[75] frr. 1, 81. The moon was regarded as inhabited, like the world, by Pythagoreans too (esp. Philolaos) and also by Anaxagoras.
[76] This at least was the belief of Pythagoreans and later of Platonics: see Griech. Roman, 269; Wyttenb. on Eun. VS. 117. But the idea occurs as early as in the Ti. of Plato, esp. in 42 B. It may have been long familiar to Greek popular belief (as to other peoples; cf. Tylor, ii, 70), and reached Orphics from that source. (Similar though not quite the same is the popular belief ὡς ἀστέρες γιγνόμεθ’ ὅταν τις ἀποθάνῃ, Ar., Pa. 833 f., which the Greeks shared with all the nations of the earth: cf. “Pythagoras” ap. Comm. Bern. in Lucan, 9, 9.)—No opinion can be built upon the statement of Ficinus (fr. 321).
[77] Orphic poetry must have varied in its account of what happened to the dismembered limbs of Zagreus-Dionysos. That the Titans tore the god limb from limb seems to have been common to all versions of the Theogonic poem (see nn. [28], [41]; [p. 341]). But whereas according to one account the Titans then devoured the god (except the heart) and from the mixed Titanic and Dionysiac elements of their bodies after they had been destroyed by lightning the race of men had its origin ([p. 341]); according to others the mangled limbs [360] of the god were brought by Zeus to Apollo who buried them taking them “on to Parnasos”, i.e. at Delphi: see Orph. fr. 200 (Clem. Al.) and so, too, Callim. fr. 374. The Rhapsodiai gave the first version in detail, but also preserved an account resembling the second (see frr. 203, 204: the ἑνίζειν τὰ μερισθέντα τοῦ Διονύσου μέλη there refers probably to the reunion of the collected limbs for the purpose of burial and not for the restoration of the dead god to life. This is also possibly the meaning of the Διονύσου μελῶν κολλήσεις in Jul., Chr., p. 167, 7 Neum. But Or., Cels. 4, 17, p. 21 Lom., speaks of the reanimation of Dionysos συντιθεμένου after the dismemberment). This second account, where it occurs alone, of course excludes the Anthropogony from the Titans’ ashes. The second version unmistakably connects itself with the Delphic legend of the grave of Dionysos at the foot of Apollo’s tripod (see above, [pp. 97] f.) as K. O. Müller observed, Introd. Scient. Myth. 242. It does, in fact, accord in this instance, but apart from this it has no connexion whatever with the real Delphic legend about the disappearance of Dionysos into the underworld and his periodic return to this world. (See above, chap. viii, [n. 28]. The Orphic and Delphic legends are elaborately compared and worked in together as though they were separate fragments of a single whole in Lübbert’s book, de Pindaro theologiae Orph. censore: Ind. Sch. Bonn. Lib. 1888, p. xiii f.—with shocking results and no intrinsic justification.) Whether this second version was the one put forward by Onomakritos is uncertain. In any case, both accounts are much older than the Rhapsodiai, in which, it appears, they were included side by side and superficially harmonized (—only the limbs of the god not devoured by the Titans being buried acc. to this version). Besides these two versions there may have been another Anthropogony differing from that given in the first account: the existence of something of the kind is perhaps to be deduced from what the Rhapsodiai themselves have to tell about the golden and silver generations of mankind (see above, [n. 41]).
[78] Of the Thracian Mysoi λέγει ὁ Ποσειδώνιος καὶ ἐμψύχων ἀπέχεσθαι (which Pythagoras is said to have learnt from Zalmoxis, Str. 298) κατ’ εὐσέβειαν, διὰ δὲ τοῦτο καὶ θρεμμάτων· μέλιτι δὲ χρῆσθαι καὶ γάλακτι καὶ τυρῷ, ζῶντας καθ’ ἡσυχίαν· διὰ δὲ τοῦτο καλεῖσθαι θεοσεβεῖς τε καὶ καπνοβάτας (perh. καπνοβότας acc. to an ancient conjecture). εἶναι δέ τινας τῶν Θρᾳκῶν οἳ χωρὶς γυναικὸς ζῶσιν, οὓς κτίστας καλεῖσθαι, ἀνιερῶσθαί τε διὰ τιμὴv καὶ μετ’ ἀδείας ζῆν, Str. 296. The religious character of this asceticism is seen in the words κατ’ εὐσέβειαν and the name θεοσεβεῖς; also in the word ἀνιερῶσθαι, which are all used of the κτίσται as of a monastic order. Jos., AJ. 18, 1, 5, says of the Essenes ζῶσι δ’ οὐδὲν παρηλλαγμένως ἀλλ’ ὅτι μάλιστα ἐμφέροντες Δακῶν (i.e. Θρᾳκῶν, Γετῶν: Getae, Daci Romanis dicti, Plin., NH. iv, 80) τοῖς πολισταῖς καλουμένοις. In any case the same Thracian ascetics are meant whom Poseidonios (literally translating a Thracian word) calls the κτίσται. Thus, they are said like the Essence to live without women, eat no meat, and in the practice of various other asceticisms live together and have all things in common.—It cannot be certainly decided how old this Thracian asceticism was, its exact connexion with Dionysiac religion, and whether it could or did give any impulse in the direction of asceticism to the Orphics. (Following Hom., Ν 4 ff., many told similar stories of the nomadic Skythoi: see Ephor., frr. 76, 78; or of the fabulous Argimpaioi, Hdt. iv, 23; Znb., Pr. 5, 25, p. 129, 1, etc. Griech. Roman, 203.—ἀποχὴ ἐμψύχων occurred also among the Atlantes and certain Indian races: Hdt. iv, 184; iii, 100.) [361]
[79] ii, 123. His words make it plain that the Greek teachers of transmigration of souls whom he has in mind (Pherekydes, Pythagoras, Orphics, Empedokles) had no idea of the Egyptian origin of that doctrine (Rh. Mus. 26, 556, 1).
[80] The Egyptian monuments show no knowledge of a general transmigration of souls, due to a law of nature or the decree of the gods. We can see very well, however, what it was in Egyptian traditions that might seem like a doctrine of transmigration to Herodotos (cf. Wiedemann, Erläut. zu Herodots 2. B. p. 457 f.).
[81] It is sufficient to refer to Tylor’s collections: ii, 3 ff.—In antiquity the Greeks met with a doctrine of Transmigration, apart from Thrace, among the Keltic races (Caes., BG. 6, 14, 5; D.S. 5, 28, 6; cf. Timagenes ap. Amm. Marc. 15, 9, 8). This was the sole reason why Pythagoras was made the pupil of the Gallic Druids: Alex. Polyh. ap. Clem. Al., Str. i, p. 355/6 P., etc.
[82] That it was not unnatural for the Greeks also to have the conception of the migration of the soul from its first body to some other suitable second or third body (entry of τῆς τυχούσης ψυχῆς εἰς τὸ τυχὸν σῶμα acc. to Arist.) may be seen from the fact that in Greek popular tales of the transformation of men into beasts the idea regularly prevails that while the body changes in such cases the “soul” remains the same as before. Thus, explicitly in Hom. κ 240 (cf. Sch. there and 329); cf. also Ov., M. ii, 485; Nonn., D. v, 322 f.; Aesop., F. 294 (Halm): [Luc.] Asin. 13, 15 init.; Apul., M. iii, 26 init; Aug., CD. 18, 18, p. 278, 11 ff. Domb., etc. (In all transformation stories this is regularly implied and gives the point to the story.) This is true from the earliest times onward, down to Voltaire’s muleteer who was turned into a mule et du vilain l’âme terrestre et crasse à peine vit qu’elle eut changé de place.)—The beasts also have a ψυχή: e.g. ξ 426.
[83] Brahmins, Buddhists, Manichaean, etc.
[84] A fixed term for “transmigration of souls” does not seem to have been offered by Orphic teaching. It was later called παλιγγενεσία (a term which did not exactly fit the real meaning of the idea): this seems to have been its oldest name (cf. αἱ ψυχαὶ πάλιν γίγνονται ἑκ τῶν τεθνεώτων, Pl., Phd. 70 C), and remained its most ceremonious one. “Pythagoras” non μετεμψύχωσιν sed παλιγγενεσίαν esse dicit: Serv., A. iii, 68. μετενσωμάτωσις, is not uncommon (frequent in Hippol., RH., p. 12, 53 D.-S.; 266, etc.). The word most commonly used among ourselves, μετεμψύχωσις, is among the Greeks precisely the least usual; it occurs e.g. in D.S. 10, 6, 1; Gal. iv, 763 K.; Tertul. de An. 31; Serv., A. vi, 532; 603; Suid. s.v. Φερεκύδης. μετεμψυχοῦσθαι occurs in Sch., A.R. i, 645.