Last oracle of Delphi

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The last oracle of Delphi is an oracle that has been passed down from the year 362. The late antique church historian Philostorgios reports that the Roman emperor Julian is said to have sent his confidante Oreibasios (Ὀρειβάσιος) to consult the oracle of Delphi . The oracle's saying was interpreted in such a way that it itself confirmed the end of Delphi as an oracle site.

Several hundred oracles from Delphi have survived. Their authenticity is usually difficult to determine. This also applies to the last oracle that has been handed down, which was also not handed down by the followers of the old cults, but by a representative of the Arian orientation of Christianity. In addition, it was directed at one of the last non-Christian emperors of the Roman Empire , which makes it easy to suspect that he was employed in religious policy.

Philostorgios reports that Oreibasios, Julian's personal physician, librarian and close friend, was sent to Delphi to rebuild the Temple of Apollo . The question that the famous doctor of his time put to the Pythia has not survived, but the answer was:

Εἴπατε τῷ βασιλεῖ, χαμαὶ πέσε δαίδαλος αὐλά, οὐκέτι Φοῖβος ἔχει καλύβην. Οὐ μάντιδα δάφνην, οὐ παγὰν λαλέουσαν, ἀπέσβετο καὶ λάλον ὕδωρ.

“Announce the emperor that [the] magnificent hall has fallen, Phoibos no longer has [his] house. Neither [the] prophetic laurel nor [the] speaking source; [the] talking water is also silent. "

Delphi in the Roman Empire

While Strabo had already noted the decline of Delphis at the turn of the ages, the oracle suffered from confiscations in favor of the soldiers of his successor Galba after Nero's death . Nevertheless, the site experienced a renewed period of imperial attention. Titus volunteered there, and Domitian donated funds to help renovate the temple. From the time of Hadrian on, one can speak of a real revitalization that showed a certain sustainability. Hadrian himself asked the Pythia about Homer's birthplace . Plutarch notes that when there was a particular rush, not just one, but up to three Pythias were interviewed. The imperial patronage also had an impact in that the priests took up the versoracle that had almost disappeared.

But this phase of prosperity ended around 200 AD. With the spread of Christianity, oracle sayings became superstition for many scholars . Clement of Alexandria rejoiced at the temporary silence of Pythia and his contemporary Origen complained about her nonetheless continued work. Most Christians probably rejected oracles, but there were also those who believe that Yahweh uses them for his purposes. Eusebius was already of the assumption that the time of the oracles was long over, but sayings from this time are still passed down. Possibly he also meant Didyma , the last remaining oracle site next to Delphi and Klaros . All in all, in the circles of ancient church historians efforts to be appropriated for their own cause must be expected when they write about the Delphic oracle. Eusebius claimed that the Emperor Augustus had asked the Pythia about his successor, but that a Hebrew boy had asked her to return to Hades. The few sayings that have survived from this period indicate that the oracle dealt with very local issues and, for that reason alone, was hardly noticed outside of the region.

The Historia Augusta still assigns four sayings to the oracle. Ammianus Marcellinus attests to very late interrogations for the years 353 and 359. The non-Christians explained the decline of the oracle sites by the fact that the locally bound daemones , who represented a link between gods and humans, had disappeared in the old places. So the gods remained immortal even when many of their oracles were abandoned. Kelsus , Porphyrios and Amelios Gentilianos took the sites as evidence of their respective ideas of the relationship with the gods.

Emperor Julian

Flavius ​​Claudius Iulianus, born in 331, received a strictly Christian upbringing from 344/45 on a remote estate in Cappadocia, for example by the Arian Eusebius of Nicomedia . But he was converted in 351/52 by the Neo-Platonist Maximos of Ephesus , with whom he kept in lifelong contact. Julian studied in Nicomedia , Pergamon , Athens and Ephesus . When the Caesar of the East, Gallus , was murdered in Pula / Istria in 354 , Constantius II elevated the young Julian to Caesar . Julian defeated the Alamanni at Argentorate ( Strasbourg ) in 357 and was himself elevated to Augustus in February 360 . In July 361, after the failure of the negotiations, Julian marched east, in October he took Sirmium with weak forces, and stayed in Naissus in October and November . There he made public pagan sacrifices for the first time. In addition, a year earlier in the Gallic Vienne he had called for tolerance of the pagan cults. Although it had been banned since 357, he had oracles consulted through intermediaries and rebuilt temples.

Meanwhile, the Persian king Shapur II withdrew from the eastern border of the Roman Empire and Constantius marched west. Julian was vastly outnumbered, but luckily his opponent fell victim to a fever. It was able to move into the capital as early as December. Over the next six months, he brought pagan priests back from exile and ousted Christian officials from their positions. In June 362 he set out for Antioch , where, among other things , he revived the cult in the nearby Daphne Temple of Apollo . However, this burned down in October 362 - possibly due to an arson by Christian fanatics.

At the beginning of March 363 the war against Persia began again. The Delphic Oracle promised Julian the support of the god of war. In fact, his army marched outside the Persian capital, Ctesiphon , in June , but on June 26th an unknown man's lance killed the emperor. The Christian tradition, to which Julian owes the nickname “Apostate” (the apostate), saw in his death the just punishment of God and adorned him legendary.

Delphi's long survival and the motives for the questioning

The long survival of the oracle was certainly due on the one hand to its high rank and age. His reputation among the Neoplatonists probably played a similarly important role. It is probably no coincidence that the Neoplatonist Amelios asked the oracle of Delphi where the soul of his teacher Plotinus had gone. Their main representatives, Iamblichus and Plotinus, also read and worshiped Emperor Julian. Delphi was also an important place of worship for the god of light Apollon, the father of Asclepius , who was often identified with Helios . The religion of Helios or Sol had become the religion of the East through the Diocletian dynasty. Julian mixed these Neoplatonic and classical elements with those of the mystery religions and Christianity: "Just as the Logos in the Gospel of John was with God from the beginning and was God himself, so after Julian Asklepios was also with Helios from the beginning." This idea, Yahweh - To consider Jesus and Helios-Asclepios as parallels, should have been very beneficial to Delphi. Asklepios faced Jesus, who was also healing. However, this did not remove the opposition in principle, as already suggested by Diocletian's questioning of the oracle of Didyma in preparation for his persecution of Christians. The doctors who were rejected as pagans also questioned the oracle, such as Galen or Oreibasios , who got the last oracle for Julian.

Julian’s questioning had therefore become more than likely due to numerous factors. The questioning may have come about because Julian was in a hopeless fix at the time, because Constantius was on the march with a superior army to eliminate the third usurper of his term in office. The Pythia, or the Delphic priests, were in the same tight spot, because experience shows that a “wrong” answer could lead to acts of revenge on the part of the victor.

From history to legend

Sources close in time are hardly to be expected after such a confrontation on the part of the losing party. Oreibasios was banished to the Goths , from whom he returned after miraculous healings. Libanios , the speaker and neo-platonist, remarked that it was difficult to find out more about Julian's death, because "everyone only thought of their own safety". Nevertheless, records circulated in small circles, of which only a few have survived. We know of the lost war diary of a Philagrios, whose father was also a doctor. Officers such as Seleukos (a later high priest), Eutychianos and Callistus ventured out into the public. Magnus von Karrhai became an important eyewitness for Ammianus Marcellinus and Zosimos . The most important speaker of his time, Libanios, wrote a monody , soon a funeral oration, and finally a speech to brand what he believed to be a traitorous Christian soldier who had killed Julian. But he did not dare publish it.

Only the participant in the Persian War, Ammianus Marcellinus, openly glorified the person of the emperor at the end of the century. Significantly, of the manuscript preserved in a Fulda manuscript (today in the Vatican), which contains books 14 to 25, only books 14 to 21 deal exclusively with the person of Julian.

Eunapios wrote a story of the emperor stylized as a hero , which was based on the memories of his confidante Oreibasios. Strangely enough, he did not deliver the last oracle. He, who himself believed in mantics and oracles, may not have had any interest in publishing a self-assignment such as that presented by the last oracle. But his interest in medicine brought him into contact with Oreibasios.

Zosimos, for whom Eunapius was the main source, also deals extensively with the Persian campaign, but less so in the years before it. In these pagan circles, a new era was even started with the accession of Emperor Julian.

In addition to these pagan sources, the Christian sources form a second line of tradition. Here Gregor von Nazianz stands out as particularly snappy. The tradition was made even more complicated by the ostracism of non-Christian historians in the 5th century, since the pagan authors are passed down almost exclusively through their Christian opponents. The church historian Socrates and Sozomenos - who incidentally handed down an oracle questioning of Licinius from 323 - used and quoted the aforementioned funeral speech of Libanios.

The only lore

Against this background, Philostorgios was the only one who handed down the last oracle of Delphi. Many of Julian's apologists only joined him during the Persian campaign, such as Magnus von Karrhae. So they could not have witnessed the oracle. The other officers have also only joined the Imperial Army in the last few months.

The fact that Oreibasios, on the other hand, who accompanied Julian at the time of the oracle and knew his biography very well, withheld the devastating oracle may still be explained for religious-political considerations, but it remains initially unclear how the event got into the writings of Philostorgius and Kedrenus, to come back to later.

Julian's views on the Delphi Oracle

Emperor Julian is one of the few people of antiquity whose world of thought we are so well aware of. For him the god Delphis was the originator or ancestor of philosophy. He also specifically assigned the famous “Know Thyself” to the oracle of Delphi. Nevertheless, the name Delphi appears only once in the approximately 80 letters that have survived from Julian. In this letter (Julian, Letters No. 51) he turns to a magistrate in Corinth with a request, a fact that often led to doubts about the authenticity of the letter, for why should an emperor, accustomed to orders, ask a city official for something? However, since Julian advocated strengthening the ancient polis , this is not mandatory. In No. 44 the emperor notes that he “recently received the office of herald of the Didymic oracle.” Finally, Julian believed that prophetic gifts were probably extinct among Jews and Egyptians, but not among the Greeks. In any case, his relationship with these religious offices was very respectful, probably also with the secular offices of the Poleis.

The end of the oracle

When Constantine the Great moved his capital to Byzantion , which soon bore his name, he had art treasures stolen from the ancient sites from a wide area in order to set them up in Constantinople . This also included the serpent column donated by the Athenians on the occasion of the Battle of Plataiai . But the abduction of the tripod forced a complete change in the ritual, in which this vessel had played an extremely important role. Around 400 the oracle was probably finally given up, and the site served as a quarry for a long time, like so many ancient sites in late antiquity and early Middle Ages.

Sources

There has been a long debate about the authenticity of the last oracle. For a long time, however, she did not take into account that there was a break in interpretation between the phase of open disputes between pagan and Christian advocates and the 6th century. This break relates to the role of the oracles and the gods. If they are still around 400 opponents of the Christian God, they become executors and means of his will. Now a work of art in Cyrenaica, to give an example, shows how Kastalia lies between the four rivers of the world and proclaims the truthfulness of the - meanwhile undisputed - Christian world.

The tradition is by no means certain because it takes place in three places, namely in the Philostorgios already mentioned, in Kedrenos and in the Artemii Passio . The legend of Artemios depends entirely on Philostorgios. In Kedrenos the oracle appears literally because a martyr was supposed to remind the emperor of its devastating content. The Byzantine tradition - without being able to present the route in detail here - led to the exact wording being taken over in continuation of older historiography. The only independent source is therefore Philostorgios.

Philostorgios

Philostorgios was born around 368 as the son of a daughter of the Homousian presbyter Anysios in Borissos , in the province of Cappadocia secunda. She converted her family to Eunomianism. This soon made her the focus of a violent dispute over the direction of the Eastern Church. Eunomius , whom Philostorgios met himself, had learned from Aëtios in Alexandria , was possibly Archbishop of Constantinople , in 360 at least bishop of Cyzicus . Exiled for a short time, he began to build a minor church under Julian. When Aëtios died, he became the only head of the Church. He was in the highest esteem under Julian. The Eunomians were soon exposed to the most violent persecutions, especially under Theodosius the Great , brutal action was taken against the radical Arians. From 398 onwards, their writings were burned.

Philostorgios published his work as a polemic of a group that had fallen on the defensive and which had finally separated from the Arians, only after 425. It was intended to refute the pagan authors and continue the church history of Eusebius, while at the same time stylizing Constantine I as the pioneer of his direction. Although he wants to glorify Eumenios and his teacher Aetius, he truthfully does not hide the latter's defeat in a rhetorical dispute with Borborianos (46, 16).

Aetius and his group had come under suspicion before the overthrow by Julian of supporting the pagan emperor. The closer the emperor was to them after the end of his opponent Constantius, who in turn had been strongly influenced by the Arians. For Philostorgios the death of Constantius and the rule of the heathen were God's punishment for the mistreatment and expulsion of the Aetians. This is the reason why Philostorgios deals so extensively with Julian, who for him is only an instrument of God. At court, where the Orthodox Christians had been removed, Philostorgios met the emperor's personal physician, Oreibasios. Philostorgios knew Eunapios' work and numerous historical works, not all of which have survived to this day. There were also letters from Constantius, Constantia, the wife of Gallus, acts of the Council, Passions , Apocrypha and, in addition to the Eunomians, such as Babylas (the bishop of Antioch and martyr), Theophilus Indus. In addition, he believed in all sorts of omens such as rainbows, crosses, comets and earthquakes, and at the same time he knew very well the pagan world of education and belief.

The Eunomian scriptures have been thoroughly destroyed. We owe the transmission of a small part of the writings of Philostorgios to the Orthodox Archbishop Photios . This means that he is the only witness for many events. Its subjective truthfulness is difficult to assess, but it is in any case representative of a third line of tradition, next to the pagan and the orthodox. Since the Eunomians were the only Christians Julian tolerated around him, they had information that the Orthodox and Arians did not get. The pagan tradition, however, has largely been destroyed.

Philostorgios is therefore the only reporter on the last oracle at Delphi. Possibly this was because he was one of the few who had access to all the necessary information and at the same time had an interest in its publication. In addition, Philostorgios knew the rituals in Delphi very well.

In contrast to the other Christian tradition of oracle sayings, the last oracle also has a special feature: no divine power resulted in the admission of decline. The Pythia proclaimed it without any discernible compulsion.

swell

  • Joseph Bidez: Philostorgius. Church history. With the life of Lucian of Antioch and the fragments of an Arian historiographer , arr. by Friedhelm Winkelmann, Berlin 1972, 3rd edition Berlin 1981
  • Philip R. Amidon (Ed.): Philostorgius. Church History . Society of Biblical Literature, Atlanta 2007 (English translation)
  • Ammianus Marcellinus, 3 vols., London / Cambridge 1956
  • Codex Theodosianus, ed. Cl. Pharr, TS Davidson, MB Pharr, Princeton 1952
  • Eunapios, Vitae sophistarum, ed. WC Wright, o. O. 1952 (= Loeb 94)
  • Eusebius Caesariensis, Praeparatio evangelica, Teubner 1867
  • Eutropius, Breviarium ab urbe condita , Ed. Fr. Ruehl, Berlin 1919
  • Firminus Maternus, Liber de errore profanarum religionum, Ed. Konrad Ziegler, Munich 1953
  • K. Weis (ed.), Julian. Letters, Munich 1973
  • Joseph Bidez (ed.), L'empéreur Julien, Oeuvres complètes, Paris 1932, 1960, 1963, 1964
  • G. Fatouros / T. Krischer (eds.), Libanios. Letters, Munich 1980
  • Johannes Malalas, Migne. Patrologia, Ser. Graeca 97
  • Oribasios, Libri ad Eunapium, Leipzig / Berlin: Ed. Raeder 1928, 315-438
  • HW Parke / DEW Wormell, The Delphic Oracle, Vol. II: The Oracular Responses, Oxford 1956
  • Plutarch, Pythici dialogi, ed. GR Paton, Berlin 1893
  • Porphyrios, Vita Plotini, ed. Walter May, Hamburg 1958
  • Socrates, Migne. Patrologia, Ser. Graeca 67
  • Günther Christian Hansen (Ed.), Sozomenos. Historia Ecclesiastica - Church history (Fontes Christiani vol. 73), 4 volumes, Turnhout 2004
  • Strabo, Geographica, ed. Wolfgang Aly , Bonn 1975, Greek-German edition
  • Zosimos, New History (Nova Historia), eds. Ronald T. Ridley, Sidney 1982

literature

Overarching

  • Kai Trampedach : Political mantic. Communication about signs of gods and oracles in classical Greece , Habil., 2003, Verlag Antike, Heidelberg 2015.
  • Joseph Bidez : Julian the Apostate. Munich 1940 (first Paris 1930, French).

To the Delphic Oracle

Philostorgios

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ See Parke / Wormell and Fontenrose.
  2. ^ Kristin M. Heineman: The Decadence of Delphi: The Oracle in the Second Century AD and Beyond . Routledge, New York, 2017
  3. ↑ St. 9.3.4-8
  4. ↑ Parke / Wormell I, p. 284.
  5. ↑ Nock 173 f.
  6. ↑ Plut. 3,414.
  7. ↑ Parke / Wormell 465.
  8. ↑ Clem. Alex. Protr. 1.c., created before 202.
  9. ↑ Celsus 3.25 and 7.3.
  10. ↑ Firminus Maternus in his Liber de errore profanarum religionum around 346-348 called on the emperors Constantine II and Constantius II to close the last places of idol worship by force if necessary
  11. ↑ Fontenrose No. 41; Parke / Wormell No. 471 and 473.
  12. ↑ Parke / Wormell No. 518
  13. ↑ Parke / Wormell No. 510-513.
  14. ↑ Ammianus Marcellinus : Res gestae , December 19
  15. ↑ Fouquet 200, Latte 325.
  16. ↑ Apparently Julian wanted to refuse the office (Iulian, Letters No. 21 to Maximus), but the predominantly barbaric troops on the Rhine had refused Constantius' order to march to the Persian border.
  17. ↑ Cod. Theod. 9.16.4.
  18. ↑ In Letter No. 21 to Maximus, Julian reports that he had asked the gods for fear that Constantius might do something to his teacher. The letter comes from Naissus.
  19. ↑ Parke / Wormell No. 600, Philostorgios 100, 9f.
  20. ↑ Parke / Wormell No. 473, Fontenrose H69.
  21. ↑ Volkoff 138ff.
  22. ↑ Raeder 184f.
  23. ↑ Raeder 185.
  24. ↑ F. No. 34.
  25. ↑ Parke / Wormell No. 463 consider the survey to be authentic, but Fontenrose (Q 252) does not.
  26. ^ Bidez 352.
  27. ^ RE, Philostorgios, No. 1.
  28. ↑ Bidez 354 f.
  29. ↑ RE, Vol. 27, Col. 491-493 (No. 27). He is only known from Malalas (Chronik 328, ed. Bonn).
  30. ↑ Hunger II, pp. 133f.
  31. ↑ Straub 321f.
  32. ↑ Bidez 356, note 15.
  33. ↑ On the difference between Christian and classical-traditional historiography, cf. Momigliano.
  34. ↑ Soz. Hist. eccl. 1.7.17
  35. ^ Bidez 356.
  36. ↑ Braun / Raicher 193, note 23 and p. 194.
  37. ↑ Braun / Richer 103 Note 42: “Against Heracleios”.
  38. ↑ Contr. Gal. 198c.
  39. ↑ JB Ward-Perkins, RAC 34 (1958) 183-192, v. a. P. 190.
  40. ↑ Philostorgios p. 77, BHG 170, Kedrenos I, 532 (Synopsis istorion, ed. Bonn).
  41. ^ Stemma at AP Kazdan.
  42. ↑ homoiusios = identical in nature, consubstantialis.
  43. ^ RE "Philostorgios".
  44. ↑ Phil. 62, 17ff. and 85, 1.
  45. ↑ Cod. Theod. 16.5. 34.