The Orphic Gold Tablets: A “Ritual for the Dead”
The Orphic Gold Tablets: A “Ritual for the Dead”
In my last post on the Orphic Gold Tablets (“Arriving in the Afterlife and the Importance of Memory for Salvation”), I discussed the tablets’ instructions for the soul as it arrives in the Netherworld, and how the soul there encounters a scene very reminiscent of Lehi’s vision of the Tree of Life and its surroundings. The soul is to choose the fountain of living waters (of Memory) in order to progress towards immortal glory. I also discussed the important role of Memory, both figurative and literal, in the soul being able to pass by the guardians in order to take the next step of their journey. (For more info on how to improve your own memory, check out www.4aBetterMemory.com)
We now move on to that next phase — a system the authors of Instructions for the Netherworld: The Orphic Gold Tablets
call “a ritual for the dead.” Our understanding of this ritual and its place in the journey of the Afterlife comes principally from two tablets found at ancient Pelinna in Thessaly. According to Bernabé and San Cristóbal, these inscriptions are extremely important and have revolutionized what is known about the “Orphic” afterlife journey (p. 61). I post here the text of the longer of the two inscriptions:
You have just died and have just been born, thrice happy, on this day.
Tell Persephone that Bacchus himself has liberated you.
A bull, you leapt into the milk.
Swift, you leapt into the milk.
A ram, you fell into the milk.
You have wine, a happy privilege
and you will go under the earth, once you have accomplished the same rites as the other happy ones.
I don’t know about you, but this text just didn’t do much for me when I first read it. However, the commentary of the authors greatly enlightens the significance of these rather enigmatic words. The authors initially reason that they must either be part of funerary rites or a part of the initiation. The rather odd references to milk and wine should probably be understood as referring to offerings/libations that accompany the utterance of the formulas (p. 63). Whether these rites were performed at a funeral or at the initiation is not known.
A Death that is Life — Rebirth into Godhood
The inscription begins with a narrator addressing the deceased, proclaiming that their death is a happy experience in which the individual is at the same time reborn. Others of the Orphic tablets go into greater detail concerning this rebirth and the initiate’s newly acquired status (p. 64):
–You have been born a god, from the man that you were.
–Happy and fortunate, you will be god, from mortal that you were.
–Come, Caecilia Secundina, legitimately changed into a goddess.
The authors note that the inscriptions, without a doubt, have to do with a “mystery ritual, in which happiness after death is promised” (p. 64). This happiness (trisolbie — “thrice happy”) is linked to the achievement of a particular knowledge, generally proceeding from initiation. Sophocles, with regard to the mysteries, declared (cited p. 64):
Thrice happy those mortals who, having carried out the initiatory rites head for Hades, since life is reserved for them, whereas the others suffer great evils.
The lines about leaping and falling into the milk, along with the suggestion that the initiate has “just died”, indicate that there is some urgency and some instantaneous action occuring with the death. The authors conclude that this could be a rite performed either at the funeral or at the initiation, and that it doesn’t really matter which, as, apparently, “for the Orphics both are one and the same thing” (p. 64). There have been many attempts to explain the significance of the milk. It is known that both milk and wine were important elements in the Greek worship of Dionysus/Bacchus. The initiate/deceased could have been immersed in milk, whether literally or figuratively. Some reason that there is reference here to a return to live in the “Milky Way”, and that the mention of the kid and bull are references to the zodiacal signs of Aires and Taurus. Milk can also be an allusion to the rebirth of the individual. There are a number of ancient rites that involve drinking of the milk of Mother Earth/Goddess, as if a newborn. The philospher Sallustius informs us that food consisting of milk was also known in the Attic mysteries:
after this, feeding by milk like the newborn, which is followed by manifestations of joy, crowns, and something similar to an ascent towards the gods (p. 78).
It is likely that this act of drinking milk like a newborn is a symbol of rebirth, purity, and innocence. Finally, there is the possibility that the references to the kid, bull, and ram are meant to indicate that the initiate is reborn and thereafter identified with the god Dionysus, who is often described/depicted as any of these animals. The point of mentioning this imagery in the inscription seems to be to emphasize to the initiate that he is being identified with the god, being reborn to a new life, will be nourished like a newborn, and greeted and protected by his mother the goddess (p. 83).
Egyptian: Rudimentary depiction of tree/goddess nursing an individual
More detailed image of same theme
The presence of wine is also very important. Wine is a symbol of the feasting/abundance and happiness that will be the initiate’s reward in the Afterlife. Drinking wine is understood to be an initiatory rite, a solemn sacrament which essentially entails drinking the god in order to participate in his immortality (p. 85). The joint partaking of the wine by members and new initiates indicates an integration into the initiated group. Wine was associated with the god Dionysus and the “liberation” that he offered.
The Soul Liberated by Bacchus/Dionysus
From the tablets anyalyzed in the last post of this series, we saw that the soul of the deceased, in order to arrive in the presence of the goddess Persephone, must pass the test of the guardians beforehand, giving them the correct password/phrase. However, in the above-mentioned inscription from Pelinna, we read that the soul is to “Tell Persephone that Bacchus himself has liberated you.”
Persephone, goddess of fertility and Queen of the Underworld, is the principal figure that the deceased is to meet in the Afterlife. It is to her paradisaical dominion, “the sacred meadows and groves of Persephone”, that the initiate is trying to reach. Persephone is a type of “Heavenly Mother” — the mother of all mortals, according to the Orphic myth, and the figure whom the deceased call “mother” (p. 68). The goddess fulfills a salvific function, and the initiate confides in her. It is hard for me to tell the difference between her role and that of Hades, her husband, who is usually depicted as the enthroned figure in the Afterlife scenes, with Persephone standing near him (see image below), but the authors indicate that it is the goddess who is the judge and determines the soul’s destiny (p. 70). Perhaps her role is to decide whether the soul is worthy for acceptance into the most sacred place where Hades is enthroned.
In the tablets from Hipponion and Entella, the soul must answer the question of the guardians, but their only real function is to pass the correct answer to the goddess, who makes the ultimate decision. The guardians attract the attention of the goddess to the initiate, who grants him entrance to the blessed condition after she has heard the correct passwords. Persephone judges their worthiness and then protects them throughout the rest of their journey.
The other major figure mentioned in this inscription is Bacchus, who is cited as having “liberated” the initiate. Bacchus, also known as Dionysus, is most famously known as the god of wine, fertility, and wild parties. He also seems to be a sort of sponsor for initiates into the mysteries. The reason for this is rather complicated, and I will not go into it here — it is sufficient to say that the Greeks believed that Dionysus was the only god who could forgive the human race from the ancient sin of their ancestors (the Titans who ate Dionysus’ flesh long ago), and thus liberate them. Dionysus acts as a mediator, guiding the initiate and interceding for them with his mother, Persephone (note the important mother-son deity relationship common to many ancient cultures). Those who undergo the mystery rites (which include purification) during their lifetime will have the right to have the god Dionysus as their liberator, advocate, and guide after they die. Dionysus has entered into a pact with Hades which allows for the liberation of the initiate from the grasp of Death.
- Volute Krater from Apulia depicting Afterlife scene (Toledo Museum of Art)
Detail from above vase, depicting "dextrarum iunctio" handshake between Dionysus and enthroned Hades, with Persephone at right (Instructions for the Netherworld, Ap. II, N. 6)
(For more on the dextrarum iunctio, or sacred handclasp, see Stephen Ricks’ article here)
Apparently, because of this pact with Hades, mortals can be “initiated into” Dionysus, who liberates them from their sins and through whom they are initiated into Persephone and immortal glory. In the fragments of the Theogonies, Proclus explains:
Taking the soul to the happy life, after the wanderings around the world of becoming, which those who in Orpheus are initiated into Dionysus and Kore (Persephone), pray to obtain “liberation from the cycle and a respite from disgrace”.
As long as the individual has been initiated into the mysteries, led a life subject to specific norms of purity, and submitted himself to the god’s judgment, he will be purged of his own sins and of the sins of the “original sin” of his ancestors. Sometimes the process requires that the initiate undergo some form of painful punishment, until he can say:
I have paid the punishment that corresponds to impious acts…(p. 75)
The point that the authors emphasize, however, based on the testimony of many texts, is the importance of undergoing the initiation. They note:
The accomplishment of the rites of the mysteries marks the separations between initiates and non initiates, and determines the happy destiny of the former, who will live next to the gods, compated to the suffering that awaits the latter.
They then cite Plato:
It could be that those who instituted the initiations for us were not inept, but that in reality it has long been indicated in symbolic form that whoever arrives in Hades uninitiated and without having carried out the rites “will lie in the mud”, but that he who arrives purified and having accomplished the rites, will live there with the gods…and these are none other than the true philosophers (p. 92).
The Orphic participation in teletai (initiatory rites) dates at least, based on textual evidence, to the 4th century B.C. These rites included (there are many details that I do not yet have) dressing initiates in animal skins, purifications, ritual sayings/oaths regarding obedience, crowning with crowns of white poplar, and the setting apart of the initiate from the world and from non initiates. Initiates were to commence a new life of happiness and were taught to lose fear of death (p. 93). They were promised that they would be able to cease the cycle of mortal life and be reborn as a god. These rituals were not invented by the Orphic cult, nor any of the other Greek mystery religions, but were adapted from the traditions of more ancient cultures. I would like to know the exact trajectory of how these ideas reached the Greek peoples, whether it was from Egypt or Anatolia or elsewhere, but it is known that there was much interaction among the Eastern Mediterranean peoples and they held many beliefs and practices in common.