (4) to reach a deeper understanding of the relationship between the two parts of the papyrus, wh ich are linked with one another at least formally through the quotation from Heraditus. Earlier scholarship, and same of the contributions in the present volume, have provided valuable material for answering the first two questions, though much remains to be done before a satisfactory picture can emerge; on the other hand, the last two questions have perhaps not yet sufficiently engaged scholars. But beyond the immanent interpretation 01' this document itselfwhich will rightly continue to exercise scholarly ingenuity and patience-the circumstances in which the papyrus was found raise further questions whose answers can as yet barely be imagined. Why did some man in a Macedonian villa ge in the fourth century Be apparently choose not only to have the text of this papyrus accompany him in his tomb, but to have it burned together with him, thereby strengthening even further the connection between text and ritual already present--if the interpretation sketched above is

6

Andre Laks and Glenn W. Most

correct-within the very practice of initiatory interpretation? Of course, we can only speculate here, but it is very tempting to suggest a connection between the importance accorded the heat of fire in the Derveni cosmology on the one hand and the choice of cremation for the dead man on the other. A believer in Orphism who had been strongly infIuenced by Heraclitus' views on the sun might weIl have found a particular significance in this type of burial even if in this period it was fairly common in Macedonia anyway. That is, the element of fire might itself provide the fundamental link between the first part of the papyrus, its second part, and the circumstance of its incineration. Such a hypo thesis might find some support in the first part of the text, if the apparent deictic adjective at col. III. 6 ('beneath this mound') can be interpreted as referring to the very location of this burial mound, beneath which the ashes of this pious man and of his precious book would one day be found. This leads to a final set of questions regarding the kind of community for which this text was intended. Was it much influenced by Oriental religious practices, and if so by ones imported recently or at a much earlier date, or is it rather to be understood within the context of indigenous Greek traditions? How permeable were this group's boundaries with regard to the society at large? Were there other such groups, and if so what relations did they have with one another? What was the social structure of such an interpretative community, and what were the relations between the exegete, the initiates, the other members, and the text or texts which bound them all? What was the relation between the author of the text and the man buried with it? For what readership was it intended? The rough, often asyndetic style of the treatise might suggest that it was used only internally within such a community and was not meant for wider dissemination; yet Philodemus seems to know our text via Philochorus, who apparently quotes it. Might recent work on such interpretative communities as the ones implied by the texts of Hermes Trismegistus which circulated in Egypt several centuries later ofTer a model for understanding this group? Fortunately, many questions remain open.

1. TRANSLATION

1

A Provision al Translation of the Derveni Papyrus ANDRE LAKS AND GLENN W. MOST

This translation cannot claim to be definitive; it merely represents our best understanding of the text as it is currently available. Our views do not necessarily coincide with those of the other authors in the present volume, and we have not modified their translations to agree with our own. We have added as little as possible in the way of explanatory material in parentheses; in the footnotes we have suggested a few further possibilities. K. Tsantsanoglou very kindly agreed to check the first version of our translation and also communicated to us per litt. a number of suggestions based upon his own supplements to the papyrus (indicated in the notes with the abbreviation Ts.); we have benefited greatly from his generosity and gratefully acknowledge his help. We have also derived help from the two unpublished English translations we know of. by R. Lamberton and by D. Obbink. and from the unpublished French translation by J. Bollack. Our translations of the various columns are based on the following Greek texts: new number

ZPE 47 (1982) number

I

II fr. B fr. A 1 1I JII

III

IV V VI VII VIII

IV 1

basis for the translation

Tsantsanoglou's article in this book Tsantsanoglou's article in this book Tsantsanoglou's article in this book Tsantsanoglou's article in this book Tsantsanoglou's article in this book Tsantsanoglou's article in this book Tsantsanoglou's article in this book ZPEl+Ts.

Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 47 (J 982), after p. 300.

10

Andre Laks and Glenn W. Most

IX X XI XII

V VI VII VIII

XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII XIX XX

IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI

XXI XXII

XVII XVIII

XXIII XXIV XXV

XIX XX XXI

XXVI

XXII

ZPE+Ts. ZPE+Ts. ZPE+ Ts. Brisson's article in this book, checked by Tsantsanoglou ZPE+Ts. ZPE+Ts. ZPE+Ts. ZPE+Ts. ZPE+Ts. ZPE+Ts. ZPE+ Ts. Obbink's article in this book, checked by Tsantsanoglou ZPE+Ts. Obbink's article in this baak, checked by Tsantsanoglou ZPE+Ts. ZPE+Ts. Burkert's article in this baak, checked by Tsantsanaglou ZPE + Ts.

CoL I ... each ... · .. of the Erinyes ... Col. II

· .. Erinyes ... of the Erinyes ... they honour ... souls are 2 • • • libations in droplets ... brings honours ... to each some kind of bird · .. fitted to the music .. . Col. III

· . . for each a daimon becomes . . . utterly destroyed . . . daimones which beneath this mound 3 ••• And they are called servants of the gods ... they are, in exactly the same way as unjust men ... and they are responsible ... such as (masc. pL) ... Or: 'are souls'. Or, writing 0[: 'the "daimones" beneath this mound', The text is uncertain; the apparent absence of the definite article is surprising (see below, p, 106), 2

3

A Translation of the Derveni Papyrus

11

CoI. IV The man (who alters?) what has been laid down ... to give rather than he harms (?) ... of chance ... not ... to take. Is it not for these reasons that the cosmos possesses order? In the same way. Heraclitus. chan ging the common views. overturns his own. he who said. speaking in the same way as a myth-teller: 4 The sun according to its own nature is a human foot in width. not exceeding its boundaries. For if it goes outside its own width. the Erinyes. helpers of Justice. will find it out.

· .. would make a transgression ... of justice ...

CoI. V · .. consulting an orade ... they consult an orade ... for them. we go into the oracular shrine in order to ask. on behalf of those seeking oracular answers. if it is right ... the terrors of Hades. why are they distrustful? Not understanding dreams. nor any of the other real things. on the basis of what kinds of examples would they have trust? For overcome both by fault and by samething else. pleasure. 5 they neither lmow nor trust. For distrust is the same as ignorance. For if they neither know nor understand. it is not possible that they would have trust even6 seeing ... distrust ... appears ...

CoI. VI · .. prayers and sacrifices assuage the souls. and the incantation of the magoi is able to change 7 the daimones when they get in the way. Daimones in the way are enemies to souls. This is why the magoi perform the sacrifice. just as if they were paying a penalty. And on the offerings they pour water and milk. fra m wh ich they also make the libations. And they sacrifice innumerable and many-knobbed cakes. because the souls too are innumerable. Initiates make preliminary 4 Our translation is based upon a text that combines suggestions by Sider (see below, p. 129) and Tsantsanoglou (see below, p. 94): ÖU1T