I return now to my overview/commentary on Instructions for the Netherworld: The Orphic Gold Tablets by Alberto Bernabé and Ana Isabel Jiménez San Cristóbal (Brill: 2008). If you missed my first few posts on this topic, you can see them here: First, Second, Third, and Fourth.

One of the key features of the inscriptions found on these gold plates is the expression of the desire of the deceased to obtain a crown at the end of their long journey in the Netherworld.  On one tablet we find this phrase, a form of which is common to many of the inscriptions:

I launched myself with agile feet after the longed-for crown.¹

The Greek term used here is στεφανος (stéphanos), which is commonly translated as “crown”.  Interestingly, although I would have thought the answer would be quite straightforward, scholars have debated what kind of crown we are dealing with here, and what its meaning is in the religious context of these texts (p. 122). A number of theories have been offered:

• That the “crown” was a given place in the Netherworld that the deceased was trying to reach. Because stéphanos can mean “a crown of fortifications”, the theory was that the term was used to refer to some sort of fence that encircled the kingdom of Persephone, or the dwelling of the blessed. This theory is improbable due to the lack of any description of such a fence in any Orphic or Greek myths.
• Another similar theory is that crown refers to a cycle or “orbit” that the deceased enters into after death — an astral cycle as opposed to the earthly cycle of life that one must endure until freed from it by following the correct path in the afterlife.  This theory, however, is also unacceptable because there is no mention anywhere in the tablets of an astral or heavenly part of the afterlife experience–it all takes place in the Underworld of the Earth itself.
• The third theory mentioned is perhaps the simplest, but most logical: that the term crown should be taken literally to mean a physical crown that is placed on the head.  There is much precedence in Greek culture and religion for the use of crowns, both for the living and for the dead.

It is this third theory that the authors argue for and which we will discuss here.  In Greek culture, literal/physical crowns were used in banquets, funerary rites, triumph in athletic competitions, certain rituals, and in many mystical symbols (p. 123).

It is a significant insight into the Greek understanding of the afterlife that it was their tradition to place crowns on the heads of deserving deceased at their burial (pp. 123-4).  It was believed that doing so represented the soul of the blessed being crowned and adorned with garlands in the Beyond. It was a symbol of the believer’s victory after a lifetime of struggle.

The wearing of crowns at banquets symbolized the glorious banquet at which the just will be seated for Eternity.

Crowns were also used in the rites of the mystery cults, used to identify those who had been initiated.  According to Harpocration:

Those who carry out the Bacchic rites crown themselves with white poplar because the tree is chthonic (of the Underworld), and Dionysus, son of Persephone, is chthonic.

If I understand this correctly, initiates would wear a crown of white poplar (or either myrtle or ivy) because this tree represented the Tree of Life–they would wear a crown of the branches  of the Tree of Life, symbolizing their victory over death.  Similar to the athlete who is crowned after winning the race, the initiates are rewarded, having ensured for themselves immortal glory in the Beyond.

A certain philosopher, Theo of Smyrna, described the stages of an initiatory ritual that consisted of:

• Purification
• The performance of a ritual
• Contemplation
• The initiate’s coronation

It was claimed that this ritual was supposed to produce a state of great happiness in the initiate (p. 128).

Another important part of these coronation rituals (and this relates to my earlier post on the nurturing Mother Goddess) included what seems to be a symbolic return into the womb of the Mother Goddess.  If understood in this context, such phrases found in the tablets as the following become meaningful:

I plunged beneath the lap of my lady, the subterranean queen.

The initiate re-enters the goddess’ womb in order to be reborn as a god (p. 131).  Then the phrase, which I have previously cited — “A ram, you fell into the milk”–can be interpreted as the the “newly-born” initiate becoming a nursling of the goddess’ milk.  This process is common to many ancient rituals and myths (p. 131).  After having been born of a mortal mother’s womb, the individual is eventually received at his death by the womb of Mother Earth (here Persephone), from which he is reborn, but to a new, higher, and divine life.  He is resurrected and becomes a god. All this is done in imitation of a god who once went through the same process of death and rebirth.

Of course this is all familiar territory for Christians. Just as Christ died and was reborn, and then crowned with glory, the same is promised to each faithful Christian “initiate” (Heb. 2:9; 1 Cor. 9:25; 1 Thes. 2:19; 2 Tim. 4:8; James 1:12; 1 Pet. 5:4; Rev. 2:10).

Moving further back in time, we see that the granting of crowns in the afterlife was a common feature in many Jewish apocalyptic and ascension texts.  Ezekiel the Tragedian, apparently a Jew who wrote a Hellenistic-style play called Exagoge (Exodus), depicted Moses as ascending to heaven, and there being crowned and seated on a throne.  Similar traditions exist for Abraham, Enoch, and many other visionary figures.

In the Old Testament, while the kings obviously underwent a very similar coronation, the chief priest was also to wear a “holy crown” (Exo. 29:6).  When the priest (or king) wore the crown that bore the sacred name of YHWH, he was seen as representing the Lord who would die as a sacrifice, whose blood would be taken into the Temple, and who would emerge with new life.

Image source: http://www.templeinstitute.org/vessels_gallery_15.htm

For Latter-day Saints, the crown is an oft-repeated motif, especially in the Doctrine and Covenants. The crown is explicitly linked to the rituals of the Temple. For example, in D&C 124:55, the Lord makes the saints the following promise:

And again, verily I say unto you, I command you again to build a house to my name, even in this place, that you may prove yourselves unto me that ye are faithful in all things whatsoever I command you, that I may bless you, and crown you with honor, immortality, and eternal life.

What is figurative in ritual will one day be a reality, as indicated in D&C 29:12–13:

12 And again, verily, verily, I say unto you, and it hath gone forth in a firm decree, by the will of the Father, that mine apostles, the Twelve which were with me in my ministry at Jerusalem, shall stand at my right hand at the day of my coming in a pillar of fire, being clothed with robes of righteousness, with crowns upon their heads, in glory even as I am, to judge the whole house of Israel, even as many as have loved me and kept my commandments, and none else.

13 For a trump shall sound both long and loud, even as upon Mount Sinai, and all the earth shall quake, and they shall come forth—yea, even the dead which died in me, to receive a crown of righteousness, and to be clothed upon, even as I am, to be with me, that we may be one.

The “longed-for crown” is the crown of the dying and resurrecting God who invites his mortal followers to follow him and likewise be rewarded with great honor, immortal glory, eternal life, and heavenly kingdoms (D&C 75:5; 78:15).

1. From L 9, 6 as cited in Bernabé and San Cristóbal, p. 121

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.

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:¹

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.

1. Proclus in Tim. III 297, 3

As I have been promising for some time now, I would now like to introduce you to the Orphic Gold Tablets, a series of small gold tablets/plates that have been discovered in southern Europe buried with the dead and offering to the same instructions regarding what they should do and say when they reach the Afterlife.  I am drawing my information on these finds almost exclusively from a monograph by Alberto Bernabé and Ana Isabel Jiménez San Cristóbal entitled Instructions for the Netherworld: The Orphic Gold Tablets (Leiden: Brill, 2008).

As I’ve mentioned previously, I consider these discoveries significant for the LDS audience, as the inscriptions found are on thin plates of gold (similar to Joseph Smith’s description of the gold plates from which the Book of Mormon is derived) and give specific instructions for what the initiate is to do during their journey into the  Afterlife, including meeting a number of guardians and gods who will ask them questions and to whom they must give certain passwords.

Before I get into a more detailed description of the nature and content of these tablets, I would like to give a brief explanation of what “Orphic” refers to.  The label “Orphic” is here referring to the Orphic mystery cult/religion popular in the ancient Greek and Thracian world.  The mystery religions involved initiation into secret rites (including the performance of sacred dramas) that presented the initiate with hidden knowledge pertaining to the afterlife and the gods. Often there was a promise of immortality resulting from initiation into the cult. The mystery cults were very widespread, being found in various cultures and times. Although there were others, including the Eleusinian and Mithric, the Orphic cult followed the literature of the mythical poet Orpheus, who was believed to have gone down to the Underworld and then came back from the dead.  For a slightly more detailed treatment of the mystery religions, please see this post that I wrote on them a while back (also, Wikipedia actually has a decent description here.)

Orpheus

The authors of Instructions for the Netherworld deem these gold plates very important for our understanding of Greek religion (and, I would say, most any ancient religion), “since they give us direct access to the most ancient stages of Orphic religion and literature, and present a very significant panorama of the rituals and beliefs of this religous group, which exerted a powerful influence on other Greek authors and thinkers: some Pre-Socratic philosophers, lyric poets like Pindar, Plato, and then the Neoplatonists” (p. 1).

Description of the Tablets

The authors describe the artifacts as:

[A] series of gold tablets of very small dimension (they vary between 8 and 4 cm. wide and 3 to 1 cm. long).  The use of gold no doubt corresponds to the search for a material intended to be noble and long-lasting, useful for avoiding malign influences and a symbol of the durability of the life that the deceased hoped for… The writing that appears on them is minuscle in size…In addition, the gold surface, thin and shiny, has tended to curl up and form wrinkles, which are sometimes hard to distinguish from letters. All this makes their reading and interpretation extaordinarily difficult (p. 2).

On the manner and place of their finding, the authors explain:

They are found in graves, but the limited number of graves that have yielded documents of this type, compared to the thousands that have been excavated, indicates that the users of the tablets were a minority group, with a certain unity of beliefs, probably initiates, or followers of a religious movement which…we must now, without hesitation, call “Orphic”, and convinced that a special destiny was reserved for them in the beyond.

They have come to light only in a few places, and differ widely in date, with almost six hundred years between the oldest, …c. 400 B.C., and the most recent, …datable to 260 A.D. The majority of them, however, date from between the 4th and 3rd centuries B.C. (p. 2).

The distance in time between the oldest and the most recent discoveries (700 years) indicates that this tradition was very persistent, perpetuating a system of beliefs and traditions over a very long period of time.  Also, the geographic area covered by the findings is quite large, stretching from Macedonia to the Greek islands and up to Rome.  Oddly, none have appeared in Attica, a fact the authors try to explain as possibly due to the strong influence of the rival Eleusinian mysteries, which do not appear to have used this type of text (p. 4).

On a final note regarding the description of the tablets:

In some cases, the tablets appear in open form, in others folded. In the former case, they were placed in the hand of the deceased; in the latter, they could be placed on the deceased’s chest or in his mouth…

Either way, the inscriptions were buried with the person so that they could have access to these important instructions when their soul reached the Netherworld.

An Overview of Their Contents

The gold plates contain brief texts written mainly in verse, although some prose is present as well. The prose sections often involve “mystical formulas, passwords, or other phrases of a ritual character,” which the authors note are especially difficult to interpret, as they are symbolic and could have multiple meanings (this point made me think of some of the issues that arise in the interpretation of the Joseph Smith papyri) (p. 5).

As for their content, the authors give the following brief summary:

In general, they contain references to the other world: either indications about its “geography”, greetings to the infernal gods, wishes that the soul of the deceased may find happiness in the Beyond, or else suggestions for help in finding it. They often include elements of dialogue, and the people who used them quite clearly hoped to obtain a special position in the other world, not so much thanks to the tablets themselves (although a gold object always possessed a certain value as a talisman or as a marker of identity), but because through them they are reminded what to do or say (p. 5).

While the inscriptions vary (although some are very similar and even identical), they tend to follow certain themes that can be structured as a pattern. The rest of the authors’ book is set up following these themes. They note:

We will structure these groups following what we might call the soul’s transition toward the other world, since most of the tablets refer to various stages of its journey (p. 6).

The stages of this journey, as outlined in this work (pp. 6-7), are:

• The soul’s arrival in the world of the dead.
• What it must do to confront the trials which face it there, including the question of the guardians that watch over the fountain of Memory.
• The guardians’ questions and the answers that must be given.
• The “ritual of the dead”, including the soul being addressed by someone, congratulating him because his death is a new birth, and declaring that he will share the happy destiny of the other initiates.
• The soul being guided in its path by a series of instructions.
• Arriving to present itself before the goddess Persephone and, in its request to be received by her, referring to a large number of questions related to Orphic ritual and belief.
• Giving of the passwords necessary for reaching “the meadow of the blessed” and the declaring that soul is worthy because it has been initiated in the several mysteries.
• The greetings to certain gods and the initiate’s identification with them (indicating that the initiate “belongs” to the god).
• The soul’s ultimate destiny.

I know that this list leaves us wanting in terms of specific details, but those details will be provided, as far as they can be from the book, in future posts. For now, I hope this brief treatment of the Orphic Gold Tablets is sufficient to interest you in this topic and demonstrate how useful these discoveries can be, both to the student of ancient religions as well as to the participants in modern practices of a similar nature.  The discovery of these inscriptions gives us, of course, yet another fine example of the use of gold tablets/plates to preserve important religious texts in ancient times.

Gold Scroll found in Austria inscribed with the Shema in Greek

If you are a returning visitor to this site, you may not recognize this as the Heavenly Ascents you are familiar with.  I have completely changed the look of the site, although none of the previous content has been lost.  I will miss the antique, maroon and tan theme the blog has had over the past year since I first started it — I think it gave a certain character to the site that may be missed by some.  For those of you who subscribe by RSS feed, blog reader, or by email, you shouldn’t notice much difference.  The main purpose for the changes were to make the website brighter, less cluttered, and thus easier to read and to add new features.

New Content

I hope to continue providing quality content and plan to add new helpful features to the site in the near future.  As I have been promising for the past couple of months, I will very soon commence an extended series of posts on the topic of the Orphic Gold Tablets, a number of small gold plates that have been discovered buried with the bodies of presumed Orphic (an ancient mystery religion) initiates, containing written “instructions for the Netherworld.” The importance of this discovery is significant for the LDS audience, as the inscriptions found are on thin plates of gold (similar to Joseph Smith’s description of the gold plates from which the Book of Mormon is derived) and give specific instructions for what the initiate is to do when they reach the Afterlife, including meeting a number of guardians who will ask them questions and to whom they must give certain passwords.  There are many other details of interest to LDS readers, and, I hope, to many others, as well.

I hope the new look and features of the site will be helpful to all visitors here. If you really miss the old look or can’t stand the new, please let me know by emailing me at david@heavenlyascents.com or by so stating in the comment area below this post.  Thank you for your interest, time, and support!