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Ab Ovo

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

M. L. West
M. L. West
Affiliation:
All Souls College, Oxford
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Extract

It is well known that sometime before 700 b.c. the Greeks took over from the Near East a complex theogonic myth about the succession of rulers in heaven, involving the motifs of the castration of Sky and a swallowing and regurgitation by his successor, and that this story forms the framework of Hesiod's Theogony. It is less well known that at a later epoch, sometime before the middle of the sixth century b.c., a quite different and no less striking oriental myth about the beginning of things was introduced to Greece: the myth of the god Unaging Time, who created the materials for the world from his own seed, and of the cosmic egg out of which the heaven and the earth were formed. I have discussed this myth and its variants elsewhere. My purpose in re-examining it here is firstly to clarify various details of the Phoenician versions of the cosmogony as reported in Greek sources, secondly to obtain a sharper picture of its original form, and thirdly to argue that the world model of the early Ionian philosophers, which to some extent set the pattern for subsequent Greek cosmology, owed more to the myth than has generally been appreciated.

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The Classical Quarterly , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , December 1994 , pp. 289 - 307
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Copyright © The Classical Association 1994

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References

1 Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient [hereafter cited as EGPO], Oxford, 1971, 28–36Google Scholar; The Orphic Poems [hereafter OP], Oxford, 1983, 103–5, 198–201.Google Scholar

2 DK 7 A 8, B 1; EGPO 11–13; Schibli, H. S., Pherekydes of Syros, Oxford, 1990, 27–38.Google Scholar

3 For the contents and dating of this poem, and details of the evidence on which the above summary is based, see OP, chapter 3 and pp. 182–226.

4 DK 3 B 5; OP 47f., 112, 201f.

5 Cf. OP 111f.

6 See OP 252–5.

7 Eudemus fr. 150 Wehrli; Damascius, Περ τν πρώτων ρχν iii. 162ff. W.–C. (Westerink, L. G. and Combès, J., Damascius. Traité des premiers principes, Paris, 1986–1991).Google Scholar

8 ὠιν is Gruppe's certain correction of the vox nihili ὦτον. For a full justification of the emendation see the note of Westerink–Combès, op. cit. 238.

9 The testimonia are collected by Jacoby as FGrHist 784.

10 Westerink–Combès 238, ‘un certain Λαῖτος (Laetus), done de l'époque romain’. But we know he was earlier than Posidonius.

11 According to Gesenius, W., Scripturae Linguaeque Phoeniciae Monumenta quotquot supersunt, Lipsiae 1837, 431Google Scholar, it is a form of malk ‘king’ resulting from a sound-change /al/ > /ō/. More recent scholars, however, seem to limit this change to late Punic; see Segert, S., A Grammar of Phoenician and Punic, Munich, 1976, 67fGoogle Scholar. Albright, W. F., Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan, London, 1968, 194 n. 39Google Scholar, relates the name to that of Mākî of Gad (Numbers 13.15) and the name Mky on a Punic inscription.

12 W. F. Albright, op. cit. 193–6; Ebach, J., Weltentstehung und Kulturentwicklung bei Philo von Byblos (Beitr. z. Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament, 6. Folge, Heft 8) Stuttgart, 1979, 66, 434 n. 9Google Scholar; cf. Morenz, S. in Morenz, S. (ed.), Aus Antike und Orient (Festschr. W. Schubart), 1950, 81fGoogle Scholar. Ptah appears in connection with a cosmic egg in an inscription from the temple of Chon at Thebes of Graeco-Roman date (Morenz, l.c.) and in an Egyptian cosmogony related by Porphyry (De cultu simulacrorum fr. 10 Bidez) ap. Eus. PE 3.11.46: τν δ θεν τοτον (Kνϕ) κ το στματος προεσθαι ὠιν ϕασιν, ξ οὗ γεννσθαι θεν ὃν αὐτο προσαγορεουσι Φθ, οἱ δ Ἕλληνες Ἥϕαιστον· ρμηνεειν δ τ ὠιν τν κσμον.

13 ρ occurs in the Septuagint only in the phrase ν νεϕλαις ρος or ρεν at 2 Sam. 22.12 = Ps. 17(18).12, where it renders Hebrew šeḥāqîm, a word normally translated by νϕη, νεϕλαι, or οὐρανς. αἰθρ is not found in the Septuagint at all, though Symmachus often uses it to translate šāḥāq. Nor does the concept of ‘air’ seem to be found in the Hebrew Bible. What is translated in English versions as ‘birds of the air’ is actually ‘birds of heaven’, and similarly with ‘the way of an eagle in the air’ at Prov. 30.19 (‘in heaven’). At Job 41.16, ‘One is so near to another that no air can come between them’, the Hebrew actually has ‘wind’ (rûaḥ, LXX πνεμα). Pausanias 7.23.7f. records an encounter with a philosophic Sidonian who identified Asclepius (Eshmun) with ρ.

14 Cf. Democritus DK 68 A 72/Epicur. fr. 294 Us. χρνος στν μεροειδς κα νυκτοειδς ϕντασμα.

15 See EGPO 30. We do not know whether the Orphic theogony was so explicit about Chronos, but it did describe Phanes as copulating with himself.

16 Porphyry ap. Eus. PE 1.9.21 (FGrHist 790 F 1 p. 804.7), presumably paraphrasing Philo.

17 Philo F 1 p. 805.8ff.

18 Philo F 1 p. 804.22ff. Philo's Tααυτος probably represents Phoenician Ṭḥwt or Ṭḥwt, corresponding to the Egyptian Ḏḥwtj.

19 See Speyer, W., Bücherfunde in der Glaubenswerbung der Antike (Hypomnemata 24), Göttingen 1970CrossRefGoogle Scholar; id., Die literarische Fälschung im heidnischen und christlichen Altertum, Munich, 1971, 67–71.Google Scholar

20 See, for example, Barr, J., Bull. of the John Rylands Library 57, 1974, 17–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Troiani, L., L'opera storiografica di Filone da Byblos, Pisa, 1974Google Scholar; J. Ebach (as in n. 12); Baumgarten, A. I., The Phoenician History of Philo of Byblos. A Commentary, Leiden, 1981, 1–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Sanchuniathon is a genuine Phoenician name (Šakkūnyātōn, ‘Shakkun has given’), but of a type not likely to be earlier than 700 b.c.; cf. Nautin, P., Revue biblique 56, 1949, 272Google Scholar; Barr 36; Baumgarten 42–5. The Greek form Σαγχουνιθων shows in the first syllable a sub-phonemic nasalization, for which cf. Harris, Z. S., A Grammar of the Phoenician Language, New Haven, 1936, 30.Google Scholar

21 Opinions are reviewed by Nautin (as in n. 20), 262–5. He himself emends to Ἀμμωνεων and transposes the word to join δτων: ‘les sanctuaires d' Ammon’. He is followed by Baumgarten (as in n. 20), 79.

22 There is no reason why we should expect Philo to have known or adopted the Septuagint form, Ἀμμανῖται.

23 See for an up-to-date account of it Naveh, J., Early History of the Alphabet, 2nd ed., Jerusalem, 1987, 105–11 and 218.Google Scholar

24 See Fowden, G., The Egyptian Hermes, Cambridge, 1986, especially pp. 1–11 and 57–68.Google Scholar

25 Cf. Baumgarten (as in n. 20), 74.

26 Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 23(2), 1868, 255.Google Scholar

27 Clemen, C., Die phönikische Religion nach Philon von Byblos (Mitteilungen der Vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft 42.3, 1939) 39Google Scholar; Hölscher, U., Hermes 81, 1953, 394fGoogle Scholar. = Gadamer, H.-G. (ed.), Um die Begriffswell der Vorsokratiker (Wege der Forschung, 9) Darmstadt, 1968, 139fGoogle Scholar. (with a tentative layout of the text to reflect the original verses); Baumgarten (as in n. 20), 98–100.

28 Cf. Schwyzer, H.-R., Chairemon, Leipzig, 1932, 100–106Google Scholar; Pötscher, W., Theophrastos Περ Eὐσεβεας, Leiden, 1964, 5–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 Cf. Ebach (as in n. 12), 78. The first phrase is commonplace in the doxographers. The second reflects Chrysippus' teaching that the air is intrinsically dark but lit up by the sun: Plut. De Sto. repugn. 1053f. τν ρα ϕσει ζοϕερν εἶναι λγει; Jo. Diac. in Hes. Th. 123 (p. 306 Flach) κ Xους δ τ Ἔρεβος κα Nὺξ γεννται, δηλαδ π το τς διακοσμσεως ὑγρο ζοϕώδης κα σκοτεινος ρ; Anon. Exeg. in Hes. Th. 116 (p. 376 Fl.) ρ ϕσει ὢν ζοϕερς ὑπ λου ϕωτζεται. πε δ μν κατ μσον οὐρανο κα γς ρ κἂν ζοϕώδης στν κτλ.

30 What appears in the Authorized Version as ‘the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters’ would be more accurately rendered ‘the wind of God flapped against the waters’. God will have been absent from Sanchuniathon's account.

31 Cf. SVF i. 29.8–23, ii. 143.44, sch. Hes. Th. 115, 116c, 117a, 123, Ach. Tat. Isag. in Arat. p. 31. 28 Maass, etc.; Wehrli, F., Zur Geschichte der allegorischen Deutung Homers im Altertum, Diss. Basel, 1928, 25.Google Scholar

32 Sch. Hes. Th. 123 (p. 27.14ff. Di Gregorio); cf. Jo. Diac. quoted above, n. 29.

33 Løkkegaard, F., Studia Theologica 8, 1954, 55Google Scholar, ‘The wind fell in love with its own beginning, that is, made a tornado.’ For a circle as a return to an ρχ cf. Heraclitus 22 B 103 ξυνν ρχ κα πρας π κκλου περιϕερεας. Alcmeon of Croton said that men perish ὅτι οὐ δνανται τν ρχν τι τλει προσψαι, that is, achieve perpetual cyclical motion like the heavenly bodies (24 B 2, cf. A 12). Sanchuniathon may have used the word rūʾš or reʾšīt.

34 Cf. above, n. 29; sch. A.R. 1.496–8b κα Zνων δ (SVF i. 29.17) τ παρʼ Ἡσιδωι Xος ὕδωρ εἶνα ϕησιν, οὗ συνιζνοντος ἰλὺν γενσθαι; Diod. 1.7.1 (separation of elements from the original mixture) τ δ ἰλυδες κα θολερν μετ τς τν ὑγρν συγκρσεως π ταὐτ καταστναι δι τ βρος; OP 183.

35 Forschungen und Fortschritte 16, 1940, If. = Kl. Schr. ii. 259. I acquiesced in EGPO 29. Ebach (as in n. 12), 39, objects on the first of the grounds given above.

36 An m-form actually occurs in Hebrew, with a different suffix, in the maʾăwayyê rāsāʿ of Ps. 140.9 (poetic hapax).

37 Cf. n. 18; Barr (as in n. 20), 47 n. 2.

38 Hölscher as cited in n. 27, arguing ‘ Ὁμοως ὠιο σχματι halte ich für falsch, σχματι braucht kein “gleichwie”.’ But the dative would look bare without a preposition such as ν; and a search of the TLG disc (version ‘D’) produced two parallels for μοως: schol. Dion. Per. 158 κα περιϕερεῖ τξου σχματι ὅμοιον ἂν ἴδοις τν Πντον, and Justin Martyr, Dial, cum Tryphone 40 τ γρ πτώμενον πρβατον σχηματιζμενον μοως τι σχματι το σταυρο πτται.

39 Ewald, H., Gött. Abh. 5, 1851, 37Google Scholar. Barr's suggestion (as in n. 20, 23 n. 2) that Mώτ here is a corruption of something corresponding to the Hebrew meʾôrôt ‘heavenly lights’ is ingenious, but unnecessarily far-fetched.

40 Diod. 1.10.1–3; cf. Troiani (as in n. 20), 84f.; Ebach (as in n. 12), 43f., 74, 76.

41 Compared by Eissfeldt, O. in Éléments orientaux dans la religion grecque ancienne (Colloque de Strasbourg, 22–24 mai 1958) Paris, 1960, 3, 7ff.Google Scholar, who followed the now discredited theory that Diodorus' cosmogony was taken from Democritus. It is now regarded a s Hellenistic-eclectic; see Spoerri, W., Späthellenistische Berichte über Welt, Kultur und Göiter, Basel, 1959, 1–38, 114–17, 126–9Google Scholar, et al. Cf. Baumgarten (as in n. 20), 107. It does, however, contain some traditional motifs that go back to Anaximander and Anaxagoras, both of whom held that life first developed in the moist element as it was dried out by the sun; see below, p. 306.

42 Gesenius (as in n. 11), 390.

43 Grimme, RE iA 2243, whom I followed in Hesiod. Theogony, Oxford, 1966, 26Google Scholar. Barr (as in n. 20), 44 n. 1, reproves us.

44 We see something similar in Greek in the Derveni papyrus: xvii [olim xiii] 4 γενσθαι δ νομσθη πετʼ ὠνομσθη Zες, ὡσπερε πρτερον μ ών. xviii [xiv] 9 πρμ μγ γρ κληθναι Zνα, ἦμ Mοῖρα ϕρνησις το θεο ε τε κα δι παντς· πε δʼ κλθη Zες, γενσθαι αὐτν δ[οκοσ]ι, and xix [xv] 1–3, xxi [xvii] 10ff., with the impersonal passives κλθη and ὠνομσθη throughout.

45 In the Septuagint αὔρα occurs in three places (1 Kings 19.12, Job 4.16, Ps. 106(107).29), always translating Hebrew demāmāh ‘whisper’.

46 In Hebrew rûaḥ is usually feminine (and so in Gen. 1.2).

47 Cf. OP 104f.

48 Ar. Av. 694; cf. Enūma eliš I. 1–2 and other Oriental accounts, Hölscher (as in n. 27) 401 = 150.

49 Damasc. (as in n. 9) iii. 165. 17 W.–C. Mγοι δ κα πν τ Ἄριον γνος, ὡς κα τοτο γρϕει Eὔδημος, οἳ μν Tπον, οἳ δ Xρνον καλοσι τ νοητν ἅπαν κα τ νωμνον, ξ οὗ διακριθναι ἢ θεν γαθν κα δαμονα κακν, ἢ ϕως κα σκτος πρ τοτων, ὡς νους λγειν. Cf. Aristoxenus fr. 13 Wehrli; EGPO 30–2.

50 Cf. EGPO 212.

51 Hipp. Ref. 1.1.1–3 (Diels, Doxographi 555); EGPO 209–13.

52 EGPO 211.1 had already observed in 1963 (CQ 57, 172–6) that the δνη model should have originated in Thales' water cosmology.

53 Hdt. 1.170 Θαλω, νδρς Mιλησου…τ νκαθεν γνος ντος Φονικος. Cf. D. L. 1.22, who cites Herodotus, Duris (= FGrHist 76 F 74), and Democritus (= DK 68 B 115a).

54 Cf. Hölscher (as in n. 27), 416f. = 173f.; Eissfeldt (as in n. 41), 9ff.

55 DK 12 A 1, 9–17; more conveniently laid out in Kahn, C. H., Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology, New York and London, 1960, 29 + 32 + 39.Google Scholar

56 A 9, Kahn 35; cf. EGPO 81–3.

57 A 10, Kahn 57: ϕησ δ τι κ το ιδου γνιμον θερμο τε κα ψυχρο κατ τν γνεσιν τοδε το κσμου ποκριθναι, κα τινα κ τοτου ϕλογς σϕαῖραν περιϕυναι τι περ τν γν ρι, ὡς τι δνδρωι ϕλοιν· ἧστινος πορραγεσης κα εἴς τινας ποκλεισθεσης κκλους ὑποστηναι τν ἥλιον κα τν σελνην κα τοὺς στρας. Cf. EGPO 83–5, 95.

58 A 27, Kahn 65f.

59 A 11.7, 24, Kahn 63.

60 A 10, 11.6, 30, Kahn 68–70.

61 DK 59 A 1.9 (≈ A 42.12) ζια γνεσθαι ξ ὑγρο κα θερμου κα γεώδους, ὕστερον δ ξ λλλων. Cf. Diodorus cited above, p. 300.

62 Burkert, W., Rh. Mus. 106, 1963, 97–134Google Scholar; EGPO 87–93.

63 Cf. above, n. 50.

64 Epiphanius, Adv. haer. 1.8 (Diels, Doxographi 589.11–21). There are connections here with the Orphic theogony; see OP 202.