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

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106 CHAPTER 10 28. The manuscripts have KÚfiÓÔÓ but Zoegas’ emendation is obvious. When Cronos is put in the supreme position (as in Pherecydes) then his name hints at Time. When, by contrast, the Titan of Mythology is also present, then Chronus at the beginning of the sequence is not Cronos. The Orphic teachings in all variations certainly comprised the myths about Cronos. Cf. Orphic Argonautica v. 426. 29. Ovid presents this theory of first principles and aboriginal beginnings also as a symbolic interpretation of the double-faced god Ianus. Fasti I 103 sqq.: the god is speaking: Me Chaos antiqui, nam sum res prisca, vocabant. Aspice, quam longi temporis acta canam. Lucidus hic aer, et quae tria corpora restant, ignis, aquae, tellus, unus acervus erant. Ut semel haec rerum secessit lite suarum inque novas abiit massa soluta domos, altum flamma petit; proprior locus aera cepit: sederunt medio terra fretumque solo. Tunc ego, qui fueram globus (= Empedocles’ Sphairos) et sine imagine moles, in faciem redii dignaque membra deo. ... 117 Quicquid ubique vides, caelum, mare, nubila, terras, omnia sunt nostra clausa patentque manu. Me penes est unum vasti custodia mundi, et ius vertendi cardinis omne meum est. Here the transition from the formlessness of primaeval Indeterminacy (\AappleÂÈÚ›·) to the present World-Order is an internal development that accords with the Monism of Darkness. In the Metamorphoses, on the other hand, the creative deus et melior natura seem to come from the outside, but the subject is not clarified. A Neopythagorean Dualistic Conception of first principles may be implied, though my interpretation in the text above, with Phanes as offspring of Darkness, is more plausible. The third principle mentioned in the Timaeus (the Demiurgue) constitutes a symbolic scheme that ultimately is reducible to the orthodox classic Pythagorean Dualism. 30. In a fragment from Euripides Hypsipyle (409 B.C.) the early Orphic doctrine seems to be resonant; Fr. 57 (p. 59 Arnim) = OF 2. (The interpretation of Cataudella, Sulla “Teogonia” di Antifane e sui frammenti del “Piritoo” di Euripide, Athenaeum 10 (1932), p. 263-4 is erroneous):
MONISM OF DARKNESS - DUALISM OF LIMIT AND INDETERMINACY 107 applefiÙÓÈ· ıÂáÓ
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