Zalmoxis

For the arachnid with this name, see Zalmoxis (harvestman). For the assassin bug with this name, see Zalmoxis (insect).

Zalmoxis (Greek: Ζάλμοξις)[1] is a divinity of the Getae and Dacians (a people of the lower Danube), mentioned by Herodotus in his Histories IV, 93–96.

In later interpretations, which began with Jordanes (6th century AD) and proliferated during the 19th and 20th century, mainly in Romania (where it is known by the name of Zamolxis). Zalmoxis was regarded as the sole god of the Getae or as a legendary social and religious reformer who, according to Herodotus, taught the Getae a belief in immortality, so that they considered dying merely as going to Zalmoxis. Herodotus states that Zalmoxis was also called by some of the Getae Gebeleizis, which led some researchers to conclude that Getae were actually henotheists or even polytheists. Another discussion exists about the chthonic (infernal) or uranian (heavenly) character of Zalmoxis.

Herodotus

Herodotus writes about Zalmoxis in book 4 of his Histories:

93. ...the Getae are the bravest of the Thracians and the most just. 94. They believe they are immortal forever living in the following sense: they think they do not die and that the one who dies joins Zalmoxis, a divine being; some call this same divine being Gebeleizis. Every four years, they send a messenger to Zalmoxis, who is chosen by chance. They ask him to tell Zalmoxis what they want on that occasion. The mission is performed in the following way: men standing there for that purpose hold three spears; other people take the one who is sent to Zalmoxis by his hands and feet and fling him in the air on the spears. If he dies pierced, they think that the divinity is going to help them; if he does not die, it is he who is accused and they declare that he is a bad person. And, after he has been charged, they send another one. The messenger is told the requests while he is still alive. The same Thracians, on other occasions, when he thunders and lightens, shoot with arrows up in the air against the sky and menace the divinity because they think there is no god other than their own.

Herodotus asserts that Zalmoxis was originally a human being, a slave who converted the Thracians to his beliefs. The Greeks of the Hellespont and the Black Sea tell that Zalmoxis was a slave of Pythagoras, son of Mnesarchos, on the island of Samos. After being liberated, he gathered huge wealth and, once rich, went back to his homeland. Thracians lived simple hard lives. Zalmoxis had lived among the wisest of Greeks, such as Pythagoras, and had been initiated into Ionian life and the Eleusinian Mysteries. He built a banquet hall, and received the chiefs and his fellow countrymen at a banquet He taught that neither his guests nor their descendants would ever die, but instead would go to a place where they would live forever in a complete happiness. He then dug an underground residence. When it was finished, he disappeared from Thrace, living for three years in his underground residence. The Thracians missed him and wept fearing him dead. The fourth year, he came back among them and thus they believed what Zalmoxis had told them.

Zalmoxis may have lived much earlier than Pythagoras and was rumored either to be a divine being or from the country of the Getae.

Scholars have several different theories about this account by Herodotus the disappearance and return of Zalmoxis.

This last theory precisely parallels the legend of the universal king Frode given in both Ynglingsaga and Gesta Danorum of Saxo Grammaticus; particularly, Ynglingsaga 12 and Saxo 5.16.3, in which Frode disappears into the earth for three years after his death.

It is difficult to define the time when a cult to Zalmoxis may have existed. It is only certain that it antecedes Herodotus. Some scholars have suggested that the archaic doctrine of Zalmoxis points to a heritage from before the times of Indo-Europeans, but this is quite difficult, if not impossible, to demonstrate.[2]

Plato says in the dialogue Charmides (lines 156 D – 157 B) that Zalmoxis was also a great physician who took a holistic approach to healing body and soul (psyche), being thus used by Plato for his own philosophical conceptions.

Religion of the Getae

Strabo in his Geography mentions a certain Deceneus (Dékainéos) whom he calls a γόητα "magician".[3] According to Strabo, king Burebista (82–44 BC) hired Deceneus, who had been in Egypt, to "tame" his people. As a sign of the people's obedience, they consented to destroy all their wines as ordered by Deceneus. The "reform of Deceneus" is the interpretation by the 6th century bishop and historian Jordanes, who includes the Getae in his history of the Goths (as assumed ancestors of the Goths). Jordanes describes how Deceneus taught the Getae philosophy and physics. Even if it is far more probable that Jordanes just introduced his own philosophical knowledge in the text, many modern Romanian authors consider that Deceneus was a priest who reformed the Getae religion, changing worship of Zalmoxis into a popular religion and imposing strict religious rules, such as the restriction of wine consumption. Jean Coman deems this prohibition as the origin of the dietary restrictions followed by the modern Orthodox Church during Lent.

Iamblichus (280-333 AD): "For instructing the Getae in these things, and for having written laws for them, Zalmoxis was by them considered as the greatest of the gods."[4]

Aristotle is said, in a brief epitome of his Magicus given by Diogenes Laertes, to have compared Zalmoxis with the Phoenician Okhon and Libyan Atlas. Some authors assume Zalmoxis was another name of Sabazius, the Thracian Dionysus, or Zeus. Sabazius appears in Jordanes as Gebelezis. Without the suffixes -zius/-zis, the root Saba- = Gebele-, suggesting a relationship of the name of the goddess Cybele, as "Cybele's Zeus". Mnaseas of Patrae identified him with Cronos. Hesychius also has Σάλμοξις ὁ Κρόνος.

In Plato's writings, Zalmoxis is mentioned as skilled in the arts of incantation. Zalmoxis gave his name to a particular type of singing and dancing (Hesych)[5] His realm as a god is not very clear, as some considered him to be a sky-god, a god of the dead, or a god of the Mysteries.

Lactantius (an early Christian author, c. 240–320 AD), referring to the religion of the Getae, provides an approximate translation of Julian the Apostate's purported quotation of Trajan:

We have conquered even these Getai (Dacians), the most warlike of all people that have ever existed, not only because of the strength in their bodies, but, also due to the teachings of Zalmoxis who is among their most hailed. He has told them that in their hearts they do not die, but change their location and, due to this, they go to their deaths happier than on any other journey."

Zalmoxian religion

A tomb painting at the Aleksandrovska Grobnitsa (Bulgaria), which possibly depicts Zalmoxis.[6][7]

The "Zalmoxian religion" is the subject of a scholarly debate that has continued since the beginning of the 20th century. Participants have included Nicolae Densușianu, Vasile Pârvan, Giurescu (father and son), Jean (Ioan) Coman, Constantin Daicoviciu, and Mircea Eliade. The most complete summary of the debate, which has often taken a political or religious turn, is Dan Dana's Zalmoxis de la Herodot la Mircea Eliade. Istorii despre un zeu al pretextului (Iași, 2008), a work partly published only in French and not translated into English.

According to some scholars, such as Vasile Pârvan, Jean Coman, R. Pettazzon, E. Rohde and Sorin Paliga, since ancient sources do not mention any god of the Getae other than Zalmoxis, the Getae were monotheistic.[2] However, Herodotus is the only ancient author who explicitly states that the Getae had only one divinity. The sending of a messenger to Zalmoxis and the fact that Getae shot arrows towards the sky have prompted some authors to believe Zalmoxis was a sky god, but his journey into a cavern has led others to suggest that he was a chthonic divinity.

Other scholars argue that the Zalmoxian religion was henotheistic, that is, that Zalmoxis was the supreme god, but there were also minor divinities closely associated with him.

A third group of scholars believe that the Getae, like other Indo-European peoples, were polytheistic. They draw on ancient authors such as Diodorus Siculus, who states that the Getae worshipped Hestia as well as Zalmoxis.[8]

In fact, not all the ancient sources depict Zalmoxis as a god,[9] while Jordanes Iamblichus (in his Life of Pythagoras) says that Zalmoxis was a man who became a god.

Some researchers at the beginning of the Communist era in Romania argued that the Getae were atheists, as in the case of Constantin Balmuș in his short article O apreciere a lui Herodot asupra geţilor.

There have also been discussions about Herodotus' statement that the Getae "think that they do not really die, but that when they depart this life they go to Zalmoxis".[10] Romanian Orthodox authors such as Jean Coman considered this to be evidence that the Daco-Getae had a proto-Christian belief and that, with the Christianisation of Romania, they were easily able to accept the Christian faith. This idea appears in Mircea Păcurariu's history of the Romanian Orthodox Church, which is deemed authoritative by that Church.

Mircea Eliade concluded in his book From Zalmoxis to Genghis Khan (1970) that the Getae had a religion based on a rite of passage, in which ritual death was symbolized by disappearance into a cavern and was followed by ritual rebirth, symbolized by the leaving of the cavern.

Etymology

A number of etymologies have been given for the name. In his Vita Pythagorae, Porphyrius (3rd century) says that he was so named because he had been wrapped in a bearskin at birth, and zalmon is the Thracian word for "hide" (τὴν γὰρ δορὰν οἱ Θρᾷκες ζαλμὸν καλοῦσιν). Hesychius (ca. 5th century) has zemelen (ζέμελεν) as a Phrygian word for "foreign slave".

The correct spelling of the name is also uncertain. Manuscripts of Herodotus' Historiae have all four spellings, viz. Zalmoxis, Salmoxis, Zamolxis, Samolxis, with a majority of manuscripts favouring Salmoxis. Later authors show a preference for Zamolxis. Hesychius quotes Herodotus, using Zalmoxis.

The -m-l- variant is favoured by those wishing to derive the name from a conjectured Thracian word for "earth", *zamol. Comparisons have also been made with the name of Zemelo and Žemelė, the Phrygian and Lithuanian goddess of the earth, and with the Lithuanian chthonic god Žemeliūkštis. The Lithuanian word Žalmuo means "corn shoot" or "fresh grass". Žalmokšnis' is another possible form of it.

The -l-m- variant is admitted to be the older form and the correct form by the majority of Thracologists, as this is the form found in the older Herodotus manuscripts and other ancient sources. The -l-m- form is further attested in Daco-Thracian in Zalmodegikos, the name of a Getic King; and in Thracian zalmon, 'hide', and zelmis, 'hide' (PIE *kel-, 'to cover'; cf. English helm).

The other name for Zalmoxis, Gebeleizis, is also spelled Belaizis and Belaixis in Herodotus manuscripts.

According to Mircea Eliade:

"The fact that Romanian folk mythology around their prophet Elijah contains many elements of a god of the storm proves at least that Gebeleizis was still active in the moment when Dacia was christianised, whatever his name was in this era. It can also admits that subsequently a religious syncretism, encouraged by the high priest and the priestly class, ended up on confusing Gebeleizis with Zalmoxis"

Since the Getae-Dacian religious system was monotheistic aniconism centered around the god Zalmoxis, it is less likely that the believers in his resurrection would use a name meaning "hide" / "foreign slave", as the hostile ancient Greek non-believers related about him.

The Romanian rock band Sfinx worked from around 1975 through 1978 on Zalmoxe, a progressive rock LP, with lyrics by poet Alexandru Basarab (actually a pen name for Adrian Hoajă), which retold the story of Zalmoxis.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ also known as Salmoxis (Σάλμοξις), Zalmoxes (Ζάλμοξες), Zamolxis (Ζάμολξις), Samolxis (Σάμολξις), Zamolxes (Ζάμολξες), or Zamolxe (Ζάμολξε)
  2. 1 2 Sorin Paliga. "La divinité suprême des Thraco-Daces", in Dialogues d’histoire ancienne (Persée revue)
  3. ↑ Strabo, Geography, book 7, 3, 1–11
  4. ↑ Rousell, Patrick (ed.) The Complete Pythagoras
  5. ↑ Znamenski, Andrei A. Shamanism
  6. ↑ Hans Wagner Die Thraker Eurasisches Magazin, 30 August 2004
  7. ↑ Kalin Dimitrov Thracian tomb of Aleksandrovo, Cultural Heritage Activities and Institutes Network, 12 September 2008
  8. ↑ Diodorus Siculus, Book 1, c. 94: "...among the people known as the Getae who represent themselves to be immortal, Zalmoxis asserted the same of their common goddess Hestia..."
  9. ↑ For instance, Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, c.2, 24; Porphyry, Life of Pythagoras.
  10. ↑ The History of Herodotus by Herodotus, 440 BCE, translated by George Rawlinson

References

Primary sources

Secondary sources

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Zalmoxis.
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