Mystery Terminology

Mystery Terminology in Aristophanes and PlatoAuthor(s): G. J. de VriesReviewed work(s):Source: Mnemosyne, Fourth Series, Vol. 26, Fasc. 1 (1973), pp. 1-8Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4430172 .Accessed: 16/02/2013 12:42

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MYSTERY TERMINOLOGY

IN ARISTOPHANES AND PLATO

BY

G. J. de VRIES

Momus is not the most attractive character in mythology, and the noble art of writing adversaria has lost much of its former

glamour. Yet there do occur moments when one feels compelled to exercise it. But playing Momus?no: if for the second time I feel

urged to criticize a publication by Professor A. W. H. Adkins, I am

certainly not prompted by lack of appreciation of his scholarship. The first time was when Merit and Responsibility appeared

(i960). Undoubtedly an impressive and an important book, and parts of it are excellent (this is not meant as an allusion to the curate's egg!). But occasionally it sacrifices exact interpretation to construction. In Hermeneus 31 (1959-60), 210 ff. (= De zang der Sirenen, Groningen 1969, 85 ff.) I argued that the ''hopeless tangle of values" which Adkins detected in Homer's account of the distribution of prizes after the chariot-race in Iliad XXIII existed

only in his imagination because he failed to notice that a?et? in v. 571 has not the same import as it has in v. 578 (cp. the penetrating criticisms by H. W. Pleket in Lampas 3, 1971, 349 ff.)?

The present case is comparable. In Antichthon (Journal of the Australian Society for Class. Studies) 4 (1970), 13 ft., Professor Adkins has published an interesting paper under the title Clouds, Mysteries, Socrates and Plato. I will discuss it under three heads, to wit a) mysteries in Aristophanes, b) Plato's silence upon the main accusation against Socrates, c) Plato's mystery terminology.

a) Adkins starts from the often observed fact that in Aristophanes' Clouds admission to the phrontisterion is likened to initiation into the mysteries. He quotes the choral song vv. 298-313, and argues that the explicit mention of (Eleusinian) mystery cults made in this song serves to point to the desecration which Socrates' bogus mysteries must have meant for the spectators, for the presentation

Mnemosyne XXVI 1


2 MYSTERY TERMINOLOGY IN ARISTOPHANES AND PLATO

of these (bogus) mysteries "would have been regarded not as amusing but as blasphemous", and "historical parallels are always dangerous, but this seems to me to approach accusing a man, in a different society, of holding the Black Mass".

As to the import of the choral ode, I think that Adkins is right in

regarding it as a foil to Socrates' 'initiation rites' (vv. 254 ff.). But the comparison with holding the black mass would be more im-

pressive, if something more had been seen on the stage than these

rites, which are, after all, only preparatory. Imitating the mystery rites themselves was an unforgivable sacrilege ; that we know. Some acts were performed in the mysteries (??st???a p??e?? is the term used by Andocides). What acts, we do not know; but hardly of such a nature that the pranks which are executed in Clouds could be thought to imitate them. Moreover it is not necessary to think

immediately of the Eleusinian mysteries : there were more mystery cults, private ones too. It the spectators really regarded what happen- ed in the phrontisterion as resembling a mystery cult, they may have

thought of a crank performing initiation rites of his own. I do not think that this implies the blasphemy which Adkins

finds in it. Would the spectators have been shocked by Dicaeopolis' 'mystical piggies' (Ach. 747, 764)? Or by Trygaeus' promise to celebrate all festivals, mysteries included, in honour of Hermes

(Peace 413-420) or by his desire to be hastily initiated (ibid. 375) ? Were jocular allusions to the mysteries admissible in comedy? Adkins thinks they were not: "It is sometimes maintained that Old Comedy can mock any aspect of Greek religious life; but I doubt this". He acknowledges the fact that "even in societies in which deities have ethical attributes and perfections, jokes about a deity frequently accompany deep unquestioning belief in the

deity", but "none of this applies to the mysteries", and he "cannot believe that the presentation of Socrates as presiding over bogus mysteries would pass as a joke in comedy". He regards the alleged parallel with the Frogs as unconvincing: there "the true mysteries themselves are not mocked.Nor is the Thesmophoria profaned, mocked or parodied, or its secrets revealed in the Thesmophoria- zusae".

'Mocked' is the crucial word. If mockery is the same as insult,


MYSTERY TERMINOLOGY IN ARISTOPHANES AND PLATO 3

Adkins is right. But it is not, as he himself admits (cp. the words just quoted, "... jokes about a deity . . ."). The evidence shows that Greek comedy could use elements of the mysteries in order to build up a comical situation. There is indeed one notable exception : actual parody of the sacred rites of Eleusis is not to be found. This

exception proves the 'rule'. Therefore the difference between Clouds on the one hand and Frogs and Thesmophoriazusae on the other hand is not as great as Adkins will have it. Is the prayer in Thesm. 286 ff. really less 'sacrilegious' than what is presented in the Clouds? True, the hilarious mysts of Frogs 316 ff. "mock others", and "the true mysteries themselves are not mocked". But what about Dionysus' reactions to the solemn invocation ? After all it is he himself who is being invoked! And what about ??????da- ???e? ?e?? in v. 479, where a ritual formula of the mysteries is used in a rather undignified situation ?

b) According to Adkins, Plato in the Euthydemus makes an attempt at rebuttal. Of what ? It is not entirely clear what Adkins means. It may be 1) the presentation of Socrates as presiding over bogus mysteries, 2) his presentation as an Anaxagorean philosopher, or 3) his use of initiation-language for philosophic training. It is an indirect rebuttal which is attempted. "Why does Plato not attempt direct rebuttal?", asks Adkins, adding: "My reading of Plato's attitude to truth in matters such as these, as opposed to the pursuit of philosophic truth, does not lead me to suppose that Plato would have been deterred from 'rearranging the facts', had he thought he could get away with it". This is fine Popperian prose; occasionally Adkins adopts also the Master's habit of first proposing a sup- position and casually referring to it in the next paragraph as a

certainty (it is only fair to add that Popper does so only when acting as ??at?????st?? ; ordinarily his argument is severely logical).

As to 2), the mention of Anaxagoras in Apol. 26 d and Phaedo 97bff. will probably not satisfy Adkins; he may regard it as

'rearranging the facts'. But even if one is willing to concede to Adkins that "Socrates had at one point of his career been much more of an Anaxagorean than Plato wishes us to believe", is the

question really very relevant? The important points are 1) and 3). In Apol. 19 c Plato has Socrates mention his ?e???ate?? in the



Clouds and allude to the 'natural philosophy' which there he is

represented as teaching. Not a single word about the performance of initiation rites. Now one might argue that Plato's method here is

extremely sly: with apparent candidness he is supposed to mention some points, hoping thereby to draw the reader's attention away from the most important charge against Socrates. But crime does not pay; if the grave accusation of sacrilege was really implied in the representation of Socrates in the Clouds, it would have been

clumsy to mention the play at all ; this would immediately remind

everybody of that accusation. But Socrates says that people have seen him ?? t? ???st?f????? ????d?a, "in the well-known play by Aristophanes". One wonders how even an attempt could be made to hush up the supposedly implied accusation. The answer must be that nobody had been aware of it. Here one may quote what Dover says about the difference between the Socrates of Aristo-

phanes and the Socrates of Plato and Xenophon (by the way, Xenophon's name is entirely absent in Adkins' paper): "If Plato and Xenophon are to be regarded as engaged in a conspiracy to conceal the truth, it was a conspiracy of exceptional audacity." (pref. to the Clouds, ed. 1968, p. XLVI).

c) (b 3) The 'indirect rebuttal' could also bear on the use of initiation-language. It was "not merely absurd, but shocking, in the eyes of many Greeks.to ... use initiation-language of

reputable philosophic instruction". Socrates used it in this way (though his notorious irony makes that "the degree of his serious- ness in doing so is?and always has been?difficult to estimate"). Now "Aristophanes was aware that Socrates used such language, may well have been shocked himself, and certainly used it as one more weapon against Socrates and the New Thought in his Clouds".

Probably several hundreds or thousands of Athenians were as well aware of it as Aristophanes was, and long before he attempted his 'indirect rebuttal', Plato 'revealed' it in a passage like Crito 54 d

(the comparison with Cory bants). However this may be, Adkins musters a collection of Platonic

passages in order to show that "there seem to be" (to wit, in Plato) "three different ways of using initiation-language.: treating it as characteristic of sophists, not Socrates, putting it into the



mouth of Socrates, but with safeguards, and putting it openly into the mouth of Socrates or the Athenian Stranger; and these attitudes

appear in dialogues which most scholars would hold to belong to

groups which can be placed in sequence". The first passage quoted by Adkins is Euthyd. 277 d. Socrates

consoles Clinias who is bemused by the tricks of Euthydemus and

Dionysodorus : ?? ?a??a?e, e? s?? fa????ta? ???e?? ?? ?????, ?s?? ?a? ??? a?s???e? ???? p??e?t?? t? ???? pe?? s?? p??e?t?? d? ta?t??

dpe? ?? ?? t? te?et? t?? ???????t??, dta? t?? ?????s?? p???s?? pe?? t??t?? d? ?? ?????s? te?e??. ?a? ?a? e?e? ???e?a t?? ?st? ?a? pa?d??, e? ??a ?a? tet??esa?* ?a? ??? t??t? ??d?? ???? ? ???e?et?? pe?? s? ?a? ???? ???e?s??? pa????te, ?? ?et? t??t? te????te. ??? ??? ????s?? ta

p??ta t?? ?e??? ????e?? t?? s?f?st????, p??t?? ???, ?? f?s? ???- d????, pe?? ?????t?? d???t?t?? ?a?e?? de?. Obviously this passage can be used to illustrate Clouds 254 ff. ; Adkins, however, thinks that "perhaps we may go further: may it not perhaps be evoked by Clouds 254 ff. (and possibly, so far as concerns the last sentence quoted, by Socrates' programme of education for Strepsiades in

634 ff., and especially 658 ff.) ?". This, of course, is pure guess-work (cp. "perhaps", twice, and "possibly"); nevertheless Adkins continues (with due caution, indeed): "If this were the case, it would indicate that Plato, for some reason or other, was anxious to shift to the sophists the idea of teaching as initiation into

mysteries". Five pages further on, however, one reads: "I conclude that .... Plato is using Euthydemus and Dionysodorus as

lightning-conductors, to deflect from Socrates the odium which still attached to him as a result of Aristophanes' picture of him as an initiator into bogus mysteries in the Clouds".

The Homeric tag (Od. 11, 601) t?? d? ??t' e?se???sa, used in Protag. 315 b, is linked with Clouds 94, where it is suggested that

????? has the overtone of 'ghosts'?, and with 184 ff., where the students of the phrontisterion appear as "pallid, emaciated, wraith- like creatures" ; further "possibly 194 ff., in which the student sends the other inmates of the phrontisterion indoors, may be a joke not only about the indoor life of students tacitly contrasted with the outdoor existence of others, but an allusion to the belief that

???a?, ghosts, may occasionally escape from the nether world, but



cannot remain in the upper aii for very long". The conclusion drawn is that "even the jokes of the Clouds .... rankled sufficiently for him (= Plato) to wish to displace the slur from Socrates and his adherents to the sophists, sharply distinguished from Socrates".

Gorgias 497 c is the next passage quoted. Callicles grudgingly agrees to answer to Socrates' questions about ta s????? te ?a? ste?? ta?ta, and Socrates replies: e?da???? e?, ? ?a?????e??, dt? ta

?e???a ?e???sa? p??? ta s????? ? ??? d' ??? ???? ?e??td? e??a?. Adkins comments: "What Callicles has learnt is likened to initiation into the mysteries .... Now if one wished to draw out rigorously the

implications of Socrates' words, one would conclude that all

learning, not merely Callicles', was like initiation; but the natural

way to read the passage once again is simply to compare sophistic teaching to initiation". How easy and how dangerous a word is 'natural'! Callicles desires to discuss big Weltanschauungsfragen, but before doing so Socrates wants to do some preliminary logical analysis which Callicles despises as quibbles. Rather than seeking strained explanations one might reasonably surmise the existence

(or the coinage) of a semi-proverbial locution for desiring what is big and difficult before one has mastered what is smaller and easier.

Meno 76 e is comparable. Meno admires a 'tragic' definition of colour (he does not express "a preference for natural philosophy over philosophical analysis", for the definition of form in 74 b ff.

belongs as much to 'natural philosophy' as the one of colour). Socrates says that Meno would come to reject it, e? ??, ?spe? ??e? ??e?e?, ??a??a??? s?? ?p???a? p?? t?? ??st?????, ???' e? pe???e??a?? te ?a? ????e???. It does not matter whether one will take the whole of

??a??a??? .... ??st????? as a quotation of Meno's words or not, nor whether ??st????? is used literally or metaphorically. "Socrates re-

presents himself as merely taking up a metaphor used by Meno", is Adkins' comment. There is anyhow not the faintest allusion to

specifically sophistic teaching. In Theaetetus 155 e materialists are called a???t??, whereas in

156 a ??st???a is used for the doctrine of those philosophers who want to reduce everything in the universe to movement. Adkins writes: "The second seems playful; the first harmonizes well with other uses which appear in dialogues written before the Theaetetus".



This is sheer arbitrariness; what is against taking both uses as

playful? And when Adkins levels the reproach at Plato that "he even contrived to identify materialists with the uninitiated in the

Theaetetus", he is shaping the evidence after preconceived ideas and, moreover, contradicting himself (if Socrates in the Clouds is represented as an Anaxagorean philosopher, the audience is expected to regard him as a materialist).

In the meantime we have fully entered Adkins' second stage in Plato's development where he puts initiation-language into the mouth of Socrates, "but with safeguards". Adkins quotes Symp. 209 e 5 ff. and Phaedo 81 a: in both passages mystery terminology is clearly used to indicate views held by Socrates-Plato. In the first passage the 'safeguard' consists in the fact that it is Diotima, not Socrates, who is speaking (and that she is said to speak ?spe? o? t??e?? s?f?sta?, 2?8 c, which in my opinion bears on another

aspect); in the Phaedo passage it is the fact that with ?spe? d? ???eta? an explicit simile is introduced.

For the third stage, that of uninhibited use of mystery ter-

minology, Adkins refers to Phaedrus 250 b (and Epinomis 986 c ; this dialogue I regard as a spurious work).

The list could be easily expanded, if one would be willing to include cognate terms as ?a?a??e??, ?a?te?es?a? (?a?t???), ?a??e?e??, ?????a?t???, ?????s??? (?????s???e??), ap????t??, ???e??, ?p(?de??, ???s??de??. These Plato uses as freely as mystery terms proper, without 'safeguards', and in early dialogues, too (Crito 54 d has al- ready been mentioned).

Two 'safeguards' are always working, irony and transposition.

Adkins has tried to take Socrates' irony into account, though he fails to do justice to it; Plato's irony, however, is neglected. Nor does he seem to be conscious of Plato's transposition, the felicitous

concept by which Dies enriched Platonic scholarship (his famous paper on La transposition platonicienne, in which he showed how Plato transposes rhetoric, eroticism, Orphism and literary mysticism, is easily accessible in Autour de Platon, 1927, 400 ff. ; cp. also E. des Places, Platon et la langue des myst?res, Ann. Fac. Lettres d'Aix 38, 1964,9 ft.).

It is especially interesting to find this transposition foreshadowed



in a passage of Aristophanes in which mystery terms are used. In

Frogs 354 ff. the chorus of mysts sings:

e?f??e?? ??? ????stas?a? t??? ??et????s? ?????s??, dst?? ?pe???? t????de ????? ? ?????? ?? ?a?a?e?e?, ? ?e??a??? d???a ???s?? ??t' e?de? ??t* ????e?se?, ??d? ??at???? t?? ta???f???? ???tt?? ?a??eG ?te??s??.

For whom, one is tempted to ask, is Cratinus here "used as a lightning-conductor" ?

By fully taking into account Plato's irony and transposition, the reader is enabled to understand his use of mystery and cognate terms. Then one can grasp the half-pitying, half-contemptuous use of ?p??a?te?????? in Rep. 516 d, the unfavourable import of

te???????? in Rep. 560 e, the humour o? Phil. 67 c (cp. G. R. Morrow, Plato's Cretan State, i960, 429), the festive play on purification in Crat. 396 e and Phaedr. 242 c, the mockery of Theaet. 180 c.

One final remark must be added. Adkins thinks that "Plato believed that a real philosophical truth was enshrined in such a use of language" (to wit, of mystery terminology), even "that such language contained true insight". This would make him a kind of forerunner to Martin Heidegger, but with this philosopher Plato has

very Httle in common. The man who wrote Crat. 435-440 could never have held a view of language as the one which Adkins ascribes to him (nor should his occasional play with etymology be explained in this sense; cp. my note on Phaedr. 230 a 4-5).

Wolfheze, Duitsekampweg 28 c


Article Contentsp. [1]p. 2p. 3p. 4p. 5p. 6p. 7p. 8

Issue Table of ContentsMnemosyne, Fourth Series, Vol. 26, Fasc. 1 (1973), pp. 1-112Volume InformationFront MatterMystery Terminology in Aristophanes and Plato [pp. 1-8]Ps.-Plutarch's Account of the Heavenly Bodies in Anaximenes [pp. 9-14]Catullus' "Basia" Poems (5,7,48) [pp. 15-22]Some Virgilian Echoes in Valerius Flaccus [pp. 23-28]Demography in Roman History: Facts and Impressions [pp. 29-46]Hellenistische Erklrungen des "Nestorbechers" [pp. 47-54]MiscellaneaThe Readings Amynia and Ameinia in Aristophanes, "Nubes" 31 [pp. 55-57]Callias' Fine [pp. 57-58]Plautus "Pseud." 296 ff. [pp. 59-60]"Uriosque apertos": A Catullan Gloss [pp. 60-62]A Note on the "Maschalismos" of Apsyrtos [pp. 62-63]

De novis libris iudiciaReview: untitled [pp. 64-65]Review: untitled [pp. 65-66]Review: untitled [pp. 66-67]Review: untitled [pp. 67-69]Review: untitled [pp. 69-70]Review: untitled [pp. 70-72]Review: untitled [pp. 72-73]Review: untitled [p. 74]Review: untitled [p. 75]Review: untitled [pp. 75-76]Review: untitled [pp. 76-78]Review: untitled [pp. 79-82]Review: untitled [pp. 82-84]Review: untitled [pp. 84-88]Review: untitled [pp. 88-90]Review: untitled [pp. 90-91]Review: untitled [pp. 91-93]Review: untitled [pp. 93-95]Review: untitled [pp. 95-96]Review: untitled [pp. 97-98]Review: untitled [pp. 98-100]

Libri ad Mnemosynen missi [pp. 101-112]Back Matter

Mystery Terminology

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