Note 15 — Chapter VII · IDEAS OF THE FUTURE LIFE

Ar., Ra. 145 ff., 273 ff. “Darkness and mud,” σκότος καὶ βόρβορος, as manner and place of punishment for ἀμύητοι καὶ ἀτέλεστοι, are derived from Orphic teaching: Pl., Rp. 363 D; Olympiod. on Pl., Phd. 69 C. By an inaccurate extension of meaning this fate was said to threaten all ἀτέλεστοι without distinction: Plu. π. ψυχῆς ap. Stob. Fl. 120, 28 (4, 108, 2 Mein.); Aristid., Eleus., p. 421 D. = ii, 30 Keil; Plot., 1, 6, 6. Plotinos undoubtedly has the right interpretation of the reason for this strange form of punishment: the mud in which the uninitiated lie marks them out as μὴ κεκαθαρμένους who have not shared in the purifications such as were offered by the Orphic initiation ceremonies. Hence they remain fixed for ever in their original foulness (and in darkness because of their ignorance of the θεῖα). It is, in fact, an allegorical punishment which has no meaning outside the range of Orphic doctrines of katharsis and atonement. Aristoph. transfers it to those who have seriously transgressed the laws of city or religion, for whom it was unsuitable: this only shows that an appropriate penalty in Hades for crimes against civil society had not yet been invented. It had evidently been thought sufficient to say generally that the ἀσεβεῖς (or at least the more heinous offenders) would be punished in Hades. This commonplace form of the opinion is probably to be regarded as a final echo of some definite theological doctrine which had become vulgarized and emptied of distinct meaning among the general public of the profane. The author of the first speech against Aristogeiton ([D.] 25) who speaks of the εἰς τοὺς ἀσεβεῖς ὠσθῆναι in Hades (53), confesses himself an adherent of Orpheus (11).—The μεμυημένοι dwell in Hades next to the palace of Plouton himself: Ar., Ra. 162 f., where they have the privilege of προεδρία, D.L., vi, 39. When a distinction between a χῶρος εὐσεβῶν and a χῶρος ἀσεβῶν in Hades began to be made, the initiated, in order that they might not be deprived of their privileged position, were given προεδρία in the χ. εὐσεβῶν. In this way, e.g. the author of the Axioch. 371 D (who can hardly have written before the third century) tries to reconcile the hopelessly contradictory pretensions of the εὐσεβεῖς and μεμυημένοι to reward in Hades.