chapter 10 the monism of darkness and the dualism of limit and ...

88 CHAPTER 10
Chaos’ stead we put the corresponding Night, we have exactly the
Homeric sequence, a most ancient cosmogonic succession.
14. Syncretism and fusion between the Homeric-Orphic and the
Hesiodic common tradition is reflected in the idea that the Ocean of
mythology is one and the same with the Sky, that the current of liquid
flowing coincides with the revolving Sky: both are ‰ÈÓ‹ÂÓÙ˜,
primordial confluences, aboriginal periodic movements that limit the
chaotic indeterminacy of Darkness. There is to this effect an
etymology of ‘Ocean’ that derives the name from the fast movement
of the heavens (the Worlds revolution). Etymologicum Magnum 821.
18 s.v. \øηÓfi˜Ø ... apple·Úa Ùe èΤˆ˜ àÓ‡ÙÙÂÈÓ ï OéÚ·Óe˜ ÓÂÓfiÌÈÛÙ·È.
Tethys correspondingly was taken to be the Earth (Hesychius s.vv.
£¤ÙȘ and TËı‡˜. Scholia ad Homeri Iliadem Ξ 201. Suda s.v. TËı‡˜.
Etymologicum Magnum 756. 37 s.v. TËı‡˜. The correspondence and
equivalence was here mediated by moisture as all-nurturing as in the
case of Mother-Earth). Hesychius explains s.v. \øηÓfi˜Ø à‹Ú, ı‹Ú
etc. (or perhaps simply: \øηÓfi˜Ø ·åı‹Ú instead of the manuscript
error \øηÓfi˜Ø à‹Ú ı‹Ú (sic)).The phrase èηÓÔÖÔ applefiÚÔ˜ (cf.
Hesiod, Theogony 292. Aeschylus, Prometheus Vinctus, 532) was
interpreted by some to mean à‹Ú, Hesychius s.v. \øηÓÔÖÔ applefiÚÔÓØ
ÙeÓ à¤Ú·, Âå˜ nÓ ·î „˘¯·d ÙáÓ ÙÂÏ¢ÙÒÓÙˆÓ àappleÔ¯ˆÚÔÜÛÈ. The air of
the atmosphere is the passage which the souls of the dying traverse.
But this is just a speculative interpretation of the poetic term and of
the souls of the dead crossing into Ocean (Odyssey, ˆ 11-14) based
on the (Orphic and Pythagorean) theory according to which the souls
as breaths are inhaled from, and exhaled to, the air. (cf. below Chapter
12, notes in pp.317 sqq.). The interpretation that the Ocean is the air
can be found already in the Derveni papyrus (Col. XXIII. 3) where an
Orphic verse referring to \øηÓeÓ ÂéÚf Ú¤ÔÓÙ· is commented
upon 47 .
In Timaeus 40e-41a Plato narrates the successions of the ‘invisible
gods’ (àÊ·ÓÂÖ˜ ıÂÔ›), deities that is which are not celestial, planetic
and astral. (He has already spoken of the manifest, visible gods at
40d). About the invisible gods (who manifest themselves ηı’ ¬ÛÔÓ iÓ
âı¤ÏˆÛÈÓ 41a) we must be confident in, and put our trust into, the
divinely transmitted stories, in the myths of the descendants and