The Orphic Gold Tablets: "The Longed-For Crown"

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

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).

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 Orphic Gold Tablets: Arriving in the Afterlife and the Importance of Memory for Salvation

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The writing of this post has been delayed a bit, but I’m excited to share more specific details about the Orphic Gold Tablets. Chapter One of Instructions for the Netherworld: The Orphic Gold Tablets, by Bernabé and San Cristóbal is entitled “Arrival in the Subterranean World.” In this chapter, the authors concentrate on four of the most relevant inscriptions found which discuss what the soul of the initiate encounters when they first reach the Afterlife.  Although the tablets were discovered in diverse locations, the descriptions are very similar, often matching word for word — obviously a well known part of a widespread tradition.

In this post I will share the contents of these inscriptions and comment on their significance. I will subsequently discuss the importance of the Goddess Mnemosyne, the personification of Memory, who is featured as a major character in the tablets. Apparently, the Orphic tradition believed memory, or specifically the ability to remember certain key concepts, to be essential to one’s journey towards immortality.

Arrival in the Subterranean World

The four main tablets discussed in this chapter (those from Hipponion, Entella, Petelia, and Pharsalus) read very similarly. They start out describing what one sees as soon as he/she enters the realm of the dead. Interestingly, it appears that the initiate who is on his death bed should see these things before he dies, as something of a preview of what will happen, and that he should remember this vision and get it engraved in gold as a type of memory cue for when he actually dies.

Currier and Ives -- "Tree of Life", Public Domain Image