Alexis Pinchard, Professeur agrg de philosophie (CNRS, UMR 7528 / Lyce Militaire dAix-enProvence, CPGE), The ISNS Tenth

International Conference, Cagliari 2012, alexispinchard@hotmail.com

Abstract:The Salvific Function of Memory in Archaic Poetry, in the Orphic Gold Tablets and in Plato: What Continuity, What Break?
According to this paper, the Athenian Neoplatonic idea that there was a deep accordance between Orpheus, Pythagoras and Plato about the method and the definition of soul salvation (see Syrianus) is not fully erroneous. It just has to be put in a dynamic perspective instead of a static one. Original Orphism may indeed be defined as the cultural process neither a fixed doctrine nor an organized church that leads from the positive valuation of an external memory concerning epic or theogonic old paterns, working as a condition of the kleos aphthiton for heroes and poets, toward the positive valuation of the internal memory which is conceived of as bringing the philosophers soul in touch with eternal realities. Orphism does not deny the authority of Homeric or Hesiodic tradition, which makes immortal the names of heroes, but Orphism gradually transfers it inside the soul and thus discovers a new level of immortality, which concerns the ego and is independent from the surviving part of human society, just like the common immortality of soul demonstrated by Plato in the Phaedo does paradoxically not prevent certain souls from being more subject to death than other ones (see for example the end of the Timaeus, 90c)! In certain Orphic gold tablets, Mnemosyne is not invocated in order to keep alive an oral tradition through successive generations but for an individual soul to re-assume its own divine origin. This soteriological interpretation of the role played by memory is confirmed by the cyclical sequence bios thanatos bios found in the Olbia bones fragments (OF 463.1 Bernab). Such a mental power makes the soul able to escape an ever-lasting re-birth and re-death cycle, just like the anamnsis in Plato does, although the divine part of soul is identified only with rationality in Plato, and no longer with any vitalizing spirit correlated with body. The life of the soul, according to Plato, is overall an adequate relationship to itself, which is called intellection (nous; cf. Sophist, 249a; Leges X, 896a). But Orphism has already overcome the idea that the sole material ritual could work as a sufficient means for salvation. Moreover, there is no historical family tradition in Orphism unlike in the Homeric tradition. There are no Orphidai like the Homridai of Chios. Lineage in the Orphic tradition is only ritual and is only a matter of initiation. Oneselfs connection with Orpheus depends on will and on undertaking of a re-birth ritual, not on blood. The whole humanity is potentially in connection with Orpheus just like the Orphic Zeus contains everything and is contained by everything. For example, Pythagoras was re-enacting Orpheus although he was not Orpheuss natural son (see Gregory Nagys Homer the Preclassic, E116). In the same way, Plato asserts that every human being has seen the Ideas and can remember them by practicing dialectics. Finally, in Orphism, the selfidentification of the rhapsode with the mythical proto-poet occurs during the whole life, and not only during the oral performance. This is why there is a real Orphic way of life (vegetarian food, non-violence, saying truth; see Plato, Leges, 782 c-d), and not only an Orphic way of singing. Moreover, since the Orphic poems were written quite early and thus became protected against oral variations, the initiate could not identify himself with Orpheus as a creative poet. The very process of improvisation during an oral performance was forbidden to him. Therefore the ritual and ethic behavior, or the rationalizing interpretation of Orphic poems just like in the Derveni Papyrus, became the only way of re-enacting Orpheus. On one hand Orpheuss powerful living voice was admitted as definitely remoted in the past, but on the other hand the inner and spiritual life became the most important factor of continuity in the Orphic tradition. So Orphism might be the analogy-generating tradition in which Plato found the first connection between different kinds of memory and different levels of immortality (see especially Diotimas speech during the Symposium, 208c-d, 212a). Such a connection was the condition for dialectics, so that it could not be the result a dialectics. Of course, following Plato himself, modern scholars have accepted this hierarchy as a distinctive feature through which one could isolate Plato from other salvation traditions in Greek culture, as if to conceive of the genuine immortality as an instantaneous return to our metaphysical origin were the special innovation of philosophy. But, as we said, Plato might have just continued the process inaugurated by Orphism, and this process might also be not later than the Homeric poetry. Indeed, on the basis of much data excerpted from comparative poetics dealing with Indian and Iranian sacred poetry, we may assume that such a growing complexity of immortality and memory was a permanent trend in some ancient cultures, synchronically organized rather than diachronically, just like the Neoplaonic thinkers believed.

Alexis Pinchard, Professeur agrg de philosophie (CNRS, UMR 7528 / Lyce Militaire dAix-enProvence, CPGE), The ISNS Tenth International Conference, Cagliari 2012, alexispinchard@hotmail.com

The Salvific Function of Memory in Archaic Poetry, in the Orphic Gold Tablets and in Plato: What Continuity, What Break? 1
Introduction Since Auguste Dis, it has been often said that Plato has transposed Orphic language, imagery and ritual into the realm of pure Ideas, in order to be understood by his audience and to endow his new doctrine with an authorative voice. 2 So the mere form of Orphic poetry and that of certain Platonic mythoi would be the same, for example the main mythos found in the Phaedrus, whereas the spiritual content would be completely different, especially about the nature and means of salvation. In Plato, Orphism would be a mere meta-phora. Against this simplistic view this paper aims at showing that Orphism was already in itself a power of transposition and that Plato faithfully followed its impulse. The dynamic aspect of Orphism was more important than its various doctrinal contents or its special epic tradition. Indeed, since the real unity and the defining features of Orphism are a controversial question among scholars,3 this power of transposition might not be only one among the properties of Orphism, but its essential definition, so that Orphism might be proven to have an essential definition . Thanks to such a power of transposition, we might escape the idea that Orphism consists just in an accidental gathering of mutually independent religious trends. But transposition of what, from what and into what? The Orphic transposition deals with the connection between memory and immortality. It deals with an interiorisation process as well as with a unversalisation process. Indeed original Orphism may be defined as the cultural process neither a fixed doctrine nor an organized church that leads from the positive valuation of external memory concerning epic or theogonic paterns orally transmitted from master to pupil, towards the positive valuation of internal memory, which is independent from any sensuous experience and any peculiar social context. The former works as a condition of the kleos aphthiton (unfailing fame) for heroes and poets; the latter redeems the soul by
This paper have been made made possible by the kind help of the Center for Hellenic Studies (Harvard University) where I have been housed in April 2012. 2 See Dis 1972 (1926): 344: Platon transpose lorphisme et le mysticisme non seulement en ornement littraire, mais en doctrine. Chez lui toutes les mtaphores empruntes aux mystres aboutissent lIde; toutes les esprances en certitude dimmortalit, fonde sur la parente de lme avec lIde []. Cf. Burkert (1962: 147): Damit ist die erkenntnistheoretische Ausbildung der anamnsis-Lehre und ihr Beweis aus der Mathematik als typische platonische Transposition erwiesen; pythagoreisch sind Konzentrations- und Gedchnisbungen, die keine notwendige Verbindung mit mathematischer Wissenschaft haben, wohl aber im Schamanenbereich vorkommen. 3 See Edmonds III 2011 and 2012. Edmonds sharply critizes every attempt to give some unity to Orphism. According to him Orphism would be essentially a modern construct. But this extreme nominalism forgets the spiritual dimension of Orphism: to connect the personal immortality, the internalization of epic heroism and the poetic kleos, as we will see it is done by many orphica, is not a common attitude in Greek religion and it is not absurd to label it as Orphism, even retrospectively. For example, there were many philosophers in Greece, with many doctrines and without any social unified institution; but who denies that the word philosophy has a consistent meaning and a real denotation? Moreover, one could argue that the obvious diversity of orphica is not the proof that our modern grouping of them is a mere artifact, but the sign of a really living tradition. Unity and multiplicity are not always contradictory: for example a living being, inasmuch as it possesses in himself not only material particles but also a unifying principle which uses to be called soul, regularly changes in surface along the time but he essentially remains the same. Analogically, the obvious diversity of texts does not prevent the continuity of a spiritual tradition which deals with what is mostly real in human life, i.e., the consciousness of the always imminent eventuality of death. Thus Orphism would gain a positive unity and would stop being defined just as what is no integrated into the polis-sponsored religion.
1

Alexis Pinchard, Professeur agrg de philosophie (CNRS, UMR 7528 / Lyce Militaire dAix-enProvence, CPGE), The ISNS Tenth International Conference, Cagliari 2012, alexispinchard@hotmail.com

bringing it in touch with the eternal realities which the soul is based on. Orphism does not deny the authority of Homeric or Hesiodic traditions, which make immortal the names of heroes, but Orphism gradually transfers the narrative content of these traditions inside the soul of every initiated human being and thus discovers a new level of immortality. 4 This new level concerns the ego as an individual consciousness and is independent from the surviving part of human society, which only keeps a mental trace of the dead. This higher level does not destroy the lower one, just as the common immortality of soul demonstrated by Plato in the Phaedo does paradoxically not prevent certain souls from being more subject to death than other ones. Orphism did not find out new means of salvation in Greece, but it found out salvation itself inasmuch as the concept of salvation implies that the consciousness can experience for ever a state of inner perfection. Of course, the internalization process defining Orphism is also evidenced in ritual. The way is as well interiorised as the goal: to understand the meaning and the mechanism of initiatory rituals is at least as important in order to obtain the highest immortality as to accomplish them externally. Through Orphism to think became the most efficient ritual, as it actually is in Platonic philosophy.5 So Orphism might be the primeval analogy-generating tradition in which Plato found the idea of a connection between different kinds of memory and different levels of immortality (see especially Diotimas speech during the Symposium, 208c-d, 212a). Such a connection was the condition for dialectics, so that it could not be the result of dialectics. Text of some gold tablets The famous gold tablets, frequently called Orphic gold tablets although Orpheuss name does not occur in them, can confirm my hypothesis. Let us give in a synoptic way the text of what Pugliese Carratelli called the Pythagorean tablets (we use his classification and numbering system), and thereafter their Orphic nature will be briefly discussed:
1: 1. 0 . (cf. I A 2. 12 et I A 4. 0) 2: 4. 2 [ ************************** ] 3: 2. 1 , (cf. I A 1 & 3. 1) 4: 2. 2 (cf. I A 1 & 3. 2 ; I A 41. 5) 5: 1. 3 . (cf. I A 4 1. 6) 6: 2. 3 . (cf. I A 1. 4 et I A 41. 7) 7: 2. 4 , (cf. I A 1. 5 et I A 3. 4) 8: 2. 5 . (cf. I A 1. 6 et I A 3. 5) 9: 1. 7 (cf. I A 3. 6 et I A 41. 10) 10: 1. 8 . (cf. I A 41. 11) 11: 1. 3 12: 3. 7 . 13: 3. 8 , (cf. I A 1. 9 / 2. 6 / 3. 8 / 41. 12 ; I B 1. 3) 14: 3. 9 15: 2. 7 (cf. I A 42. 1) 16: 2. 8 (cf. I A 1. 8 et I A 3. 9 et A 41. 13 et I B 1. 1) For the complex complementarity between Orphic and Homeric poetry, see Herrero 2008: 247-248 and 273-275, while analyzing Aristophaness Ranae, 1030-1036. According to Herreo, the difference between both traditions does not nccessarily concern the subject of poems, but the state of mind of the of the author and of the audience (2008: 275). Indeed we are now trying to define this specific state of mind. 5 Feyerabend ( 1984: 17) already noticed that the justification of ritual by logos in Bacchic mysteries (hieros logos) prepares the justification of ontology in Parmenides.
4

Alexis Pinchard, Professeur agrg de philosophie (CNRS, UMR 7528 / Lyce Militaire dAix-enProvence, CPGE), The ISNS Tenth International Conference, Cagliari 2012, alexispinchard@hotmail.com 17: 2. 9 . (cf. I A 1. 11 et I A 41. 14) 18: 1. 12 , (cf. I A 42. 2) 19: 2. 10 , (cf. I A 1. 13) 20: 2. 11 [ ] . 21: 1. 14 22: 1. 15 . This is the work of memory, when you are about to die. [] remembering hero You will find to the left (right) of the house of Hades a spring and standing by it a white cypress. Descending to it, the souls of the dead refresh themselves. Do not even go near to this spring ! You will find another one, from the Lake of Memory, cold water pouring forth ; there are guards before it. They will ask you, with astute wisdom, what you are seeking in the darkness of murky Hades. Who are you? Where are you from? You, tell them the entire truth. Say: I am a child of Earth and starry Sky. My name is Starry: my race is heavenly; you yourself know this. I am parched with thirst and I am dying. But quickly grant me cold water from the Lake of Memory to drink! And they will announce you to the Chthonian King, and they will grant you to drink from the divine spring. And thereafter you will rule with other heroes. You, too, having drunk, will go along the sacred road with other glorious initiates and possessed by Dionysos travel (transl. Graf modified).

Of course there are other gold tablets. I have selected these on the basis of their connection with Mnemosyne because this connection at the same time seems to be a rejoinder against their belonging to Orphism and really is the proof thereof. Orphism and Pythagoreanism I agree with Pugliese Carratelli when he attributes Mnemosynes gold tablet s to the Pythagorean milieu because to train memory was the favorite mental exercise among Pythagorass disciples.6 This view is also evidenced by the stress laid upon heavenly immortality in Mnemosynes gold tablets, for example in the initiatiory naming , whereas heavenly immortality is alluded in a famous Pythagorean akousma, where the sun and the moon, according to a metaphoric use of Hesiods l anguage, are called the Isles of the Blessed (Iamblichus, De vita pythagorica, XVIII, 82; cf. Hesiod, Opera et dies, 171). But this Pythagorean origin should not prevent us from rooting Mnemosynes gold tablets in Orphism. On the contrary, Pythagoreanism may be viewed as the most genuine Orphic tradition, where the initiatiory filiation could be really or mythically traced back on a very long period, until Orpheus himself. In Pythaorism the name of the lore master was always known. Peter Kingsley for the most points, especially concerning his antiPlatonic bias and his shamanistic interpretation of Greek philosophy, I am absolutely not a Kingsleyan has rightly insisted on the initiatory adoptive relationship in the Pythagorean and Parmenidian traditions.7 Such an importance of the wisdom lineage explains why Pythagoreanism was a kind of elite Orphism, as it has been suggested by Walter Burkert (1966: 109). Beside this elite Orphism, there was also a popular Orphims based on books and promoted by Orpheotelests, which Plato likely critized in the Republic (364e-365a). If Pythagoras or his first disciple really composed several poems which they themselves attributed to Orpheus, as it is said by several old testimonies,8 it

6 7

See Pugliese Carratelli 2003: 17-20. See Kingsley 2001: Part III. 8 See Ion of Chios, 36 B 2 DK, and 36 B 15 DK.

Alexis Pinchard, Professeur agrg de philosophie (CNRS, UMR 7528 / Lyce Militaire dAix-enProvence, CPGE), The ISNS Tenth International Conference, Cagliari 2012, alexispinchard@hotmail.com

did not deal with a fake, but it was a way to re-enact during an oral performance the very source of the sacred tradition. Nagy has also rightly pointed out this fact. 9

Memory in gold tablets In our gold tablets Memory, either as a mental faculty or as personified under the name of goddess Mnemosyne, appears in at least two ways. First, the deceased has to remember the correct password he learned by heart during his initiation in the terrestrial life, in order to be granted the access to Mnemosynes pool. The deceased must say the whole a-ltheia to the guardians, without forgetting anything. Therefore the written gold tablet works as hypomnma, a means of remembrance (cf. Plato, Phaedrus, 276d 3), but the dead has to keep in mind what was taught to him during his terrestrial life: (OF 478.2 = IIB2 Pugliese Carratelli). The password indicates where the initiate comes from and his secret divine filiation. So the password conveys information about his own mythical past. But by drinking Mnemosynes water, the soul of the deceased will obtain another remembrance. Quite paradoxically, the deceased has firstly to remember in order to be able to remember further. This circularity echoes the famous incipit of Orpheuss theogony in the Derveni Papyrus:
I shall sing for the ones who are informed. Put doors to your ears, o profanes! (OF 1a)

In which extent does the initiates need Orpheuss song if they already know the mysteries of the successive divine generations? Similarly Parmenides is already a knowing man before being taught by the divinity who stands beyond the gates of Night and Day:
, ' , , ' , ' The mares that carry me kept conveyiong me as far as ever my spirit reached, once they had taken and set me on the goddess way of much discourse, which carries through every stage to meet her face to face a man who knows (Parmenides fr. 1.1-3, transl. Coxon modified)

See Nagy (2012: E116-117): Just as Hesiod is mediated by Kynaithos in a performance of a Hymn to Apollo that re-enacts Hesiod as well as Homer, so also Orpheus is mediated by Pythagoras in performances that re-enact Orpheus. It is not that Pythagoras simply attributed the verses of Orpheus to himself. Rather, as I argued in Chapter 3, he took on the persona of Orpheus when he performed verses attributed to Orpheus. As I also argued in Chapter 3, the attribution to Orpheus and the self-identification of Pythagoras with Orpheus would have been simultaneous at the moment of performance. Similarly, Kynaithos identifies with Hesiod when he performs verses sacred to the Pythian Apollo, just as he identifies with Homer when he performs verses sacred to the Delian Apollo [].The mentioning of the trousers worn by Pythagoras indicates that he cultivated Thracian wear, since Thracians wore trousers.9 By implication, Pythagoras was Thracian in the same way that Orpheus was Thracian, in that Orpheus was conventionally represented as associating with Thracians.9 In short, the wearing of Thracian trousers by Pythagoras conjures up the Thracian associations of Orpheus as a poet who became alien to Hellenism in the process of becoming marginalized at the Panathenaia.

Alexis Pinchard, Professeur agrg de philosophie (CNRS, UMR 7528 / Lyce Militaire dAix-enProvence, CPGE), The ISNS Tenth International Conference, Cagliari 2012, alexispinchard@hotmail.com

Here, in the gold tablets, the object of the new remembrance is not explicitly described. There is a kind of religious taboo. I suppose it does not mainly deal with the remembrance of the previous lives within the doctrine of transmigration, even if this knowledge is not excluded. Indeed this doctrine was well-known in Pythagoreanism and had nothing secret. More likely is the hypothesis that the deceased, through Mnemosynes water, can remember his divine origin, which is beyond every incarnation and which still remains active in him. He can rejoin the central part of himself, his true identity. He remembers neither an objective fact nor a special speech, but an aspect of his own being with which he has to coincide. Whereas by remembering the password the initiate abstractally knows his heavenly filiation, he immediately experienced this inner divinity by drinking the cold water from Mnemosynes spring. He does not anymore represent his daimonic origin, but he really identifies with it, so that he becomes immortal. This change in the way he is conscious of his own origin is the salvation itself. Some other Orphic fragments might sustain this interpretation, if one keep in mind that Orphism inverted the values of life and death that hold in Homeric epic. According to Platos Cratylus (400c) certain people who explicitly claim to follow the authority of Orpheus, called the body a jail for pseudo-etymological reasons:
{.} , . <> , <> , . , , , <>, , , , [] , ' . [Socr. :] I think this () admits of many explanations, if a little, even very little, change is made; for some say it is the tomb () of the soul, [400c] their notion being that the soul is buried in the present life; and again, because by its means the soul gives any signs which it gives, it is for this reason also properly called sign (). But I think it most likely that Orpheuss disciples gave this name, with the idea that the soul is undergoing punishment for something; they think it has the body as an enclosure to keep it safe, like a prison, and this is, as the name itself denotes, the safe () for the soul, until the penalty is paid, and not even a letter needs to be changed (Plato, Cratylus, 400c-d, OF 430).

Of course, in the Cratylus, those who acknowledge Orpheuss authority do not connect sma and sma, but it is not excluded. The corporeal jail can threaten the soul with death. In his Protrepticus (fr. 60 Rose, OF 430), Aristoteles transmits a doctrine from the mystery cults, of which Orpheus elsewhere (Aristophanes , Frogs, 1032 and Euripides , Rhesus, 943-947 = OF 510 and 511) was said to be the founder. This doctrine can be summed up as follows: the souls of seemingly living men have to be punished for previous sins and are bound with their body just like prisoners were closely bound with human corpses by cruel Etruscan pirates in order to be killed. So the metaphor of the body jail stands quite close to the one of the body conveived as a source of death. 10 In both case it deals with a pessimistic view of what we commonly call human life and with a positive valuation of afterlife. In the Gorgias (493a), this inversion is developed by a wise man with the statement that we currently are dead:
' , ' , ,
10

For a complete study of this metaphor, see Bernab 1995.

Alexis Pinchard, Professeur agrg de philosophie (CNRS, UMR 7528 / Lyce Militaire dAix-enProvence, CPGE), The ISNS Tenth International Conference, Cagliari 2012, alexispinchard@hotmail.com , , , , , , ' , , , . , , , , . , , , ' . ' , , , , . , ' , For I tell you I should not wonder if Euripides words were true, when he say s: Who knows if to live is to be dead, and to be dead, to live? and now we really, it may be, are dead; in fact I once heard someone among the sages say that we are now dead, and the body is our tomb, 1 and the part of the soul in which we have desires is liable to be over-persuaded and to vacillate to and fro, and so some smart fellow, a Sicilian, I daresay, or Italian,2 made a fable in whichby a play of words3he named this part, as being so impressionable and persuadable, a jar, and the thoughtless he called uninitiate: 4 [493b] in these uninitiate that part of the soul where the desires are, the licentious and fissured part, he named a leaky jar in his allegory, because it is so insatiate. So you see this person, Callicles, takes the opposite view to yours, showing how of all who are in Hadesmeaning of course the invisiblethese uninitiate will be most wretched, and will carry water into their leaky jar with a sieve which is no less leaky. And then by the sieve, [493c] as my story-teller said, he means the soul: and the soul of the thoughtless he likened to a sieve, as being perforated, since it is unable to hold anything by reason of its unbelief and forgetfulness. All this, indeed, is bordering pretty well on the absurd; but still it sets forth what I wish to impress upon you, if I somehow can, in order to induce you to make a change, and instead of a life of insatiate licentiousness to choose an orderly one that is set up and contented with what it happens to have got. [493d] Now, am I at all prevailing upon you to change over to the view that the orderly people are happier than the licentious or will no amount of similar fables that I might tell you have any effect in changing your mind? (Plato, Gorgias, 493a-d, transl. modified)

So, according to Socrates and his wise sources ( , ), the man who intemperately lives, endures in this world the same torture as certain heroes in the classical hell. Therefore he really is dead, whereas Callicles assumed that corpses would be similar rather to the man who is satifisfied with what he has and who is not inhabited by desire. Socrates here mixes several sources, maybe Empedocles and Pythagoras, but they all are clearly associated with the Orphic sma-sma doctrine. Now we can understand the explicitly Orphic bones fragments from Olbia:
, , [] (OF 463, the bones tablets of Olbia (Vth century BC))

The circular sequence , , does not concern transmigration but concerns the coming back to the metaphysical origin of the soul, the salvation. Dionysos is the paradigm of the whole circular process. Altheia, the perfect absence of any oblivion, cannot be associated with the terrestrial life as it is proven by the other tablets which connect sma with pseudos:
[] (OF 464)

Alexis Pinchard, Professeur agrg de philosophie (CNRS, UMR 7528 / Lyce Militaire dAix-enProvence, CPGE), The ISNS Tenth International Conference, Cagliari 2012, alexispinchard@hotmail.com [] [] (OF 465) - - - -- / (OF 535, 300 BCE)

I also deny that the dying hero of the Mnemosyne tablets might thanks to the sacred spring merely remember the events of the life he has just left. 11 Such a hypothesis does not match Mnemosynes function in poetry: Mnemosyne provides a visionary ins piration to the poet, so that he attends the very beginning of the world, the first moments of the theogony for example. Of course, in Homer, most of the dead are deprived of memory and have forgotten their terrestrial life, so that Hades can be called the plain of Lth ( , Aristophanes, Ranae, 186). In this case, to keep the actual remembrance of their past life appears as a great privilege, as it was for Teiresias. But, according to Orphic tradition, the epic values are inverted: the Homeric hell is equated with the the terrestrial life. Therefore, the real oblivion occurs in the terrestrial life and Mnemosyne grants the remembrance of what is forgotten in the terrestrial life, not of the terrestrial life itself.

To be banished from divinity in Hesiod and Empedocles Finally, I suppose that Mnemosynes water reminds the primeval condition of soul before every incarnation because Empedocles, who composes his poem under the guidance of a , a Muse of rich memory (fr. 3.8 DK), was aware of such a metaphysical cycle:
, , , , < '> () , , , . , ' , ' , ' ' , . , , . There is a word of Fate, an old decree And everlasting of the gods, made fast With amplest oaths, that whosoe'er of those Far spirits, with their lot of age-long life, Do foul their limbs with slaughter in offense, Or swear forsworn, as failing of their pledge,
11

This is asserterd by Graf 2007: 120.

Alexis Pinchard, Professeur agrg de philosophie (CNRS, UMR 7528 / Lyce Militaire dAix-enProvence, CPGE), The ISNS Tenth International Conference, Cagliari 2012, alexispinchard@hotmail.com Shall wander thrice ten thousand weary years Far from the Blessed, and be born through time In various shapes of mortal kind, which change Ever and ever troublous paths of life: For now Air hunts them onward to the Sea; Now the wild Sea disgorges them on Land; Now Earth will spue toward beams of radiant Sun; Whence he will toss them back to whirling Air Each gets from other what they all abhor. And in that brood I too am numbered now, A fugitive from divinity and vagabond, As one trusting in raving Strife (Empedocles, fr. 115 DK).

It has already been noticed that other Empocless fragments connected this demonic story are consonant with certain gold tablets. For example, the primeval state of the soul is qualified by Empedocles as a great and , summit of happiness (fr. 119 DK), whereas the initiate of IIB1 (Pugliese Carratelli) claims to be of , of a happy race (line 3), and he himself will be (line 10) after his death thanks to the initiatory ritual. A post-mortem , being the privilege the who have been initiated is also mentioned in the clearly Dionysiac tablet IIB3 (line 6). Moreover Empedocles claims to be an immortal god and no longer a mortal ( , , fr. 112.3) thanks to his knowledge concerning the cosmos and the fate of individual souls. In the same way the initiate of II.B1 is told that he will be a god instead of a mortal ( , line 10). Of course, there is a great difference between Empocles and the group and this group of gold tablets inasmuch as Empocles has right now his divine status whereas the initiate has to wait for his afterlife. But this difference makes the link with the Mnemosyne tablets. Empedocles is an immortal god already in his terrestrial life because he has realized that a daimon inhabits his own interiority and such daimon, at the very beginning, was one of the gods, as it is expressed in the fr. 115. In the Mnemosyne tablets the initiate is just called hero and not god (), but title might be applied with regard to the fact that he knows only the secret doctrines taught during the ritual initiation in his present life, whereas he will be a complete god when he will have drunk Mnemosynes water. At t he beginning of the salvation process, the initiate still has a trace of his earthly maternal genos since he introduces himself as the child of Earth and starry Sky ( ), but he claims to be accepted by the underworld king only on the base of his heavenly filiation, his genos ouranion. Here the earth might symbolize the mortal element of the intermediate heroic status, since each hero is born from a god or goddess and from a mortal. We are not told by the Hipponion gold tablet about such an ultimate transformation, but we neither are told about the end of the sacred road. Thus Memo ry is the ultimate reason of Empedocles immortality, although he was told about such a metaphysical past by no human teacher. The sole tradition which he might have learned by heart about some cyclical story of daimons is Hesiods theogony, which also seems to be alluded in the gold tablets through the formula (see Theogony, 106):12
,
12

Betz 2011: 107.

Alexis Pinchard, Professeur agrg de philosophie (CNRS, UMR 7528 / Lyce Militaire dAix-enProvence, CPGE), The ISNS Tenth International Conference, Cagliari 2012, alexispinchard@hotmail.com ' , , ' . , ' , ' ' ' ' ' . ' , ' . But when strife and quarrel arise among the deathless gods, and when any one of them who live in the house of Olympus lies, then Zeus sends Iris to bring in a golden jug the great oath of the gods [785] from far away, the famous cold water which trickles down from a high and beetling rock. Far under the wide-pathed earth a branch of Oceanus flows through the dark night out of the holy stream, and a tenth part of his water is allotted to her. [790] With nine silver-swirling streams he winds about the earth and the sea's wide back, and then falls into the main2; but the tenth flows out from a rock, a sore trouble to the gods. For whoever of the deathless gods that hold the peaks of snowy Olympus pours a libation of her water and is forsworn, [795] must lie breathless until a full year is completed, and never come near to taste ambrosia and nectar, but lie spiritless and voiceless on a strewn bed: and a heavy trance overshadows him. But when he has spent a long year in his sickness, [800] another penance more hard follows after the first. For nine years he is cut off from the eternal gods and never joins their councils or their feasts, nine full years. But in the tenth year he comes again to join the assemblies of the deathless gods who live in the house of Olympus. [805] Such an oath, then, did the gods appoint the eternal and primeval water of Styx to be: and it spouts through a rugged place (Hesiod, Theogony, 783-806).

Empedocles has clearly transposed this mythical account into his own spiritual fate. We find here again the double aspect of the salvific memory: lore passed on by generation in generation and personal reminiscence of a metaphysical past. The personal reminiscence presents the individual inner life as the secret re-enacting of a myth which was learned by heart through oral tradition. But the transposition achieved by Empedocles is twofold: the myth, which is peculiar by itself, concerning some divine character, becomes as well universal as singular. The two divine entities, Love and Strife, help to understand the cyclical evolution of the whole reality, from unity to multiplicity and back, as well as the fate of a single daimon. The path of the individual soul between sin and salvation echoes the global rhythm of the world, although the fate of the soul is due to its free will and thus allows redemption through a certain personal activity, especially an intellectual activity.13 One might ask what the connection with Orphism is since neither Empedocles nor Hesiod mention Orpheus. But it is worth noticing that Hesiods account about the perjuring god was also attributed to Orpheus by ancient commentaries. 14 Such a pasage was probably felt as especially fit for the transposition process which defines Orphism. And we have other examples of such a transposition directly in the gold tablets. The epic and lyric paradigm In archaic Greek poetry, memory plays at least a double part. On the one hand, the aoidos has to learn by heart the traditional metric formulae in order to be able to improvise by variously combining these formulae. He cannot and may not find out these formulae which are taught by his master. On the other hand, he has to experience personally the vision of the mythical origin of the world or of the heroic past, although it
13 14

See Balaud 2010: 96-98. See West 1966: 374, ad Theogony, 793. Cf. Servius, Aen. 6.565. Cf. OF 344-345.

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is not his own past. The poet, through his special power, embodies the invisible origin in the visible world, but this gift has no connection with its individuality. Mnemosyne, as mother of the Muses, guarantees both the concret training of human mind as well as the mystic transportation in the realm of primeval realities. 15 But both aspects are complementary. The poet has to improvise and create variation in the traditional canon during his oral performance in order to testify his inner contact with the sacred herebeyond. Through the poetic improvisation the transcendental reality is made present to human eyes and ears. Thus, novelty is not the sign of any treason against origin. On the contrary, this is the variation in oral poetry which ensures that the tradition is still based on the same extraordinary experience. The poetic tradition can remain fundamentally one and the same just because it changes on the level of external performance. A tradition is precisely such a reinforcment of spiritual identity thanks to differences throughout the course of time. When performative variations ceases, tradition is broken. In the same way, the Orphic initiate of the gold tablets has to learn the password by heart as well as to experience a personal contact with divinity thanks to Mnemosynes water. So both aspects of theogonic memory have been kept in Orphism. But it does not deal anymore with the origin of the whole cosmos: only the single ego is concerned and this origin coincides with the end. The mystic vision has from now on the form of a return to oneself. It follows that everybody is potentially concerned with such vision. The voice of a poet is no longer needed in order to be in touch with the invisible realm because the invisible realm stands in every human soul. It is not the privilege of a particular genos but of the whole human genos. This is consistent with the lack ofhistorical family tradition in Orphism unlike in the Homeric tradition. There are no Orphidai like the Homridai of Chios. Lineage in the Orphic tradition is only ritual and is only a matter of initiation. Oneselfs connection with Orpheus depends on will and on undertaking of a re-birth ritual, not on blood. The whole humanity is potentially in connection with Orpheus just like the Orphic Zeus contains everything and is contained by everything. For example, Pythagoras was re-enacting Orpheus although he was not Orpheuss natural son.16 In the same way, Plato asserts that every human being has seen the Ideas and can remember them by practicing dialectics. Finally, in Orphism, the self-identification of the rhapsode with the mythical proto-poet occurs during ones whole life, and not only during the oral performance. This is why there is a real Orphic way of life (vegetarian food, non violence, saying truth; see Plato, Leges, 782 c-d), and not only an Orphic way of singing. Moreover a kind of connection between memory and immortality is also to be found in epic and in the old lyric poetry, but not in the same way as in the gold tablets. As Herrero has rightly noticed, 17 the heroic soul of the Orphic initiate has borrowed its main features from the epic terrestrial hero, but they are transposed in the realm of afterlife. The epic tale was changed in into a soteriological program, so that the personal immortality obtained in the hereafter by remembering the past lives and further the divine origin reflects the unfailing kleos granted by the professional memory of the epic rhapsodes. This is proven by the syntaxical and lexical similarities between, on the one hand, the claim of the epic hero for belonging to a superior genos, just before a deciding fight which will bring glory or shame to his whole lineage, and, on the other hand, in the gold tablets, the claim of the deceaseds soul for its genos ouranion, i.e., its essential nature transcending every temporal incarnation. Following an
15 16

See Vernant 1966 (1959): 111-112. See Gregory Nagy 2012: E116. 17 See Herrero 2011: 288-289.

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ontological shift, the social elitism of the Homeric epic has changed into a spiritual elitism, but the words remain the same. Such an inheritance ensures the unity of the various Orphic gold tablets types. We would like to add that, in Pindar, the spring of Mnemosynes daughters brings immortality inasmuch as the inspired praise produces a kleos aphthiton, i.e., an unfailing fame for the victorious charioteer in some agn. The praise has even a ritual value: it works like a libation to heroes. 18 But such an immortality does not concern the individual consciousness, so that it is neither necessary nor completely sure ; it depends on the surviving generations. The victor who is celebrated is someone else from those who remember him and from the poet who reminds them of him. But the present winner can obtain the kleos aphthiton only inasmuch as he reminds the deeds of his heroic ancestors. Inspired by the Muses, who are Mnemosynes daughters, the poet can show the present victory as the re-enacting of the past deeds. 19 The work of memory begins right now for the poet. The present athlete needs past and legens for his future glory and only a poet can provide it. The present athlete needs to be brought in touch with his own origins through poetic speech. He needs to be inserted in the epic paradigm.20 So epic is implied in lyric. There already is a kind of immortalizing transposition in Pindar. But in contradistinction to the gold tablets, the Pindaric past does not constitute the central and secret part of the present life. The famous ancestor remains someone else than his offspring. He is not the same individual. The genos is the real unity in which the means of remembrance and the object of remembrance are enclosed. The gold tablets have transposed this proto-transposition in the intrinsic complexity of a single soul. So its is a kind of meta-transpoistion Furthermore, by correctly remembering the glorious ancestors of the present winner and by showing it to the audience, the Pindaric poet obtains kleos aphthiton too. He will be remembered by next generations as a good disciple of Mnemosyne, i.e., as a good poet. This view is confirmed by Ibykos:
, , . You, Polycrates, you will have an exhaustible fame thanks to my song, just like my poem itself (Ibykos, fr. 1.47 Page)21

There is a reciprocal gift of glory between the poet and the present athlete. The poet needs a beautiful victory in order to have a subject for his song. The gold tablets will unit these both rcepients of the kleos aphthithon. On the one hand, like a poet, the glorious (see , line 22) initiate is remembering: he is a , a remembering hero (IA4.2).22 Orpheus himeself, as he is presented in the Argonautica for
See Obbink: 305-306. See Simondon 1982: 120-121. 20 See Quinlan 2009: The Iliad does not recount the fall of Troy and the return of Helen, rather it relates the extreme sufferings endured for Helens sake as a means of establishing an effective link with the mythic past and, in so doing, generates a ritual association between the athlete and the hero. The ritual process of athleticism that seeks through the accomplishment of glorious deeds and the attainment of victory to move the contestant from the state of preliminary exclusion and a figurative death to the goal of victory and immortality through everlasting fame is, finally, embedded in both the blood offering identified in the Pelops cult. See Nagy 1990: 118-119. 21 See Nagy 1974. 22 We fully agree with Herrero when he writes: The memory of the dead as object has been transformed into memory of the dead as subject: the lexical transition is easy to explain through epic lines
19 18

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example, since he is at the same time a poet and an epic character, may be considered as the first . Of course, Odysseus was already a since he wanted to , to be mindful of his return at home (Odyssey III, 142), and carefully avoided what could let him forget his desire to return home, for example the food of the Lotus-Eaters (cf. , Odyssey IX, 97).23 But divinity and immortality proposed to the clever hero by Calypso were the main reasons why an oblivion of return was possible. For Odysseus, to remember and to remain a mortal were the same thing. On the contrary, the home which the Orphic initiate has to remember is divinity and immortality. His real fatherland is among the gods. On the other hand, like the winner of an agn, the initiate of the gold tablets is brought in contact with his heroic origin thanks to Mnemosyne. And inasmuch as he has a divine part in himeself, he is remembered like the glorious ancestors of the present athlete are. But he will be glorious because he will be immortal whereas the epic hero was immortal because he was glorious. Therefore, the immortality and the consequent glory of the Orphic initiate do not prevent other souls from being glorious and immortal because the victory that he has won is a victory against himself, against his passions, like the human souls in the mythos of Platos Phaedrus (cf. Phaedrus, 247b 5-6: ), and not a victory against other souls. Thus we can view Orphism as a movement of universalisation of divine fate and not only a process of internalization into certain souls. Pindar opposes the road traveled by the poet from present time towards the heroic origins, to the road traveled by the glorious members of a virtuous genos towards their future. Firstly the road of the poet is traveled after the victory of the present athlete:
, , , ' , , ' Phintis, come now and yoke the strength of mules for me, quickly, so that we can drive the chariot along a clear path, and I can at last arrive at the race of these men. [25] For those mules above all others know how to lead the way along this path, since they have won garlands at Olympia. And so it is right to open for them the gates of song; and I must go today, in good time, to Pitana, beside the ford of Eurotas (Pindar, Olymp. VI, 21-28).

Such a road is direcly connected with Mnemosyne:

][] ' ' [][] ' . ][ ] , ] ' ..[..]. . (Pindar, fr. 52h, 15 -20, Pean) in which mnemosyne grants kleos (2011: 289). But the dead remains object of memory too; in the gold tablets he is both object and subject of memory. 23 See Frame 1978: 35.

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Alexis Pinchard, Professeur agrg de philosophie (CNRS, UMR 7528 / Lyce Militaire dAix-enProvence, CPGE), The ISNS Tenth International Conference, Cagliari 2012, alexispinchard@hotmail.com I invoke Mnemosyne, the weel-dressed daughter of Sky, and her maidens in order that they give me inspiration, for the minds of men are blind when they want, without the Heliconian girls, to explore the deep road of wisdom (Pindar, fr. 52h, 15-20, Pean)

Through the traveling of this anagogic road by the poet, the real individuals of this genos can travel the road of their life as a glorious road, even after having died:
' ' ' Since then the race of the sons of Iamus has been very famous throughout Greece. Prosperity attended them; and by honoring excellence, they walk along a bright path. (Pindar, Olymp. VI, 71-73).

But, in the gold tablets, it is one and the same road since the hero himself is remembering, although several words and ideas are shared: 24
1. 14 1. 15 .

In spite of being almost anonymous among the mortals who still live on earth, the initiate will be glorious in the hereafter because he will takes part in the glory of Dionysos himself. His name will be the secret name of the god and thus will be repeated in every earthy and heavenly prayer. Such a triumphal road may be compared with the road which is supposed by the fact that, in the Nekyia of the Odyssey, swiftfooted Achilless soul joyfully walk with great [strides], i.e., runs (XI, 539) across the infernal field of asphodel after having heard Odysseuss words about his glorious son. On the historical level, the comparison may be drawn also with the road which the victorious athletes used to travel in the Olympic games: both roads lead from death to a kind of immortality. The isles of the Blessed are their final destination, may it be mysteriously kept in silence or ritually symbolized. 25 But the Orphic road is at the same time the road of poetic song. So the gold tablets consciously play with epic and lyric inter-textuality. From solace to salvation The words by which salvation is described in the gold leaves are also kindred with Hesiods. Memory and oblivion still play the greatest part. 26 In Hesiod, Mnemosyne paradoxically lets human sorrows be forgotten:
, , . Them in Pieria begot Mnemosyne, who reigns over the hills of Eleuther, bear of union with the father, the son of Cronos, [55] a forgetting of ills and a rest from sorrow (Hesiod, Theogony, 53-55). , , '
24 25

See Feyerabend 1984. See Quinlan 2009: 116. 26 See Simondon 1982: 128-129.

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Alexis Pinchard, Professeur agrg de philosophie (CNRS, UMR 7528 / Lyce Militaire dAix-enProvence, CPGE), The ISNS Tenth International Conference, Cagliari 2012, alexispinchard@hotmail.com . For although a man has sorrow and grief in his newly-troubled soul and lives in dread because his heart is distressed, yet, when a singer, [100] the servant of the Muses, chants the glorious deeds of men of old and the blessed gods who inhabit Olympus, at once he forgets his heaviness and remembers not his sorrows at all; but the gifts of the goddesses soon turn him away from these (Hesiod, Theogony, 98-103).

But, in Hesiod, the sorrow forgotten thanks to Mnemosyne is associated with the fear from ones own death and from the death of beloved people. Similarly a young victor in some athletic games, inasmuch as his deeds are praised by Pindar, can forget Hads:
. Hades is forgotten by a man with good accomplishments (Pindar, Ol. VIII, 72)

Even his dead ancestors receive some happiness when they hear his praise by the inspired poet. Of course, the oblivion of Hads is the oblivion of oblivion27 since Hads is ordinarily identified with the plain of Lth ( , Aristophanes, Ranae, 186). On the contrary, in Orphism, the Lth river stands on the path to the terrestrial life (see Plato, Respublica X, 621a) and the only opportuny to access the genuine memory is to be found in Hads. Moreover this life in itself is a source of pain whereas bliss can happen only while escaping the series of reincarnation:
I flew forth from the painful cycle of deep sorrow (Thurium, OF 488.6 Bernab, IIB1 Pugliese Carratelli, transl. by Bernab-Jimnez San Cristbal 2008).

In the Orphic gold tablets, the pain from which Mnemosyne makes the soul free is not due to a particular event which would have happened during the present life, but it deals with the native condition of human beings. Success or defeat in society have no influence on this pain. Since this pain is punishment for a surnatural guilt, which is not visible in the world and which can not be remembered by normal people, human actions can not delete it unless with the help of the gods in initiation ritual. This is why we may speak of salvation about Orphism rather than solace. Plato: anamnsis as the real life of soul Plato goes one step further in the identification between the one who remembers and the object that is remembered in the salvific remembrance. Whereas in the gold tablets Mnemosynes water is for the initiate only a means to reach his own divine center, the Platonic anamnsis is already the real immortality itself. Henceforth the internal life of the soul is an aspect of intellectual activity. The internal daimon has not only to be remembered, but it itself is the act of remembering. The salvation is somehow obtained through remembering memory, or through perceiving and saying the -, like in the gold tablets, but about the plain of - itself, as it is said in the Phaedrus (247c and 248b, ). 28 The act of remembering is from now on the aim as well as the means, the goal as well as the road. For the intelligible Forms stand inside the remembering intellect, although they are not ontologically dependent on it and, on the contrary, founds it; thus, by remembering the intelligible Forms, which have no material
27 28

See Segal 1985: 209. See Pinchard 2009: 415.

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support and so are entirely present as soon as they are remembered, the soul accesses also itself as pure intellect, i.e., as a pure remembrance process. The divine part of the soul, the intellect, is not something which can accidentally remember, but is the remembering itself. In this case the subject and its act are not to be separated. For the soul essentially is a movement that moves itself, and the intellect is just the circular figure which such a movement can take on, but not an independant thing. The nosis must be a circular movement because the intelligible Forms which the intellect can grasp stand at the center of the soul since its origin. So the act through which the intellect returns to itself is its very essence. Anamnsis is nothing less than such a return, such a connection between end and beginning. Therefore, while practising the philosophical anamnsis with dialectics, the subject of salvific remembrance is the same as the object of remembrance inasmuch as it is remembering. Henceforth the active relationship between the subject and the object of remembrance is an expression of their original nature, and not anymore an artificial and secondary synthesis. Of course, the divine part of soul was already an immortal principle a life in Orphism, may it be viewed as the cosmic breath or as something immaterial. But Plato adds that such a life is perfectly itself only when the soul actually works as intellect (nos). The intellect is the most living part of soul, its very self, and is no longer one of the instruments which the transmigrating daimon can successively use:
' , , ' ' , , , , ' Will it not be a fair plea in his defence to say that it was the nature of the real lover of knowledge to strive emulously for true being and that he would not linger over the many particulars that are opined to be real, but would hold on his way, and the edge of his passion would not be blunted nor would his desire fail till he came into touch with the nature of each thing in itself by that part of his soul to which it belongs to lay hold on that kind of realitythe part akin to it, namelyand through that approaching it, and consorting with reality really, he would beget intelligence and truth, attain to knowledge and truly live and grow, and so find surcease from his travail of soul, but not before? (Respublica VI, 490a-b)

The life of the soul, according to Plato, is essentially an adequate relationship to itself, and is no longer defined by a correlation with the body although it can eventually move the body.29 For, first, the soul is defined as the movement that can move itself ( , Leges X, 896a 1-2), so that the soul is the only necessarily permanent movement (Phaedrus, 245c). Since the soul moves itself, it must be the first principle of every movement in the world. Moreover a sensible thing may be said alive inasmuch as it moves itself without any help of another sensible thing although a body is unable to move by itself inasmuch as it is a particular body (Leges X, 895c). Therefore a sensible being can be alive only because it is linked with a soul. The fact that soul provides life to certain bodies implies that the soul itself is always alive and so that life consists in moving oneself. Second, to move has to different meanings: on the one hand to give just impulse, on the other hand to fixe a direction. The soul is able to do both for itself. It is only in the
See Delcomminette (2008:131): Toute vie se ramne en dfinitive cette source unique, que Socrate qualifie dailleurs de vie vritable (cf. Rpublique, VI, 490 b6), qui, selon le langage de la tripartition, trouve son sige dans la partie rationnelle de lme, mais en tant que celle-ci est le lieu o lme est le plus purement elle-mme, le plus conforme sa nature automotrice.
29

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act of intellection that soul also masters the direction of its own movement. In this case self-motion includes real autonomy. It is the complete self-motion. To change from suffering alien orientations to fixing every aspect of its own movement depends on the soul itself: it is the ultimate meaning of self-motion. It may be called freedom. Each soul Each soul has an intellect, which is not an organ different from its function, but an always actual and complete self-motion. For example, even the soul of the worst tyrant contains a part that has an intellection of the Idea of Egality in itself, may he pay attention to it or no. Nevertheless the intellect is relatively more important in certain souls than in others because a single soul can develop into several movements. The wise soul is that which has absorbed all its movements in the complete self-motion, or has at least limited their spreading according to its own law, whereas the wicked soul has a lot of movements not under control, such as sexual desire, greed, anger and so on. The movements the direction of which is not mastererd by the soul itself are associated with the body. Spiritual progress towards virtue consists in converting more and more psychic movements into complete self-motion. Such a progress can be achieved only when the soul is separated from the body. Quite paradoxically the excellent soul is more immortal than other ones inasmuch as it takes a greater part in the perfect life of intellect, but its duration is not different since every soul has necessarily a permanent duration:
, , , ' ' , , , . But he who has seriously devoted himself to learning and to true thoughts, and has exercised these qualities above all his others, must necessarily and inevitably think thoughts that are immortal and divine, if so be that he lays hold on truth, and in so far as it is possible for human nature to partake of immortality, he must fall short thereof in no degree; and inasmuch as he is for ever tending his divine part and duly magnifying that daemon who dwells along with him, he must be supremely blessed (Plato, Timaeus, 90c).

Indeed such an increased immortality is almost not concerned with time. It occurs in time but does not consist in any space of time. Although it is not limited, it could be fully experienced by the soul at every moment in its life because it deals with aceessing the eternity of intelligible Forms, which also are said to be immortal30. The Forms are immortal thanks to an intrinsic necessity because they are ungenerated and simple; but souls in general are complex and generated from a cause which stands out of the world, so that it is only the fact that they move as long as they are, which is necessary: their immortal being depends on the good will of the Demiurgos. Of course, even if they were destroyed what will certainly not happen , their permanent self-motion would be not interrupted at a certain date because the time itself is an aspect of their motion. The notions of beginning and end presuppose the being of the soul. So there is no contradiction between the different levels of immortality established in the Timaeus (41ab), among which the highest one belongs to the intelligible Forms, and the necessity of a permanent movement for the soul demonsrated in the Phaedrus (245c-e). The immortality of Forms is stronger than the one of souls in general, and to approach the Forms with the intellect brings to the soul a more intensive immortality. The intellect is nourished (, Republic VI, 490b 6; cf. Phaedrus, 247d) and grows in the wise soul, whereas it looses its central part in the wicked soul. By giving the central part to its intellect, the soul possesses better and better what happens in itself. The soul becomes
30

, Phaedo, 81a; cf. Timaeus, 41b and Phaedrus, 249c. See Pinchard 2001: 278, note 39.

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more and more was it has to be according to its essence, i.e., the intellectual self-motion, which has never absolutely disappeared in spite of incarnation. Thereby its essence conquers its whole being. This essence is worth being obeyed because it was created by the Good itself. During the spiritual progess, the soul returns to itself; in orherwords it remembers. But the point is that such a return process coincides with the very essence of the soul, i.e., with the complete self-motion wich is also called intellect. For intellect is always a circular movement. Conversely, a soul in which the intellect does not play the central part has no center at all because only the complete self-motion and every complete self-motion produces a circular movement. Therefore, concerning the soul, the act of becoming more and more oneself is the Self itself. Such a Self is essentially dynamic. The spiritual progress belongs to the essence of soul. Finally, why does the soul fixe for itself precisely a circular movement when it does not let the bodily stimuli fixe the various directions of its own movements? The circular movement of the stars in heaven matches the true nature of soul because, one the one hand, this movement is the best image, inside genesis, of the eternal identity which defines the intelligible Forms for such a movement makes no difference between its beginning and its end; and on the other hand the soul is originally kindred with intelligible Forms because it is invisible like the Forms and the Forms rule its inner structure, so that they do not stand outside the soul. Thus the soul which is thinking (nosis) is perfectly alive because it is perfectly itself and this self is a principle of life. So, while practising the philosophical anamnsis, the human soul becomes similar to the divine cosmic soul which leads the circular movement of stars. This is why Socrates says in the Phaedrus:
When the soul is perfect and endowed with feathers, it travels through sky and administers the whole world (Phaedrus, 246c).

We have here maybe a new interpretation of the gold tablet sentence:

2. 11 [ ] . And thereafter you will rule with other heroes.

The Pythagorean belief in astral immortality is now necessarily and explicitly connected with the the metaphysical anamnsis which was only alluded in the gold tablets. However one could wonder whether, according to Plato, the perfect immortality really concerns the individual consciousness or not. Is a revolving intellect still an ego? Does it have some difference with other revolving intellects? Does it feel these eventual differences? What about the Orphic plural with other heroes? If t here is no plurality in afterlife, is there any community, any friendship? Indeed, by definition, an intellect must think the same thing as every other intellect inasmuch as they are intellects. The intelligible Forms do not change according to the viewpoint they are seen. The Forms are absolute. Thus the most immortal souls consist in a universal thought which they share and they seem to lose their individuality. Whereas the epic speech praises the deeds of heroes and makes immortal only the various collections of their actions, leaving aside the subjectivity in itself, the philosophical logos makes eternal the universal essence of the subject itself, the nos, beyond the manifold actions that were sustained by it and that used to individualize it. On the one hand, immortality does not save self-consciousness; 18

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on the other hand immortality leaves a side the personal singularity. But during our terrestrial life we are afraid by death because we would like to keep our personal individuality. This is the single ego, with its pains and pleasures, actions and passions,who refuses to meet his end. The immortality promised by religions, especially Orphic religions, assumes both the individual dimension and the conscious dimension of salvation. On the contrary, the philosophical conception of immortality seems to be unable to solve the human fear of death because anamnsis forgets individuality. Philosophical immortality is at least so long as the time itself, it is very secure, it even transcends time, but it is the immortality of nobody. Do we care about what philosophy saves? The erotic personal relationship between master and disciple might be the solution. A philosopher can access eternity and universality only through the love of a single soul. To merge with intelligible universality implies that one goes further into singularity, but not that one avoids it. Philosophy needs to be taught by generation in generation and a genuine tradition is never the tradition of nobody. Eternity happens to us at a certain time and a certain place: this not accidental in respect of eternity itself, it is one of its essential properties. If you do not focus on certain persons living at a certain time and in a certain place, eternity will not be granted to you. Eternity needs the singularity of the moment in order to be itself. Thus, in the philosophical immortality, individuality is not kept but it receives some sense. It gets a function. It is redeemed. Plato and traditional memory This concern with individuality is the reason why Plato does not neglect the duality of the immortalizing memory which was assumed as well among epic or mythic poets as in Orphism. According to many proemium of Platos works, the philosophical dialogues have to be learnt by heart as epic poems which were at the beginning orally transmitted. Plato explicitly asserts that a good empirical memory is needed to study philosophy, although it is not sufficient (see Epistula VII, 344a). But even this last kind of memory is transformed by Plato. He introduces a cyclical process in human tradition just like in metaphysical memory. Lore is not an enduring trace kept in mind by generation in generation, but it lives as a succession of oblivion and recollection just like what happens in individual minds according to the Symposium (208a-b). Tradition is viewed as a return rather than a linear road. Just like an animal species is immortal whereas the individuals are not, so traditional elements are regularly scattered or lost, and regularly similar new elements are brought into tradition in order to maintain its apparent shape. Human tradition can not be a divine reality which always remains perfectly the same as itself. Plato has understood that indeed, since the very beginning, the corpus of tradition has been already desintegrated. The story of a primeval perfect corpus that was perfectly transmitted during some golden age and then was lost and reconstructed thereafter by a genial poet is a myth. The true text is always lost, corrupted or scattered! Each transmitter practices a kind of bricolage. But such a defect of the transmitted material is necessary in order to keep alive the tradition : each transmitting poet has to re-enact the very moment of the creation of the future tradition, so that he has to get in touch with the realm of divine archetypes. The space of time where the corpus is supposed to habe been perfectly transmitted has no historical meaning; it belongs to another level of reality which can be accessed only through an extraordinary vision power. Orpheuss membra

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disjecta were the first symbol of this textual fact,31 but it was not explicitly formulated before Plato. So, according to Plato, sometimes knowledge is orally transmitted and remains actually present in the minds of its holders, sometimes it sleeps in writings. For example, the story told in the Critias was at the beginning a pure oral tradition, but then it was written down by Egyptian priests, and then it was anew orally transmitted by Solo, and then written anew by Plato himself. But, concerning the philosophical tradition, a new beginning is possible only if a metaphysical anamnsis happens. Hermeneutics of partly lost or unclear old philosophical texts is possible only if pure Ideas are remembered. Reciprocally, the attempt to interpret old philosophical written texts can release anamnsis. Therefore it is a good thing that written texts are not perfectly kept and perfectly clear! Indeed, epic tradition also accepted variation in itself, but is progressively became frozen and crystallized. Tradition has been assimilated with a perfectly remaining identity throughout time. Orphism took over the part of variation, at least at the symbolic level. Conclusion Following Ernst Cassirer (1972: 275), we may say that Orphism was the dialectical aspect of the mythical consciousness. Thanks to Orphism an internalization of epic memory happens and such an internalization provides a salvific function to memory at the level of individual soul. But, on the one hand, such an expression holds only from an a posteriori view point. One should not think that before Orphism or outside Orphism the difference between what is internal in consciousness and what is external was already felt. Indeed Orphism was the very first cultural moment when an individual consciousness acknowledged what is internal in itself, and the individual consciousness was able to achieve such a recognition only inasmuch as its inner life had the form of an epic tale. The individual consciousness was able to perceive its own interiority only inasmuch as this interiority put on the epic garnment. In other words, we are allowed to speak of Orphism when someone views the mythical beings as a paradigm of his own being and translates this aknowledgment into a new mythical element, or when myths and epic work as a mirror and explicitly assume this status. We may speak of Orphism when someone becomes aware of the destiny of its own soul by watching at the destiny of an epic hero or of a god. In Orphism, myth defines the internal personality and does not presuppose it. Orphism is the constitutive aspect of myth for spiritual interiority. 32 On the other hand, this process of internalization has not to be equated with the primeval unity, when psychic interiority and exteriority were not distinguished yet. The interiority of the spiritual content is experienced as an abolished exteriority. It keeps a trace of its past. The Orphic internalization brings its own history with itself.The Orphic internalization manifests as such and thus presupposes the great divisions between men and gods established by theogonies, such as Hesiods. The divine part of the soul is not viewed as something immediately obvious, but as as a deep mystery. The empirical life remains structured by the usual dichotomies. These dichotomies are even increased since the visible life is viewed as necessarily made of pain and sorrow. However the interiorised myth is also increased to the level of a unversal order. So the Orphic
31 32

See also Nagy 2012: E86-87. See Cassirer 1972 (1953): 186.

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interiorisation is not a reduction. Because of the Orphic transposition, the peculiarity of Hesiodic myth has split into two directions: the singularity of the inner life happening in every soul, and the universality of the cosmic Reason. But the Orphic transposition consists not only in a scale difference: also values are inverted: whereas in Hesiodic myth the best state is the end, the Orphic interiorisation positively values origin. Salvation is an inverted cosmogony. Finally, the difference between Homeric tradition and Orphic tradition is not a matter of chronology.33 It is a logical difference. It deals with two aspects of Greek culture, two conceptual moments of Greek mentality that have been or could have been synchronical. As a proof, the reverse transposition, from Orpheus to Homer, did occur. 34 Moreover, on the basis of much data excerpted from comparative poetics dealing with Indian and Iranian sacred poetry, we may assume that such growing complexity of immortality inasmuch as it is correlated with memory was a permanent trend in some ancient cultures, synchronically organized rather than diachronically, just like the Neoplaonic thinkers believed.

33 34

Herrero (2008: 252) also admits a common Indo-European origin of both traditions. See Herrero 2011 bis.

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