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Zur Genealogie des Dionysos #1 (204 Aufrufe)
Γραικύλος schrieb am 29.08.2026 um 15:02 Uhr (Zitieren)
Michael Chase, The Orphic Myth of Dionysus:
According to the fundamental Orphic myth, reflected in many fragments of this collection, Zeus had gained power over the gods by being the third in a succession of deities, in which the first two, Sky and Cronus (1), had been dethroned by their respective sons. Zeus took precautions (by committing a double incest) so that he too might not lose his power at the hands of one of his descendants: thus, he first united with his mother, Rhea, identified with Demeter in this religious movement and in its literature, and then, when Rhea gave birth to her daughter Persephone, he also united with the latter, in order to beget Dionysus.

In all probability, the motive for these acts was to blur the clarity of the line of succession. It suffices to sketch a diagram of these unions and successions to see that kinships are confounded and identified in a disconcerting way, such that, for instance, Dionysus is the son of Zeus and Persephone, but also the latter’s stepbrother (since she too is the daughter of Zeus); likewise, he is the stepson of Rhea-Demeter, since he is the son of Zeus, but at the same time his grandson, since he is the son of Persephone, daughter of Zeus, and so on ad infinitum. This genealogy of Dionysus as the son of Zeus and Persephone is not found outside of the Orphic sphere.

To continue with the myth, Zeus decided to yield his throne to his son Dionysus, when the latter was still a child. The Titans, gods of the generation previous to Zeus, whom he had dethroned, were envious of Dionysus – an envy that had been fed by his stepmother Hera. After tricking him with various toys, they killed him, dismembered him, cooked him, and devoured him.

All that remained was his heart, which was rescued by Athena. Zeus then gave it, mixed into a beverage, to the mortal Selene to drink. When she did so, she conceived the child once again. Yet when Hera’s stratagems succeeded in getting Semele struck by lightning, Zeus extracted the fetus from her womb and inserted it into his own thigh, so that the fetus might complete its gestation.

Although Zeus succeeded in bringing Dionysus back to life, he punished the Titans by striking them with lightning. Human beings emerged from the mixture of the Titan’s ashes with earth, and because of this origin, they consist of a terrestrial part, the body, in which a divine part, the soul, is lodged. The soul, in turn, has a positive divine component, which derives from Dionysus, but also a negative divine component, proceeding from the Titans, who were also gods.

For this reason, the human soul, unlike the mortal, perishable body, is divine and immortal. Yet because of the previous fault of the sacrifice of Dionysus, converted by the Orphics into the paradigm of bloody sacrifice, which they reject, it contains remnants of the “Titanic nature,” that is, the pride of its ancestors. As a result, it is con-demned to purge its crimes by means of incarnation in a body that is like a tomb for it, because it is not truly alive until it is freed from that body. [...]

[Orphic Collection. Ed. by Alberto Bernabé & Michael Case. Cambridge (Mass.)/London 2026, pp. XIII-XVI]

(1) Uranos und Kronos

Wohlgemerkt: Diese Genealogie findet sich nur bei den Orphikern.
 
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