¹ Guthrie, W. K. C., A History of Greek Philosophy (6 vols.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962–1981Google Scholar) 1. 132. Cf. Gruppe, Otto, Die griechischen Culte und Mythen in ihren Beziehungen zu den orientalischen Religionen (Leipzig: Teubner, 1887Google Scholar) 1. 643–48

² W. K. C. Guthrie, The Greeks and Their Gods (Boston: Beacon, 1955) 316. Following the discovery of the Derveni papyrus few would deny that the Orphic teachings known to us from later sources originate in the 6th century BCE. See Merkelbach, R., “Der Orphische Papyrus von Derveni,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 1 (1967) 21–22Google Scholar; West, M. L., The Orphic Poems (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984) 110Google Scholar. As Burkert, Walter (“Orpheus und die Vorsokratiker: Bemerkungen zum Derveni-Papyrus und zur pythagoreischen Zahlenlehre,” Antike und Abendland 14 [1968] 101)Google Scholar put it, “Immerhin ist durch den Fund wieder bewiesen, dass ein Minimalismus notwendigerweise falsch ist.”

³ Guthrie himself is not unaware of the existence of the “macrocosmic form” of the One-Many problem in the Orphics, for he points out that the swallowing of Phanes and his whole creation by Zeus is “a mythological counterpart to the speculations of the natural philosophers about the production of the manifold world out of unity” (Greeks and Their Gods, 319). Nor is he unaware of the “microcosmic form” of the problem in the Presocratics, see idem, “The Presocratic World-Picture,” HTR 45 (1952) esp. 91–94.Google Scholar

⁴ West, Orphic Poems, 108; cf. Merkelbach, “Derveni,” 21.

⁵ Col. xii, West's translation. In West the column numbering is higher by one than in other publications. On the reading of αἰδοῖον in xii.1 see idem, Orphic Poems, 85.

⁶ Cols, xvii-xix. Kern, Otto, Orphicorum Fragmenta (Berlin: Weidmann, 1922) frg. 167. Cf. Burkert, “Orpheus,” 101–2; West, Orphic Poems, 90–93Google Scholar

⁷ Kirk, G. S., Heraclitus: The Cosmic Fragments (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954) 312.Google Scholar

⁸ Guthrie, Greek Philosophy, 1. 131–32; idem, “Presocratic,” 91.

⁹ Doxographic sources dependent on Theophrastus attribute the doctrine of the periodic destruction of the world into ⋯ρχή to all the early Presocratic thinkers: Phys. Opin., frg. 2, apud Simplicius Phys. 24.13 (12 A 9. This and all further unidentified edition references are to Diels-Kranz.); cf. Ps.-Plut. Strom. 2 (12 A 10) and Hippolytus Ref. 1.6.1 (12 A 11); Phys. Opin., frg. 1, apud Simplicius Phys. 23.33 (18, 7); cf. Diogenes 9.9 (22 A 1). This attribution seems to find support in those passages in Aristotle in which he touches on the material monism of the Presocratics: Phys. 3.5, 204b 33–205a 7; Met. 1.3, 983b 6–11; 3.4, 1000b 25–26; 11.10, 1066b 37–1067a 8; EN 10.3, 1173b 5–6; cf.,Diels, Hermann, Doxographi Graeci (1889; 4th ed.; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1965) 179.Google Scholar

In recent decades, the rejection of the doxography of the periodic destruction of the world as unsound has become common, and the ease with which scholars reject this doxography indicates that in their eyes the idea of cosmogonical cycles is devoid of any sense or functional connection with the rest of the doctrine(s). Thus, e.g., Guthrie while accepting the periodic reabsorption of the world into ⋯ρχή in Milesian thought, points out that in Anaximander this doctrine “did not occupy the central place” (Greek Philosophy 1. 389). However, since the formation of the world out of ⋯ρχή and the world's eventual reabsorption into ⋯ρχή are two phases of the same process, it seems to me at least strange to affirm the importance of the first phase while deprecating that of the second phase. Denying the importance of the doctrine is only a step away from dismissing the very existence of such an “irrelevant and bizarre hypothesis” (Kirk, G. S., “Some Problems in Anaximander,” Classical Quarterly n.s. 5 [1955] 29)Google Scholar. But if we agree that “there is nothing whatever in ‘the appearance of nature’ to suggest successive worlds” (idem, in Kirk, G. S. and Raven, J. E., The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957] 122)Google Scholar; we must also acknowledge that there is nothing in ‘the appearance of nature’ to suggest the world's formation, specifically, its formation out of one material principle, either.

Below, I hope to show that the periodical reabsorption of the world into ⋯ρχή is not as “irrelevant and bizarre” an idea as Kirk thinks, but was just as important as that of the formation of the world.

¹⁰ Simplicius Phys. 24.26 (13 A 5); Hippolytus Ref. 1.7.3 (13 A 7).

¹¹ Kirk and Raven, Presocratic Philosophers, 145; emphasis added. For the opposite view see Klowski, Joachim, “Ist der Aër des Anaximenes als eine Substanz konzipiert?” Hermes 100 (1972) 131–42.Google Scholar

¹² Met. 1.3, 983b 6, 17 (11 A 12). Cf. Frank, Erich, “The Religious Origin of Greek Philosophy,” in his Knowledge, Will and Belief: Collected Essays (Zurich/Stuttgart: Artemis, 1955) 75–76Google Scholar. For the opposite view see Mansfeld, Jaap, “Aristotle and Others on Thales, Or the Beginning of Natural Philosophy,” Mnemosyne 37 (1985) 109–29.Google Scholar

¹³ Diogenes 2.1 (12 A 1).

¹⁴ See Jaeger's, Werner excellent discussion of the subject in his The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers (Oxford: Clarendon, 1947) 18–3Google Scholar

¹⁵ Cf. Plato Leg. 4.715e (1 B 6): “God who, as the old saying has it, holds beginning, end and middle of all that exists.”

¹⁶ These verses appear as the first, second, and seventh lines of the Orphic hymn quoted in the pseudo-Aristotelian De mundo (Kern, frg. 21a) and are also found in the Orphic Rhapsodies (Kern, frg. 168). It is possible that the fifth verse of the hymn (“Zeus is the breath of all, Zeus is the onset of untiring fire”) is referred to in the Derveni papyrus commentary (col. xv). See Merkelbach, “Derveni,” 24; Burkert, “Orpheus,” 97; Boyancé, Pierre, “Remarques sur le papyrus de Derveni,” Revue des Études Grecques 87 (1974) 97–98. West (Orphic Poems, 90 n. 36) dismisses this possibility.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁷ Cf. Merkelbach, “Derveni,” 22; and Boyancés, “Remarques,” 95.

¹⁸ Kern, frgs. 156, 222–24, 228–38. Cf. Aristotle De anima 1.5, 410b 29; Plato Rep. 363c-d.

¹⁹ Cf. Pindar Olymp. 2, composed in 476 BCE, in which we find a conception of soul very similar to that of the Rhapsodies. See also Pindar's frgs. 124, 130, and 133. Another parallel is Empedocles’ Katharmoi. Pythagoras of Samos, who flourished ca 530 BCE, was notorious for promulgating the doctrine of metempsychosis and after-life judgment. But even Pythagoras was not the first to introduce this conception, as some scholars contend. See, esp., Long, Herbert Strainge, A Study of the Doctrine of Metempsychosis in Greece: From Pythagoras to Plato (Princeton: n.p., 1948) 28Google Scholar; and recently Kahn, Charles H., “Pythagorean Philosophy before Plato,” in Mourelatos, Alexander, ed., The Pre-Socratics: A Collection of Critical Essays (Garden City, NY: Anchor, 1974) 166–67Google Scholar. A generation or two earlier the transmigration doctrine is reported to be already taught by Pherecydes of Syros; this must be the same doctrine, for metempsychosis is pointless if the ethical consequences it involves are not developed.

²⁰ Kern, frgs. 35, 39, 140, 210, 210b, 214, 220, 224; Olympiodorus In Phaed. 1.3.5; cf. Plato Legg. 710c. On the antiquity of the myth see Nilsson, Martin P., “Early Orphism and Kindred Religious Movements,” HTR 28 (1935) 202Google Scholar; K. Ziegler, “Orphische Dichtung,” RE 18, col. 1365; Guthrie, W. K. C., Orpheus and Greek Religion: A Study of the Orphic Movement (2d ed.; London: Methuen, 1952) 107–30Google Scholar; Burkert, “Orpheus,” 101; cf. Dodds, E. R., The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951) 155–56.Google Scholar

²¹ Cf. Nilsson, “Early Orphism,” 224–25; Burkert, “Orpheus,” 104.

²² Cf. Plato Crat. 400b-c. Dodds, E. R. (Gorgias [Oxford: Clarendon, 1959] 297–98)Google Scholar suggests that while the jail analogy is Orphic, the view of the body as the tomb of the soul is Pythagorean. Cf. Diels, DK ad 1 B 3.

²³ This relation between the unchanged, pure portion of the ⋯ρχή and the rest of the manifold world is stated explicitly in Anaximenes (Aëtius 1.3.4 [13 b 2]; but see Alt, Karin, “Zum Satz des Anaximenes uber die Seele: Untersuchung von Aetios Περ⋯ ⋯ρχ⋯ν,,” Hermes 101 [1973] 129–64), obviously follows from Aristotle's discussion of the Anaximandrean Apeiron (Phys. 3.4, 203b 6 [12 A 15]), and can be inferred for Thales on the basis of Aristotle's remark in De anima 1.5, 411a 7 (11 A 22).Google Scholar

²⁴ Cf. Gigon, Olof, “Die Theologie der Vorsokratiker,” in Rose, H. J., et al., La Notion du Divin depuis Homere jusqu'a Platan (Entretiens sur l'Antiquité classique 1; Geneva: Vandoeuvres. 1954) 139.Google Scholar

²⁵ Cf. Aristotle De anima 1.2, 405a 24. Aristotle's generalization, though inaccurate (as seen from his reference to Heraclitus’ soul as identical with Heraclitus’ first principle, and at the same time as “exhalation”), reflects the kinship between soul and ⋯ρχή in the Presocratics. Cf. Guthrie, “Presocratic,” 91–92.

²⁶ Cf. Burkert, “Orpheus,” 103–4.

²⁷ Cf. Kahn, Charles H., The Art and Thought of Heraclitus (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979) 19–20 and passimGoogle Scholar

²⁸ Interpreting Heraclitus’ doctrine as cosmogonical, I share Kahn's hope that “the recent denial of cosmogony for Heraclitus will turn out to be a temporary overreaction, an exaggerated by-product of our emancipation from the authority of the Stoic and doxographical interpretations” (Kahn, Heraclitus, 135).

²⁹ In his exhaustive study Les verbes ‘DIRE’ en grec ancien (Collection Linguistique 51; Paris: Klincksieck, 1946)Google Scholar, Henri Fournier shows, inter alia, that λέγειν,, which “n'étaits pas originellement un verbe déclaratif, mais c'était un mot qui traduisait l'activité et les lois de l'esprit,” having become a part of the suppletive system of verba dicendi did not lose “des sens rationneles étymologiques” (53, 208). Accordingly, the derivative λόγος means both “word,” “speech” and “reason,” “thought,” see ibid., 217–24.

³⁰ Whether Heraclitus’ soul is of a fiery or airy nature makes no difference in the context of the present discussion.

³¹ Cf. Sextus Adv. math. 5.126 ff. The Logos is the “common understanding,” as emerges from the contrast “common Logos: private understanding” in frg. 2. Therefore the “understanding common to all” in frg. 113 is equivalent to the (common) Logos. Cf. Guthrie “Presocratic,” 95–98. See also Delatte, A., Les Conceptions de l'Enthousiasme chez les Philosophes Présocratiques (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1934) 6–21.Google Scholar

³² Cf. Delatte, Les Conceptions, 18.

³³ Cf. ibid., 10.

³⁴ Diels was undoubtedly right in reading τ⋯ ϕρονεῖν., instead of σωϕρονεῖν,, in the MSS in frgs. 116 and 112. The interpretation in the spirit of popular morality which these two fragments underwent called for the emendation of the “inappropriate” ϕρονεῖν to the more “natural” σωϕρονεῖν. Frg. 113, which does not allow such a reinterpretation, retained the original ϕρονεῖν.

³⁵ It would be a mistake to see in the understanding urged by Heraclitus a variety of theoretical inquiry into reality, for it is something quite different: it is sharing the deity's vision of reality, the Logos; put differently, it is a type of communion with the divine.

³⁶ Cf. also cryptic B 63.

³⁷ The similarity between the Heraclitean and the Orphic conceptions of the soul was observed and discussed by Reinhardt, Karl (Parmenides und die Geschichte der griechischen Philosophie [Bonn: Cohen, 1916; reprinted Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1959] 192–201)Google Scholar; Delatte (Les Conceptions, 6–21); and Guthrie (Greek Philosophy, 1. 476–82). See also Zeller, Eduard, Die Philosophie der Griechen in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung (ed. Nestle, Wilhelm; 6th ed.; Leipzig: Reisland, 1920) 1/2. 908Google Scholar; Herakleitos von Ephesos (ed. Diels, Hermann; 2d ed.; Berlin: Weidmann, 1909) 20Google Scholar; Babut, Daniel, La religion des philosophes grecs, de Thalès aux stoïciens (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1974) 31.Google Scholar

³⁸ Aristotle, De anima 1.5, 411a 7; Aetius 1.7.11 (11 A 22, 23).

³⁹ In reading frg. 41 I follow Kirk (Heraclitus, 386): “Wisdom is one thing: to be skilled in true judgment, how all things are steered through all.”

⁴⁰ Sexual abstinence comes to mind, cf. B 20 (cf. Hippolytus Ref. 7.29 ad Empedocles’ frg. 115.1–2). Also referred to may be dietary restrictions and abstentions, such as the abstention from wine, cf. B 117, and therapeutic procedures to increase and maintain the soul's dryness, cf. Diogenes 9.4.5 and the Suda (22 A 1, 1a).

⁴¹ Cf. Aëtius 4.7.2 (22 A 17). See Guthrie, Greek Philosophy, 1. 480.

⁴² For this reason, though certain specific points of Heraclitus’ doctrine of soul could have been inspired by the Orphics, the doctrine as a whole cannot be the result of such an influence.

⁴³ Joël, , Der Ursprung der Naturphilosophie aus dem Geiste der Mystik (Jena: Diederichs, 1906) 142. Cf. Guthrie, “Presocratic,” 87, 103.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Cf. Heraclitus’ criticism of rites and mysteries (B 5, 14

⁴⁵ Stokes, Michael C., One and Many in Presocratic Philosophy (Washington: Center for Hellenic Studies, 1971) 38–39.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Guthrie, “Presocratic,” 87, 103.

⁴⁷ Nilsson, “Early Orphism,” 184–85.

⁴⁸ I would like to thank Prof. J. Barnes of Balliol College, Oxford, for some useful comments.